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CAUSES OF PTOSIS (DROOPING EYELID)
http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/p/ptosis/causes.htm
THE BEST FOODS FOR YOUR EYES
(CCK Note: As you read, notice that most of the foods listed are plants especially seeds and fruits which are where plants concentrate their 'most precious' resources to provide for successful propagation i.e. survival of their next generation. Sweet potato and carrot plants propagate through their roots which is why their roots are so rich with 'good stuffs')
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/photos/eye-love-you-the-best-foods-for-your-eyes-slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Feye-love-you-the-best-foods-for-your-eyes-slideshow%252Ffood-for-good-eyes-photo-1342427891.html
With steeply rising numbers of people suffering from macular degeneration, cataract and other eye problems, it has become all the more important to follow a diet plan that includes foods that reduce the risk of these eye conditions.
Carrots: The saying turned out to be true. Carrots are actually good for your eyes. Rich in beta-carotene, that protects the eye and reduces the risk of cataracts, carrots can easily be included in your diet in the form of salads or stir-fried veggies.
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Avoid Being Alone in Car Parks
(Read news report at bottom)
Predators prefer easier targets and would abandon their attempt if they find that you are not an easy target.
PREVENTION (always the best):
1. Always be aware of what is around you. Do NOT do things that make you lose your awareness (like talking on phone and messaging etc.) Such people are holding a big 'pick me as target' sign.
2. BEFORE entering car park, have remote control ready. Advantages: Many cars have alarm that can be triggered from remote. It reduces time you have to spend in car park searching for keys (the longer time you spend exposed the greater the chances for attackers). Searching for key at car park also lowers your readiness and awareness of what is around you. Sharp pointed keys can be used as a defence weapon too.
3. BEFORE entering and WHEN at car parks, always scan around all the time (esp. behind you). Look out for suspicious people watching or following you. Such predators usually work in pairs but sometimes alone or more than 2.
4. Look at them to let them know that you have noticed them (they prefer easier targets that are unaware) and see what they do and re-act accordingly.
5. Abandon trip to car park or car and stay in or go back into mall where other people's presence means safety
6. At safe distance and still watching them, take out handphone to pretend to call for help
7. Wait for other people (as many as possible esp families) to enter car park before going in. Ask for their help if need be.
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Make sure to practice above all the time so that it becomes second nature or 'automatic'....
IF ATTACK IS IMMINENT:
1. Maintain distance. Once you sense something is not right, do NOT let them get near you (see prevention). Abandon going to car and go back to mall or places where there are other people.
2. Drop everything you holding and free your hands for self-defence. Get hold of anything that can be used for defence if any.
3. Run. If suspicious characters are between you and door back to mall, run to another entrance to mall (if you have high sense of awareness they shouldn't be that near to you or you should enter car park only when other people are entering per above).
3. Attract attention. If they are approaching you fast or try to grab you, do anything to attract other people's attention (shout or yell for help etc.) and run to places where other people can see you and start creating attention like yelling for help etc. Many cars have alarm that you can trigger from your remote - practice using it once a while!
READ UP and train yourself up on some basic self-defence techniques.
PRACTICE above self-defence regime (at least mentally) to get prepared. Better still if can practice for real e.g. by going for self-defence classes or practicing the 'movements' by yourself.
CHANCES FAVOUR THE PREPARED...
Woman abducted, almost raped at The Curve
Quick thinking and fast action helped an Internet marketeer escape after she was abducted by a couple of would-be rapists from the car park of Damansara Perdana's The Curve shopping mall.
Chin Xin-Ci, who was alone at the time of the abduction, was putting her shopping bags onto the back seat of her boyfriend's car on Sunday evening when she was bundled into the vehicle by a man brandishing a meat cleaver.
"Just as I was putting my shopping bags in the rear seat, the rear car door was slammed against my back, and a meat cleaver was pressed against my throat.
A man covered my mouth with his hand, and whispered not to scream. He then shoved me onto the floor of the backseat of the car and waved the cleaver at me, reminding me not to scream," she recounted on her Facebook page.
She said an accomplice then appeared, The second man grabbed her car keys and demanded for her parking ticket before driving the car, with Chin in the back seat, out of the carpark.
She said the first man, who was at the back with her, began making sexual advances.
"Then it hit me. Oh my God. Oh my God. This is really happening. I'm being kidnapped.. and I think I know what they want," Chin said.
When the car slowed down to exit the mall, she opened the door and tried to make a run for it.
She said she kicked kicked her legs out of the car, but was pulled back in by her abductor.
"At that point I remember thinking; even if I don't get out now, I need to keep the door open and my legs out the door. At the very least, it should cause a scene, and someone would see me. Or, the door might hit another car and they'll be forced to slow down.
"So I continued kicking. My right foot pushed against the wide-open car door to keep it open. I recall elbowing, struggling, kicking, and even biting. I lost my glasses, and was struggling blindly for my life."
Her actions proved to be too much for her abductors. The driver yelled at his accomplice to let her go and Chin jumped out of the still-moving car, and ran for her life.
Chin escaped with scratches and bruises, but lost most of her belongings, including her mobile phone.
The Star, in its report on Wednesday, quoted The Curve manager Jazmi Kamaruddin confirming that CCTV footage has been handed over to the police.
Meanwhile, according to the Malay Mail, Petaling Jaya deputy OCPD Supt Meor Hamdan Meor Mohamad said a report was lodged over the incident. The case is being investigated under Section 394 of the Penal Code for voluntarily causing hurt during a robbery.
Chin Xin-Ci, who was alone at the time of the abduction, was putting her shopping bags onto the back seat of her boyfriend's car on Sunday evening when she was bundled into the vehicle by a man brandishing a meat cleaver.
"Just as I was putting my shopping bags in the rear seat, the rear car door was slammed against my back, and a meat cleaver was pressed against my throat.
A man covered my mouth with his hand, and whispered not to scream. He then shoved me onto the floor of the backseat of the car and waved the cleaver at me, reminding me not to scream," she recounted on her Facebook page.
She said an accomplice then appeared, The second man grabbed her car keys and demanded for her parking ticket before driving the car, with Chin in the back seat, out of the carpark.
She said the first man, who was at the back with her, began making sexual advances.
"Then it hit me. Oh my God. Oh my God. This is really happening. I'm being kidnapped.. and I think I know what they want," Chin said.
When the car slowed down to exit the mall, she opened the door and tried to make a run for it.
She said she kicked kicked her legs out of the car, but was pulled back in by her abductor.
"At that point I remember thinking; even if I don't get out now, I need to keep the door open and my legs out the door. At the very least, it should cause a scene, and someone would see me. Or, the door might hit another car and they'll be forced to slow down.
"So I continued kicking. My right foot pushed against the wide-open car door to keep it open. I recall elbowing, struggling, kicking, and even biting. I lost my glasses, and was struggling blindly for my life."
Her actions proved to be too much for her abductors. The driver yelled at his accomplice to let her go and Chin jumped out of the still-moving car, and ran for her life.
Chin escaped with scratches and bruises, but lost most of her belongings, including her mobile phone.
The Star, in its report on Wednesday, quoted The Curve manager Jazmi Kamaruddin confirming that CCTV footage has been handed over to the police.
Meanwhile, according to the Malay Mail, Petaling Jaya deputy OCPD Supt Meor Hamdan Meor Mohamad said a report was lodged over the incident. The case is being investigated under Section 394 of the Penal Code for voluntarily causing hurt during a robbery.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Computer Viruses as Weapons
Background to report below (by CCK)
For almost a decade, the US, Israel and some western countries had been claiming that Iran is trying to build nuclear bomb and threatened to attack Iran. However, other countries like Russia says that Iran's ability to do that is still very far e.g. to make a bomb the uranium has to be enriched to above 95% while Iran can only achieve about 3% when the accusations began years ago and about 20% in 2012 even by US claims.
Over the last few years, there were reports of Iranian scientists being murdered and their computer systems attacked by viruses. Report below is the latest.
Key things to note:
- latest discovery was made by Russian computer security experts at request of the UN which clearly suspect the US or their allies. That's why the UN requested US' 'opposite' to do the investigations
Moral: if you suspect some one is the thief, do not use him as the police/investigator
- the viruses discovered so far uses the same flaw in Microsoft Windows (made by US company). It may not be a coincident that the virus attacker and the supplier of the software (Windows) are from the same country. E.g. Indian and Chinese government do not allow their officials to us Blackberry phones made in Canada for fear of information theft
Moral: your supplier or the one closest to you may be the one compromising you
- a few weeks ago, a new Russian commercial plane (Sukhoi Superjet) crashed in Jakarta during an air expo demo. Russia has openly said they suspect the US was behind the crash as commercial sabotage. At same time, Russia claimed that is similar to crashes of other Russian crafts flying over areas near the US. They suspect the US has powerful equipments that can sabotage the functioning of electronic devices.
Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran
By Jim Finkle
BOSTON (Reuters) - Security experts have discovered a highly sophisticated computer virus in Iran and other Middle East countries that they believe was deployed at least five years ago to engage in state-sponsored cyber espionage.
Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that claimed responsibility for discovering the virus.
Kaspersky researchers said on Monday they have yet to determine whether Flame had a specific mission like Stuxnet, and declined to say who they think built it.
Iran has accused the United States and Israel of deploying Stuxnet.
Cyber security experts said the discovery publicly demonstrates what experts privy to classified information have long known: that nations have been using pieces of malicious computer code as weapons to promote their security interests for several years.
"This is one of many, many campaigns that happen all the time and never make it into the public domain," said Alexander Klimburg, a cyber security expert at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs.
A cyber security agency in Iran said on its English website that Flame bore a "close relation" to Stuxnet, the notorious computer worm that attacked that country's nuclear program in 2010 and is the first publicly known example of a cyber weapon.
Iran's National Computer Emergency Response Team also said Flame might be linked to recent cyber attacks that officials in Tehran have said were responsible for massive data losses on some Iranian computer systems.
Kaspersky Lab said it discovered Flame after a U.N. telecommunications agency asked it to analyze data on malicious software across the Middle East in search of the data-wiping virus reported by Iran.
STUXNET CONNECTION
Experts at Kaspersky Lab and Hungary's Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security who have spent weeks studying Flame said they have yet to find any evidence that it can attack infrastructure, delete data or inflict other physical damage.
Yet they said they are in the early stages of their investigations and that they may discover other purposes beyond data theft. It took researchers months to determine the key mysteries behind Stuxnet, including the purpose of modules used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran.
"Their initial research suggest that this was probably written by the authors of Stuxnet for covert intelligence collection," said John Bumgarner, a cyber warfare expert with the non-profit U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit think tank.
Flame appears poised to go down in history as the third major cyber weapon uncovered after Stuxnet and its data-stealing cousin Duqu, named after the Star Wars villain.
The Moscow-based company is controlled by Russian malware researcher Eugene Kaspersky. It gained notoriety after solving several mysteries surrounding Stuxnet and Duqu.
Their research shows the largest number of infected machines are in Iran, followed by Israel and the Palestinian territories, then Sudan and Syria.
The virus contains about 20 times as much code as Stuxnet, which caused centrifuges to fail at the Iranian enrichment facility it attacked. It has about 100 times as much code as a typical virus designed to steal financial information, said Kaspersky Lab senior researcher Roel Schouwenberg.
GATHERING DATA
Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and log instant messaging chats.
Kaspersky Lab said Flame and Stuxnet appear to infect machines by exploiting the same flaw in the Windows operating system and that both viruses employ a similar way of spreading.
That means the teams that built Stuxnet and Duqu might have had access to the same technology as the team that built Flame, Schouwenberg said.
He said that a nation state would have the capability to build such a sophisticated tool, but declined to comment on which countries might do so.
The question of who built flame is sure to become a hot topic in the security community as well as the diplomatic world.
There is some controversy over who was behind Stuxnet and Duqu. Some experts suspect the United States and Israel, a view that was laid out in a January 2011 New York Times report that said it came from a joint program begun around 2004 to undermine what they say are Iran's efforts to build a bomb.
The U.S. Defense Department, CIA, State Department, National Security Agency, and U.S. Cyber Command declined to comment.
Hungarian researcher Boldizsar Bencsath, whose Laboratory of Cryptography and Systems Security first discovered Duqu, said his analysis shows that Flame may have been active for at least five years and perhaps eight years or more.
That implies it was active long before Stuxnet.
"It's huge and overly complex, which makes me think it's a first-generation data gathering tool," said Neil Fisher, vice president for global security solutions at Unisys Corp (UIS.N). "We are going to find more of these things over time."
Others said that cyber weapons technology has inevitably advanced since Flame was built.
"The scary thing for me is: if this is what they were capable of five years ago, I can only think what they are developing now," Mohan Koo, managing director of British-based Dtex Systems cyber security company.
Some experts speculated that the discovery of the virus may have dealt a psychological blow to its victims, on top of whatever damage Flame may have already inflicted to their computers.
"If a government initiated the attack it might not care that the attack was discovered," said Klimburg of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs. "The psychological effect of the penetration could be nearly as profitable as the intelligence gathered."
(Additional reporting by Jim Wolf in Washington, Daniel Fineran in Dubai and William Maclean in London; editing by Edward Tobin, Ron Popeski and Mohammad Zargham)
For almost a decade, the US, Israel and some western countries had been claiming that Iran is trying to build nuclear bomb and threatened to attack Iran. However, other countries like Russia says that Iran's ability to do that is still very far e.g. to make a bomb the uranium has to be enriched to above 95% while Iran can only achieve about 3% when the accusations began years ago and about 20% in 2012 even by US claims.
Over the last few years, there were reports of Iranian scientists being murdered and their computer systems attacked by viruses. Report below is the latest.
Key things to note:
- latest discovery was made by Russian computer security experts at request of the UN which clearly suspect the US or their allies. That's why the UN requested US' 'opposite' to do the investigations
Moral: if you suspect some one is the thief, do not use him as the police/investigator
- the viruses discovered so far uses the same flaw in Microsoft Windows (made by US company). It may not be a coincident that the virus attacker and the supplier of the software (Windows) are from the same country. E.g. Indian and Chinese government do not allow their officials to us Blackberry phones made in Canada for fear of information theft
Moral: your supplier or the one closest to you may be the one compromising you
- a few weeks ago, a new Russian commercial plane (Sukhoi Superjet) crashed in Jakarta during an air expo demo. Russia has openly said they suspect the US was behind the crash as commercial sabotage. At same time, Russia claimed that is similar to crashes of other Russian crafts flying over areas near the US. They suspect the US has powerful equipments that can sabotage the functioning of electronic devices.
Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran
By Jim Finkle
BOSTON (Reuters) - Security experts have discovered a highly sophisticated computer virus in Iran and other Middle East countries that they believe was deployed at least five years ago to engage in state-sponsored cyber espionage.
Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that claimed responsibility for discovering the virus.
Kaspersky researchers said on Monday they have yet to determine whether Flame had a specific mission like Stuxnet, and declined to say who they think built it.
Iran has accused the United States and Israel of deploying Stuxnet.
Cyber security experts said the discovery publicly demonstrates what experts privy to classified information have long known: that nations have been using pieces of malicious computer code as weapons to promote their security interests for several years.
"This is one of many, many campaigns that happen all the time and never make it into the public domain," said Alexander Klimburg, a cyber security expert at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs.
A cyber security agency in Iran said on its English website that Flame bore a "close relation" to Stuxnet, the notorious computer worm that attacked that country's nuclear program in 2010 and is the first publicly known example of a cyber weapon.
Iran's National Computer Emergency Response Team also said Flame might be linked to recent cyber attacks that officials in Tehran have said were responsible for massive data losses on some Iranian computer systems.
Kaspersky Lab said it discovered Flame after a U.N. telecommunications agency asked it to analyze data on malicious software across the Middle East in search of the data-wiping virus reported by Iran.
STUXNET CONNECTION
Experts at Kaspersky Lab and Hungary's Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security who have spent weeks studying Flame said they have yet to find any evidence that it can attack infrastructure, delete data or inflict other physical damage.
Yet they said they are in the early stages of their investigations and that they may discover other purposes beyond data theft. It took researchers months to determine the key mysteries behind Stuxnet, including the purpose of modules used to attack a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran.
"Their initial research suggest that this was probably written by the authors of Stuxnet for covert intelligence collection," said John Bumgarner, a cyber warfare expert with the non-profit U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit think tank.
Flame appears poised to go down in history as the third major cyber weapon uncovered after Stuxnet and its data-stealing cousin Duqu, named after the Star Wars villain.
The Moscow-based company is controlled by Russian malware researcher Eugene Kaspersky. It gained notoriety after solving several mysteries surrounding Stuxnet and Duqu.
Their research shows the largest number of infected machines are in Iran, followed by Israel and the Palestinian territories, then Sudan and Syria.
The virus contains about 20 times as much code as Stuxnet, which caused centrifuges to fail at the Iranian enrichment facility it attacked. It has about 100 times as much code as a typical virus designed to steal financial information, said Kaspersky Lab senior researcher Roel Schouwenberg.
GATHERING DATA
Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and log instant messaging chats.
Kaspersky Lab said Flame and Stuxnet appear to infect machines by exploiting the same flaw in the Windows operating system and that both viruses employ a similar way of spreading.
That means the teams that built Stuxnet and Duqu might have had access to the same technology as the team that built Flame, Schouwenberg said.
He said that a nation state would have the capability to build such a sophisticated tool, but declined to comment on which countries might do so.
The question of who built flame is sure to become a hot topic in the security community as well as the diplomatic world.
There is some controversy over who was behind Stuxnet and Duqu. Some experts suspect the United States and Israel, a view that was laid out in a January 2011 New York Times report that said it came from a joint program begun around 2004 to undermine what they say are Iran's efforts to build a bomb.
The U.S. Defense Department, CIA, State Department, National Security Agency, and U.S. Cyber Command declined to comment.
Hungarian researcher Boldizsar Bencsath, whose Laboratory of Cryptography and Systems Security first discovered Duqu, said his analysis shows that Flame may have been active for at least five years and perhaps eight years or more.
That implies it was active long before Stuxnet.
"It's huge and overly complex, which makes me think it's a first-generation data gathering tool," said Neil Fisher, vice president for global security solutions at Unisys Corp (UIS.N). "We are going to find more of these things over time."
Others said that cyber weapons technology has inevitably advanced since Flame was built.
"The scary thing for me is: if this is what they were capable of five years ago, I can only think what they are developing now," Mohan Koo, managing director of British-based Dtex Systems cyber security company.
Some experts speculated that the discovery of the virus may have dealt a psychological blow to its victims, on top of whatever damage Flame may have already inflicted to their computers.
"If a government initiated the attack it might not care that the attack was discovered," said Klimburg of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs. "The psychological effect of the penetration could be nearly as profitable as the intelligence gathered."
(Additional reporting by Jim Wolf in Washington, Daniel Fineran in Dubai and William Maclean in London; editing by Edward Tobin, Ron Popeski and Mohammad Zargham)
Monday, May 28, 2012
How To Know If Someone Is Lying
(Article extracted from Yahoo News)
We have all done it and also know that many people do it to us too, i.e. Tell Lies.
Many of us are good at decoding when being lied to while some of us struggle to identify liars. Thus, it makes sense in knowing a bit about how to decipher if somebody is lying. The following tips will help you identify a liar:
Get Started with Reading the Liar’s Body Language
Get Started with Reading the Liar’s Body Language
It was once stated in a Quentin Tarantino movie that people who have served time in prison have a typical way of walking, as if they are carrying a few bricks on their shoulder. Such typical, body language traits are present in liars too.
Many liars try not able to face their audience with an open stance. Their palms might be folded tight and they might be a bit fidgety. A tightly clinched fist or slight blushing on the face or around the ears too is reflective of a lie.
However, the more seasoned liars can easily hide such traits. These liars can be found out by reading more into their face rather than their body. Some of the most experienced liars too tend to develop typical facial mannerisms when lying. This includes increased creasing in their forehead or a nervous smile before answering questions.
Some liars tend to place their hands very firmly on the chair or table as if they are holding on to these objects to save their lives. This is essentially a way of de-stressing the body that is reacting to the growing anxiety within them.
Catching Liars by Noticing their Eyes
Catching Liars by Noticing their Eyes
Those who are good at grasping the eye language have a much better chance of find out if they are being lied to. Apart from the seasoned crooks, most liars cannot hold their glare straight towards a person. They tend to look around or divert their range of vision, desperately hoping that their nervousness will not be revealed. The most unskilled of liars have a tendency to look downwards when lying. Their eyes tend to wander about. This is caused by their guilt that makes it difficult for them to maintain eye contact.
Lookout for Inconsistencies to Identify Liars
Lookout for Inconsistencies to Identify Liars
Even the more experienced liars can commit the mistake of not remembering the story they had spun to hide the facts. This is something you can use to your advantage. Just try to remember the things the person you suspect of lying is saying. After a few minutes, question about the smallest of details that the liar had mentioned. If the person isn't an expert liar, he is bound to make mistakes in answering the question. This is the easiest way to find out if you have been lied to.
Liars are Prone to Getting Anxious
Liars are Prone to Getting Anxious
Most folks suffer from some form of anxiety when lying. You can use this to find out if somebody is lying. All you need to do is watch-out for the typical signs that suggest an increased degree of nervousness. Typical traits of a person getting anxious when lying include sweating excessively, talking too fast, getting fidgety with the legs or arms or stammering. For instance, a person lying to you might repeatedly change his seated position, as if the chair or sofa is making him feel very uncomfortable.
Catch Liars by Identifying Superficial Talk
Catch Liars by Identifying Superficial Talk
Most liars are prone to avoiding the subject which they fear will expose their act. This can be easily identified. You need to notice if a particular topic is making a person uncomfortable. The person you suspect of lying might continuously try to change the subject or ignore it with a nervous laugh. These are tell-tale signs of a liar.
Many liars create another kind of trace when communicating, i.e. they are not very assertive. You might find the suspected person giving very short or vague answers. This kind of superficial talk lacks any degree of surety. This is a major indicator that the person isn't sure what he is talking about, i.e. he is either lying or trying to cover-up the facts.
Concluding Thoughts: Being a Keen Observer is Elementary to Identify Liars
Concluding Thoughts: Being a Keen Observer is Elementary to Identify Liars
If you find it difficult to use any of the above-listed techniques for identifying a liar, just remember that your ability to detect lies is essentially a result of your observation skills. As one of the best on-screen personas to identify liars, Sherlock Holmes, once said, “It’s elementary…”
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Eurozone Crisis
Bankground to Eurozone Crisis
The Euro single currency introduced in 1999 removed currency risk from cross border investments within the Eurozone.
In addition, banking regulations (like Basel) in western world consider government debts as risk-free and bank holders of such bonds therefore do not need to put aside capital as reserve against loss! This arrangement benefitted both the governments that set the 'regulations' (they can borrow more) and the banks which theoretically can buy as much government bonds as they like and earn more interest.
The above encouraged banks and funds in stronger Euro countries like Germany and France (more so than banks from outside Eurozone) to buy government bonds from weaker countries paying higher interest rates to increase profit.
It also tended to redirected capital to the non-productive public sector instead of the private sector.
Over time, cost of financing for weaker countries dropped to close to that of stronger countries and encouraged those weaker countries to borrow even more. The low cost of government borrowing also reduced cost of borrowing by their households and private sector(including banks) resulting in not just huge government debt to GDP ratios but also private debts and financial bubbles in housing etc. That was the case from 1997 to 2007.
However, when crisis started in 2008 fears about solvency and default of banks and governments in those weaker countries (as well as their potential Eurozone exit and currency devaluation) caused a reverse flow from weaker to stronger countries. That worsened the weaker countries' and their banks' bad situation even more. Financing to rollover their debts dropped and interest rates jumped. By 2011, interest rates for German 10 year bonds was 2-3% vs 6-7% for countries like Italy and Spain. Irish and Greek rates were worse at more than 10% at the peak of their crises.
As those fears increased, some holders of weak country bonds started to sell them and their price dropped. That wiped out the profits and capital of many banks which then had to be bailed out by their governments which bought the all sorts of collaterals including dubious ones from their troubled banks. That resulted in the transfer of the problem from banks to governments, and the crises transformed from 'banking crisis' or 'banking liquidity crisis' to 'sovereign crisis'.
Holders (like the banks doing 'national service') that continue to hold onto the problem bonds started to buy protection in the form of credit default swaps (CDS) whose cost (or insurance premium) then jumped. The high CDS premium in turn attracted other banks and funds into 'writing' or selling CDS to profit from the high premium. In addition, the fears caused the price of those bonds to collapse and attracted new buyers hoping to profit from price recovery later.
As a result, when the weak countries like Ireland and Greece entered their respective 'crisis', banks and funds all over the world had taken their respective 'bets' on whether the country involved would eventually default or not.
As example, in 2011 the American broker-dealer MF Global in US bet wrongly that Greece would not default. They went bankrupt in end 2011 when Greece eventually defaulted with 75% haircut on all their debts. MF Global then illegally used (i.e. stole) US$1.5 billion of their customer funds to pay off its largest creditor JP Morgan who was also one of the largest seller of CDS on European bonds. In May 2012, JPM announced they incurred US$2 billion loss on hedge trades but did not give any detail.
(Side note: top 4 US banks - JPM, Citi, Goldman, BOA - and HSBC account for more than 95% of all derivative trades in the world. Total notional value is more than US$220 trillion)
The MF Global case showed that many American funds and banks may have been betting that the weak Eurozone countries would everntually be bailed out by the rest of the Eurozone countries the way the US and Irish governments bailed out all their insolvent banks.
Thus one can see that there are opposing interests with opposing preferences on how the Eurozone would resolve this debt crisis. That was the reason why in 2011 EU officials publicly said that the rating downgrades of many EU countries by credit rating agencies (all owned by US) were 'politically motivated'.
As weak countries' financing cost increased, they were forced to cut back on expenses (i.e. enter into austerity) which resulted in large loss in public sector jobs that they supported in the past using borrowed money. Unemployment in those problem countries were very high e.g. 25% in Spain where 50% of youths are jobless. As more people lost their jobs, households and companies cut back on expenses and investments and government tax revenues nose dived resulting in a vicious downward spiral for the whole country...
2008/09 Irish Banking Crisis
- largest creditors to Irish banks were British banks
- government bailed out & nationalised Irish banks thereby bailing out also British banks
- accepted low quality collaterals incl Irish gov bonds and 'IOUs' issued by the banks
(note: practice suppose to end according to new EU agreeement of 2011?)
2009/10 Icelandic Crisis
- Iceland not in Eurozone devalued currency Kroner
- government refused to bail out banks
2011/12 Greek Crisis
- Greek gov aided by US/UK banks hid their true debt levels to qualify as Eurozone member
- government debt (EUR200 billion) to GDP was 160% by end 2011 (from 115% at start 2010)
- legislated retroactive 'collective action' law that forces all creditors to go along with 'voluntary' haircut of 75% on gov debts held by private creditors (although as result of ECB bail etc most were held by ECB, Greek banks and Greek Central Bank)
- US broker-dealer MF Global announced bankruptcy due to betting on Greek bonds
(USD1.5B of missing customer funds - transferred to creditors like JP Morgan etc)
- JP Morgan announced USD 2B loss on 'hedge' trades (May 2012)
Note: due to fear of Greek bank solvency & Euro exit, people transferred money out to other Euro countries thereby causing a 'run' on Greek banks which made problem worse (same problem for all weak Euro countries)
2011 Nov: New EU Fiscal Agreement
- UK & Poland? opt out
- Tobin tax on banking transactions
- reduction of national deficits to ?%
- banks stop dubious collaterals (own gov bonds & bank IOUs) to obtain financing fr own government?
-
Spain
- gov and private sector started borrowing a lot since 1999
- gov debt to GDP 50% in 2007
- private sector (households & corporate) reversed borrowing binge in 2008
- this resulted in gov deficits & jump in gov debt to 70% of GDP
- unemployment rate 25% (youth 50%)
The Euro single currency introduced in 1999 removed currency risk from cross border investments within the Eurozone.
In addition, banking regulations (like Basel) in western world consider government debts as risk-free and bank holders of such bonds therefore do not need to put aside capital as reserve against loss! This arrangement benefitted both the governments that set the 'regulations' (they can borrow more) and the banks which theoretically can buy as much government bonds as they like and earn more interest.
The above encouraged banks and funds in stronger Euro countries like Germany and France (more so than banks from outside Eurozone) to buy government bonds from weaker countries paying higher interest rates to increase profit.
It also tended to redirected capital to the non-productive public sector instead of the private sector.
Over time, cost of financing for weaker countries dropped to close to that of stronger countries and encouraged those weaker countries to borrow even more. The low cost of government borrowing also reduced cost of borrowing by their households and private sector(including banks) resulting in not just huge government debt to GDP ratios but also private debts and financial bubbles in housing etc. That was the case from 1997 to 2007.
However, when crisis started in 2008 fears about solvency and default of banks and governments in those weaker countries (as well as their potential Eurozone exit and currency devaluation) caused a reverse flow from weaker to stronger countries. That worsened the weaker countries' and their banks' bad situation even more. Financing to rollover their debts dropped and interest rates jumped. By 2011, interest rates for German 10 year bonds was 2-3% vs 6-7% for countries like Italy and Spain. Irish and Greek rates were worse at more than 10% at the peak of their crises.
As those fears increased, some holders of weak country bonds started to sell them and their price dropped. That wiped out the profits and capital of many banks which then had to be bailed out by their governments which bought the all sorts of collaterals including dubious ones from their troubled banks. That resulted in the transfer of the problem from banks to governments, and the crises transformed from 'banking crisis' or 'banking liquidity crisis' to 'sovereign crisis'.
Holders (like the banks doing 'national service') that continue to hold onto the problem bonds started to buy protection in the form of credit default swaps (CDS) whose cost (or insurance premium) then jumped. The high CDS premium in turn attracted other banks and funds into 'writing' or selling CDS to profit from the high premium. In addition, the fears caused the price of those bonds to collapse and attracted new buyers hoping to profit from price recovery later.
As a result, when the weak countries like Ireland and Greece entered their respective 'crisis', banks and funds all over the world had taken their respective 'bets' on whether the country involved would eventually default or not.
As example, in 2011 the American broker-dealer MF Global in US bet wrongly that Greece would not default. They went bankrupt in end 2011 when Greece eventually defaulted with 75% haircut on all their debts. MF Global then illegally used (i.e. stole) US$1.5 billion of their customer funds to pay off its largest creditor JP Morgan who was also one of the largest seller of CDS on European bonds. In May 2012, JPM announced they incurred US$2 billion loss on hedge trades but did not give any detail.
(Side note: top 4 US banks - JPM, Citi, Goldman, BOA - and HSBC account for more than 95% of all derivative trades in the world. Total notional value is more than US$220 trillion)
The MF Global case showed that many American funds and banks may have been betting that the weak Eurozone countries would everntually be bailed out by the rest of the Eurozone countries the way the US and Irish governments bailed out all their insolvent banks.
Thus one can see that there are opposing interests with opposing preferences on how the Eurozone would resolve this debt crisis. That was the reason why in 2011 EU officials publicly said that the rating downgrades of many EU countries by credit rating agencies (all owned by US) were 'politically motivated'.
As weak countries' financing cost increased, they were forced to cut back on expenses (i.e. enter into austerity) which resulted in large loss in public sector jobs that they supported in the past using borrowed money. Unemployment in those problem countries were very high e.g. 25% in Spain where 50% of youths are jobless. As more people lost their jobs, households and companies cut back on expenses and investments and government tax revenues nose dived resulting in a vicious downward spiral for the whole country...
2008/09 Irish Banking Crisis
- largest creditors to Irish banks were British banks
- government bailed out & nationalised Irish banks thereby bailing out also British banks
- accepted low quality collaterals incl Irish gov bonds and 'IOUs' issued by the banks
(note: practice suppose to end according to new EU agreeement of 2011?)
2009/10 Icelandic Crisis
- Iceland not in Eurozone devalued currency Kroner
- government refused to bail out banks
2011/12 Greek Crisis
- Greek gov aided by US/UK banks hid their true debt levels to qualify as Eurozone member
- government debt (EUR200 billion) to GDP was 160% by end 2011 (from 115% at start 2010)
- legislated retroactive 'collective action' law that forces all creditors to go along with 'voluntary' haircut of 75% on gov debts held by private creditors (although as result of ECB bail etc most were held by ECB, Greek banks and Greek Central Bank)
- US broker-dealer MF Global announced bankruptcy due to betting on Greek bonds
(USD1.5B of missing customer funds - transferred to creditors like JP Morgan etc)
- JP Morgan announced USD 2B loss on 'hedge' trades (May 2012)
Note: due to fear of Greek bank solvency & Euro exit, people transferred money out to other Euro countries thereby causing a 'run' on Greek banks which made problem worse (same problem for all weak Euro countries)
2011 Nov: New EU Fiscal Agreement
- UK & Poland? opt out
- Tobin tax on banking transactions
- reduction of national deficits to ?%
- banks stop dubious collaterals (own gov bonds & bank IOUs) to obtain financing fr own government?
-
Spain
- gov and private sector started borrowing a lot since 1999
- gov debt to GDP 50% in 2007
- private sector (households & corporate) reversed borrowing binge in 2008
- this resulted in gov deficits & jump in gov debt to 70% of GDP
- unemployment rate 25% (youth 50%)
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Self Defence Basics
Key to self-defence
1. Avoid confrontation. Walk away before confrontation can begin, This requires awareness of what is happening around you all the time.
2. (If unavoidable) At start of physical attack by another person, strongly fend off or side step any intial attempt to grab hold of you. To discourage further attack shout 'Back Off!" loudly at opponent to warn attacker off and attract other people's attention. Do not show fear as that will encourage attacker to continue attack.
3. If forced to defend, use quick combination of different attacks to overwhelm or surprise opponent quickly (within 30 seconds). Then run away
4. In any confrontation, do not stay still. Keep moving. Moving target is more difficult to attack
5. Practice defensive and attacking moves regularly to get used to them. Can also mentally imagine and practice them mentally.
Most Effective Weapons on Your Body
1. Cusped Hand (more versatile than using fist) - see video below
Use all sides of palm to chop (throat or neck)
Use cusped palm to slap or back-swipe (face, neck, eyes)
Use both cusped hands to slap both ears at same time to break ear drum
Use base of wrist to jab at nose, chin or chest-bone (middle and just above stomach)
Use 2 cusped hands together to push attacker away
Use fingers of cusped hand to poke at eyes
2. Elbow
Thrust forward and inward to stab at face, neck or chest
Thrusting elbow inward (i.e. keeping upper arm close to body) gives more power and also protects your own body and arm-pit from attack.
3. Knee
Thrust knee forward to stab at groin or stomach
4. Ankle
Thrust ankle forward to stab at shin, knee or area just above ankle
5. Forehead
To bang face esp nose
The most effective and speediest attacking combination is the 'cusped hand and elbow combination'.
Use cusped hand to chop, thrust or swipe and then thrust with elbow. Continue with knee thrusts and ankle strikes.
For more 'power' put 2 cusped hands together in one move. E.g. to destabilise on rushing attacker, put both cusped hands together and push on one side of chest or shoulder, or strike at chin, throat or nose. Keep low and use body weight to thrust forward and upward.
If both hands are held or restrained by attacker, use knee or ankle to thrust into lower parts of body, or use forehead to hit nose hard.
Most Vulnerable Places to Attack
1. Upper parts of body to be attacked using 'cusped hand and elbow combination' and forehead:
- Nose, Eye, Temple, Ears
- Throat or neck
- Center of Chest or stomach
2. Lower parts of body to be attacked using knee or punch:
- Chest and stomach
- Groin (or lower stomach area between private part and hip bone)
3. Leg areas to be struck with ankle or bottom of foot:
- Knee (front, side or back)
- Shin
- lower sides of shin just above ankle (to break ankle)
4. Nerve areas to be attacked using 'u-turned fingers' jab:
- area below jaw and behind ear
- arm-pit
To form u-turned fingers jab: from cusped hand bend all 4 fingers into u-shape so that lower third of bent fingers form straight line with palm and fore arm (keep all 4 fingers and thumb tightly together the same way as cusped hand) - see video.
Practice changing from cusped hand to u-turned fingers jab to get used to the conversion. Hold cusped hand up and while jabbing hand forward change finger positions into u-turned finger jab formation. Make sure wrist is locked tight, fingers and thumb are closed tightly together, and fingers and palm are in straight line with fore arm.
How To Protect Vulnerable Points from Blows or Strikes
The best way to protect upper body is to make use of the same 'cusped hand and elbow combination'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWdDr5ftUzo&feature=related
- Protect all parts of head, throat and neck by raising cusped hand over side of face with elbow pointing forward
- Protect chest by placing 'cusped hand and elbow combination' in front of chest
- Protect throat by keeping chin down
The same 'cusped hand and elbow combination' can also be used to block punches or attempts to grab you:
- to block blows, raise elbow and block using fore arm
- to get out of a grip of the hand or arm, twist or swirl your elbow back and forth
Useful self-defence videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtFclzN8iTg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZD0sdtrpwk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZDwCJziO-o&feature=related
1. Avoid confrontation. Walk away before confrontation can begin, This requires awareness of what is happening around you all the time.
2. (If unavoidable) At start of physical attack by another person, strongly fend off or side step any intial attempt to grab hold of you. To discourage further attack shout 'Back Off!" loudly at opponent to warn attacker off and attract other people's attention. Do not show fear as that will encourage attacker to continue attack.
3. If forced to defend, use quick combination of different attacks to overwhelm or surprise opponent quickly (within 30 seconds). Then run away
4. In any confrontation, do not stay still. Keep moving. Moving target is more difficult to attack
5. Practice defensive and attacking moves regularly to get used to them. Can also mentally imagine and practice them mentally.
Most Effective Weapons on Your Body
1. Cusped Hand (more versatile than using fist) - see video below
Use all sides of palm to chop (throat or neck)
Use cusped palm to slap or back-swipe (face, neck, eyes)
Use both cusped hands to slap both ears at same time to break ear drum
Use base of wrist to jab at nose, chin or chest-bone (middle and just above stomach)
Use 2 cusped hands together to push attacker away
Use fingers of cusped hand to poke at eyes
2. Elbow
Thrust forward and inward to stab at face, neck or chest
Thrusting elbow inward (i.e. keeping upper arm close to body) gives more power and also protects your own body and arm-pit from attack.
3. Knee
Thrust knee forward to stab at groin or stomach
4. Ankle
Thrust ankle forward to stab at shin, knee or area just above ankle
5. Forehead
To bang face esp nose
The most effective and speediest attacking combination is the 'cusped hand and elbow combination'.
Use cusped hand to chop, thrust or swipe and then thrust with elbow. Continue with knee thrusts and ankle strikes.
For more 'power' put 2 cusped hands together in one move. E.g. to destabilise on rushing attacker, put both cusped hands together and push on one side of chest or shoulder, or strike at chin, throat or nose. Keep low and use body weight to thrust forward and upward.
If both hands are held or restrained by attacker, use knee or ankle to thrust into lower parts of body, or use forehead to hit nose hard.
Most Vulnerable Places to Attack
1. Upper parts of body to be attacked using 'cusped hand and elbow combination' and forehead:
- Nose, Eye, Temple, Ears
- Throat or neck
- Center of Chest or stomach
2. Lower parts of body to be attacked using knee or punch:
- Chest and stomach
- Groin (or lower stomach area between private part and hip bone)
3. Leg areas to be struck with ankle or bottom of foot:
- Knee (front, side or back)
- Shin
- lower sides of shin just above ankle (to break ankle)
4. Nerve areas to be attacked using 'u-turned fingers' jab:
- area below jaw and behind ear
- arm-pit
To form u-turned fingers jab: from cusped hand bend all 4 fingers into u-shape so that lower third of bent fingers form straight line with palm and fore arm (keep all 4 fingers and thumb tightly together the same way as cusped hand) - see video.
Practice changing from cusped hand to u-turned fingers jab to get used to the conversion. Hold cusped hand up and while jabbing hand forward change finger positions into u-turned finger jab formation. Make sure wrist is locked tight, fingers and thumb are closed tightly together, and fingers and palm are in straight line with fore arm.
How To Protect Vulnerable Points from Blows or Strikes
The best way to protect upper body is to make use of the same 'cusped hand and elbow combination'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWdDr5ftUzo&feature=related
- Protect all parts of head, throat and neck by raising cusped hand over side of face with elbow pointing forward
- Protect chest by placing 'cusped hand and elbow combination' in front of chest
- Protect throat by keeping chin down
The same 'cusped hand and elbow combination' can also be used to block punches or attempts to grab you:
- to block blows, raise elbow and block using fore arm
- to get out of a grip of the hand or arm, twist or swirl your elbow back and forth
Useful self-defence videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtFclzN8iTg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZD0sdtrpwk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZDwCJziO-o&feature=related
Monday, April 30, 2012
New Silk Rail Road - Eurasian Rail Link
CCK's Note: Rebuilding of the old silk road on rails. This major development will change the future pattern of world trade, increase cooperation in Eurasia, reduce US influences as result of its sea domination, and impact future shipping industry. Only the future (20-30 years) will tell.
Note that BMW is already shipping parts from Germany via Eastern Europe to China on this rail link (it takes half the time vs shipping) and the writer William Engdahl is a German. There is a reason for that. 100 years ago Germany tried to build rail links to what is today's Turkey and Eastern Europe to by-pass British control of sea links (therefore markets) and get access to Eurasia - before they got whacked in the 'world wars'. Today, that German plan is a reality.
In future, this link will result in greater cooperation and domination of the Eurasian landmass by the Germans, Russians and Chinese. A new world order...
Impact on Singapore & Malaysia: become peripheral, lower shipping and aviation transit
'Today we are backward. As result, we should keep quiet and work hard to catch up. We speak up only after we have caught up' - Deng Xiaoping
China's Land Bridge to Turkey Creates New Eurasian Geopolitical Potentials
China and Turkey are in discussions to build a new high-speed railway link across Turkey. If completed it would be the country's largest railway project ever, even including the pre-World War I Berlin-Baghdad Railway link. The project was perhaps the most important agenda item, far more so than Syria during talks in Beijing between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Chinese leadership in early April. The proposed rail link would run from Kars on the easternmost border with Armenia, through the Turkish interior on to Istanbul where it would connect to the Marmaray rail tunnel now under construction that runs under the Bosphorus strait. Then it would continue to Edirne near the border to Greece and Bulgaria in the European Union. It will cost an estimated $35 billion. The realization of the Turkish link would complete a Chinese Trans-Eurasian Rail Bridge project that would bring freight from China to Spain and England.
The Kars-Edirne line would reduce travel time across Turkey by two-thirds from 36 hours down to 12. Under an agreement signed between China and Turkey in October 2010, China has agreed to extend loans of $30 billion for the planned rail network. In addition a Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway connecting Azerbaijan's capital of Baku to Kars is under construction, which greatly increases the strategic importance of the Edirne-Kars line. For China it would put a critical new link in its railway infrastructure across Eurasia to markets in Europe and beyond.
Erdogan’s visit to Beijing was significant for other reasons. It was the first such high level trip of a Turkish Prime Minister to China since 1985. The fact that Erdogan was also granted a high-level meeting with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, the man slated to be next Chinese President, and was granted an extraordinary visit to China’s oil-rich Xinjiang Province also shows the high priority China is placing on its relations with Turkey, a key emerging strategic force in the Middle East.
Xinjiang is a highly sensitive part of China as it hosts some 9 million ethnic Uyghurs who share a Turkic heritage with Turkey as well as nominal adherence to the Turkish Sunni branch of Islam. In July 2009 the US government, acting through the National Endowment for Democracy, the regime-change NGO it finances, backed a major Uyghur uprising in which many Han Chinese shop owners were killed or injured. Washington in turn blamed the riots on Beijing as part of a strategy of escalating pressure on China. During Uyghur riots in Xinjiang in 2009, Erdogan accused Beijing of “genocide” and attacked the Chinese on human rights, a dicey issue for Turkey given their Kurd ethnic problems. Clearly economic priorities from both sides have now changed the political calculus.
Contrary to the dogma of Milton Friedman and his monetarist followers, markets are never “free.” They are always manmade. The essential element to building new markets is building infrastructure, and for the vast landmass of Eurasia railroad linkages, ideally high-speed rail links, are essential to those new markets and the fastest way to economic prosperity for all concerned. For the economically depressed countries of the European Union, joining in the infrastructure linkages with the growing economies of Eurasia offers a real way out of the present crisis.
With the end of the Cold War in 1990 the vast under-developed land space of Eurasia became open again. This space contains some forty percent of total land in the world, much of it prime unspoiled agriculture land; it contains three-fourth of the entire world population, an asset of incalculable worth. It consists of some eighty eight of the world’s countries and three-fourths of known world energy resources as well as every mineral known needed for industrialization. North America as an economic potential, rich as she is, pales by comparison.
The Turkish-China railway discussion is but one part of a vast Chinese strategy to weave a network of inland rail connections across the Eurasian Continent. The aim is to literally create the world’s greatest new economic space and in turn a huge new market for not just China but all Eurasian countries, the Middle East and Western Europe. Direct rail service is faster and cheaper than either ships or trucks, and much cheaper than airplanes. For manufactured Chinese or other Eurasian products the rail land bridge links are creating vast new economic trading activity all along the rail line.
Two factors have made this prospect realizable for the first time since the Second World War. First the collapse of the Soviet Union has opened up the land space of Eurasia in entirely new ways as has the opening of China to Russia and its Eurasian neighbors, overcoming decades of mistrust. This is being met by the eastward expansion of the European Union to the countries of the former Warsaw Pact.
The demand for faster rail transport over the vast Eurasian distances is clear. China’s container port activity and that of its European and North American destinations is reaching a saturation point as volumes of container traffic explode at double-digit rates. Singapore recently displaced Rotterdam as the world’s largest port in volume terms. The growth rate for container port throughput in China in 2006, before outbreak of the world financial crisis was some 25% annually. In 2007 Chinese ports accounted for some 28 per cent of world container port throughput. However there is another aspect to the Chinese and, to an extent, the Russian land bridge strategies. By moving trade flows over land, it is more secure in the face of escalating military tensions between the nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, especially China and Russia, and NATO. Sea transport must flow through highly vulnerable narrow passageways or chokepoints such as the Malaysian Straits of Malacca.
The Turkish Kars-Edirne railway would form an integral part of an entire web of Chinese-initiated rail corridors across the Eurasian landmass. Following the example of how rail infrastructure transformed the economic space of Europe and later of America during the late 19th Century, the Chinese government, which today stands as the world’s most efficient railroad constructor, has quietly been extending its rail links into Central Asia and beyond for several years. They have proceeded in segments, one reason the vast ambition of their grand rail infrastructure has drawn so little attention to date in the West outside the shipping industry.
By 2011 China had completed a Second Eurasian Land Bridge running from China’s port of Lianyungang on the East China Sea through to Kazakhstan’s Druzhba and on to Central Asia, West Asia and Europe to various European destinations and finally to Rotterdam Port of Holland on the Atlantic coast.
The Second Eurasian Land Bridge is a new railway connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic that was completed by China to Druzhba in Kazakhstan. This newest Eurasia land bridge extends west in China through six provinces--Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang autonomous region, which neighbors respectively with Shandong Province, Shanxi Province, Hubei Province, Sichuan Province, Qinghai Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Inner Mongolia. That covers about 360,000 square kilometers, some 37% of the total land space of China. About 400 million people live in the areas, which accounts for 30% of the total population of the country. Outside of China, the land bridge covers over 40 countries and regions in both Asia and Europe, and is particularly important for the countries in Central and West Asia that don’t have sea outlets.
In 2011 China’s Vice Premier Wang Qishan announced plans to build a new high-speed railway link within Kazakhstan, linking the cities of Astana and Almaty, to be ready in 2015. The Astana-Almaty line, with a total length of 1050 kilometers, employing China’s advanced rail-building technology, will allow high-speed trains to run at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour.
DB Schenker Rail Automotive is now transporting auto parts from Leipzig to Shenyang in northeastern China for BMW. Trains loaded with parts and components depart from DB Schenker's Leipzig trans-shipment terminal in a three-week, 11,000 km journey to BMW's Shenyang plant in the Liaoning province, where components are used in the assembly of BMW vehicles. Beginning in late November 2011, trains bound for Shenyang departed Leipzig once each day. "With a transit time of 23 days, the direct trains are twice as fast as maritime transport, followed by over-the-road transport to the Chinese hinterland," says Dr. Karl-Friedrich Rausch, member of the management board for DB Mobility Logistics' Transportation and Logistics division. The route reaches China via Poland, Belarus, and Russia. Containers have to be transferred by crane to different gauges twice—first to Russian broad gauge at the Poland-Belarus border, then back to standard gauge at the Russia-China border in Manzhouli.
In May 2011 a daily direct rail freight service was launched between the Port of Antwerp, Europe’s second-largest port, and Chongqing, the industrial hub in China’s southwest. That greatly speeded rail freight transport across Eurasia to Europe. Compared to the 36 days for maritime transport from east China’s ports to west Europe, the Antwerp-Chongqing Rail Freight service now takes 20 to 25 days, and the aim is to cut that to 15 to 20 days. Westbound cargo includes automotive and technological goods, eastbound shipments are mostly chemicals. The project was a major priority for the Antwerp Port and the Belgian government in cooperation with China and other partners. The service is run by Swiss inter-modal logistics provider Hupac, their Russian partner Russkaya Troyka and Eurasia Good Transport over a distance of more than 10,000km, starting from Port of Antwerp through to Germany and Poland, and further to Ukraine, Russia and Mongolia before reaching Chongqing in China.
The Second Eurasian Land Bridge runs 10,900 kilometers in length, with some 4100 kilometers of that in China. Within China the line runs parallel to one of the ancient routes of the Silk Road. The rail line continues across China into Druzhba where it links with the broader gauge rail lines of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is the largest inland country in the world. As Chinese rail and highways have expanded west, trade between Kazakhstan and China has been booming. From January to October 2008, goods passing through the Khorgos port between the two nations reached 880,000 tons - over 250% growth compared with the same period a year before. Trade between China and Kazakhstan is expected to grow 3 to 5 fold by 2013. As of 2008, only about 1% of the goods shipped from Asia to Europe were delivered by overland routes, meaning the room for expansion is considerable.
From Kazakhstan the lines go on via Russia and Belarus over Poland to the markets of the European Union.
Another line goes to Tashkent in Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s largest city of some two millions. Another line goes west to Turkmenistan’s capital Asgabat and to the border of Iran. With some additional investment, these links, now tied to the vast expanse and markets of China could open new economic possibilities in much-neglected regions of Central Asia. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could provide a well-suited vehicle for coordination of a broad Eurasian rail infrastructure coordination to maximize these initial rail links. The members of the SCO, formed in 2001, include China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan with Iran, India, Mongolia and Pakistan as Observer Status countries.
Russia is well positioned to benefit greatly from such an SCO strategy. The First Eurasian Land Bridge runs through Russia along the Trans-Siberian Railway, first completed in 1916 to unify the Russian Empire. The Trans-Siberian remains the longest single rail line in the world at 9,297 kilometers, a tribute to the vision of Russian Sergei Witte in the 1890s. The Trans-Siberian Railway, also called the Northern East-West Corridor, runs from the Russian Far East Port of Vladivostok and links in Europe to the Port of Rotterdam some 13,000 kilometers. At present it is the less attractive for Pacific-to-Atlantic freight because of maintenance problems and maximum speeds of 55 km.
There are attempts to better use the Trans-Siberian Land Bridge. In January 2008 a long distance Eurasian rail freight service, the "Beijing-Hamburg Container Express" was successfully tested by the German railway Deutsche Bahn. It completed the 10,000 km (6,200 miles) journey in 15 days to link the Chinese capital to the German port city, going through Mongolia, the Russian Federation, Belarus and Poland. By ship to the same markets takes double the time or some 30 days. This route, which began commercial service in 2010 incorporates a section of the existing Trans-Siberian Railway, a rail link using a broader gauge than either Chinese or European trains, meaning two offloads and reloads onto other trains at the China-Mongolia border and again at the Belarus-Poland border.
Were the Trans-Siberian railway passage across Russian Eurasian space to be modernized and upgraded to accommodate high-speed freight traffic, it would add a significant new economic dimension to the economic development of Russia’s interior regions. The Trans-Siberian is double-tracked and electrified. The need is minimally to improve some segments to insure a better integration of all the elements to make it a more attractive option for Eurasian freight to the west.
There are strong indications the new Putin presidency will turn more of its attention to Eurasia. Modernization of the First Eurasian Land Bridge would be a logical way to accomplish much of that development by literally creating new markets and new economic activity. With the bond markets of the United States and Europe flooded with toxic waste and state bankruptcy fears, issuance of Russian state bonds for modernization or even a new parallel high-speed rail Land Bridge linking to the certainty of growing freight traffic across Eurasia would have little difficulty finding eager investors.
Russia is currently in discussion with China and Chinese rail constructors who are bidding on construction of a planned $20 billion of new high-speed Russian rail track to be completed before the 2018 Russian hosting of the Soccer World Cup. China’s experience in building some 12,000 km of high speed rail in record time is a major asset for China’s bid. Significantly, Russia plans to raise $10 billion of the cost by issuing new railroad bonds.
In 2009 at the Fifth Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional (PPRD) Cooperation and Development Forum, a government-sponsored event, the Yunnan provincial government announced its intention to accelerate construction of needed infrastructure to build a third Eurasian continental land bridge that will link south China to Rotterdam via Turkey over land. This is part of what Erdogan and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao discussed in Beijing this April. The network of inland roads for the land bridge within Yunnan province will be completed by 2015, said Yunnan governor Qin Guangrong. The project starts from coastal ports in Guangdong, with the Port of Shenzhen being the most important. It will ultimately go all the way through Kunming to Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Iran, entering Europe from Turkey.
The route would cut some 6,000-km from the sea journey between the Pearl River Delta and Rotterdam and allow production from China’s eastern manufacturing centers to reach Asia, Africa and Europe. The proposal is for completing a series of missing rail and modern highway links totaling some 1,000 Km, not that inconceivable. In neighboring Myanmar a mere 300 km of railways and highways are lacking in order to link the railways in Yunnan with the highway network of Myanmar and South Asia. It will help China pave the way for building a land channel to the Indian Ocean.
The third Eurasian Land Bridge will cross 20 countries in Asia and Europe and have a total length of about 15,000 kilometers, which is 3,000 to 6,000 kilometers shorter than the sea route entering at the Indian Ocean from the southeast coast via the Malacca Straits. The total annual trade volume of the regions the route passes through was nearly US$300 billion in 2009. Ultimately the plan is for a branch line that would also start in Turkey, cross Syria and Palestine, and end in Egypt, facilitating transportation from China to Africa. Clearly the Pentagon’s AFRICOM and the US-backed Arab Spring unrest directly impacts that extension, though for how long at this point is unclear.
Not every major international player is pleased about the growing linkages binding the economies of Eurasia with western Europe and Africa. In his now famous 1997 book, “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives”, former Presidential adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski noted,
“In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geo-strategy involves the purposeful management of geo-strategically dynamic states…To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geo-strategy are to prevent collusion and to
maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.”
The “barbarians” that Brzezinski refers to are China and Russia and all in between. The Brzezinski term “imperial geo-strategy” refers to US strategic foreign policy. The “vassals” he identifies in the book as countries like Germany, Japan and other NATO “allies” of the US. That Brzezinski geopolitical notion remains US foreign policy today.
The prospect of an unparalleled Eurasian economic boom lasting into the next Century and beyond is at hand. The first sinews of binding the vast economic space have been put in place or are being constructed with these rail links. It is becoming clear to more people in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia including China and Russia that their natural tendency to build these markets faces only one major obstacle: NATO and the US Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance obsession. In the period prior to World War I it was the decision in Berlin to build a rail land link to and through the Turkish Ottoman Empire from Berlin to Baghdad that was the catalyst for British strategists to incite the events that plunged Europe into the most destructive war in history to that date. This time we have a chance to avoid a similar fate with the Eurasian development. More and more the economically stressed economies of the EU are beginning to look east and less to their west across the Atlantic for Europe’s economic future.
Note that BMW is already shipping parts from Germany via Eastern Europe to China on this rail link (it takes half the time vs shipping) and the writer William Engdahl is a German. There is a reason for that. 100 years ago Germany tried to build rail links to what is today's Turkey and Eastern Europe to by-pass British control of sea links (therefore markets) and get access to Eurasia - before they got whacked in the 'world wars'. Today, that German plan is a reality.
In future, this link will result in greater cooperation and domination of the Eurasian landmass by the Germans, Russians and Chinese. A new world order...
Impact on Singapore & Malaysia: become peripheral, lower shipping and aviation transit
'Today we are backward. As result, we should keep quiet and work hard to catch up. We speak up only after we have caught up' - Deng Xiaoping
China's Land Bridge to Turkey Creates New Eurasian Geopolitical Potentials
Apr 28, 2012
By F William Engdahl
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article34366.html (text extract without diagrams below)
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article34366.html (text extract without diagrams below)
The prospect of an unparalleled Eurasian economic boom lasting into the next Century and beyond is at hand. The first steps binding the vast economic space are being constructed with a number of little-publicized rail links connecting China, Russia, Kazakhstan and parts of Western Europe. It is becoming clear to more people in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia including China and Russia that their natural tendency to build these markets faces only one major obstacle: NATO and the US Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance obsession. Rail infrastructure is a major key to building vast new economic markets across Eurasia
The Kars-Edirne line would reduce travel time across Turkey by two-thirds from 36 hours down to 12. Under an agreement signed between China and Turkey in October 2010, China has agreed to extend loans of $30 billion for the planned rail network. In addition a Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway connecting Azerbaijan's capital of Baku to Kars is under construction, which greatly increases the strategic importance of the Edirne-Kars line. For China it would put a critical new link in its railway infrastructure across Eurasia to markets in Europe and beyond.
Erdogan’s visit to Beijing was significant for other reasons. It was the first such high level trip of a Turkish Prime Minister to China since 1985. The fact that Erdogan was also granted a high-level meeting with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, the man slated to be next Chinese President, and was granted an extraordinary visit to China’s oil-rich Xinjiang Province also shows the high priority China is placing on its relations with Turkey, a key emerging strategic force in the Middle East.
Xinjiang is a highly sensitive part of China as it hosts some 9 million ethnic Uyghurs who share a Turkic heritage with Turkey as well as nominal adherence to the Turkish Sunni branch of Islam. In July 2009 the US government, acting through the National Endowment for Democracy, the regime-change NGO it finances, backed a major Uyghur uprising in which many Han Chinese shop owners were killed or injured. Washington in turn blamed the riots on Beijing as part of a strategy of escalating pressure on China. During Uyghur riots in Xinjiang in 2009, Erdogan accused Beijing of “genocide” and attacked the Chinese on human rights, a dicey issue for Turkey given their Kurd ethnic problems. Clearly economic priorities from both sides have now changed the political calculus.
Building the world’s greatest market
With the end of the Cold War in 1990 the vast under-developed land space of Eurasia became open again. This space contains some forty percent of total land in the world, much of it prime unspoiled agriculture land; it contains three-fourth of the entire world population, an asset of incalculable worth. It consists of some eighty eight of the world’s countries and three-fourths of known world energy resources as well as every mineral known needed for industrialization. North America as an economic potential, rich as she is, pales by comparison.
The Turkish-China railway discussion is but one part of a vast Chinese strategy to weave a network of inland rail connections across the Eurasian Continent. The aim is to literally create the world’s greatest new economic space and in turn a huge new market for not just China but all Eurasian countries, the Middle East and Western Europe. Direct rail service is faster and cheaper than either ships or trucks, and much cheaper than airplanes. For manufactured Chinese or other Eurasian products the rail land bridge links are creating vast new economic trading activity all along the rail line.
Two factors have made this prospect realizable for the first time since the Second World War. First the collapse of the Soviet Union has opened up the land space of Eurasia in entirely new ways as has the opening of China to Russia and its Eurasian neighbors, overcoming decades of mistrust. This is being met by the eastward expansion of the European Union to the countries of the former Warsaw Pact.
The demand for faster rail transport over the vast Eurasian distances is clear. China’s container port activity and that of its European and North American destinations is reaching a saturation point as volumes of container traffic explode at double-digit rates. Singapore recently displaced Rotterdam as the world’s largest port in volume terms. The growth rate for container port throughput in China in 2006, before outbreak of the world financial crisis was some 25% annually. In 2007 Chinese ports accounted for some 28 per cent of world container port throughput. However there is another aspect to the Chinese and, to an extent, the Russian land bridge strategies. By moving trade flows over land, it is more secure in the face of escalating military tensions between the nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, especially China and Russia, and NATO. Sea transport must flow through highly vulnerable narrow passageways or chokepoints such as the Malaysian Straits of Malacca.
The Turkish Kars-Edirne railway would form an integral part of an entire web of Chinese-initiated rail corridors across the Eurasian landmass. Following the example of how rail infrastructure transformed the economic space of Europe and later of America during the late 19th Century, the Chinese government, which today stands as the world’s most efficient railroad constructor, has quietly been extending its rail links into Central Asia and beyond for several years. They have proceeded in segments, one reason the vast ambition of their grand rail infrastructure has drawn so little attention to date in the West outside the shipping industry.
China builds Second Eurasian Land Bridge
The Second Eurasian Land Bridge is a new railway connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic that was completed by China to Druzhba in Kazakhstan. This newest Eurasia land bridge extends west in China through six provinces--Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang autonomous region, which neighbors respectively with Shandong Province, Shanxi Province, Hubei Province, Sichuan Province, Qinghai Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Inner Mongolia. That covers about 360,000 square kilometers, some 37% of the total land space of China. About 400 million people live in the areas, which accounts for 30% of the total population of the country. Outside of China, the land bridge covers over 40 countries and regions in both Asia and Europe, and is particularly important for the countries in Central and West Asia that don’t have sea outlets.
In 2011 China’s Vice Premier Wang Qishan announced plans to build a new high-speed railway link within Kazakhstan, linking the cities of Astana and Almaty, to be ready in 2015. The Astana-Almaty line, with a total length of 1050 kilometers, employing China’s advanced rail-building technology, will allow high-speed trains to run at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour.
DB Schenker Rail Automotive is now transporting auto parts from Leipzig to Shenyang in northeastern China for BMW. Trains loaded with parts and components depart from DB Schenker's Leipzig trans-shipment terminal in a three-week, 11,000 km journey to BMW's Shenyang plant in the Liaoning province, where components are used in the assembly of BMW vehicles. Beginning in late November 2011, trains bound for Shenyang departed Leipzig once each day. "With a transit time of 23 days, the direct trains are twice as fast as maritime transport, followed by over-the-road transport to the Chinese hinterland," says Dr. Karl-Friedrich Rausch, member of the management board for DB Mobility Logistics' Transportation and Logistics division. The route reaches China via Poland, Belarus, and Russia. Containers have to be transferred by crane to different gauges twice—first to Russian broad gauge at the Poland-Belarus border, then back to standard gauge at the Russia-China border in Manzhouli.
In May 2011 a daily direct rail freight service was launched between the Port of Antwerp, Europe’s second-largest port, and Chongqing, the industrial hub in China’s southwest. That greatly speeded rail freight transport across Eurasia to Europe. Compared to the 36 days for maritime transport from east China’s ports to west Europe, the Antwerp-Chongqing Rail Freight service now takes 20 to 25 days, and the aim is to cut that to 15 to 20 days. Westbound cargo includes automotive and technological goods, eastbound shipments are mostly chemicals. The project was a major priority for the Antwerp Port and the Belgian government in cooperation with China and other partners. The service is run by Swiss inter-modal logistics provider Hupac, their Russian partner Russkaya Troyka and Eurasia Good Transport over a distance of more than 10,000km, starting from Port of Antwerp through to Germany and Poland, and further to Ukraine, Russia and Mongolia before reaching Chongqing in China.
The Second Eurasian Land Bridge runs 10,900 kilometers in length, with some 4100 kilometers of that in China. Within China the line runs parallel to one of the ancient routes of the Silk Road. The rail line continues across China into Druzhba where it links with the broader gauge rail lines of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is the largest inland country in the world. As Chinese rail and highways have expanded west, trade between Kazakhstan and China has been booming. From January to October 2008, goods passing through the Khorgos port between the two nations reached 880,000 tons - over 250% growth compared with the same period a year before. Trade between China and Kazakhstan is expected to grow 3 to 5 fold by 2013. As of 2008, only about 1% of the goods shipped from Asia to Europe were delivered by overland routes, meaning the room for expansion is considerable.
From Kazakhstan the lines go on via Russia and Belarus over Poland to the markets of the European Union.
Another line goes to Tashkent in Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s largest city of some two millions. Another line goes west to Turkmenistan’s capital Asgabat and to the border of Iran. With some additional investment, these links, now tied to the vast expanse and markets of China could open new economic possibilities in much-neglected regions of Central Asia. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could provide a well-suited vehicle for coordination of a broad Eurasian rail infrastructure coordination to maximize these initial rail links. The members of the SCO, formed in 2001, include China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan with Iran, India, Mongolia and Pakistan as Observer Status countries.
Russia’s Land Bridge
There are attempts to better use the Trans-Siberian Land Bridge. In January 2008 a long distance Eurasian rail freight service, the "Beijing-Hamburg Container Express" was successfully tested by the German railway Deutsche Bahn. It completed the 10,000 km (6,200 miles) journey in 15 days to link the Chinese capital to the German port city, going through Mongolia, the Russian Federation, Belarus and Poland. By ship to the same markets takes double the time or some 30 days. This route, which began commercial service in 2010 incorporates a section of the existing Trans-Siberian Railway, a rail link using a broader gauge than either Chinese or European trains, meaning two offloads and reloads onto other trains at the China-Mongolia border and again at the Belarus-Poland border.
Were the Trans-Siberian railway passage across Russian Eurasian space to be modernized and upgraded to accommodate high-speed freight traffic, it would add a significant new economic dimension to the economic development of Russia’s interior regions. The Trans-Siberian is double-tracked and electrified. The need is minimally to improve some segments to insure a better integration of all the elements to make it a more attractive option for Eurasian freight to the west.
There are strong indications the new Putin presidency will turn more of its attention to Eurasia. Modernization of the First Eurasian Land Bridge would be a logical way to accomplish much of that development by literally creating new markets and new economic activity. With the bond markets of the United States and Europe flooded with toxic waste and state bankruptcy fears, issuance of Russian state bonds for modernization or even a new parallel high-speed rail Land Bridge linking to the certainty of growing freight traffic across Eurasia would have little difficulty finding eager investors.
Russia is currently in discussion with China and Chinese rail constructors who are bidding on construction of a planned $20 billion of new high-speed Russian rail track to be completed before the 2018 Russian hosting of the Soccer World Cup. China’s experience in building some 12,000 km of high speed rail in record time is a major asset for China’s bid. Significantly, Russia plans to raise $10 billion of the cost by issuing new railroad bonds.
A Third Eurasian Land Bridge?
The route would cut some 6,000-km from the sea journey between the Pearl River Delta and Rotterdam and allow production from China’s eastern manufacturing centers to reach Asia, Africa and Europe. The proposal is for completing a series of missing rail and modern highway links totaling some 1,000 Km, not that inconceivable. In neighboring Myanmar a mere 300 km of railways and highways are lacking in order to link the railways in Yunnan with the highway network of Myanmar and South Asia. It will help China pave the way for building a land channel to the Indian Ocean.
The third Eurasian Land Bridge will cross 20 countries in Asia and Europe and have a total length of about 15,000 kilometers, which is 3,000 to 6,000 kilometers shorter than the sea route entering at the Indian Ocean from the southeast coast via the Malacca Straits. The total annual trade volume of the regions the route passes through was nearly US$300 billion in 2009. Ultimately the plan is for a branch line that would also start in Turkey, cross Syria and Palestine, and end in Egypt, facilitating transportation from China to Africa. Clearly the Pentagon’s AFRICOM and the US-backed Arab Spring unrest directly impacts that extension, though for how long at this point is unclear.
The geopolitical dimension
“In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geo-strategy involves the purposeful management of geo-strategically dynamic states…To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geo-strategy are to prevent collusion and to
maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.”
The “barbarians” that Brzezinski refers to are China and Russia and all in between. The Brzezinski term “imperial geo-strategy” refers to US strategic foreign policy. The “vassals” he identifies in the book as countries like Germany, Japan and other NATO “allies” of the US. That Brzezinski geopolitical notion remains US foreign policy today.
The prospect of an unparalleled Eurasian economic boom lasting into the next Century and beyond is at hand. The first sinews of binding the vast economic space have been put in place or are being constructed with these rail links. It is becoming clear to more people in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia including China and Russia that their natural tendency to build these markets faces only one major obstacle: NATO and the US Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance obsession. In the period prior to World War I it was the decision in Berlin to build a rail land link to and through the Turkish Ottoman Empire from Berlin to Baghdad that was the catalyst for British strategists to incite the events that plunged Europe into the most destructive war in history to that date. This time we have a chance to avoid a similar fate with the Eurasian development. More and more the economically stressed economies of the EU are beginning to look east and less to their west across the Atlantic for Europe’s economic future.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Why Bilinguals are Smarter
CCK Note: That is why it is important to teach young children multiple languages, the earlier the better. Language researches also found that children unlike adults can handle multiple languages without problem - they are highly adaptable!
Mar 19, 2012, New York TImes
Speaking two languages rather than only one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalised world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people.
Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policymakers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child's academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: There is ample evidence that in a bilingual's brain, both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other.
But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn't so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
HONING OUR FOCUS
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles.
In a 2004 study by psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins - one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by colour, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease.
Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting colour. The bilinguals were faster at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain's so-called executive function - a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally-demanding tasks.
These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention wilfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind - like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
ABILITY TO KEEP TRACK
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously-active language systems improve these aspects of cognition?
Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: This suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts.
But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: A heightened ability to monitor the environment.
"Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often - you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language," says Mr Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompea Fabra in Spain. "It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving."
In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
FROM BABES TO OLD FOLK
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Ms Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, seven-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language.
In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen.
Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet.
But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction, while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism's effects also extend into the twilight years.
In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism - measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language - were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer's disease: The higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Mar 19, 2012, New York TImes
Speaking two languages rather than only one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalised world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people.
Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policymakers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child's academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: There is ample evidence that in a bilingual's brain, both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other.
But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn't so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
HONING OUR FOCUS
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles.
In a 2004 study by psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins - one marked with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by colour, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease.
Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting colour. The bilinguals were faster at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain's so-called executive function - a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally-demanding tasks.
These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention wilfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind - like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.
ABILITY TO KEEP TRACK
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously-active language systems improve these aspects of cognition?
Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed by the exercise of suppressing one language system: This suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to ignore distractions in other contexts.
But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: A heightened ability to monitor the environment.
"Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often - you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language," says Mr Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompea Fabra in Spain. "It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving."
In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
FROM BABES TO OLD FOLK
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Ms Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, seven-month-old babies exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language.
In an initial set of trials, the infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen.
Both infant groups learned to look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet.
But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory gaze in the new direction, while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism's effects also extend into the twilight years.
In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism - measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language - were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer's disease: The higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Great Recession of 2008 (draft)
WHERE
This crisis started in the US and spread to Europe. The whole world were affected but less so than those 2 regions.
WHY
Monetary expansion (by way of increase of credit or debt esp. in US and Europe) in early/mid 2000s caused bubbles to develop in various markets (like stock, housing, commodities) all over the world.
As prices of everything rose, more and more people used borrowed money to invest and profit from rising prices.
By 2007, shares in US and Europe for example were trading at PE of 20. Average US house prices ($230K) were more than 4 times median household income ($50K).
The US and European countries had huge amounts of private and public sector debts that were more than 200% of their countries' GDP. The UK is the worst with total debt of more than 500% GDP (85% government but 800% banks and private sector)!
Those governments used private consumption financed by debts as a way to keep their economies 'growing' but those growth were not from production.
Note: Since the start of 'modern' fractional banking system about 100 years ago, debt can be created almost unlimitedly. That is why there were so many crises in the past 100 years (one every 10 years or so).
WHAT HAPPENED
World Wide
From 1990s onwards, outsourcing and shifting of factories to lower cost countries (like China which was just admitted into WTO) reduced the number of jobs available in the US and Europe.
In addition, global economy slowed/shrank as a result of the bursting of the Internet Bubble in 2001-02. To re-inflate their economies, those governments increased public spending financed by government borrowings and lowered the cost of money to encourage their people and businesses to borrow money to spend and invest.
But because most of their productive industries had already moved out or had been decimated over the decades before that, there were fewer real investment options in the western countries. As a result, the increasing borrowings were directed into their housing and financial markets which went up in value and created the illusion of wealth.
In reality, they created ponzi-like bubbles that later burst. People who borrowed early on in the cycle made a lot of money but those that joined in late suffered huge losses.
Government debt growth were also aided by global banking 'regulations' (developed by the same governments) that encouraged banks to make loans to governments. Basel II regulations, for example, did not require banks to reserve capital for holdings of OECD government bonds because of the assumption they were 'risk-free'!
US
From 2002 onwards, their Federal Reserve lent money out at very low rates and as a result there were more money available than real business to invest them in.
(Note: the terrible state of their economy may be a reason behind 'Sept 11' where the World Trade Center buildings that house a lot of bank offices were 'attacked' and a 3rd building (Building 7) that housed many government offices from CIA, DOD to SEC were 'taken down'. Documents of those bodies including thousands of SEC cases were destroyed in Building 7. Their subsequent attack of Afghanistan and Iraq were to re-stimulate the economy - by increasing spending and employment in defense sector - and to control world oil)
Some people said the other reason for so much money floating around was because foreign governments with trade surplus were 'lending' them back to the US government (by buying US treasuries). But foreign countries had so much USD because the US were printing them to buy things from foreigners in the first place. Foreigners' fault were to stupidly accept them thinking that those USD will 'keep its value'.
Banks looking for borrowers then gave easy loans to people to buy houses. The government aided by passing new laws to promote house ownership with the idea that with people rushing to buy houses, rising prices will increase consumer 'wealth' and people will spend more thus supporting the economy. That started a bubble where rising house prices enticed more and more people (including those that cannot afford it known as 'sub-prime borrowers') to jump into the housing market in the hope of making easy money. It worked till 2006 when house prices peaked.
In 2007 the housing bubble burst & house prices fell causing US banks to start collapsing in 2008 because house owners stopped servicing and repaying their loans (many loan terms allowed people to get out by just returning the house keys without further penalty). The US government stepped in to arrange for other 'more healthier' banks to buy up the small ones like Countrywide, WaMu, Bear Stearns etc. and to help mortgage holders 'restructure' their loans to try and stop people from defaulting and abandoning their houses/loans (and thus making the problem worse).
Initially, they tried to say that it was just a 'sub-prime crisis' i.e. only people who had never been able to afford the loans that were defaulting.
But the problem worsened and the US government had to bail out the bigger 'too big to fail' banks like Citibank, BOA, etc too firstly by buying the mortgage backed securities (MBS, backed by those bad housing loans) from those banks and then outright cash injection in return for share (e.g. Citibank).
In October 2008, the Fed refused to bail out Lehman Brothers and the bankruptcy of that bank triggered a huge liquidity problem in the banking system where huge amounts were withdrawn from banks (bank run) and banks refused to lend to each other for fear of being caught by another bankrupting bank.
The 'sub-prime crisis' had morphed to 'housing loan crisis' and then 'bank solvency crisis' and after that 'liquidity crisis'. Basically, all hell broke loose!
The housing bubble and banking collapse brought on a collapse of wealth and consumption thus affecting the whole economy and businesses started retrenching people to cut costs etc. Unemployment rate jumped to 10-20% depending on which measure/source is used.
Companies like GE, GM etc were also given government bailout money. Some critics called it 'iron rice bowl for the capitalists'.
To promote consumption to re-inflate the economy the government even subsidised car purchases ('Cash for Clunkers' programme). In Q4 2011, car purchases jumped 50% because of easy loans. The country just moved from easy loans to buy houses to easy loans to buy cars (car sales is 20% of total US retail sales). 45% of borrowers were 'sub-prime' (again)!
With shrinking tax from abandoned houses (housing tax is quite high in US), high unemployment and collapsing economy, municipal, state and central government revenues collapsed resulting in their inability to service their already high public debts. Again, their Fed stepped in to 'bail out'.
They were bailing out everyone but in doing that the government had effectively transferred all the bad debts previously held by banks and companies into the 'country's books' meaning the whole country (instead of bank and company shareholders) ended up having to pay for those bad debts.
All those crises above had morphed into 'sovereign debt crisis'.
The bailing out of mortgage holders, banks, companies and state/municpal/central governments by the Federal Reserve caused the US central government debt level and the country's money base (and balance sheet) to soar. The already high US federal debt increased by $4-5T (from $9T to $14.5T) and money base grew from 800B in 2008 to 2.4T in 2012.
In addition, most of the adjustable rate or ARM housing loans (esp. those by subprime borrowers) which were issued during the boom with 'teaser rates' were due for interest rate resets starting around 2010 through 2012. To pre-empt further collapse of the housing market and banks' loan books the US government actively suppressed interest rates to lighten loan servicing costs, and the Fed even announced they will keep rates low till 2014! Banks were allowed to do away with marking-to-market their bad MBS holdings to hide their loses.
To deflect world attention from the US 'refinancing problem', their media tried to focus on talks of a 'double dip' and debt problems in EU countries (like the PIIGS) as a way to spook people to stay away from stock markets and keep their money in cash and 'safe haven bonds' (meaning US bonds) which in effect reduces their borrowing cost. As result, in 2009 and 2010 I heard many people talking/advising others to 'keep cash'.
The bail out money and low interest rates in effect is 'money printing' and caused holders of US bonds like China to express concerns about the US Dollar's value, and Brazil to raise concerns of 'currency wars' (where governments compete to devalue their currencies to gain competitive advantage).
2009: US Fed started paying interest on 'excess reserves' banks put with US Fed. This allows US banks to earn interests from banks' excess cash. Bank excess cash comes from:
- 'loan loss reserves' (for bad loans)
- cash they cannot lend out due to lack of demand by people deleveraging
- cash from selling sub-prime assets to US Fed
2010 Q2-Q3: reports of US banks increasing substantially their interest rate swap (IRS) books to support low US bond interest rates and illusion of demand for US bonds and 'flight to US safety'.
2011 Q2: reports of US Fed selling put options on US bonds to support price of those bonds and keep interest rates low.
Rest of the World
In Europe and elsewhere in the world, similar housing bubbles appeared about the same time as the US housing bubble because other governments also expanded credit and money supply to 'match' the US as part of keeping their currencies from appreciating too much against USD.
In addition, the introduction of Euro in 2001 lowered cost of debt for less competitive European countries (like Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) which encouraged them to borrow more.
So when the US housing bubble collapsed, the same thing happened elsewhere to varying degrees. The government responses were also very similar all round the world - bank bail outs, reduction in interest rates, subsidies to promote consumption etc.
Europe's public debts were like the US. In addition, their banks were holding a lot of the US mortgage backed securities (MBS) 'backed' by US housing loans! (a sort of double whammy). Some of those MBS were also sold to other parts of the world.
Others in the world bought those US MBS because they were rated 'AAA' by rating agencies paid to do the rating by US banks that packaged them! In addition, all the 3 top rating agencies (S&P, Fitch, Moody's) were American! See how stupid the world is?
The first country to 'fall' was Iceland. Next was Ireland and then Greece. The top topic of the 'next one to go' was the weak PIIGS countries using the Euro: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Creece and Spain.
See separate writeup on 'Eurozone Crisis' - Europe has similar problem of over indebtedness by government and private sector as US and UK but are undertaking slightly different solutions due to their 'lack of fiscal union' and refusal to solve problem by 'money printing'.
http://cckplanetblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/eurozone-crisis.html
This crisis started in the US and spread to Europe. The whole world were affected but less so than those 2 regions.
WHY
Monetary expansion (by way of increase of credit or debt esp. in US and Europe) in early/mid 2000s caused bubbles to develop in various markets (like stock, housing, commodities) all over the world.
As prices of everything rose, more and more people used borrowed money to invest and profit from rising prices.
By 2007, shares in US and Europe for example were trading at PE of 20. Average US house prices ($230K) were more than 4 times median household income ($50K).
The US and European countries had huge amounts of private and public sector debts that were more than 200% of their countries' GDP. The UK is the worst with total debt of more than 500% GDP (85% government but 800% banks and private sector)!
Those governments used private consumption financed by debts as a way to keep their economies 'growing' but those growth were not from production.
Note: Since the start of 'modern' fractional banking system about 100 years ago, debt can be created almost unlimitedly. That is why there were so many crises in the past 100 years (one every 10 years or so).
WHAT HAPPENED
World Wide
From 1990s onwards, outsourcing and shifting of factories to lower cost countries (like China which was just admitted into WTO) reduced the number of jobs available in the US and Europe.
In addition, global economy slowed/shrank as a result of the bursting of the Internet Bubble in 2001-02. To re-inflate their economies, those governments increased public spending financed by government borrowings and lowered the cost of money to encourage their people and businesses to borrow money to spend and invest.
But because most of their productive industries had already moved out or had been decimated over the decades before that, there were fewer real investment options in the western countries. As a result, the increasing borrowings were directed into their housing and financial markets which went up in value and created the illusion of wealth.
In reality, they created ponzi-like bubbles that later burst. People who borrowed early on in the cycle made a lot of money but those that joined in late suffered huge losses.
Government debt growth were also aided by global banking 'regulations' (developed by the same governments) that encouraged banks to make loans to governments. Basel II regulations, for example, did not require banks to reserve capital for holdings of OECD government bonds because of the assumption they were 'risk-free'!
US
From 2002 onwards, their Federal Reserve lent money out at very low rates and as a result there were more money available than real business to invest them in.
(Note: the terrible state of their economy may be a reason behind 'Sept 11' where the World Trade Center buildings that house a lot of bank offices were 'attacked' and a 3rd building (Building 7) that housed many government offices from CIA, DOD to SEC were 'taken down'. Documents of those bodies including thousands of SEC cases were destroyed in Building 7. Their subsequent attack of Afghanistan and Iraq were to re-stimulate the economy - by increasing spending and employment in defense sector - and to control world oil)
Some people said the other reason for so much money floating around was because foreign governments with trade surplus were 'lending' them back to the US government (by buying US treasuries). But foreign countries had so much USD because the US were printing them to buy things from foreigners in the first place. Foreigners' fault were to stupidly accept them thinking that those USD will 'keep its value'.
Banks looking for borrowers then gave easy loans to people to buy houses. The government aided by passing new laws to promote house ownership with the idea that with people rushing to buy houses, rising prices will increase consumer 'wealth' and people will spend more thus supporting the economy. That started a bubble where rising house prices enticed more and more people (including those that cannot afford it known as 'sub-prime borrowers') to jump into the housing market in the hope of making easy money. It worked till 2006 when house prices peaked.
In 2007 the housing bubble burst & house prices fell causing US banks to start collapsing in 2008 because house owners stopped servicing and repaying their loans (many loan terms allowed people to get out by just returning the house keys without further penalty). The US government stepped in to arrange for other 'more healthier' banks to buy up the small ones like Countrywide, WaMu, Bear Stearns etc. and to help mortgage holders 'restructure' their loans to try and stop people from defaulting and abandoning their houses/loans (and thus making the problem worse).
Initially, they tried to say that it was just a 'sub-prime crisis' i.e. only people who had never been able to afford the loans that were defaulting.
But the problem worsened and the US government had to bail out the bigger 'too big to fail' banks like Citibank, BOA, etc too firstly by buying the mortgage backed securities (MBS, backed by those bad housing loans) from those banks and then outright cash injection in return for share (e.g. Citibank).
In October 2008, the Fed refused to bail out Lehman Brothers and the bankruptcy of that bank triggered a huge liquidity problem in the banking system where huge amounts were withdrawn from banks (bank run) and banks refused to lend to each other for fear of being caught by another bankrupting bank.
The 'sub-prime crisis' had morphed to 'housing loan crisis' and then 'bank solvency crisis' and after that 'liquidity crisis'. Basically, all hell broke loose!
The housing bubble and banking collapse brought on a collapse of wealth and consumption thus affecting the whole economy and businesses started retrenching people to cut costs etc. Unemployment rate jumped to 10-20% depending on which measure/source is used.
Companies like GE, GM etc were also given government bailout money. Some critics called it 'iron rice bowl for the capitalists'.
To promote consumption to re-inflate the economy the government even subsidised car purchases ('Cash for Clunkers' programme). In Q4 2011, car purchases jumped 50% because of easy loans. The country just moved from easy loans to buy houses to easy loans to buy cars (car sales is 20% of total US retail sales). 45% of borrowers were 'sub-prime' (again)!
With shrinking tax from abandoned houses (housing tax is quite high in US), high unemployment and collapsing economy, municipal, state and central government revenues collapsed resulting in their inability to service their already high public debts. Again, their Fed stepped in to 'bail out'.
They were bailing out everyone but in doing that the government had effectively transferred all the bad debts previously held by banks and companies into the 'country's books' meaning the whole country (instead of bank and company shareholders) ended up having to pay for those bad debts.
All those crises above had morphed into 'sovereign debt crisis'.
The bailing out of mortgage holders, banks, companies and state/municpal/central governments by the Federal Reserve caused the US central government debt level and the country's money base (and balance sheet) to soar. The already high US federal debt increased by $4-5T (from $9T to $14.5T) and money base grew from 800B in 2008 to 2.4T in 2012.
In addition, most of the adjustable rate or ARM housing loans (esp. those by subprime borrowers) which were issued during the boom with 'teaser rates' were due for interest rate resets starting around 2010 through 2012. To pre-empt further collapse of the housing market and banks' loan books the US government actively suppressed interest rates to lighten loan servicing costs, and the Fed even announced they will keep rates low till 2014! Banks were allowed to do away with marking-to-market their bad MBS holdings to hide their loses.
To deflect world attention from the US 'refinancing problem', their media tried to focus on talks of a 'double dip' and debt problems in EU countries (like the PIIGS) as a way to spook people to stay away from stock markets and keep their money in cash and 'safe haven bonds' (meaning US bonds) which in effect reduces their borrowing cost. As result, in 2009 and 2010 I heard many people talking/advising others to 'keep cash'.
The bail out money and low interest rates in effect is 'money printing' and caused holders of US bonds like China to express concerns about the US Dollar's value, and Brazil to raise concerns of 'currency wars' (where governments compete to devalue their currencies to gain competitive advantage).
2009: US Fed started paying interest on 'excess reserves' banks put with US Fed. This allows US banks to earn interests from banks' excess cash. Bank excess cash comes from:
- 'loan loss reserves' (for bad loans)
- cash they cannot lend out due to lack of demand by people deleveraging
- cash from selling sub-prime assets to US Fed
2010 Q2-Q3: reports of US banks increasing substantially their interest rate swap (IRS) books to support low US bond interest rates and illusion of demand for US bonds and 'flight to US safety'.
2011 Q2: reports of US Fed selling put options on US bonds to support price of those bonds and keep interest rates low.
Rest of the World
In Europe and elsewhere in the world, similar housing bubbles appeared about the same time as the US housing bubble because other governments also expanded credit and money supply to 'match' the US as part of keeping their currencies from appreciating too much against USD.
In addition, the introduction of Euro in 2001 lowered cost of debt for less competitive European countries (like Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) which encouraged them to borrow more.
So when the US housing bubble collapsed, the same thing happened elsewhere to varying degrees. The government responses were also very similar all round the world - bank bail outs, reduction in interest rates, subsidies to promote consumption etc.
Europe's public debts were like the US. In addition, their banks were holding a lot of the US mortgage backed securities (MBS) 'backed' by US housing loans! (a sort of double whammy). Some of those MBS were also sold to other parts of the world.
Others in the world bought those US MBS because they were rated 'AAA' by rating agencies paid to do the rating by US banks that packaged them! In addition, all the 3 top rating agencies (S&P, Fitch, Moody's) were American! See how stupid the world is?
The first country to 'fall' was Iceland. Next was Ireland and then Greece. The top topic of the 'next one to go' was the weak PIIGS countries using the Euro: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Creece and Spain.
See separate writeup on 'Eurozone Crisis' - Europe has similar problem of over indebtedness by government and private sector as US and UK but are undertaking slightly different solutions due to their 'lack of fiscal union' and refusal to solve problem by 'money printing'.
http://cckplanetblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/eurozone-crisis.html
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Survival Guide
Water Purification Methods
1. Solar Disinfection (SODIS)
Materials: glass or PET bottle, piece of cloth
How:
- Filter off larger dissolved matter from water using cloth filter.
- Fill bottle with water and leave bottle in sun for 12 hours. UV rays will kill all bacteria in bottle
Note: this method is the simplest but does not remove dissolved harmful chemicals
2. Solar Powered Distillation
Materials: black painted bottle with long capillary tube attached to cap; collection bottle
How:
- Fill bottle with water. Black paint increase heat absorption.
- Place bottle on platform under the sun so that it is higher than collection bottle
- Place capillary tube and collection bottle under shade (to help with steam condensation)
3. Sand Filter
Materials:
How:
-
-
4. Wheat Grass
1. Solar Disinfection (SODIS)
Materials: glass or PET bottle, piece of cloth
How:
- Filter off larger dissolved matter from water using cloth filter.
- Fill bottle with water and leave bottle in sun for 12 hours. UV rays will kill all bacteria in bottle
Note: this method is the simplest but does not remove dissolved harmful chemicals
2. Solar Powered Distillation
Materials: black painted bottle with long capillary tube attached to cap; collection bottle
How:
- Fill bottle with water. Black paint increase heat absorption.
- Place bottle on platform under the sun so that it is higher than collection bottle
- Place capillary tube and collection bottle under shade (to help with steam condensation)
3. Sand Filter
Materials:
How:
-
-
4. Wheat Grass
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Sources of News and Views
See notes at bottom of article on how to use links here and why they are important.
CURRENT AFFAIRS
Global News (Radio) - when on the road, listen to BBC World Service
Global News (Online Channels)
Note: If picture is not smooth, set video quality to Low or Medium where possible
http://www.euronews.net/news/streaming-live/ (EuroNews)
http://mediacenter.dw.de/english/live/ (Deustche Welle Germany)
http://rt.com/on-air/ (Russia Times)
http://www.aljazeera.com/watch_now/ (Al Jazeera - Middle East)
http://english.cntv.cn/live/index.shtml (China CCTV 5)
http://live.indiatimes.com/ (India Times Now)
http://www.ndtv.com/video/live/channel/ndtv24x7 (NDTV India)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/ (NHK Japan)
http://www.bloomberg.com/tv/ (US Bloomberg)
http://www.thedailyshow.com/ (watch The Daily Show for funny perspectives on US current affairs)
Global News (Text)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/ (China Daily)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/bizarticlelist/1898055.cms (India Times)
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/default.asp (Indian Analyses)
http://www.presstv.ir/ (Iranian TV)
http://www.aljazeera.com/ (Al Jazeera Middle East)
http://mg.co.za/ (Mail & Guardian South Africa)
http://www.businessday.co.za/ (Business Day South Africa)
http://www.euronews.net/ (EuroNews)
http://www.dw.de/dw/home/0,,266,00.html (Deutsche Welle Germany)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ (Spiegel Germany)
http://www.neurope.eu/world (New Europe)
http://www.neurope.eu/eu-update (New Europe)
http://edition.cnn.com/ (CNN US)
http://www.news.az/ (Azerbaijan - Central Asia)
American Analysis & Contrarian Views
http://www.theglobalist.com/
http://www.infowars.com/
http://www.salon.com/
http://open.salon.com/cover
Singapore News (Text)
http://www.todayonline.com/index ('Today' newspaper)
http://www.straitstimes.com/ (Straits Times newspaper)
http://news.xin.msn.com/en/business/ (XIN MSN Singapore News)
http://sg.yahoo.com/?p=us (Yahoo Singapore News)
DAILY MARKET NEWS
http://www.dailyfinance.com/
http://www.marketwatch.com/?link=MW_Nav_FP
http://www.businessweek.com/
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/
http://money.cnn.com/
http://www.bloomberg.com/
STOCK NEWS
http://www.investorplace.com/
KEY MARKET INDICATORS
Follow link http://cckplanetblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/key-market-indicators.html
SOURCES OF ECONOMIC ANALYSES
Austrian & European economics views
http://mises.org/
http://www.leap2020.eu/English_r25.html
http://www.cesifo-group.de/cesifo/newsletter/CESifoNewsletter28.htm
http://www.voxeu.org/
British economic views
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/
American economic views
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/
http://www.financialsense.com/
http://www.safehaven.com/
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
http://www.munknee.com/newsletter/
http://www.zerohedge.com/
http://www.biiwii.com/analysis.htm
http://seekingalpha.com/
http://www.marketskeptics.com/
http://www.europac.net/
http://boombustblog.com/
Commodities
http://www.stockresearchportal.com/default.aspx (Commodities News)
http://www.miningfeeds.com/ (Mining News)
SINGAPORE MARKET NEWS & FORUMS
http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/reports_singapore/
http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/news_singapore/
http://www.shareking.com/index.php
http://www.valuebuddies.com/
http://forum.channelnewsasia.com/forumdisplay.php?19-Market-Talk
What Singapore Insiders are Doing (set date range of 3-6 months) :
http://www.shareking.com/modules/Insider_Trade/index.php?company=&sy=2011&sm=09&sd=14&ey=2012&em=12&ed=16&insider=
http://www.sgx.com/wps/portal/sgxweb/home/company_disclosure/company_announcements
MALAYSIA NEWS
http://thestar.com.my/
http://malaysianshares.blogspot.com/
http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/reports_malaysia/
Malaysian Politics
http://www.youtube.com/user/mediarakyat (YouTube Online - Media Rakyat)
http://www.malaysia-today.net/
http://themalaysianinsider.com/
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/
GREATER CHINA NEWS
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/
http://www.cnanalyst.com/analystactions/
http://thechinaperspective.com/
China Stock Info Search
http://www.chinesestock.org/hklistd.asp?id=HKG:1207
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/09/03/100203550/index.htm?postversion=2007082805 (China's Top Companies as of 2007 by CNN)
HK Stock Info Search
http://www.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/advancedsearch/search_active_main.asp (HKSE)
http://hk.finance.yahoo.com/ (Yahoo Finance HK)
http://www.quamir.com/quamir/monthlyReturnsearchdetail.action?coId=876
http://www.aastocks.com/EN/Stock/CompanyFundamental.aspx?CFType=9&symbol=00214
RUSSIA NEWS
http://rt.com/on-air/
http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/news_russia/
http://eng.investfunds.ru/
http://www.news.az/articles/economy
http://www.russia-briefing.com/
http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/news_russia/
http://www.rustocks.com/index.phtml/Pressreleases/
http://russia-briefing.com/news/category/industry/oil-gas-petroleum/
http://www.gazprom.com/
Some useful links to search for INDIVIDUAL COMPANY share price history, financials, announcements & news
http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=h02.si
http://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXDJX:.DJI#
http://www.transnationale.org/countries/idns.php (Global Company Database - Very Good)
http://www.adrbnymellon.com/dr_industry_profile.jsp?industry=BNK (BONY ADR database)
How to Use the Links provided above:
1. Keep this link in your internet browser's favorite folder
2. Know What is Happening in the World (CURRENT AFFAIRS): Everyday watch online news channels anytime of day, and read text news from the various global and Singapore sources listed. When you are on the road, tune to news radio channels like the BBC World Service which gives good update on current affairs, history and developments in science etc.
3. Know What is Happening in World Economy (DAILY MARKET NEWS, ECONOMIC ANALYSES): Everyday visit some of the sites listed (over time you would know which site is your favourite)
4. Scan Titles for Big Picture: Scan titles of news or articles for new or interesting topics. Read the interesting ones. There are too many articles to read all everyday. Look out for 'Macro Economic Linkages' (how one event is related to other events elsewhere) http://cckplanetblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/macro-economic-linkages.html
5. Know More Details (KEY MARKET INDICATORS, COUNTRY specific news): Once a while, take a look at some key economic and market indicators (for big picture view) or go to country specific sections when you need more details from/about that country.
6. Company Details: Last section provide links to sites where you can get information about individual companies around the world like share price history, company financials, etc.
Caution:
1. Remember 'Elephant and Blindmen' - never believe what is said in any one article or source from a country, always check other sources from other parts of the world and think!
2. History is the key. News reports are just snapshots of what happened yesterday. Just like a 1 second snippet from a 2 hour movie, one cannot tell the true story by just looking at the snippet. 'Daily news' are of little value for people without 'big picture' and knowledge of history.
Notes:
1. Key Economic Indicators of US listed above are just indicators on state of US economy and is not applicable to the whole world! They are watched because the US is (was) the world largest consumer and buy things from all round the world. When their economy is not doing well, others who sell to them MAY suffer along. But that will not be the case in future when the US becomes less relevant to the world.
2. Each news source is like a different window to the world, each allows you to look at the outside at a different angle. It is your responsibility to put those different perspectives together to form the best picture.
3. Powerful people use the press to manipulate public opinions to their favour. That is why all governments want to control the newspapers in their countries by either directly owning them or issuing printing licenses to people who support them.
Quotes:
Those who don't read newspapers are under-informed, those who do are mis-informed - Mark Twain
Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one - AJ Liebling
Men who do not know history will forever be boys - Tacitus (Roman Historian)
CURRENT AFFAIRS
Global News (Radio) - when on the road, listen to BBC World Service
Global News (Online Channels)
Note: If picture is not smooth, set video quality to Low or Medium where possible
http://www.euronews.net/news/streaming-live/ (EuroNews)
http://mediacenter.dw.de/english/live/ (Deustche Welle Germany)
http://rt.com/on-air/ (Russia Times)
http://www.aljazeera.com/watch_now/ (Al Jazeera - Middle East)
http://english.cntv.cn/live/index.shtml (China CCTV 5)
http://live.indiatimes.com/ (India Times Now)
http://www.ndtv.com/video/live/channel/ndtv24x7 (NDTV India)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/ (NHK Japan)
http://www.bloomberg.com/tv/ (US Bloomberg)
http://www.thedailyshow.com/ (watch The Daily Show for funny perspectives on US current affairs)
Global News (Text)
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/ (China Daily)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/bizarticlelist/1898055.cms (India Times)
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/default.asp (Indian Analyses)
http://www.presstv.ir/ (Iranian TV)
http://www.aljazeera.com/ (Al Jazeera Middle East)
http://mg.co.za/ (Mail & Guardian South Africa)
http://www.businessday.co.za/ (Business Day South Africa)
http://www.euronews.net/ (EuroNews)
http://www.dw.de/dw/home/0,,266,00.html (Deutsche Welle Germany)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ (Spiegel Germany)
http://www.neurope.eu/world (New Europe)
http://www.neurope.eu/eu-update (New Europe)
http://edition.cnn.com/ (CNN US)
http://www.news.az/ (Azerbaijan - Central Asia)
American Analysis & Contrarian Views
http://www.theglobalist.com/
http://www.infowars.com/
http://www.salon.com/
http://open.salon.com/cover
Singapore News (Text)
http://www.todayonline.com/index ('Today' newspaper)
http://www.straitstimes.com/ (Straits Times newspaper)
http://news.xin.msn.com/en/business/ (XIN MSN Singapore News)
http://sg.yahoo.com/?p=us (Yahoo Singapore News)
DAILY MARKET NEWS
http://www.dailyfinance.com/
http://www.marketwatch.com/?link=MW_Nav_FP
http://www.businessweek.com/
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/
http://money.cnn.com/
http://www.bloomberg.com/
STOCK NEWS
http://www.investorplace.com/
KEY MARKET INDICATORS
Follow link http://cckplanetblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/key-market-indicators.html
SOURCES OF ECONOMIC ANALYSES
Austrian & European economics views
http://mises.org/
http://www.leap2020.eu/English_r25.html
http://www.cesifo-group.de/cesifo/newsletter/CESifoNewsletter28.htm
http://www.voxeu.org/
British economic views
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/
American economic views
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/
http://www.financialsense.com/
http://www.safehaven.com/
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
http://www.munknee.com/newsletter/
http://www.zerohedge.com/
http://www.biiwii.com/analysis.htm
http://seekingalpha.com/
http://www.marketskeptics.com/
http://www.europac.net/
http://boombustblog.com/
Commodities
http://www.stockresearchportal.com/default.aspx (Commodities News)
http://www.miningfeeds.com/ (Mining News)
SINGAPORE MARKET NEWS & FORUMS
http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/reports_singapore/
http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/news_singapore/
http://www.shareking.com/index.php
http://www.valuebuddies.com/
http://forum.channelnewsasia.com/forumdisplay.php?19-Market-Talk
What Singapore Insiders are Doing (set date range of 3-6 months) :
http://www.shareking.com/modules/Insider_Trade/index.php?company=&sy=2011&sm=09&sd=14&ey=2012&em=12&ed=16&insider=
http://www.sgx.com/wps/portal/sgxweb/home/company_disclosure/company_announcements
MALAYSIA NEWS
http://thestar.com.my/
http://malaysianshares.blogspot.com/
http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/reports_malaysia/
Malaysian Politics
http://www.youtube.com/user/mediarakyat (YouTube Online - Media Rakyat)
http://www.malaysia-today.net/
http://themalaysianinsider.com/
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/
GREATER CHINA NEWS
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/
http://www.cnanalyst.com/analystactions/
http://thechinaperspective.com/
China Stock Info Search
http://www.chinesestock.org/hklistd.asp?id=HKG:1207
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/09/03/100203550/index.htm?postversion=2007082805 (China's Top Companies as of 2007 by CNN)
HK Stock Info Search
http://www.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/advancedsearch/search_active_main.asp (HKSE)
http://hk.finance.yahoo.com/ (Yahoo Finance HK)
http://www.quamir.com/quamir/monthlyReturnsearchdetail.action?coId=876
http://www.aastocks.com/EN/Stock/CompanyFundamental.aspx?CFType=9&symbol=00214
RUSSIA NEWS
http://rt.com/on-air/
http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/news_russia/
http://eng.investfunds.ru/
http://www.news.az/articles/economy
http://www.russia-briefing.com/
http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/news_russia/
http://www.rustocks.com/index.phtml/Pressreleases/
http://russia-briefing.com/news/category/industry/oil-gas-petroleum/
http://www.gazprom.com/
Some useful links to search for INDIVIDUAL COMPANY share price history, financials, announcements & news
http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=h02.si
http://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXDJX:.DJI#
http://www.transnationale.org/countries/idns.php (Global Company Database - Very Good)
http://www.adrbnymellon.com/dr_industry_profile.jsp?industry=BNK (BONY ADR database)
How to Use the Links provided above:
1. Keep this link in your internet browser's favorite folder
2. Know What is Happening in the World (CURRENT AFFAIRS): Everyday watch online news channels anytime of day, and read text news from the various global and Singapore sources listed. When you are on the road, tune to news radio channels like the BBC World Service which gives good update on current affairs, history and developments in science etc.
3. Know What is Happening in World Economy (DAILY MARKET NEWS, ECONOMIC ANALYSES): Everyday visit some of the sites listed (over time you would know which site is your favourite)
4. Scan Titles for Big Picture: Scan titles of news or articles for new or interesting topics. Read the interesting ones. There are too many articles to read all everyday. Look out for 'Macro Economic Linkages' (how one event is related to other events elsewhere) http://cckplanetblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/macro-economic-linkages.html
5. Know More Details (KEY MARKET INDICATORS, COUNTRY specific news): Once a while, take a look at some key economic and market indicators (for big picture view) or go to country specific sections when you need more details from/about that country.
6. Company Details: Last section provide links to sites where you can get information about individual companies around the world like share price history, company financials, etc.
Caution:
1. Remember 'Elephant and Blindmen' - never believe what is said in any one article or source from a country, always check other sources from other parts of the world and think!
2. History is the key. News reports are just snapshots of what happened yesterday. Just like a 1 second snippet from a 2 hour movie, one cannot tell the true story by just looking at the snippet. 'Daily news' are of little value for people without 'big picture' and knowledge of history.
Notes:
1. Key Economic Indicators of US listed above are just indicators on state of US economy and is not applicable to the whole world! They are watched because the US is (was) the world largest consumer and buy things from all round the world. When their economy is not doing well, others who sell to them MAY suffer along. But that will not be the case in future when the US becomes less relevant to the world.
2. Each news source is like a different window to the world, each allows you to look at the outside at a different angle. It is your responsibility to put those different perspectives together to form the best picture.
3. Powerful people use the press to manipulate public opinions to their favour. That is why all governments want to control the newspapers in their countries by either directly owning them or issuing printing licenses to people who support them.
Quotes:
Those who don't read newspapers are under-informed, those who do are mis-informed - Mark Twain
Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one - AJ Liebling
Men who do not know history will forever be boys - Tacitus (Roman Historian)
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