Bonjour Planet Earth

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Hey Paypal, why do you need access to my microphone, camera and photos?

It’s easy to overlook app permissions. After all, you want something, and if there’s no tangible sacrifice attached to it, people don’t see the problem.

I do. I look after a few servers; security is something that’s always in or around my consciousness. The prime tenet of data security is to only give access to things that need it.

The Paypal app can, as it turns out, do a raft of things that include your peripheral hardware. Like magnetic stripe readers, scanning credit cards and OCRing cheques. I’ve still no idea why it needs SMS/MMS, calendar, location and app inspection access… So answers on a postcard.

That isn’t really the point. My first problem comes in that Paypal are normalising applications doing a permission land-grab at install time. Something that was installed to let me do lightweight management of my account (and get notifications) has mutated into this beast that wants permanent access to my physical life.

Now, you can probably trust Paypal; they’ve only been shown to be moderately evil in the past… But who is to say that will always be true. They could decide to monetise this access. Or they could get hacked. Or another app could manipulate it to escalate its own privileges. In any case the result is the same: it can track you, it can watch you, it can hear you and it can smuggle data off your phone without you ever realising. You’re installing the perfect tracking, wiretapping bug. Full story...

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Another Deutsche banker and former SEC enforcement attorney commits suicide...

Back on January 26, a 58-year-old former senior executive at German investment bank behemoth Deutsche Bank, William Broeksmit, was found dead after hanging himself at his London home, and with that, set off an unprecedented series of banker suicides throughout the year which included former Fed officials and numerous JPMorgan traders.

Following a brief late summer spell in which there was little if any news of bankers taking their lives, as reported previously, the banker suicides returned with a bang when none other than the hedge fund partner of infamous former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Khan, Thierry Leyne, a French-Israeli entrepreneur, was found dead after jumping off the 23rd floor of one of the Yoo towers, a prestigious residential complex in Tel Aviv.

Just a few brief hours later the WSJ reported that yet another Deutsche Bank veteran has committed suicide, and not just anyone but the bank's associate general counsel, 41 year old Calogero "Charlie" Gambino, who was found on the morning of Oct. 20, having also hung himself by the neck from a stairway banister, which according to the New York Police Department was the cause of death. We assume that any relationship to the famous Italian family carrying that last name is purely accidental. Full story...

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India’s space madness amid astronomical poverty...

In a macho violation of common sense and the needs of hundreds of millions of people living in crushing poverty, the ruling elite of India (that’s the government and multinational corporations who own the country) recently launched a satellite that “after a journey of 300 days and 420 million miles… arrived to orbit around Mars”. The USD74 million “Mars mission” is “cheap by American (or Chinese) standards”, the Economist says, but amounts to a fraction of a much more expensive – not to say insane – space programme that drains USD1 billion a year from the national budget. This “is more than spare change, even for a near USD2 trillion economy”.

The “Mars Madness”, or Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), to give it its official title, makes India one of four (the US, the EU and Russia being the other three) that have ventured to our closest cosmic neighbour, and constitutes a conspicuously extravagant part of what economist-activist Jean Dreze accurately describes as “the Indian elite’s delusional quest for superpower status”.

Competition and nationalism drive such escapades, not the quest for knowledge and understanding. The space race between the US and the Soviet Union, for example, “was not an affordable luxury undertaken for the sake of knowledge, but intrinsically tied to the military-industrial complex”, the Guardian rightly states. India’s primary competitor in all things economic is that other mammoth nation, China. The Chinese space programme is advanced (in 2012 it put a Chinese woman in space and last year launched its first un-crewed lunar mission), and therefore intensely intimidating to the Indian nationalists psyche. Full story...

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Italian town accused of 'apartheid' over separate bus for Roma...

A northern Italian town has been accused of introducing "apartheid" after its mayor put forward a proposal to run a separate bus line for Roma people.

The controversial initiative to operate a double bus line along a route used by Roma people to arrive at their large encampment in the town of Borgaro was proposed at a community meeting on Thursday by Democratic Party mayor Claudio Gambino. It came in response to ongoing abuse and theft on the now-infamous Bus 69.

"Two lines. One for us and one for them," Mr. Gambino said to applause, according to Italian media reports. "I will talk to the police commissioner about it. It seems to be the only solution. This way we will resolve the problem without anyone losing out."

Residents of Borgaro, a small suburb of 13,000 residents north of Turin have long complained of pickpocketing and abuse by Roma on Bus 69, known locally as "the gipsy bus," which runs along the ring road of Turin and stops near a camp near the airport where nearly 1,500 Roma live in makeshift barracks. Passengers have reported being spitted on and bullied physically, including one girl whose hair was cut. Full story...

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A Burmese maid's ordeal in Singapore...

35-year-old Thu Zar Myint looks small and diminutive in the hospital bed, dwarfed by the padded sling for her left shoulder and the casts on her legs. Her right arm is about the only thing she can move freely without much pain, but even that arm has a big bruise and a dressing on it.

Thu Zar Myint came to Singapore in August this year. Her friends, already working as domestic workers in the city-state, told her that it would be a good opportunity. She wasn’t aware that Myanmar had already imposed a ban on sending Burmese women to Singapore to work as domestic workers.

She thought of her teenage son. “He’s doing well in school, so I wanted to earn more money to give him a better education,” she said through a Burmese translator. Her husband earns a modest living as a motorcyclist carrying passengers in Yangon. Working in Singapore would give her boy a better chance of going to university.

She found a recruitment agent in Myanmar who would help her get to Singapore. She was trained in childcare, and told that she would earn S$464 (approx. USD364) a month working with a family with a seven-year-old child. She asked to be placed with a Chinese family – she had been taught to cook Chinese dishes, and had learnt a few words of Mandarin to help her communicate. Full story...

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Ebola: Quarantined US nurse says 'made to feel like a criminal'

An American nurse published a scathing account of her treatment after being put in isolation in the United States following a stint caring for Ebola patients in West Africa, saying she was made to feel like "a criminal."

Kaci Hickox was the first person to enter mandatory 21-day quarantine for medical staff returning to parts of the United States who may have had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, the epicenter of the outbreak that has killed nearly 5,000 people.

The new rules took effect in New York and New Jersey on Friday, the same day Hickox returned.

"This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me," Hickox wrote in The Dallas Morning News, saying she was showing no symptoms when she arrived back in the United States.

"I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa. I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine." Full story...

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Russian clocks go back for last time...

Russia will turn back its clocks for the last time on Sunday to permanently adopt winter hours.

It will also increase its time zones from nine to 11, from the Pacific to the borders of the European Union.

For the last three years, Russia experimented with keeping permanent summer time, but it proved to be highly unpopular with many Russians.

The Soviet Union introduced Daylight Saving Time in 1981.

In 2011, then President Dmitry Medvedev introduced measures to reduce Russia's time zones to nine, and to keep summer time all year round. Full story...

Saturday, October 25, 2014

How the govt’s shadow Internet kills yours...

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Sri Lanka revisited: The whitewashing of a war crime by corporate lobbyists...

The Sri Lankan government is hurriedly trying to boost the country’s image by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire corporate lobbyists as it awaits a UN report into alleged war crimes.

A report in the US says Sri Lanka has recently agreed a contract with its eighth lobbying firm this year to change the way the country is perceived internationally. It also wants the companies to improve contact between Sri Lankan officials and members of the US government.

Five years after the bloody and controversial end of a civil war that resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians, the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa says it is incorrectly portrayed in the West. It wants the lobbyists to reach out to “US media, opinion leaders and possibly US officials concerning issues of importance”.

The development comes as Sri Lanka is being investigated by a UN team into whether both the government and Tamil rebels committed war crimes during the final stages of the conflict that stretched in total over three decades. More than 100,000 people are believed to have been killed. Full story...

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Indian priest thrashes ‘untouchable’ boy, 8, who asked for sweets...

A Hindu priest attacked an eight-year-old boy from India's "untouchable" low caste and smashed his head into a stone pillar because he entered a temple to ask for sweets.

The boy, who was treated for serious head injuries, was playing outside the temple in Bangalore when he saw a priest distributing sweets as blessings and followed him into the temple to ask for one.

According to police, the priest became enraged when the boy followed him into the temple’s inner sanctum, where icons of its most revered deities are kept, and attacked him. He repeatedly smashed his head against a temple pillar, causing severe bleeding.

The priest has now been arrested for the assault but a campaign group for Dalit rights said the attack highlighted continuing caste violence in India. Full story...

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India’s Love Commandos – and the runaway couples they protect...

(...)

On first glance, it seems like a set of almost randomly sequenced images: couples relaxing, studio portraits, still lives, landscapes, lonely hearts newspaper ads, found images of posters and romantic inscriptions, and dramatic news stories.

But central to this rich visual narrative is a series of photographs of a four-man activist organisation called the Love Commandos. Based in Delhi, they operate on a shoestring from their small, cluttered office, manning a telephone helpline and website to provide advice and support – including safe rooms and shelters across India – for runaway couples who have fallen in love across the boundaries of caste or religion. The commandos have even sent out teams to rescue young people at risk of violence.

“The main function of the Love Commandos,” writes Hans Theys in his introduction to the book, “is to allow people to do this in safety and in accordance with the laws of India, and to prevent honour killings happening to the young couples.”

Though there is something romantic, even Bollywood-glamorous, about the idea of the Love Commandos, their work is dogged and dangerous. Pinckers punctuates the narrative with excerpts from their blog, often frantic or plaintive messages from people trapped by family or caste. A newspaper cutting found by Pinckers recounts how “Pooja Rani (24) and Shambau (26) ... were forced to elope to escape the ‘honour’ police hounding them for intending to marry outside their caste … Believing that dying is a better option than being chased by cops and kin, they were on the verge of committing suicide when the Love Commandos rescued them and gave them a place in one of their shelters.” Full story...

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Poland bans junk food in schools...

Polish lawmakers are literally changing the face of a nation, banning junk food in schools in an effort to reduce the increasing rates of child obesity. Starting next school year, children won’t find chips, soda or burgers anywhere near their schools.

Polish MPs took concrete steps in amending the law on food safety and nutrition on Thursday, with 426 voting in favor in the 460-seat lower house of parliament to impose a ban on junk food.

Introduced by the PSL Polish Peasants' Party, the ban aims to “prevent obesity and pre-obesity in children and teenagers” a government statement said.

Under the new measures to be administered from the start of the next new school year by the health ministry, only foodstuffs approved in a detailed list can be offered to children on school grounds nationwide.

So Polish youths say goodbye to potato chips, soda, burgers and candy, and say hello to a new beginning of healthy food consumption. Foods not released for sale in the schools will also not be advertised on campus or close to its vicinity. Those in charge of schools, are to hold consultation with the parents who will participate in drawing up a list of foodstuffs authorized for sale and consumption on school premises. Full story...

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Friday, October 24, 2014

News from Jaffna:A fearless Tamil journalist...

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The Guardian overtakes New York Times in comScore traffic figures...

The Guardian has passed the New York Times to become the world’s second most popular English-language newspaper website, according to the latest monthly traffic figures from comScore.

Last month theguardian.com website network recorded 42.6 million worldwide unique visitors, a 12.3% month-on-month increase, according to the latest comScore report on desktop web usage. The New York Times drew 41.6 million worldwide unique visitors, up 8% month on month.

The Guardian ranks 5th biggest in comScore’s newspaper category, behind the Daily Mail’s Mail Online, which drew 55.8 million worldwide unique users last month.

The top three slots are taken by Chinese newspaper websites: Xinhua News Agency (90.2 million uniques), People’s Daily Online (89.1 million) and China Daily Sites (56.4 million). Full story...

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Ebola: A crash course in fear and how it hurts us...

Ebola is giving Americans a crash course in fear.

Yet, they're incredibly less likely to get the disease than to get sick worrying about it.

First, the reality check: More Americans have married Kim Kardashian — three — than contracted Ebola in the U.S. The two Dallas nurses who came down with Ebola were infected while treating a Liberian man, who became infected in West Africa. The New York doctor who has tested positive for Ebola had been treating people in West Africa.

Still, schools have been closed, people shunned and members of Congress have demanded travel bans and other dramatic action — even though health officials keep stressing that the disease is only spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person, and the risk to Americans is extremely low.

That's because Ebola pushes every fear button in our instincts, making us react more emotionally than rationally, experts say.

"The worry that people are being subjected to as a result of the hysteria around this is probably doing more damage than the actual disease," said E. Alison Holman, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, who studied the health effects of populations worried after watching coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Boston Marathon bombing and Iraq war. "Frankly flu is more serious." Full story...

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The politicians are scaring you again...

They are doing it again. “They” are the war-party politicians, Democrats and Republicans. “It” is scaring you into supporting another war in the Middle East.

When will the American people learn? If in a republic the people are the ultimate check on government power, a gullible, easily frightened public is a disaster waiting to happen. Where is the derisive skepticism Americans are reputed to feel toward politicians? A high-ranking official and, say, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour need only say “Boogeyman!” and Americans line up for orders.

“Americans are increasingly concerned that ISIS represents a direct terror threat, fearful that ISIS agents are living in the United States, according to a new CNN/ORC International poll. Most now support military action against the terrorist group,” CNN reported in September. “Seven in 10 Americans believe ISIS has the resources to launch an attack against the United States.”

Administration officials leave the impression that the Islamic State (ISIS), which holds territory in Iraq and Syria, directly threatens Americans at home, although when pressed, these officials won’t say this outright. In interviews President Obama says there is no “immediate intelligence” concerning a threat, but he insists the U.S. military must strike ISIS now or else… Obama wants it both ways: to scare the people into supporting a new American war in Iraq and Syria, without creating a panic. “We will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people,” Obama said. Full story...

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Canada, at war for 13 years, shocked that ‘a terrorist attacked its soldiers..."

In Quebec on Monday, two Canadian soldiers were hit by a car driven by Martin Couture-Rouleau, a 25-year-old Canadian who, as The Globe and Mail reported, “converted to Islam recently and called himself Ahmad Rouleau.” One of the soldiers died, as did Couture-Rouleau when he was shot by police upon apprehension after allegedly brandishing a large knife. Police speculated that the incident was deliberate, alleging the driver waited for two hours before hitting the soldiers, one of whom was wearing a uniform. The incident took place in the parking lot of a shopping mall 30 miles southeast of Montreal, “a few kilometres from the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean, the military academy operated by the Department of National Defence.”

The right-wing Canadian government wasted no time in seizing on the incident to promote its fear-mongering agenda over terrorism, which includes pending legislation to vest its intelligence agency, CSIS, with more spying and secrecy powers in the name of fighting ISIS. A government spokesperson asserted “clear indications” that the driver “had become radicalized.”

In a “clearly prearranged exchange,” a conservative MP, during parliamentary question time, asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pictured above) whether this was considered a “terrorist attack”; in reply, the prime minister gravely opined that the incident was “obviously extremely troubling.” Canada’s Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney pronounced the incident “clearly linked to terrorist ideology,” while newspapers predictably followed suit, calling it a “suspected terrorist attack” and “homegrown terrorism.” CSIS spokesperson Tahera Mufti said “the event was the violent expression of an extremist ideology promoted by terrorist groups with global followings” and added: “That something like this would happen in a peaceable Canadian community like Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu shows the long reach of these ideologies.”

In sum, the national mood and discourse in Canada is virtually identical to what prevails in every Western country whenever an incident like this happens: shock and bewilderment that someone would want to bring violence to such a good and innocent country (“a peaceable Canadian community like Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu”), followed by claims that the incident shows how primitive and savage is the “terrorist ideology” of extremist Muslims, followed by rage and demand for still more actions of militarism and freedom-deprivation. There are two points worth making about this: Full story...

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‘They said I have Ebola’: Angry bus passengers attack Guinean woman in Rome...

A Guinean woman has been attacked in a bus in Rome by angry passengers who told her she was infected by Ebola and had to get off the bus, Italian media reports. She was taken to hospital suffering from multiple bruises.

Fataomata Sompare, 26, was about to get off the bus on Monday, said Il Messaggero, an Italian newspaper, as cited by the Local.

A teenage girl who was on the bus with her friends saw Sompare and began accusing her of having the deadly virus. Then some of the teen’s relatives started beating the woman.

“They told me that I had Ebola and that I had to get off the bus,” said Sompare, who has been living in Italy for four years.

People at a bus stop near Grotte Celoni Metro station in the east of the city managed to save the woman, who suffered multiple bruises after being beaten by passengers. The police arrived and she was taken to hospital. Full story...

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Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Happy Deepavali 2014

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Switzerland and Singapore regarded as 'best place for expats'

Switzerland is the world's favourite destination among expats, followed by Singapore and China, a poll on quality of life for bank HSBC found on Wednesday.

"Many Switzerland-based expats mentioned the better work-life balance, availability of outdoor activities and the family-centric culture as the reasons they enjoy the Swiss lifestyle," the British bank said.

The poll questioned 9,300 people working in various sectors and mostly aged between 35 and 54.

They were asked about their financial situation, such as salary, savings and the local economy, as well as their quality of life and family issues such as education opportunities for children.

Switzerland emerged the winner, with a trusted economy, good quality of life and comfortable salaries: a quarter of expats said they earned more than $200,000 (157,000 euros) a year. Full story...

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Man loses mind after 5 year sex ban...

A man from Bulawayo claims he lost his mind after his wife banned him from sex for five years.

Roberto Moyo approached the court yesterday seeking a protection order against his wife Leandy Moyo, who conceded that she denied the man his conjugal rights claiming he was cheating on her.

"She is emotionally and psychologically abusing me," said Moyo."I'm always stressed and under medication. I was taken to hospital as a mentally disturbed patient and my doctor said I must do away with her.

"Leandy told magistrate Marylene Mutshina that her husband cheated on her and sometimes goes for a week without sleeping at home."He also stopped giving me money and paying fees for his children. When our children asked him for money he would shout at them as if he wasn't their father.

I started doing a man's role, doing piece jobs to raise money for my children's school fees."The Civil Court has ordered the couple to go for counselling before it delivers judgment in a matter. Source...

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Hungary looks to levy big tax on internet use...

Hungary is planning to start taxing internet use by the amount of data individuals downloaded as part of an effort to increase government revenues – and the controversial idea has already sparked outrage online and calls for protest.

If the proposal passes as part of the 2015 tax bill, Hungarians would be charged 150 forints for each gigabyte of data they start to download. That’s roughly 62 cents per gigabyte, meaning that residents could expect to pay a substantial amount of extra money every month. Downloading between 50 to 100 gigabytes of data would cost $30 - $60 in taxes on top of whatever people are already paying for monthly service – since the service providers are expected to try and pass the burden on to users.

What’s more, there is apparently no cap limiting the amount that customers would have to pay out. How this tax will affect businesses that rely on the internet is also unclear.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Margit Feher called the proposal “the latest in a series of extraordinary taxes” that have been implemented since the Fidesz party came into power in 2010. Full story...

Indian government’s gift to tourists: E-visa scheme likely to be launched by month-end...

Government's gift to tourists — electronic visa — is likely to be launched by October-end. There are about 30 countries including the US, Japan and South Korea where the facility will be extended first while Germany, Israel and Russia are under consideration.

Sources said countries already being given visa-on-arrival including New Zealand, Luxembourg, Finland and Singapore besides Japan, South Korea and the US will be able to apply for electronic travel authorization (ETA) or e-visa. There are at least a couple of countries from the African continent that are also in consideration. Sources said Germany, Israel and Russia were also being actively considered.

Once implemented, ETA will allow foreign travelers to apply for a visa and receive an online confirmation within three to five working days. ETA will be available for a 30-day period from the date of the tourist's arrival in India. The government plans to establish a separate website to extend the facility to foreigners intending to visit India as tourists. To get the visa, they would need to apply through the designated website along with the required fees.

The e-visa scheme received PMO nod in June and is expected to be implemented in time for the country's tourist season. Full story...

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'I am a Liberian, not a virus': West Africans hit back against Ebola stigma...

“You’re from Liberia, so you have a disease”. When Shoana Solomon’s nine-year-old daughter came home from her American school and told her mother what her classmates were saying, Solomon knew there was trouble ahead.

Solomon, a photographer and TV presenter, moved her daughter to the US from a school in Liberia’s capital Monrovia in September. Despite coming from an Ebola zone, she says she was not subjected to any particular scrutiny upon arrival on American soil.

But as fear about Ebola mounts, Liberians in the US are increasingly finding themselves in a difficult position. With stigma and paranoia on the rise, Solomon has launched a campaign aimed at encouraging others to treat Liberians normally.

“The day after that happened to my daughter, I made a Facebook post,” Solomon told the Guardian. “I said, oh my goodness, my daughter’s being stigmatised. I said: Get ready.” Full story...

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Apple issues new iCloud security warning amid fears over Chinese hacking...

Apple has posted a new security warning for users of its iCloud online storage service amid reports of a determined effort to steal passwords and other data from people who use the service in China.

"We're aware of intermittent organised network attacks using insecure certificates to obtain user information and we take this very seriously," the computer-maker said on its support website. The post said Apple's own servers were not compromised.

Apple's post did not mention China or provide any details on the attacks. But several news reports that some Chinese internet users have begun seeing warnings that indicate they had been diverted to an unauthorised website when they attempted to sign into their iCloud accounts.

That kind of diversion, known to computer security experts as a "man in the middle" attack, could allow a third party to copy and steal the passwords that users enter when they think they are signing into Apple's service. Hackers could then use the passwords to collect other data from the users' accounts. Full story...

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Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Nobody wants to host the 2022 Olympics — and one example from a college professor tells you why...

The bidding process for the 2022 Olympics was a disaster for the International Olympic Committee.

Democratic nations are no longer buying the argument that hosting the games is a wise investment. Every potential 2022 host city with a democratic government eventually pulled out of the bidding, many over economic concerns, leaving Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, as the IOC's only two options.

Academics have been saying for years that hosting the Olympics doesn't make economic sense. The costs are typically larger than expected, the infrastructure needed for a big sporting event isn't the same as the infrastructure needed for daily life, and the economic benefits are typically overstated.

The latter point was addressed by Holy Cross professor Victor Matheson in a 2004 paper called "Economic Multipliers and Mega-Event Analysis."

The paper examines a major problem with pre-event economic-impact studies, which Matheson says have a tendency to overestimate how much a one-time attraction like the Olympics will contribute to the local economy. Full story...

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Vote all you want, the secret government won’t change...

The voters who put Barack Obama in office expected some big changes. From the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to Guantanamo Bay to the Patriot Act, candidate Obama was a defender of civil liberties and privacy, promising a dramatically different approach from his predecessor.

But six years into his administration, the Obama version of national security looks almost indistinguishable from the one he inherited. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The NSA has, if anything, become more aggressive in monitoring Americans. Drone strikes have escalated. Most recently it was reported that the same president who won a Nobel Prize in part for promoting nuclear disarmament is spending up to $1 trillion modernizing and revitalizing America’s nuclear weapons.

Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same? Critics tend to focus on Obama himself, a leader who perhaps has shifted with politics to take a harder line. But Tufts University political scientist Michael J. Glennon has a more pessimistic answer: Obama couldn’t have changed policies much even if he tried.

Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy. Full story...

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Lessons from Singapore...

When British ministers scour the world for policy ideas, one country is most often singled out for praise and emulation: Singapore. In the mid-Nineties, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown travelled there seeking guidance on how to reform the welfare state, and came back promising a “stakeholder society”. Unfortunately, they turned out to have learnt little apart from some new phrases: the radical overhaul of benefits that they promised after studying Singapore’s social insurance model failed to materialise. More recently, education ministers have looked to the south Asian city-state for inspiration when it comes to raising exam performance. There, 15‑year-olds are 10 months ahead of those in the UK in English and 20 months ahead in maths. There are lessons for the monolithic NHS, too: Singapore’s system of personal health accounts produces better outcomes than ours for half the price.

Next year Singapore celebrates 50 years of independence, and today its president, Tony Tan Keng Yam, becomes the republic’s first leader to pay a state visit to the UK. He represents a country of just over five million people that is nothing short of a phenomenon – one viewed in the West with a mixture of awe, envy and a certain amount of suspicion. How is it possible to have such centralised direction, while retaining the liberties needed for a free market to flourish? The answer is that Singapore seems to be run less like a state and more like a corporation, one aware of the vulnerability its small size brings and able to adapt to changing circumstances.

Whatever its democratic deficiencies, Singapore’s model has – with no resources and limited land – produced a small state, efficient public services, a competitive economy and high per capita income. There must be something we can learn from that. Source...

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First paedophile jailed over webcam sex with fake 10-year-old child Sweetie...

A registered sex offender is believed to be the first to be jailed after being caught performing sex acts in front of a fake child in an undercover sting online.

Sweetie was a computer generated 10-year-old Filipina girl used by charity workers to catch more than 1,000 sexual predators around the world last year.

Of those, 110 men were British and were sent to the UK National Crime Agency (NCA). Nobody has been arrested or charged yet.

Scott Robert Hansen, from Australia, pleaded guilty to three charges in Brisbane District Court including sending obscene images to Sweetie, having images of sexual abuse on his computer and not complying with the terms of him being on the sex offenders’ register. Full story...

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iPhone 6 'caught fire and burnt man's leg' after bending in his pocket...

An iPhone 6 "caught on fire" and burnt through its owner's jeans, it has been claimed.

According to an account on his blog, Phillip Lechter was visiting the University of Arizona when a rickshaw he was travelling on with his wife and seven-year-old son crashed.

The cart was rocked by the smash, bending Mr Lechter’s Apple phone – worth more than £500 – as he was thrown to the side of the vehicle.

He wrote: "I felt a burning sensation on my leg and then saw and smelled smoke from my pants.

"I surveyed the rickshaw quickly and could not find anything that could have set me on fire. Full story...

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UN slams Spain over assault on migrant...

The UN High Commission for Refugees is concerned that the human rights of those struggling to enter Spain by crossing high fences around the country’s North African enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta are not being respected.

The spokeswoman in Spain for the UN High Commission for Refugees said she was "worried" by video footage of an attempt by a number of sub-Saharan Africans to scale the fence complex and enter Melilla from Morocco on October 15th which shows one migrant being beaten by border guards before being carried, apparently unconscious, back to the Moroccan side.

"Whatever their reasons for trying to enter, these people must be respected and these images show that some parties are not acting as they should... There are people beating those who are on the fence," Maria Jesus Vega told the AFP news agency.

UNHCR fears that Spanish police are denying "asylum procedures to people in need of international protection, who come to Spain's southern border fleeing war and persecution", Vega's office said in a statement on Friday.

It urged Spain to take all "necessary measures to prevent this kind of situation from occurring again at Spain's borders". Full story...

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Paris opera ejects woman in Muslim veil after cast refuses to sing...

A woman in niqab, a traditional Muslim veil, was asked to leave the opera in Paris after the cast said they wouldn’t perform if a solution wasn’t found. She had to leave the auditorium, because wearing a veil covering the whole face is banned in France.

The incident happened during the performance of La Traviata at Opera Bastille in Paris on October 3, Jean-Philippe Thiellay the opera house’s deputy director, told AFP.

The fuss blew on Sunday, October 19, in French media.

The woman and her companion, tourists from one of the Gulf States, were sitting just behind the conductor and were visible to monitors. Their seats were reportedly the most expensive in the opera, costing 231 euros ($294) each.

The woman was wearing a niqab, a veil that covers her face and hair. It only leaves the eyes and part of the forehead visible. Full story...

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Monday, October 20, 2014

British aid money is being used to line the pockets of corrupt foreign politicians, warns former Pakistani cricket star Imran Khan...

British aid money is being used to line the pockets of wealthy Pakistanis with links to the country's corrupt regime, minsters have been warned.

Former cricket star Imran Khan said Pakistani politicians were syphoning off cash from the multi-million pound budget handed over by the Department for International Development.

Mr Khan, head of Pakistan's Tehreek-e-Insaf opposition party, said the cash was going to those who did not need it and 'never reaches' deserving people.

The remaks, to the Sun on Sunday newspaper, come after a report revealed aid spending had done nothing to help the economic and political freedoms of people in the countries which get the cash.

It examined the progress of 28 countries which have had a share of the aid financed by British taxpayers and found that the money 'does not have any discernible impact on freedom in developing countries'.

The report produced by the TaxPayers' Alliance found that twice as many countries lost freedoms after receiving British aid than improved the political and human rights conditions for their citizens. Full story...

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‘CIA should be probed for Ebola’s origin in Zaire’

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa might be a resurfacing of Zaire’s Ebola infection spread, where the US Central Intelligence Agency was suspected to be involved with, an American investigative journalist says.

“When you look at the original outbreak of the Ebola in 1976 in Zaire,” Wayne Madsen told Press TV.

“We see a year when the US was violating a Senate law that forbid the US from engaging in the Angolan Civil War and we saw Zaire being used as a bait for the CIA and then we saw the outbreak of Ebola in Zaire. The same year that George H. W. Bush was the director of the CIA.”

“In 1980 we saw the outbreak of HIV in Zaire and Angola where the CIA was operating,” he said on Monday.

“I think what we need to see is an investigation of how intense the CIA biological warfare program was in Zaire and Angola between 1976 and 1980, and what has hit in Sierra Leon and other countries is the Zaire strain of Ebola,” he said. Full story...

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Norway passes bill on mandatory military service for women...

The Norwegian parliament has voted in a strong majority on a bill aimed at extending mandatory military service to females. If the legislation is approved, all women in the country will be subject to the same conscription conditions as men.

The proposition, which was first announced in June 2013, was passed in Oslo this week, with 96 parliamentarians voting in favor of gender equality in the army. Only six voted against it.

"We do not really need more conscripts but we wish to extend military service to the entire age group to attract more motivated and more competent recruits," Norwegian Minister of Defense Ine Eriksen Soreide said.

If the bill is enacted, all medically fit women between 19 and 44 years old will have to serve at least 19 months of mandatory duty in the armed forces. It will apply to women born in Norway from 1997 onwards, with the first service in the summer of 2016. Women will also be subject to conscription during wartime. Full story...

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Saving Alaska children from suicide in a tiny town...

The 4-H club in this Yukon River village began out of desperation. It was maybe four years ago when Cynthia Erickson, who owns the local store, found herself one night in the sanctuary of the Catholic Church with the body of a sweet 20-something village youth. He had shot himself in the face. She cleaned him up the best she could, she said, and then she went outside to throw up.

There were so many suicides leading up to that one. Six she could think of right away in Tanana and neighboring villages on the river: five men and one young girl. Alaska Native men have the highest suicide rate in the country. Her brother-in-law was on her list. He hanged himself, leaving five children.

There are dozens of theories about why suicide is so common in Alaskan villages. And there are as many programs and committees meant to address it. Maybe it’s lack of connection to traditional culture, people say. Or seasonal affective disorder. Or generational trauma. Or lack of opportunity. Or lack of purpose that comes with living on food stamps. Or the ready availability of firearms. Or brain damage caused by fetal exposure to alcohol.

After that night in the church, Erickson just wanted to heal it, she said, or at least heal what she could. While 4-H clubs are often associated with farm kids — Tanana has no agriculture to speak of — she opened a chapter as a way to keep the kids close. The 4-H slogan “Helping hands, healing hearts” always appealed to her, she said. She put up a sign and opened her house to children soon after that. They did beading, made jam, skipped rocks and sewed kuspuks, traditional overshirts worn by Alaskan Natives. Soon they began talking about problems at home. Full story...

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Lynching of boy underlines how the curse of caste still blights India...

In another time, another place, Sai Ram might have escaped serious harm. But he died in great pain last week, a casualty of a bitter, barely reported conflict that still claims many lives every year.

Ram, 15, was a goatherd in a village in the poor eastern Indian state of Bihar. He was a Dalit, from the lowest rung of the caste hierarchy that still defines the lives, and sometimes the deaths, of millions of people in the emerging economic power.

His alleged killer, currently being held by local police, is from a higher landowning caste. He took offence when one of the teenager’s goats strayed on to his paddy field and grazed on his crops. Ram was overpowered by the landowner and a group of other men. He was badly beaten.

Then petrol was poured over him and lit, Ram’s father, Jiut Ram, said. “He was crying for help, then went silent,” the 50-year-old daily wage labourer told the Guardian.

The incident took place at Mohanpur village, about 125 miles (200km) south-west of Bihar’s capital, Patna, in an area known for caste tensions. It was the latest in a series of violent incidents that have once again highlighted the problems and discrimination linked to caste, particularly in lawless and impoverished rural areas. Full story...

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Sunday, October 19, 2014

Controversial exhibit of religious Barbie dolls cancelled due to death threats...

For a plastic doll, Barbie can be polarizing. Emiliano Paolini and Marianela Perelli discovered this recently when their exhibit “Barbie: The Plastic Religion” at POPA gallery in Buenos Aires was cancelled. “Given repeated anonymous threats concerning the event, the artists decided not to exhibit his work, fearing for the physical safety of visitors,” a notice on the gallery’s website announced.

The 33 pieces in the controversial collection are each one-of-a-kind, and they include Barbie dolls as the Virgin Mary; Joan of Arc; Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction; and the Virgin of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico. Ken becomes Christ on the cross, Buddha, Moses, St. Sebastian and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The sculptures represent figures from Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Argentine folk religion. The Muslim prophet Muhammad is not included in the series—the artists told Reuters that since Islam prohibits the creation of his image they omitted him out of respect.

Questions of taste and faith have been raised by Argentine Catholic Priests, Italian Bishops, and Hindu Clerics, much to the surprise of the artists. “We have a sanctuary in the kitchen that has more saints than the Vatican,” Paolini told the Associated Press. Some have accused the artists of grandstanding—disrespecting religion in order to gain notoriety. They disagree.

“The true message of our work was mutilated by magazines and television. That’s a shame. The media is killing our art.”

The sculpted dolls are additional portrayals in the canon of religious iconography, weighted down with the 55-year legacy of a plastic girl and her boyfriend. Source + photos...

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