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Sunday, June 30, 2013
In South Africa, Obama pays tribute to ill Mandela
U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks and takes questions at a town hall meeting with young African leaders at the University of Johannesburg Soweto campus in South Africa, Saturday June 29, 2013.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks and takes questions at a town hall meeting with young African leaders at the University of Johannesburg Soweto campus in South Africa, Saturday June 29, 2013.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
U.S. President Barack Obama, left, talks with South African President Jacob Zuma at the Union Building on Saturday, June 29, 2013, in Pretoria, South Africa. The visit comes at a poignant time, with former South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela ailing in a Johannesburg hospital. The White House issued a statement Saturday that President Barack Obama plans to visit privately with relatives of former South African President Nelson Mandela, but doesn't intend to see the critically ill anti-apartheid activist he has called a "personal hero." (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
U.S. President Barack Obama, center left, flanked by First Lady Michelle Obama, left, waves with South African President Jacob Zuma and his wife Tobeka Madiba-Zuma on the steps of Union Building in Pretoria, South Africa, Saturday, June 29, 2013.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
U.S. Secret Service agents stand guard outside the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory as U.S. President Barack Obama visits the family of the former South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela on Saturday, June 29, 2013, in Johannesburg, South Africa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
A wellwisher takes a photograph with their smartphone of a painting of President Barack Obama that sits amongst get-well messages and images of former South African President Nelson Mandela outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where Nelson Mandela is being treated in Pretoria, South Africa Saturday, June 29, 2013. President Barack Obama encouraged leaders in Africa and around the world Saturday to follow former South African President Nelson Mandela's example of country before self, as the U.S. president prepared to pay personal respects to relatives who have been gathered around the critically ill anti-apartheid icon. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? Paying tribute to his personal hero, President Barack Obama met privately Saturday with Nelson Mandela's family as the world anxiously awaited news on the condition of the ailing 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader.
Obama, who has spoken movingly about Mandela throughout his trip to Africa, praised the former South African president's "moral courage" during remarks from the grand Union Buildings where Mandela was inaugurated as his nation's first black president.
Obama also called on the continent's leaders, including in neighboring Zimbabwe, to take stock of Mandela's willingness to put country before self and step down after one term despite his immense popularity.
"We as leaders occupy these spaces temporarily and we don't get so deluded that we think the fate of our country doesn't depend on how long we stay in office," Obama said during a news conference with South African President Jacob Zuma.
Obama's stop in South Africa marked the midway point of a weeklong trip to Africa, his most significant engagement with the continent since taking office in 2009.
His lack of personal attention on the region has frustrated some Africans who had high expectations for the first black American president and son of a Kenyan man.
Even with Mandela's health casting a shadow over his visit, Obama tried to keep focus on an agenda that includes deeper U.S. economic ties with Africa. The president dismissed suggestions that he was only investing personal capital on Africa's economy now as a response to the increased focus on the continent by China, India, Brazil and others.
"I want everybody playing in Africa," Obama said. "The more, the merrier."
But the president pointedly called on Africans to make sure that countries seeking an economic foothold on the continent are making a "good deal for Africa."
"If somebody says they want to come build something here, are they hiring African workers?" Obama said. "If somebody says that they want to help you develop your natural resources, how much of the money is staying in Africa? If they say that they're very interested in a certain industry, is the manufacturing and value-added done in Africa? "
Obama did not specifically mention China, but some African leaders have criticized Beijing for such behaviors.
Obama's focus on trade and business appeared to be well received in Africa, home to six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies. The majority of the questions he received from the South African press and later at a town hall meeting with young African leaders focused on U.S. economic interests in the region.
Between his two events, Obama spent 30 minutes meeting privately with two of Mandela's daughters and several of his grandchildren at the former leader's foundation offices in Johannesburg. He also spoke by phone with Mandela's wife, Gra?a Machel, who remained by her husband's side at the Pretoria hospital where he has battled a lung infection for three weeks.
In a statement following the call, Machel said she drew strength from the Obama and his "touch of personal warmth."
Obama, who has met Mandela in person only once before, did not visit the former leader in the hospital out of respect for his family's wishes, the White House said. Ahead of his arrival in South Africa, the president had told reporters that he did not need "a photo-op" and didn't want to be obtrusive.
Obama ascent to the White House has drawn inevitable comparisons to Mandela. Both are their nations' first black presidents, symbols of racial barrier breaking and winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Zuma said Obama and Mandela "both carry the dreams of millions of people in Africa and in the diaspora who were previously oppressed." Zuma said Mandela's condition remained the same as it had in recent days ? critical yet stable ? though he expressed hope that Mandela soon would leave the hospital.
Later Saturday, Obama held a town hall with young people in Soweto, an area of Johannesburg that was the center of the youth-driven movement to fight against South Africa's apartheid government. At least 176 young people were killed there 27 years ago this month during a youth protest against the white government's ban against teaching local Bantu languages. The Soweto Uprising catalyzed international support against apartheid, and June is now recognized as Youth Month in South Africa.
Outside the event, protesters under police watch demonstrated outside the university against Obama's record on surveillance and foreign policy. Protesters from a range of trade unions and civil society groups chanted, "Away with intelligence, away," holding posters depicting Obama with an Adolf Hitler moustache.
In Africa, where some governments struggle with corruption, Obama has made it a priority to promote civic activism among young people and invest in their development. He hosted young leaders from more than 40 African countries at the White House in 2010 and announced plans during the event to expand the program.
About 600 youth leaders from South Africa attended the town hall, with other young people participating via video conference from Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya, Obama's ancestral homeland.
Kenya's current political environment made it impossible for Obama to visit the country where many of his relatives live. The International Criminal Court is prosecuting Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta for crimes against humanity, including murder, deportation, rape, persecution and inhumane acts allegedly committed by his supporters in the aftermath of Kenya's 2007 elections.
"The timing was not right for me as the president of the United States to be visiting Kenya when those issues are still being worked on, and hopefully at some point resolved," said Obama, though he added that he planned to make many more trips to the East African nation.
The president planned to stop in Cape Town on Sunday and visit Robben Island, the prison where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in jail. Obama will close his trip with a visit to Tanzania.
___
Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler and AP Video Journalist Bram Janssen contributed to this report.
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Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
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Women are learning how to stand up to danger; see an expert in ...
Originally published June 28, 2013 at 12:00 PM | Page modified June 28, 2013 at 2:37 PM
WE'VE ALL been there.
The dark parking lot at night. Keys poking from a fist as we walk briskly ? maybe even run ? to our car, chased in our minds by the strange man we've conjured.
Or the noise in the apartment that catches our breath as we imagine an intruder making his way to our bedroom.
The metallic taste. The wave of dread. The pounding in our chests.
We've all been there. Many of us are stuck there, our lives made small by an endless narrative of imagined horrors that will most likely never happen to us.
We read about brutal crimes against women ? rapes, murders, attacks ? and they become part of us, a low-grade infection that is so pervasive and persistent that it starts to feel normal.
We alter our routines. Stay home at night. Obsess about the locks. Put off the trip we've dreamed of.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
"As women, we're conditioned to be afraid," says Py Bateman, a former karate instructor who developed one of the nation's original self-defense-training classes for women, first through Seattle's Feminist Karate Union, which she founded, and later through Alternatives to Fear.
"A good way to look at fear is you take the precautions that make sense ? the precautions that don't limit your life," she says. "If you feel confident that you could do something if somebody got through those precautions, you can relax and live your life."
Bateman knows of what she speaks. In 1984, when she was 37 years old, she famously fought off a knife-wielding attacker who tried to cut her throat inside her Madison Park home. She fought him for more than 30 minutes, trying one thing after another until he was scared off by the arrival of her friend.
Remarkably, the only scars Bateman seems to bear today from the attack are physical ones, including the thin white line on the pad of her left thumb where the knife landed when she put her hand to her throat to protect it.
Bateman says she knew her attacker wanted to kill her. But she'd imagined such an attack ? and always pictured herself victorious.
"It was an interesting experience," she says calmly over a late breakfast at her favorite North Seattle restaurant. "I still live in that house."
AT FIRST GLANCE, Bateman seems an unlikely pioneer for women's self-defense. At age 66 and standing all of 5 feet 2, she grew up at a time when conventional wisdom held that women who fought back against their attackers would only get hurt worse.
Bateman became active in feminist politics while attending the University of Washington and took up karate when she was 22, quickly earning a black belt. At a friend's suggestion, she developed a women's self-defense course in 1971, when there were only one or two other programs in the country. The women's movement was in full swing by then, rape was becoming talked about more openly, and women were increasingly participating in sports, including martial arts.
But it was Ted Bundy, the serial killer who preyed on young women in Washington and Oregon in the 1970s, who gave the movement momentum, Bateman says.
"After Ted Bundy, I was swamped with women wanting self-defense training and karate training." Soon she was teaching 17 classes a week. "What was really important about Ted Bundy is that he would abandon a potential victim if she just said no."
Researchers in the 1980s became interested in the subject of self-defense, enabling Bateman to teach techniques that were proven to work.
Interest in women's self-defense intensified in 1993 when Seattle punk-rock singer Mia Zapata was raped, beaten and killed, and again in 2009 after a mentally ill man with a knife climbed through a window of a house in South Park and raped and slashed the two women living there, killing Teresa Butz. In response to the South Park attacks, singer Brandi Carlile created the Fight the Fear Campaign, financed through her Looking Out Foundation, to extend the reach of self-defense training.
Now, all sorts of classes are taught all over the city. The best ones train women to avoid and react to violence, replacing ceaseless fear with skills, and a deep awareness of what's around them.
Bateman knows that most attacks are usually preceded by a predictable dance in which boundaries are tested. Recognize the warning signs and you have an opportunity to shut things down before there's a need to get physical or resort to a weapon.
She and other instructors are quick to note that many women survive attacks with no training at all. And not every woman is afraid. Some women come to their confidence organically and use it to hone their awareness of their surroundings. They walk confidently, look people in the eye and stick up for themselves.
As it happens, all of that can be taught, and the horror fantasies re-imagined.
In his book, "The Gift of Fear," Gavin de Becker describes real fear as a brief signal, "a mere servant of intuition."
"If one feels fear of all people all the time, there is no signal reserved for the times when it's really needed," he writes. "When you honor accurate intuitive signals you need not be wary, for you will come to trust that you'll be notified if there is something worthy of your attention."
FOR MOST women, self-defense can start with simply finding the right words.
"You're too close. Go away."
Those are the words that Melinda Johnson, head instructor at Seattle Kajukenbo, suggests using if someone makes you uncomfortable, say, by sitting too close on a bus.
"Go away." Clean. Simple.
If that strikes you as rude, well, now we're getting to the interesting part.
Johnson, who holds a fifth-degree black belt in kajukenbo and a black belt in aikido, says women need to risk offending to stay safe.
And they need to be able to roll with the anger that might accompany a rebuff. Decent men might be embarrassed, but they'd leave you alone upon hearing the word "no." Guys to be wary of don't hear "no," and if they do, they don't like it.
Those of us who have a hard time saying no might as well strap a target on our backs.
Most attackers will start with the violation of a boundary: standing too close, or insisting on helping after you've said no.
"If they proceed, they're making it clear that they're not going to respect your wishes," she says. "Trust your instinct."
But first you have to think you're worth protecting.
Johnson is gearing up to offer free self-defense classes this fall through Fight the Fear. Executive director of the organization, she taught two rounds of classes to vulnerable and underserved populations after the South Park attacks. This year, the classes will be offered to all women.
The classes, she says, "give everyone the chance to have the epiphany that says, 'I can defend myself. I can be strong. I do have choices.' "
JOANNE FACTOR had her epiphany after starting karate in 1992 at the Feminist Karate Union in Seattle's International District.
Mastering something difficult infused Factor with greater confidence.
At 54, she has a black belt and exudes a calm energy that belies her fierceness. When she stands up, it's a bit of a shock to see that she's barely 5 feet tall.
In the early days, many of the women taking self-defense had been attacked in some way. But clients who take classes through Factor's company, Strategic Living, are mostly women interested in learning to protect themselves before going off to college or to travel. Others just want to move more freely around their city.
For those women, self-defense goes beyond owning a weapon to deal with lethal threats. They want tools that address the majority of issues women deal with.
Learning how to recognize when someone is viewing them as a target, and how certain actions or inactions can make it more likely that they'll be targeted creates a mindset that gives permission to be direct and say "no" without apology.
Like the student who was picking out peaches at the market when a man crowded up behind her. The student put her hands on her hips and turned, striking the man in the ribs before saying in a loud voice, "Oh, you're so close."
The man moved along without comment, Factor says, and the student watched him do the same thing to two other women.
"You don't have to be sorry and make yourself small for a jackass," Factor says.
WENDY DAVID, 58, became interested in self-defense when she was stalked as a teenager. She's blind, and the stalker would walk up to her in a school corridor or locker room, put his arm around her and fondle her. Once, on a deserted sidewalk, he tried to steer her into his car.
"Any time I would hear someone walk toward me, I'd have this terrible fear reaction," she says. "I started feeling afraid to go out. I was angry because I was very independent and wanted to go."
David moved out of town, and looked for a self-defense class that would be useful to her.
In 1994, she teamed up with colleagues at the Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta, who noticed that clients with visual impairments were living restricted lives even though they had access to transportation. Turns out the issue wasn't mobility. It was vulnerability.
The team published the techniques as a book, "Safe Without Sight," in 1998, and about 400 blind people have since been trained under the program, David says.
Because so much of women's fears involve things happening in the dark, the techniques translated for sighted women as well, she says.
In 2003, David started working with colleagues Ann Cotton and Tracy Simpson on Taking Charge, self-defense for women veterans at the Women's Trauma and Recovery Center. The center is based at the VA Puget Sound in Seattle, where David, a clinical associate professor at the UW, is a staff psychologist.
Women "want to be liked, we want to be nice and not hurt people," David says. Combine that with military obedience, where soldiers are drilled on respecting the chain of command, even when the superior may be the abuser, and you end up with a lot of victims.
Their traumas become movies that play over and over in their minds, she says, and the women often become reclusive.
Over 12 weeks, the women are taught to stick up for themselves. When someone cuts in line, they learn to say, "Excuse me. You're out of line. Would you mind stepping back?" They practice saying "no" in the mirror. When they're ready, they work up to exercises where they are grabbed, touched and called names.
David gives the women a chance to rescript their trauma, and re-enact it with the outcome they would want. The new scripts are videotaped for the women to watch. The new movie replaces the old.
"I get letters from women saying the class has changed their lives. One woman couldn't go to her mailbox. She called on the last day of class saying she wouldn't be in class because she was driving to Las Vegas to see her son."
"People realize they have power. They can be safe. They can take care of themselves."
JENNIFER HOPPER is on the phone ? happy to talk, she says, grateful that people were helped by starting a self-defense program to honor Teresa Butz, her partner who was murdered in the South Park assaults. The attacker cut Hopper's throat, too, and probably would have killed her had Butz not managed to throw a bedside table through a window, giving Hopper a chance to run out the door.
Weeks later, "a lot of people wanted to help. I knew everyone was scared, and I wanted everyone else to be OK," she says. Soon, Fight the Fear was up and running.
But Hopper isn't ready to go there. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
The brutality of the attacks took its toll, she says. For 18 months, she didn't feel strong enough to exercise or consciously close her eyes to sleep.
"Being physical in any way, shape or form that resembles a fight ? I couldn't fathom it," she says. "I don't believe that any modicum of self-defense could have changed that night."
Hopper says she's learning to look at things differently. She talks herself down when panic takes over. Has begun thinking of her attacker as a troubled person. Has learned to sleep soundly.
"Learning how to deal with my thoughts is the key to the castle," she says. "I'm doing what's best for me so I can have the best life."
She lives with her mother now in a condominium high above the street and hopes some day she will be able to help other victims.
There's no bitterness in her voice. Just hope that a joyful life awaits her.
Like Bateman's before her, Hopper's story offers an important, inspiring lesson: She survived the worst thing any of us could imagine. All those parking-lot journeys. The bumps in the night. All tentacles attached to the same nightmare: the rapist, standing over your bed with a knife.
Yet here she is, talking on the phone, moving forward, going out with friends, and crying when she needs to.
It's amazing what we can survive.
Susan Kelleher is a Pacific NW staff writer. Erika Schultz is a Seattle Times staff photographer.
Source: http://seattletimes.com/html/pacificnw/2021217854_pacificpmartialarts30.html?syndication=rss
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
CWC: Andrew Cartwright (a.k.a. Decibel X)
Name: Andrew Cartwright (a.k.a. Decibel X)
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Species: (optional) Human (Mutant)
Place of Origin: As Andrew Cartwright he was born in Jackson Mississippi. Decibel X was born in Iraq.
Physical Description: (this may NOT include photographs, illustrations or anything of the sort)
Andrew in no way looks like he could be 'superhero'. At 5'10 and 160 lbs, with brown hair and eyes, he is easy to miss in a crowd. In general he wears jeans and tees, and a sturdy pair of Docs for his feet. The only standout detail for Andrew (and the way he likes it) is the Ranger tattoo on his arm.
Personality Description:
Andrew is kind of a whiney-pants, his favorite two words are 'Why me?". Additionally, he is insecure about his accomplishments, reminding others that he was a Ranger in the army, but completely covering up the fact that he is a mutant. He craves respect, and fears alienation. Despite these negative personality traits, Andrew has a heart for the innocent, never being able to walk away when someone weaker or more innocent than him needs help.
Andrew burns through relationships faster than a heavy smoker goes through Pall malls. Each of his relationships end within weeks of beginning, and usually it's the fact that Andrew just doesn't talk or share his life with anyone. Growing up was traumatic, his experiences in Iraq moreso, and his experiences as Decibel X are kept tightly guarded, so that those around him wont think him a freak, and thus he never really talks about himself. After a couple of weeks of this, most of his prospects would realize they were in a relationship with an emotionally stunted man that would never open up.
With those few friends he has, he is known as the quiet one. He rarely speaks unless he has something very important to say, preferring silence to mindless chatter. That said, he is also a great listener, learning much about the people around him simply by hearing what they have to say, and reading between the lines. Ironically enough, nobody knows what a great listener he is because he so rarely shares his observations with others.
He sees his powers (see below in History for more information) as a gift but one with teeth. A part of him feels special, like he was 'chosen' to have these powers, but an equal part of him is afraid of it, and what it means. He is desperate to know if he is alone, or if there are others out there, and that search for other 'mutants' is his primary goal at this time, though it is a goal that often gets sidetracked by his need to help the innocent.
History:
Andrew was born in Jackson Mississippi, to a white family in a very poor, predominantly black neighborhood. His mother, Selma, was a prostitute and she gave him just enough attention to keep the state from taking him from her (and thereby the extra food stamps and other government aid). He never knew his father, and had been told from the moment he was old enough to ask that he was a bastard boy with no daddy. His mother often would bring home johns or whatever pimp she belonged to at the moment, and often these 'men' would harass or torment him.
As Andrew got into his young teen years he ended up running around with a tough group of kids styling themselves as a gang. At first it was all talk, youthful bluster, until these kids were 'picked up' by an actual criminal group. By the time Andrew was 18 years old, he had dropped out of high school and had taken to selling drugs on the street, mostly meth.
A few weeks before 9/11, he was busted carrying over a half pound of meth, and a quarter pound of weed. Though it was his first offense, the amount of illegal substance he had on him was enough to ensure he was going away for many, many years. While he languished in a jail cell awaiting his day in court, he was approached by an army recruiter, given the option to join the military as a way of paying his debt to society. Much preferring relative freedom over incarceration, 18 year old Andrew jumped at the opportunity, and the judge agreed.
Andrew discovered that he excelled at the training program he was put into, receiving high marks in all areas, but most notably in the fields of hand to hand combat and marksmanship. Within weeks of his basic training he was tapped to enter Ranger school. Once again he excelled at his training, and graduated at the top of his class.
During his training he was mentored by the range specialist, one Master Sargent Torroro. 'Tori' as he was called by friends and family, took Andrew under his wing, having had a similar experience growing up. One day at the range when working with mortars and grenades, there weren't enough earplugs to go around so Andrew was forced to use some wadded up packing peanuts. Tori laughed so hard he cried, claiming that Andrew looked like he had clouds coming out of his head, evidence the boy was 'air headed'. At his graduation, Tori presented him with a gift, an old Vietnam War era plastic case for earplugs, complete with full instructions on how to use them, and a box of four dozen earplugs. "Can't have you getting all air-headed out in the field, can we?", he had remarked with a laugh.
Within a year of his training, he and his unit were deployed to Iraq. It was during an operation in the dessert that his powers manifested for the first time. His unit was using a psi-ops technique of blasting heavy metal and hardcore rap music to smoke out a group of insurgents holed up in an old hospital. During the operation, the audio equipment experienced a malfunction, resulting in the emission of a high pitched frequency of such volume that the team operating the equipment were instantly incapacitated, writhing in pain, some with ear and nose bleeds. Andrew himself was caught in the grip of the intense sound, his sight and other senses completely overwhelmed by the incredible noise. He fumbled for the earplug case, so desperately intent on blocking out the din that he almost missed it when it suddenly, silenced, long enough for the team to shut down the equipment. Later the techs of the team discovered that there was absolutely no reason for the sudden cessation of the noise, indeed all the controls and guages had indicated that if anything, it should have gotten much worse, perhaps so intense it would have scrambled everyone's brains. It was accounted as a miracle, a scientific fluke, and forgotten.
Of course, it took many more instances like this before Andrew began to suspect that somehow, it was he that was somehow quieting sounds that would normally be deafening. Once he accepted the possibility to himself, he found controlling it to be ridiculously simple, it was like he had a mental volume control dial for the world. In addition, he quickly discovered that he could also amplify sound, and he could localize the amplification. Within a short amount of time he was able to project these localized amplifications to the enemy, causing whole units of the enemy to break as their own gunfire and communications were cranked to '11'.
It was the use of his powers in this way that actually led to his disillusionment with the military. During one such skirmish he used his powers to break a unit of the enemy. It was clear they were helpless, and doctrine dictated that these insurgents be captured. Despite doctrine, they were given orders to open fire on the helpless enemy. Worse, during the mop up afterward, Andrew discovered the body of young boy, his ears and nose coated in blood. Beside the boy was an old Walkman, and crooked on the boy's head was a pair of headphones. Andrew knew immediately what had happened. The boy was dead, but not of being shot... this boy's blood was on his hands.
Shortly after this he experienced a complete nervous breakdown, having nightmares of the dead boy, nightmares where he was forced to watch as the boy died painfully, his brain being liquified by the intense sound. Within a year of the event, he was out of the military, and in therapy, back in his home town of Jackson. Filled with guilt, but still burning to be of service to his community, he reluctantly began using his powers vigilante-style. Because his powers did not have any sort of visual cue as to who could be producing it, and because he himself was so unremarkable to witness, He easily avoided being fingered as a vigilante. It didn't take long before local legends to spring up, ranging from ghosts to aliens to superheroes. Those that followed the latter theory began calling this mysterious hero 'Decibel X'.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/HCbRoGwZvEg/viewtopic.php
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Obama protesters rally near hospital treating Mandela
By Peroshni Govender
PRETORIA (Reuters) - South Africans protesting a visit to their country by U.S. President Barack Obama rallied on Friday a few blocks from well-wishers at a hospital in Pretoria where anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is critically ill.
Obama, on a three-nation tour of Africa, was due to arrive in South Africa on Friday with White House officials saying they will defer to Mandela's family on whether the first African-American president of the United States will visit South Africa's first black president.
Mandela, 94, is fighting a lung infection that has left him in a critical condition and in hospital for nearly three weeks.
His fourth hospitalisation in six months has focused attention in South Africa and globally on the faltering health of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who is admired as a symbol of resistance against injustice and of racial reconciliation.
President Jacob Zuma has said Mandela's condition improved over Wednesday night but he remained critical.
About 200 trade unionists, student activists and South African Communist Party members gathered in the capital Pretoria to protest Obama's visit this weekend, calling his foreign policy "arrogant, selfish and oppressive".
"We had expectations of America's first black president. Knowing Africa's history, we expected more," said Khomotso Makola, a 19-year-old law student.
"He has come as a disappointment, I think Mandela too would be disappointed and feel let down," Makola said.
South African critics of Obama have focused in particular on his support for U.S. drone strikes overseas, which they say have killed hundreds of innocent civilians, and his failure to deliver on a pledge to close the U.S. military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba housing terrorism suspects.
"TWO GREAT MEN"
A few blocks away at the Pretoria heart hospital where Mandela is being cared for, well-wishers paying tribute to the legendary retired statesman had words of praise for Obama, who met Mandela in 2005 when he was still a U.S. senator.
Nigerian painter Sanusi Olatunji, 31, had brought portraits of both Mandela and Obama to the wall of the hospital, where flowers, tribute notes and gifts for Madiba, as Mandela is affectionately known, have been piling up.
"These are the two great men of my lifetime," he said.
"To me, Mandela is a prophet who brought peace and opportunity. He made it possible for a black man like me to live in a country that was only for whites."
During his weekend trip to Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, Obama is scheduled to visit Robben Island, the former penal colony where Mandela passed 18 years of the 27 years he spent in apartheid prisons.
Starting off his Africa trip in Senegal on Wednesday, Obama praised Mandela as "a personal hero".
"If and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages," he told reporters in Dakar.
Obama, who has been in office since 2009, is making his first substantial visit to Africa following a short trip to Ghana at the beginning of his first term.
South Africans held prayer meetings and vigils outside the Pretoria hospital and at Mandela's former Soweto home through Thursday night.
But as his health has deteriorated this year, there is a growing realisation among South Africa's 53 million people that the man who forged their multi-racial "Rainbow Nation" from the ashes of apartheid will not be with them forever.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-protesters-rally-near-hospital-treating-mandela-111858124.html
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Beneath NYC's ground zero, a museum takes shape
NEW YORK (AP) ? Gray dust blankets everything in the subterranean halls of the unfinished National September 11 Memorial & Museum. But while the powder may look ominously like the ash that covered lower Manhattan after the terror attacks, this time it is a product of rebirth, not destruction.
After a yearlong construction shutdown due to a funding dispute, and additional months of cleanup following a shocking flood caused by Superstorm Sandy, work has been racing ahead again at the museum, which sits in a cavernous space below the World Trade Center memorial plaza that opened in 2011.
About 130 workers are at the site each day and there is much left to be done, but officials with the museum said the project is on track to open to the public in the spring of 2014.
Some of the museum's most emotion-inspiring artifacts already are anchored in place.
Tears rolled down Anthoula Katsimatides' cheeks Thursday as she toured halls holding a mangled fire truck, strangely beautiful tangles of rebar, and the pieces of intersecting steel known as the Ground Zero Cross.
"It makes me sad," said Katsimatides, whose brother John died at the trade center. But it's also inspiring, said Katsimatides, who sits on the museum's board. "Seeing it come to fruition is pretty intense."
Work on the museum was halted for nearly a year, starting in the fall of 2011, because of a money fight between the memorial foundation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
In retrospect, that slowdown was a blessing. Shortly after the two sides worked out their differences, Superstorm Sandy sent the Hudson River thundering through lower Manhattan and filled the museum cavern with 7 ? feet of water.
The flood destroyed interior walls and electrical circuits, but the construction delay meant that hundreds of artifacts and exhibits that might have been in the museum still hadn't been fabricated or were sitting safely in storage. There was minor flash rusting to one of the fire trucks that had already been lowered into the space, but the damage was repaired by conservators and isn't noticeable today, said National September 11 Memorial & Museum President Joseph Daniels.
Today there is no sign that there was ever a flood. Daniels said there has been "almost indescribable" progress on construction since the storm.
Structural work appears mostly complete on the glass pavilion and wide staircase and ramp visitors will use to descend into the museum, past two towering "tridents" that once helped form the distinctive base of the twin towers. Once silvery, the columns were stripped bare by the fires of 9/11 and are now the color of rusted, raw steel.
From a mezzanine, patrons will be able to peer into a deep, nave-like hallway nicknamed the South Canyon. The hall's high western wall will eventually be covered with a multitude of notes and letters of support that people around the world sent to New York after the attacks.
"They continue to send things. It's amazing," said Katsimatides. "That outpouring of support is one of the things that got the 9/11 families through."
Further down the ramp, visitors come to a platform overlooking an even more massive cavern bordered by the slurry wall, a 70-foot-tall, steel-studded concrete slab originally built to keep the Hudson River from flooding the trade center construction site.
In the hall's center stands the last steel column removed from ground zero during the cleanup operation. Recovery workers covered the pillar with their signatures before it was carried away, and visitors will get a chance to leave their own mark on another big piece of steel near the museum's exit ? though their autographs will be captured by a computerized touch screen and projected on the slurry wall, rather than left in ink on metal.
Throughout the museum, curators have hung pieces of steel that were bent and twisted into striking shapes, including one sheet of metal that now appears to ripple like a flag and a huge girder bent by the impact of the aircraft hitting the towers.
Many of them look like works of sculpture.
"In a strange way, they are like pieces of art," Katsimatides said. But Daniels added that they weren't chosen for their beauty, but to explain what happened at the site on 9/11.
A few design elements of the museum are still under discussion.
When visitors descend to the very bottom of the museum ? where, in some places, they will be able to view the very bedrock that the towers once rested upon ? they will enter a hall with a large wall bearing an inscription from Virgil. "No day shall erase you from the memory of time."
Behind that wall will sit a special mausoleum, off limits to the general public, containing the unidentified remains of hundreds of 9/11 victims. Most of the interior walls of the museum have the look of bare concrete, as a constant reminder of the site's location within the old trade center foundation. But Daniels said the museum's designers are talking about possibly cladding this wall in a different material, or a different color, to separate it from the rest.
"It's a special place. Do we need something to distinguish it?" he said.
The bulk of the work remaining to be completed will revolve around installing the museum's exhibits, which will include many artifacts, including a wall made up of portraits of all 2,983 victims and a room where visitors will be able to call up video presentations that tell a story about each of them.
"The idea is to learn about the lives that they lived, not just the deaths that they died," Daniels said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/beneath-nycs-ground-zero-museum-takes-shape-072748254.html
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Erosion helps keep mountains standing tall
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China asks if 'happy ending' services are illegal
FILE - In this June 16, 2006 file photo, a policeman, right, watches over two masseuses and their customers during a raid on suspected prostitution activities at a hotel in Changchun, in northeast China's Jilin province. China's law enforcers are having an unusually public debate about a delicate topic: Do paid sexual services known as ''happy endings'' at massage parlors count as crimes if they don't involve actual sexual intercourse ? (AP Photo/File) CHINA OUT
FILE - In this June 16, 2006 file photo, a policeman, right, watches over two masseuses and their customers during a raid on suspected prostitution activities at a hotel in Changchun, in northeast China's Jilin province. China's law enforcers are having an unusually public debate about a delicate topic: Do paid sexual services known as ''happy endings'' at massage parlors count as crimes if they don't involve actual sexual intercourse ? (AP Photo/File) CHINA OUT
BEIJING (AP) ? China's law enforcers are having an unusually public debate about a delicate topic: Do paid sexual services known as "happy endings" at massage parlors count as crimes if they don't involve actual sexual intercourse?
While prostitution is illegal in China, its boundaries are being discussed with rare candor by courts, police and state media ? even the usually stodgy flagship newspaper of the Communist Party.
"Various places have different standards for whether masturbation services are a crime; judicial interpretation urgently needed," read a headline of the People's Daily newspaper, which usually spends its time lecturing party members about discipline or obscure ideological issues.
The debate centers on sexual services provided by employees of usually low-end massage parlors or hair salons, advertised to customers with colorful phrases such as "hitting the airplane" and "breast massage."
While common in Beijing and many other Chinese cities, the services became part of a conspicuous national conversation only this week, following newspaper reports about a crackdown that fizzled in southern Guangdong province.
Police in the city of Foshan arrested hair salon staff for providing sexual services, only to have prostitution charges against them overturned by a local court. A precedent apparently was set last year when the Foshan Intermediate People's Court threw out a verdict against a group of salon staff, including three managers who had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment for "organizing prostitution."
Now courts, police, prosecutors, lawyers and academics are being quoted discussing oral sex and other types of sexual services facilitated by body parts excluding genitals, typically taboo topics that have captured the public's attention.
The question is whether such services can be considered prostitution if there is no intercourse.
Technically, no ? at least according to the highest court in Guangdong province, which says such services fall outside the legal definition of prostitution.
On its official microblog, the court pressed the legislature to clear up the matter, saying that although no law bars such services, they "significantly damage social order and have a certain degree of social harm."
The high court in eastern Zhejiang reportedly concurs that if there is no intercourse, there's no prostitution, but police in the capital Beijing, southern Guiyang and elsewhere disagree. The discrepancy in views is unusual in a society where police, prosecutors and courts are often seen as working in lock-step with one another.
The debate also highlights how much more open urban Chinese have become in their attitudes toward sex, as prosperity rises and government controls on personal freedoms ease. Attitudes remain more traditional in the countryside.
Sociologist and sex expert Li Yinhe said the debate showed the country has come a long way since two decades ago, when displays of public affection and even dancing with members of the opposite sex could be punished.
"The whole social atmosphere has changed. Even in the 1980s the crackdowns were very strong, very severe," Li said. "... In the past, organizing prostitution used to be punishable by death."
She took in the unexpected court verdict with mock horror, saying, "This is simply too subversive."
___
Associated Press researcher Flora Ji contributed to this report.
___
Follow Gillian Wong on Twitter at twitter.com/gillianwong
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Friday, June 28, 2013
Net neutrality fight set for September | SiliconBeat
It?s a date: Verizon and the FCC square off Sept. 9. That?s when a federal appeals court in Washington will hear oral arguments in a case that could have a broad effect on Internet traffic.
Verizon is challenging the Federal Communications Commission?s net neutrality rules. Among other things, the rules call for fixed-broadband providers to provide unfettered access to the Internet, without throttling traffic or charging extra for access regardless of the source or destination of the content.
The FCC rules, issued in December 2010, were criticized as both heavy-handed and too weak. Verizon and other opponents said the rules are meddlesome and that the FCC shouldn?t have the power to regulate Internet traffic; proponents said the rules did not go far enough because they didn?t apply to mobile broadband ? which the FCC deemed in its early stages at the time. Mobile has, of course, come a long way since then.
The rules also left the door open for tiered pricing for broadband access; at the time, many Internet users in the United States were largely used to paying one rate for unlimited access. Now, tiered pricing plans for both land-based and mobile broadband are common.
The long-awaited hearing?comes after the FCC?s net neutrality rules survived a 2011 attempt to overturn them. There have also been other court challenges, some of which have been consolidated into the Verizon case.?
The hearing also comes after a report that amid the explosion of Internet traffic, some tech companies already are paying broadband providers so their users can access services quickly and smoothly. The Wall Street Journal?wrote recently?that Google, Facebook and Microsoft are paying companies such as Time Warner and Comcast, but that the type of direct connections they?re paying for don?t seem to violate the principle of net neutrality.
Netflix ? whose streaming-video offerings are known to suck up a lot of bandwidth ? isn?t shelling out money like the others so far, according to the WSJ. As we wrote in 2010, Netflix content-delivery network Level 3 Communications battled Comcast over the broadband provider?s charging it ?toll,? pointing out that the move amounted to Comcast preferring its own competing offerings over Netflix?s. The WSJ report says the fight has yet to be resolved. Netflix is now reportedly in talks with broadband providers such as Comcast about ?compromise solutions.?
?
Photo from Reuters
Levi Sumagaysay is editor of the combined SiliconBeat and Good Morning Silicon Valley. She also blogs and is the online producer for SiliconValley.com, the Mercury News tech website. Email: lsumagaysay (at) mercurynews (dot-com).
Source: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2013/06/26/net-neutrality-fight-set-for-september/
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Thursday, June 27, 2013
Supreme Court strikes down DOMA; rules it interferes with states, ?dignity? of same-sex marriages
The Supreme Court released two major decisions expanding gay rights across the country on Wednesday as hordes of cheering demonstrators greeted the news outside. The justices struck down a federal law barring the recognition of same-sex marriage in a split decision, ruling that the law violates the rights of gays and lesbians and intrudes into states' rights to define and regulate marriage. The court also dismissed a case involving California's gay marriage ban, ruling that supporters of the ban did not have the legal standing, or right, to appeal a lower court's decision striking down Proposition 8 as discriminatory.
The decision clears the way for gay marriage to again be legal in the nation's most populous state, even though the justices did not address the broader legal argument that gay people have a fundamental right to marriage.
The twin decisions throw the fight over gay marriage back to the states, because the court ruled the federal government must recognize the unions if states sanction them, but did not curtail states' rights to ban gay marriage if they choose.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's conservative-leaning swing vote with a legal history of supporting gay rights, joined his liberal colleagues in the DOMA decision, which will dramatically expand the rights of married gay couples in the country to access more than 1,000 federal benefits and responsibilities of marriage previously denied them.
"The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States," Kennedy wrote of DOMA. He concluded that states must be allowed by the federal government to confer "dignity" on same-sex couples if they choose to legalize gay marriage. DOMA "undermines" same-sex marriages in visible ways and "tells those couples, and all the world, that their otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of federal recognition."
Eighty-three-year-old New Yorker Edith Windsor brought the DOMA suit after she was made to pay more than $363,000 in estate taxes when her same-sex spouse died. If the federal government had recognized her marriage, Windsor would not have owed the sum. She argued that the government has no rational reason to exclude her marriage (she and her late partner, Thea Spyer, had been married since 2007, and together for more than four decades) from the benefits and obligations other married couples receive.
DOMA, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, prevented the government from granting marriage benefits in more than 1,000 federal statutes to same-sex married couples in the 12 states and District of Columbia that allow gay marriage. Clinton, who disavowed the law earlier this year, released a statement congratulating Windsor on her victory. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department would "work expeditiously" to implement the decision, and called it a "triumph for equal protection under the law for all Americans."
With this decision, Kennedy furthers his reputation as a defender of gay rights from the bench. He wrote two of the most important Supreme Court decisions involving, and ultimately affirming, gay rights: Lawrence v. Texas (2003) and Romer v. Evans (1996). In Romer, Kennedy struck down Colorado's constitutional amendment banning localities from passing anti-discrimination laws protecting gays and lesbians. In Lawrence, Kennedy invalidated state anti-sodomy laws, ruling that gay people have a right to engage in sexual behavior in their own homes free from the fear of punishment.
Legal experts said the DOMA decision lays the foundation for a future Supreme Court ruling that could find a broader right for same-sex couples to marry.
The decisions mark the first time the highest court has waded into the issue of same-sex marriage. Just 40 years ago, the Supreme Court tersely refused to hear a case brought by a gay couple who wanted to get married in Minnesota, writing that their claim raised no significant legal issue. At the time, legal opinions often treated homosexuality as criminal, sexually deviant behavior rather than involuntary sexual orientation.
Since then, public opinion has changed dramatically on gay people and same-sex marriage, with a majority of Americans only just recently saying they support gay unions. Now, 12 states representing about 18 percent of the U.S. population allow same-sex marriage. With California, the percentage of people living in gay marriage states shoots up to 30.
With the Proposition 8 decision, the Supreme Court refused to wade into the constitutional issues surrounding the California gay marriage case, dismissing the Proposition 8 argument on procedural grounds. The legal dodge means a lower court's ruling making same-sex marriage legal in California will most likely stand, opening the door to marriage to gays and lesbians in the country's most populous state without directly ruling on whether gay people have a constitutional right to marriage.
California voters passed Proposition 8 to ban same-sex marriage in 2008, after 18,000 same-sex couples had already tied the knot under a state Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. A same-sex married couple with children, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, sued the state of California when their 6-month-old marriage was invalidated by the ballot initiative. They argued that Proposition 8 discriminated against them and their union based only on their sexual orientation, and that the state had no rational reason for denying them the right to marry. Two lower courts ruled in their favor, and then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he would no longer defend Proposition 8 in court, leaving a coalition of Proposition 8 supporters led by a former state legislator to take up its defense.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined with Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan to rule the defenders of Proposition 8 did not have the standing to defend the ban in court. The unlikely coalition of liberals and conservatives argued that the Proposition 8 supporters could not prove they were directly injured by the lower court's decision to overturn the ban and allow gay people to marry.
Same-sex marriage will most likely not be immediately legal in California, because the Ninth Circuit has several weeks to confirm the court's decision. California officials have asked county clerks offices to prepare to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples as soon as the decision is confirmed.
The Proposition 8 case was argued by two high-profile lawyers, Ted Olson and David Boies, who previously faced off against each other in Bush v. Gore. Olson, a conservative and Bush's former solicitor general, and Boies, a liberal, have cast gay marriage as the civil rights issue of our time.
Boies said on the steps of the Supreme Court on Wednesday that the court had shown gay marriage does not harm society. "Today the United States Supreme Court said as much," Boies said. "They cannot point to anything that harms them because these two love each other.?
President Barack Obama also reportedly called Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign gay rights group, to congratulate him on the legal victory. "We're proud of you guys, and we're proud to have this in California," the president said, according to audio on MSNBC.
"The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free," the president said in a statement.
Olson made the argument that gay marriage should be a conservative cause in a recent interview with NPR. "If you are a conservative, how could you be against a relationship in which people who love one another want to publicly state their vows ... and engage in a household in which they are committed to one another and become part of the community and accepted like other people?" he asked.
The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, a coalition of mostly Republican House lawmakers, defended DOMA after the Obama administration announced it believed the law was unconstitutional in 2011. (Roberts criticized the president for this move during oral arguments in the case, saying the president lacked ?the courage of his convictions? in continuing to enforce the law but no longer defending it in court.)
"While I am obviously disappointed in the ruling, it is always critical that we protect our system of checks and balances," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement. "A robust national debate over marriage will continue in the public square, and it is my hope that states will define marriage as the union between one man and one woman."
Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed said in a statement that his political advocacy group would push for federal legislation to try to restore DOMA. He called the decision "an Orwellian act of judicial fiat."
?Rachel Rose Hartman contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/news/supreme-court-strikes-down-doma-140330141.html
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Court says suit testing blogger's rights can go on
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A federal appeals court says former Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod can continue her defamation case against a conservative blogger.
Larry O'Connor, a colleague of the late blogger Andrew Breitbart, asked a federal court of appeals to throw out the case, saying it violates his freedom of speech rights. The appeals court on Tuesday upheld a federal district court's rejection of that motion to dismiss.
The case is one of the first high-profile federal lawsuits to test bloggers' freedom of speech rights, and large news organizations including the New York Times Co., Washington Post Co. and Dow Jones & Company, Inc., have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the suit.
Sherrod was ousted from her job as a rural development official in 2010 after Breitbart posted an edited video of Sherrod, who is black, supposedly making racist remarks. She sued Breitbart, O'Connor and an unnamed defendant for defamation and emotional distress after USDA officials asked her to resign and the video ignited a racial firestorm.
Breitbart died unexpectedly last year. Sherrod's lawyers say the unnamed defendant is the person whom they believe passed the video on to Breitbart, though the person's identity remains unknown.
The video on Breitbart's website turned out to be edited, and when Sherrod's full speech to an NAACP group earlier that year came to light, it became clear that her remarks about an initial reluctance to help a white farmer decades ago were not racist but an attempt at telling a story of racial reconciliation. Once that was obvious, Sherrod received public apologies from the administration ? even from President Barack Obama himself ? and an offer to return to the Agriculture Department, which she declined.
Sherrod's 2011 lawsuit says the incident affected her sleep and caused her back pain. It contends that she was damaged by having her "integrity, impartiality and motivations questioned, making it difficult (if not impossible) for her to continue her life's work assisting poor farmers in rural areas" even though she was invited to return to the department.
O'Connor's lawyers had argued to have the case dismissed under a District of Columbia statute called an anti-SLAPP law that aims to prevent the silencing of critics through lawsuits. A federal district court judge rejected their motion to dismiss, citing timing and jurisdictional issues, prompting the appeal.
In March arguments, the lawyers told the court of appeals that O'Connor and Breitbart, before he died, stood by the content, saying the blog post was opinion.
"What happened here is what happens in journalism every day," said Bruce Brown, a lawyer for O'Connor.
Sherrod's lawyers disagreed and said dismissal under the District of Columbia statute would violate their right to a trial.
The case has been closely watched as a test of the District of Columbia's anti-SLAPP statute.
___
Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MCJalonick
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'Desperate Housewives,' 'Teen Wolf' Twins Land HBO's Damon Lindelof Pilot 'Leftovers'
By Tim Kenneally
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Damon Lindelof's HBO pilot has just acquired a double dose of "Desperate Housewives" alumni, TheWrap has learned.
Charlie and Max Carver, who played the Scavo twins on ABC's "Desperate Housewives," have been cast in "The Leftovers," the upcoming drama pilot from "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof.
The pilot, which is adapted from Tom Perrotta's 2011 novel - who's writing and executive producing the pilot with Lindelof - centers around a Rapture-like situation, and those who were left behind by the event.
The Carvers, who also appear on the MTV series "Teen Wolf," will play - wait for it - identical twins Scott and Adam Frost.
The pilot stars Justin Theroux, as well as "Lord of the Rings" star Liv Tyler, who plays Meg, a young woman on the verge of getting married, but needing an escape. As a result, she becomes a target for recruitment by members of an enigmatic cult.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/desperate-housewives-teen-wolf-twins-land-hbos-damon-202533520.html
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Kerry pledges US help for India's massive higher ed needs | MinnPost
On a visit to?India,?US Secretary of State John Kerry?pushed today for greater bilateral cooperation on higher education, stating that his host's education system is facing "gigantic challenges."
With the world's advanced economies facing a graying workforce, India will head into the next decade with a median age of 29 and two-thirds of its people of working age. That's a huge potential boon for India ? but only if those workers are educated. Currently, only 18 percent of its youth get any higher education.?
Addressing the third round of the Singh-Obama Knowledge Initiative in Delhi, Secretary Kerry announced eight institutional partnerships and pledged to help with skill development of Indian youth. "We need to make sure that next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs have the skills and training," he said.
India had set itself a goal of?building 1,000 universities and 50,000 colleges in this decade, something the Monitor?devoted a cover story?last year to exploring. Given the enormity of that task in a short time frame, the country is also looking for quicker, less traditional means of spreading post-secondary education including online education and community colleges. For the latter, India is looking to the US as a model, with plans of establishing 200 large American-style community colleges.
"The quality of higher education in India is a matter of concern and cooperation with the?United States?can help with that. We seek to increase our higher education enrollment ratio to 30 percent by 2020 and skill development will be a key part of it," says Ashok Thakur, secretary of higher education in the Indian government.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Obama had announced their joint Initiative in November 2009, pledging $5 million each for higher education cooperation through projects that will work on educational reform, foster economic growth, generate shared knowledge to address global challenges, and develop junior faculty at Indian and American institutions of higher learning.?
The eight memoranda of understanding signed between the two countries today included the Harvard-India Nutrition Initiative between Harvard School of Public Health and St. John's Research Institute, Bangalore; between Aligarh Muslim University and Ohio State University, and between Assam Agricultural University and Washington State University.
Next month, new Indian rules will go into effect that open the door to US universities opening campuses in India. The offer is only open to the most prestigious nonprofit institutions, which will diminish the impact of the ruling.?
In the area of online education, India is laying a high-bandwidth network of fiber optic cables between the nation's top universities. Officials here are looking to the US for ideas on how to deliver high-quality lessons online. A memorandum of understanding signed today between the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai and the?Massachusetts Institute of Technology?will bring to India the edX online course platform founded by MIT along with Harvard University. edX offers free university-level courses worldwide.?
The United States is also encouraging its students to study in India's elite educational institutions. There are currently 5,000 American students in Indian Universities, and the number is expected to triple in the next five years. Yet that number is a fraction of those heading to more mature and internationally recognized institutions in Europe.
"Ultimately India has to focus on institution building and giving its students the best teachers,"??says Prof. Yash Pal, who chaired a 2009 commission that advised structural changes in India's higher education system. "There's only so much that outsiders can help."
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OUYA game console arrives for retail sales - Android Community
As had been expected, the OUYA game console has arrived with retail stores. Simply put, the console has shifted into general availability and those who are interested but have yet to make a purchase now have a handful of retail outlets to pick from. The pricing is the same as we had seen during the pre-order period, however there is some news about a few games that have recently arrived.
First and foremost, the OUYA game console can be found with retailers to include Best Buy, Game Stop, Target and Amazon. The price of the console is $99. That price does include one controller, however those looking to do a bit of side-by-side gaming with a friend will have to shell out an additional $49 for the second controller. Basically, is you are looking for a system with two controllers you will need to be prepared with $150 (plus tax) to complete the purchase.
The first of the game related news is actually a two-game pack. This title comes by way of Swedish developers Redgrim, Grapefrukt and Snorkel. The game is called Mrs. Dad vs. Korv and this is said to bring a local multiplayer arcade style game that is ?easy to learn, hard to master, all fun.? This is also an OUYA exclusive. The trailer for this game can be seen below.
Up next is a game called Tower Fall. This title arrives by way of Matt Makes Games and is also an OUYA exclusive. This game is described as being ?both simple and robust? with mention about how it is a ?breeze to pick up, and a bear to master.? Tower Fall has you playing as one of four characters that each have special treats. The Tower Fall trailer can be seen below.
Otherwise, while we have seen the OUYA console listed with a handful of retailers at this time, that list is expected to grow. For now all (with the exception of Amazon) appear to have the console in-stock and available for online orders. With that in mind, those venturing out to the real world may want to give a call to double check the inventory levels that your closest retail outlet happens to have.
SOURCE: OUYA Blog
', enableHover: false, enableTracking: true, buttons: { twitter: {via: 'androids'}}, click: function(api, options){ api.simulateClick(); api.openPopup('twitter'); } }); jQuery('#facebook').sharrre({ share: { facebook: true }, template: '{total}
', enableHover: false, enableTracking: true, click: function(api, options){ api.simulateClick(); api.openPopup('facebook'); } }); jQuery('#googleplus').sharrre({ share: { googlePlus: true }, template: '{total}
', enableHover: false, enableTracking: true, urlCurl: 'http://androidcommunity.com/wp-content/themes/ac/js/sharrre.php', click: function(api, options){ api.simulateClick(); api.openPopup('googlePlus'); } }); });Source: http://androidcommunity.com/ouya-game-console-arrives-for-retail-sales-20130625/
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Smithfield drops Paula Deen as spokeswoman
FILE - This 2006 file photo originally released by the Food Network shows celebrity chef Paula Dean. It was revealed that Deen admitted during questioning in a lawsuit that she had slurred blacks in the past. It's the second time the queen of comfort food's mouth has gotten her into big trouble. She revealed in 2012 that for three years she hid her Type 2 diabetes while continuing to cook the calorie-laden food that's bad for people like her. The Food Network, which began airing "Paula's Home Cooking" in 2002, has said it does not tolerate discrimination and is looking at the situation. Deen's other show, "Paula's Best Dishes," started at the network in 2008. She's one of the longest-running and most recognizable of the network stars, although her show airs in daytime _ not prime-time. (AP Photo/ Food Network, file)
FILE - This 2006 file photo originally released by the Food Network shows celebrity chef Paula Dean. It was revealed that Deen admitted during questioning in a lawsuit that she had slurred blacks in the past. It's the second time the queen of comfort food's mouth has gotten her into big trouble. She revealed in 2012 that for three years she hid her Type 2 diabetes while continuing to cook the calorie-laden food that's bad for people like her. The Food Network, which began airing "Paula's Home Cooking" in 2002, has said it does not tolerate discrimination and is looking at the situation. Deen's other show, "Paula's Best Dishes," started at the network in 2008. She's one of the longest-running and most recognizable of the network stars, although her show airs in daytime _ not prime-time. (AP Photo/ Food Network, file)
FILE - In this Jan. 17, 2012 file image originally released by NBC, celebrity chef and TV personality Paula Deen appears on the "Today" show to discuss her diabetes in New York. Deen was a no-show Friday, June 21, 2013, at the "Today" show, where she was scheduled to appear to answer questions about past use of racial slurs. (AP Photo/NBC, Peter Kramer, file)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Paula Deen lost another part of her empire on Monday: Smithfield Foods said it was dropping her as a spokeswoman.
The announcement came days after the Food Network said it would not renew the celebrity cook's contract in the wake of revelations that she used racial slurs in the past.
Smithfield sold Paula Deen-branded hams in addition to using her as a spokeswoman. In a statement, the company said it "condemns the use of offensive and discriminatory language and behavior of any kind. Therefore, we are terminating our partnership with Paula Deen."
QVC also said it was reviewing its deal with Paula Deen Enterprises to sell the star's cookbooks and cookware.
"QVC shares the concerns being raised around the unfortunate Paula Deen situation," QVC said in a statement. "We are closely monitoring these events and the ongoing litigation. We are reviewing our business relationship with Ms. Deen, and in the meantime, we have no immediate plans to have her appear on QVC."
Sears said the company "is currently exploring next steps as they pertain to Ms. Deen's products." Wal-Mart, which sells Deen's cookware, was expected to have a statement later Monday.
The rapid downfall came after revelations that 66-year-old Food Network star admitted using racial slurs in the past in a deposition in a discrimination lawsuit. Deen was asked under oath if she had ever used the N-word. "Yes, of course," 66-year-old Deen said, though she added, "It's been a very long time."
Deen insisted she and her family do not tolerate prejudice, and in a videotaped apology, she asked fans and critics alike for forgiveness. It had been posted online for about an hour when the Food Network released a terse statement that it "will not renew Paula Deen's contract when it expires at the end of this month." The network refused to comment further.
Las Vegas-based Caesars Entertainment Corporation, which has Deen's restaurants in some of its casinos, said Friday that it "will continue to monitor the situation." Publisher Ballantine, which has a new Deen book scheduled to roll out this fall, used similar words.
Earlier Monday, NBC's Matt Lauer said Deen would appear Wednesday on "Today." Last week she abruptly canceled on the morning show before posting her videotaped apologies.
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