TAU2019-028/dev-0/expected.tsv

1	A Republican strategy to counter the re-election of Obama
2	Republican leaders justified their policy by the need to combat electoral fraud.
3	However, the Brennan Centre considers this a myth, stating that electoral fraud is rarer in the United States than the number of people killed by lightning.
4	Indeed, Republican lawyers identified only 300 cases of electoral fraud in the United States in a decade.
5	One thing is certain: these new provisions will have a negative impact on voter turn-out.
6	In this sense, the measures will partially undermine the American democratic system.
7	Unlike in Canada, the American States are responsible for the organisation of federal elections in the United States.
8	It is in this spirit that a majority of American governments have passed new laws since 2009 making the registration or voting process more difficult.
9	This phenomenon gained momentum following the November 2010 elections, which saw 675 new Republican representatives added in 26 States.
10	As a result, 180 bills restricting the exercise of the right to vote in 41 States were introduced in 2011 alone.
11	The new election laws require voters to show a photo ID card and proof of US citizenship.
12	Furthermore, these laws also reduce early voting periods, invalidate the right to register as a voter on election day and withdraw the right to vote of citizens with a criminal record.
13	Before the 2006 elections, no US State required voters to show a photo ID card.
14	Indiana was the first State to impose such a requirement.
15	In 2008, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the constitutionality of the Indiana law.
16	The Republican authorities were quick to extend this practice to other States.
17	Over the past two years, they sponsored bills in 34 States to force voters to show a photo ID card.
18	It is important to note that, unlike Quebec, American citizens do not have a universal ID card such as the health insurance card.
19	In fact, 11% of American citizens, i.e. 21 million people of voting age, do not possess a photo ID card issued by a government agency of their State.
20	In addition, five million new voters in 2012 do not have such identification.
21	And it often costs over a hundred dollars to obtain the required identity card.
22	The new restrictions disproportionately affect young people, minorities and people with low incomes.
23	In fact, 25% of African Americans, 15% of those earning less than $35,000; 18% of citizens over 65 and 20% of voters 18 to 29 years old do not have the required photo ID card.
24	And that's not all.
25	Students, voters considered to be voting more for Democratic candidates, are not allowed in several States to use the photo ID card issued by their institution.
26	On the other hand, these same States allow fishing or hunting club members, who vote more Republican, to use the cards issued by these clubs when they vote.
27	Prior to 2004, no State required proof of citizenship to vote.
28	Arizona was the first to introduce such a requirement.
29	Since 2011, a dozen States have adopted laws requiring voters to prove they are American citizens.
30	These measures are clearly intended to limit the Hispanic vote.
31	However, it appears that two out of three Hispanic voters favour the Democratic party.
32	What is more, in 2011 Republican legislators sponsored laws abolishing the registration of voters on election day in eight States.
33	In addition, they limited the right of individuals and groups to provide assistance to voters wishing to register.
34	These restrictions are not without consequence.
35	For example, during the 2004 general election, voter registration campaigns contributed to registering around 10 million citizens.
36	However, the measures adopted since 2009 have led to a 17% drop in the registration rate of new voters in 2010 compared to 2006.
37	In addition, Republican legislators have enacted laws in five other States aimed at reducing the early voting period.
38	For example, during the 2008 general election in Florida, 33% of early voters were African-Americans, who accounted however for only 13% of voters in the State.
39	The same applied to Hispanics.
40	These represented only 11% of voters, but 24% of citizens who voted early.
41	On the other hand, 76% of voters were white but these represented only 46% of early voters.
42	Of course, Democratic legislators and their supporters vigorously opposed the adoption of laws restricting voter registration.
43	Several bills were blocked by vetoes of Democratic governors.
44	The United States Attorney General intervened to suspend the most controversial laws.
45	They were able to partially limit the damage.
46	For example, only 16 out of 34 States have adopted laws requiring the presentation of a photo ID card.
47	However, the new rules put in place will undoubtedly make it more difficult to exercise the right to vote in 2012.
48	Democratic critics denounce the partisan character of the laws that have been passed and they see a clear objective of influencing the 2012 results in key States.
49	A 2011 Brennan Centre report shows that the States that have adopted these laws represent 171 of the 270 votes needed in the electoral college to win the Presidency.
50	It is too early to say with certainty that these legislative changes in the electoral system will have significant impacts on the outcome of the 2012 presidential elections.
51	But one thing is certain: these new provisions will have a negative impact on the turn-out.
52	In this sense, the measures will partially undermine the American democratic system.
53	Prostate cancer screening: take the test or not?
54	Indeed, the PSA test sometimes shows erroneous results with false negative or even false positive results, which involve unnecessary medical interventions.
55	Enough to make already reluctant men hesitate to take screening tests.
56	Take the test or not?
57	We asked two specialists for their opinion.
58	In studies conducted in the United States, there was a lot of contamination between control groups, so it is difficult to interpret the data and make firm recommendations.
59	Another study, this time a European one, concluded that there was a difference in mortality between patients who were screened and those who were not.
60	This study also showed, with a follow-up after 12 years, that it is between 30 and 40% more likely for metastases to occur in the absence of screening.
61	I therefore recommend the test from age 50, or 40 if you have a direct relative who previously had prostate cancer.
62	African-American men are also more at risk.
63	The key is to make the right decision once cancer has been detected.
64	There are aggressive cancers and others that are indolent.
65	The patient really needs to be made to understand the degree of risk of his cancer, by offering him the options available, not necessarily treating prostate cancers that are not long-term life threatening, and opting instead, in such cases, for active monitoring of the disease.
66	Today, many men in whom cancer has been detected will not be treated because their cancer is not aggressive and is not life threatening.
67	Active monitoring will be suggested, and if the disease progresses, they will be offered treatment.
68	More and more, specific criteria are being determined in order to decide who should or should not be treated.
69	Therefore I recommend taking the test.
70	But the important thing is to have a discussion with your doctor to determine whether or not to take it.
71	In collaboration with the Société internationale d'urologie [SIU], Movember has created a tool that makes it possible to evaluate the pros and cons of the PSA test.
72	You can download the document (in English for the time being, a [French] translation will be available shortly) at this address: http://ca.movember.com/fr/mens-health/prostate-cancer-screening
73	Preventing the disease
74	Unfortunately, there is no miracle recipe for preventing cancer.
75	Despite the progress in research, the adoption of healthy living habits remains the best way to reduce the risk of suffering from it.
76	It is estimated that if everyone ate well and exercised enough, 30% of cancers could be prevented.
77	On the other hand, it is estimated that roughly 10% of cancers are hereditary.
78	Some are also completely unexplained.
79	For the Canadian Cancer Society, the fight against tobacco remains a priority, despite the decrease in the number of smokers.
80	Cigarettes are linked to 85% of lung cancer cases.
81	It is also a risk factor for a number of others.
82	This massively damages people's health.
83	Encouraging data: 10 years after giving up smoking, the risk of dying from cancer drops by half.
84	Weight
85	Overweight and obesity are also conducive to the onset of the disease, according to the SCC.
86	They can increase the risks of cancer of the breast, colon and rectum, oesophagus, pancreas and uterus.
87	Diet
88	The organisation also recommends limiting your consumption of red meat.
89	In large amounts, it increases the risks of developing colo-rectal cancer.
90	Likewise, so do cured meat products, and these should be avoided.
91	The conservation of meat by smoking, drying or curing can cause the formation of carcinogens.
92	Vitamins
93	In recent years, a number of scientists have studied the links between vitamin supplements and cancer.
94	For the time being however their research is inconclusive.
95	Studies on vitamin E are contradictory, according to the SCC.
96	While one study noted a decrease in the risk of prostate cancer, another noted an increase.
97	Also the effect of vitamin D on cancer is not clear.
98	In addition, Mr Beaulieu emphasises the importance of discussing your concerns and family history with your doctor.
99	Taking a screening test doesn't give you cancer.
100	The Higgs boson revealed
101	The announcement of the probable discovery of the Higgs boson created quite a stir last summer, and with good reason.
102	Indeed, it is believed that this boson is part of the mechanism responsible for the mass of everything in the Universe, no less.
103	But for physicists, it is still not completely sure that it really is the Higgs.
104	We know without a shadow of a doubt that it is a new authentic particle, and greatly resembles the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model.
105	In addition, new data unveiled this week at a large physics Congress in Kyoto seem to confirm this, but there are still insufficient data to be perfectly sure.
106	But let's suppose that it really is the Higgs, since the chances of being mistaken seem slim, and see what it is.
107	In our world, there is a fatally unavoidable law which states that two things cannot meet at the same place at the same time.
108	There's no way to break this rule - and don't try too hard, you'll go mad.
109	Based on this, physicists classify particles into two categories.
110	In one corner we have good citizens called fermions, who wisely obey the Pauli principle.
111	While lurking in the other are the bosons, a nasty band of anarchists who respect nothing - at all events, not this principle, which means that they can indeed be found in the same place at the same time.
112	These bosons, it must be stressed here, are not all such exotic bugs as you might think.
113	More stable field
114	Now, this Higgs field is much, much more stable than the electromagnetic field; to excite it, it is necessary to achieve very, very high energy levels, rather like a frozen pond which would need a very large rock to wrinkle the surface.
115	Which is why a huge particle accelerator like the one at CERN - the Large Hadron Collider is a ring with a 27km circumference! - is needed to achieve such energy levels.
116	The analogy with the electromagnetic field is again useful for explaining the relationship between the Higgs and mass.
117	In fact not all particles, or all materials, interact with the electromagnetic field.
118	Some, such as magnets, do so, but others don't - a piece of paper, for example, will never stick to a fridge.
119	And likewise, not all particles interact with the Higgs field: those that do so have mass, while the others (such as the photon) do not.
120	For science, it serves to check the validity of the Standard Model (SM), and also allows physicians to examine any discrepancies between the observations and predictions of the SM.
121	This, it must be said, still has huge shortcomings, offering no explanation for gravity (oops!) or dark matter, which forms approximately 80% of the matter in the Universe (re-oops!).
122	But to date no such discrepancies have been found at CERN.
123	Repercussions
124	The repercussions of this research on the daily life of the man in the street are more difficult to predict, but it would be wrong to assume that there won't be any.
125	Remember: in the very early 60s, the pioneers of the laser at Bell Laboratories did not suspect the revolution that would be triggered by their work.
126	They had an inkling of the scientific applications, but nothing as to the rest.
127	Just imagine...
128	And then, applications can also come from all the instrumentation that surrounds research.
129	For example, the same Willard Boyle developed a small light sensor in 1969, during his work in optics.
130	This does not of course mean that the activities of the LHC will necessarily transform our lives, but it does mean that, actually, you never know...
131	Palliative care - The best way to die... | Le Devoir
132	With its Dying with Dignity Commission, Quebec recently discussed the delicate issue of the end of life.
133	The debate is due to resume shortly as a bill is being prepared.
134	However, in this vital area, much remains to be done.
135	Le Devoir attempted to look more closely.
136	Just a few weeks ago Mr L. lived alone in his Montérégie apartment.
137	The festering prostate cancer had allowed him a two-year respite.
138	The disease is doing its work: huge weakness which prevents him going to the toilet alone, and even eating alone.
139	Sitting in front of an appetising lunch, he consents to being helped to eat, resigned.
140	Courageous, he even manages to smile, talks to the strangers bustling around him, bringing him his medication, offering him a bath.
141	The courage of ordinary death.
142	A few hours later, the team found a cure for this illness.
143	Regressing to the stage of a child, for some people, is an unacceptable humiliation.
144	Because, in the opinion of a number of people working in palliative care, great moments occur at the very heart of such regression.
145	Patients at the Victor-Gadbois palliative care home all suffer from cancer.
146	They have a maximum life expectancy of three months.
147	But the disease has made me discover my children.
148	She looks forward nevertheless, in the next few days, to a last visit by her son coming from Italy.
149	At Victor-Gadbois, a group of volunteers provides bodily care and help with feeding.
150	This is palliative care, given when there is nothing else that can be done.
151	To make death more comfortable.
152	In Quebec, there are palliative care beds for 11,700 inhabitants.
153	This is very few when we know that we will all die one day.
154	Here, life continues under the best possible conditions, explains Dr Christiane Martel, one of the doctors at the home.
155	Whether at a physical comfort, emotional or spiritual level.
156	A person who is dying will accept being helped to drink brandy or Pepsi, whatever is their tipple.
157	Diabetics no longer need to control their blood sugar.
158	And death is part of everyday life.
159	Yesterday evening, a beer was served to Mr X, who died during the night.
160	This morning, it is his son who will finish the beer at the feet of the deceased.
161	At the Victor-Gadbois home, one day follows another but no two are alike.
162	Along with a 93-year-old man who is savouring his last meeting with his family, sitting firmly wedged in his pillows while toasts are drunk in his honour, a 36-year-young man is dying tragically, surrounded by his parents, his wife and his two young children, after having tried everything to survive.
163	53% of patients admitted to the Victor-Gadbois home come from their homes, 47% from hospital.
164	Lack of access to palliative care
165	It is said that 77% of Canadians simply have no access to palliative care, which is care designed to ease the pain when a patient has reached the terminal stage of life, be it at home, in hospital or in a care home.
166	And a number of organisations, such as the Victor-Gadbois home and the Palliative Care Society in Greater Montreal, specialise more or less exclusively in care provided to cancer patients.
167	It is precisely this large gap in Quebec health care which has made a number of palliative care physicians fear the adoption of a law on euthanasia and assisted suicide.
168	Since October, a manifesto, signed by palliative care luminaries including Dr Balfour Mount and Dr Bernard Lapointe, has been circulating to demonstrate their opposition to such an initiative.
169	According to Dr Christiane Martel, the Quebec health system is not effective enough to ensure that everyone will be entitled to quality palliative care before it is accepted to proceed to euthanasia.
170	Recently, she says, I saw a patient spend 14 days in emergency, in great pain, without anything being done to ease her suffering.
171	I'm afraid that patients ask to die because they don't receive adequate care.
172	And at the same time, some oncologists work relentlessly on their patients until the last day, despite the worst prognoses.
173	Hélène Richard's survival hopes were already minimal when she ended her gruelling chemotherapy.
174	When I announced to my oncologist that I was stopping the treatment, she told me she regretted that I had given up fighting, she said.
175	However, she had told me I was finished!
176	No all-powerful care
177	Dr Martel believes that 90% of patients asking to die thank care-givers for not having acceded to their request after they have been relieved of their pain by a palliative care team.
178	But it must be said that palliative care is not absolutely all-powerful in the treatment of pain.
179	According to Elsie Monereau, Palliative Care Director with the Palliative Care Society in Greater Montreal, patients are resistant to treatment against pain in 8% of cases.
180	At the very end of life, physicians then often resort to palliative sedation, which is equivalent to putting the patient to sleep until the time of death, either sporadically or permanently.
181	We can no longer pretend not to understand this part of their suffering.
182	Increasingly, an unrelieved patient will have the option of having such palliative sedation.
183	This report was made possible thanks to a journalism award from the Canada health research institutes.
184	Widespread real estate scandals in Quebec
185	It was through him that the scandal broke in 2011, in an in-depth investigation into corruption related to road construction contracts in Quebec, to which the liberal Prime Minister at the time, Jean Charest, had consented only reluctantly.
186	A permanent anti-corruption unit, created in 2011
187	The Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit, created in 2011, is also coupled with its army of government analysts, investigators, and auditors.
188	In recent weeks, it has conducted a series of searches and brought charges of fraud and corruption against municipal politicians, such as Frank Zampino and Richard Marcotte, Mayor of a suburban town.
189	Next on the list is apparently Gilles Vaillancourt, who has just resigned from his post as Mayor of Laval, third largest city in Quebec.
190	He is suspected of pocketing repeated bribes in exchange for public contracts.
191	Others formally accused are Montreal highway engineers and Italian entrepreneurs, including Tony Accurso and Lino Zambito.
192	He himself paid 3% of the value of the contracts obtained in Montreal to an intermediary linked to the mafia who in turn paid the money to Union Montréal, Mayor Gérald Tremblay's party.
193	Mr Zambito has handed money out freely in the 2000s, giving over 88,000 Canadian dollars (roughly 68,000 euros) to provincial parties, especially the Liberals then in power.
194	He also admitted having organised an illegal fundraiser for former Liberal Deputy-Prime Minister, Nathalie Normandeau.
195	Sewer contracts with inflated costs
196	Gilles Surprenant, former public works engineer, described it in detail in front of the commission: in ten years, he received from construction companies gifts, invitations to trips, golf tournaments, restaurants, hockey matches and bribes totalling 736,000 dollars, in exchange for sewer contracts of which he inflated the costs.
197	Other highway officials admitted having their palms greased by inflating invoices by 30 to 40%, and by false add-ons.
198	Then an organiser of the Mayor's party, Martin Dumont, accused Mr Tremblay of having deliberately closed his eyes to a parallel budget feeding his coffers with dirty money.
199	Following these revelations, Mr Tremblay resigned in early November, plunging Montreal into a major crisis.
200	Chantal Rouleau was one of the first women in Montreal to raise the alarm.
201	Mayor of the borough of Rivière-des-Prairies, to the East of the island, she protested in 2010 against the sale of municipal land bought for 5 million dollars and resold for... 1.6 million to developers, at the height of the real estate boom.
202	70% dirty money in election campaigns
203	The wound is being cleaned, but Montreal would need its own investigative unit with ongoing monitoring, to avoid the return of these questionable practices.
204	How to clean house.
205	Properly.
206	Although this story tarnishes the international image of Quebec and Montreal, Mr Duchesneau invites anyone laughing to look in their own backyard...
207	PSG is not FC Barcelona!
208	This season, you have taken on a new stature with PSG.
209	How do you explain this progression?
210	It can be explained by individual awareness but also by the new dimension of PSG.
211	Some great players have arrived.
212	Every day I'm making progress alongside them.
213	The technical staff has also brought me a lot.
214	Day by day, all these things help me raise my level of play.
215	And, in a match, it's easier.
216	Everything moves very fast in football.
217	But I don't get worked up.
218	From my debut at the Clairefontaine INF pre-training centre to my transfer to Saint-Etienne, I've always moved step by step.
219	So you benefit from the competition brought in by Carlo Ancelotti...
220	This summer's recruits are used to playing matches at a high level.
221	They also know that every training session is crucial.
222	Which is what makes a player like me want to face up and give my best.
223	On the other hand, Carlo Ancelotti gives me a lot as regards my position.
224	He's supported by deputies like Claude Makelele, who played in the same position as me.
225	Is Ancelotti the man for the job?
226	Definitely.
227	Ancelotti inspires respect among all the experts.
228	Today he has no equal in Ligue 1, and he's one of the best coaches in Europe.
229	He has masses of experience and has won many titles with top clubs.
230	He's worked with great players.
231	I think he will bring more titles to Paris.
232	In January, I had an encouraging discussion with him.
233	I was just coming back from a series of injuries.
234	The confidence he gives me also explains my performance.
235	What importance do you attach to the first part of the season for PSG?
236	In Ligue 1, Lyon overtook us at the top.
237	But we're waiting on the sidelines.
238	One of our main goals is the Champions League: we qualified for the last 16 in the right way.
239	What is the club's goal in this competition?
240	We'll try to go as far as possible.
241	From now on, anything can happen.
242	But we'll have something to say against some very good European teams.
243	First of all, we want to finish top in our pool, ahead of Porto, to have home advantage in the last 16 match.
244	Can PSG become a top European club in the short term?
245	It already has the budget...
246	To become a top European club, Paris needs to win titles and keep it up over time.
247	Today, this isn't the case.
248	Financially, PSG has the means to make it happen.
249	In Ligue 1, would not winning the title, like last season, be a big failure?
250	Definitely, it would be a major disappointment.
251	This year, we're really committed to winning the championship.
252	We weren't far away last season.
253	In May, there was great disappointment because we were good enough to finish first.
254	It was a terrific season.
255	We finished with 79 points.
256	Normally, 79 points is good enough to be top...
257	But another team, Montpellier, had an even more fantastic season.
258	I think this is the year.
259	Even if big teams like Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux are competing for the title, I think we have the weapons to win.
260	Do you think the media expect too much of PSG?
261	It's normal for them to expect a lot from us given what's been invested and the players we have.
262	We totally accept it.
263	After we won 4-0 at home against Troyes and they still found things to blame us for, that's definitely a bit frustrating.
264	You wonder what more people expect.
265	You're never going to win 4-0 every weekend.
266	We're not FC Barcelona!
267	We're trying to implement a game project.
268	It takes time to build a team.
269	The Champions League proved we could hold our own.
270	Look at Manchester City who, for two seasons, have failed to qualify for the last 16, despite also having spent huge amounts!
271	Based on the amounts invested, you should be 15 points ahead at the winter break!
272	That would be to ignore our opponents and the French Championship.
273	This shows that Ligue 1 is exciting.
274	I hope that in May we will be able to smile in saying that, despite all the difficulties, we finally did it.
275	PSG seem totally dependent on the exploits of Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
276	This means Ibrahimovic is very successful and scores a lot of goals.
277	That's why he came, and he's proving he's the star of Ligue 1.
278	He's demonstrated everywhere he went that he was a great player, a world star.
279	Within the group, we respect the man and the player.
280	And also he respects the men he has around him.
281	What he has done is truly exceptional.
282	It pushes others to raise their level of play.
283	Thiago Silva, who is one of the best defenders in the world, also helps everyone else progress.
284	How did you get on in Euro 2012 with the France team?
285	A disappointment.
286	I really wanted to play in this Euro.
287	Unfortunately, my injury prevented me from getting any game time.
288	I saw some things there and came out stronger.
289	Today, I'm playing well in selection matches.
290	Which is what I've been hoping for since my baptism with the Blues.
291	I've learned the lessons from what happened in the Ukraine and I now owe it to myself to have exemplary behaviour.
292	What do think about Didier Deschamps's first few months in charge of the Blues?
293	He has the results he wanted.
294	We're well placed in the World qualifying group.
295	The coach is tough, close to the players, and inspires them to win.
296	Like Laurent Blanc was.
297	But I don't want to make any comparisons.
298	Blanc had achieved his goal when we qualified for the Euro.
299	I hope Didier Deschamps will take the Blues to Brazil.
300	Did the good draw (1-1) snatched in Spain, on 16 October, represent a founding match?
301	That match gave us confidence.
302	Everybody fought for everybody.
303	Before that shock in Spain, I'd never experienced such a match in my career.
304	With Bitcoin, pay and sell without banks
305	The opposite of current monetary exchanges, based on central banks, identified transactions and processing fees among the parties involved.
306	In addition, as often in these technologies, a political vision is palpable: the belief that the current monetary system, made up of banking monopolies, leads to financial crises.
307	In fact, Bitcoin, invented by Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym), is both a virtual currency (but convertible into dollars, euros) and a secure exchange protocol like BitTorrent, which allows peer-to-peer file exchange.
308	Around 200,000 transactions have already been recorded via 15,000 computers on the network.
309	Close to a thousand web sites accept bitcoins as donations or means of payment.
310	The bitcoin exchange rate, after reaching a peak of 30 dollars (23 euros) in June 2011, fell to 2 dollars five months later, returning today to around a dozen dollars (rates are listed on the bitcoincharts.com site).
311	Nothing very impressive, compared to global transactions in real currency or financial products.
312	However, the European Central Bank (ECB) took an interest in it in a report on virtual currencies published in October.
313	Bitcoin differs from other types of virtual currency such as 'credits', used to progress in a video game which you win by playing or which you can buy (and sometimes exchange in return).
314	The social network Facebook has also developed this kind of system.
315	But, on each occasion, a central authority controls and handles the exchanges.
316	With Bitcoin, all nodes in the network are both custodians of the book of accounts, auditors, currency issuers, and buyers and sellers.
317	How does the network operate?
318	Each transaction between two users is actually carried out between two electronic addresses like with an e-mail.
319	Except that a user can choose a different address for each payment, thereby ensuring anonymity.
320	A set of information associated with this transaction is signed electronically by a dual-key encryption system.
321	So the network can verify the authenticity of the transaction.
322	Using the contents of the file, it is also possible to ensure that the exchanged bitcoins exist in the public book of accounts, broadcast across the entire network.
323	The key step is entering the new transaction in the book.
324	It passes through the resolution of a mathematical challenge issued to the computers, and the winner, a kind of interim central banker, will have the privilege of adding this extra line.
325	This is a file hashing phase, i.e. the transformation of a large file into a shorter and unique digital imprint.
326	The goal being to find the number that gives a special imprint (lots of zeros at the beginning).
327	Once this number has been found, the other nodes can easily check that it is the right one.
328	The transaction is then indestructibly linked to the chain of all the other transactions; any modification would alter the imprint.
329	If a user wanted to defraud by paying twice with the same money very quickly (less than ten minutes), only one of the two transactions would be validated by the network - the other would remain an orphan because the two have different imprints.
330	The computer that resolves the challenge wins 50 bitcoins.
331	To avoid inflation, this award is regularly divided by two, probably by the end of 2012.
332	The number of bitcoins in circulation is therefore limited to 21 million, but they are divisible down to the hundred millionth, which leaves some margin...
333	The difficulty of the challenge is also raised with each increase in computing power.
334	The life of the network has had its ups and downs.
335	Websites providing services for Bitcoin have been attacked and bitcoins in deposits stolen.
336	The ECB also highlights the possibilities of money laundering using this anonymous service.
337	But cash also has this weakness.
338	Major players like Wikipedia refuse donations of this nature.
339	Others, such as the WordPress blog platform, accept them.
340	Recently, Adi Shamir and Dorit Ron, from the Weizmann Institute in Israel, analysed the accounting books and showed that almost 80% of bitcoins do not circulate.
341	Pierre Noizat, also author of an educational book on this currency, has a lot of faith in the potential of this technology as a transaction network.
342	His system, Paytunia, is equivalent to a credit card (in real money) or a contactless payment by mobile, but it uses Bitcoin to validate transactions, which are thus cheaper.
343	Also the user manages his identity and can therefore be anonymous.
344	The system is easy to implement by merchants, who do not need to install new terminals or software.
345	There is a general movement to reappraise hierarchical systems for more horizontal systems.
346	The ECB, in its report, says it will reassess the various risks, currently regarded as high, in the event of the currency's success.
347	We got out of Afghanistan.
348	What now?
349	French troops have left their area of responsibility in Afghanistan (Kapisa and Surobi).
350	NATO and the Americans are due to follow in late 2014.
351	It is time for the Afghan army to resume possession of its territory and the Afghan people to choose their future, without expecting us to do everything.
352	It is mainly Afghan peasants that we have punished by regarding them as terrorists.
353	And ourselves, with our 88 soldiers killed, plus the wounded, the maimed.
354	The Taliban is composed of foreign extremists, former leaders in refuge in Pakistan, but often peasants who refuse the presence of foreign armed forces, like in the time of the Soviets.
355	They want to defend their traditions, both ancient and archaic, even though they have been joined by Jihadists, Pakistanis, Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks.
356	Tolerated, sometimes assisted, by local insurgents, the latter will no longer be so when Westerners become more scarce.
357	The departure of French troops from the Nijrab base, which I observed from the top of hills of almond trees planted with French funding, was carried out in an orderly fashion.
358	Convoys of trucks and armoured vehicles reached Kabul without being attacked, overflown by helicopters.
359	There will be no wave of the Taliban in Kabul by the end of 2014.
360	Circumstances have changed since their irresistible advance between 1994 and 1996.
361	At that time Kabul was empty, the country being torn apart by the struggles between different factions.
362	Their takeover of the country had been perceived then as a sort of liberation, a return to safety.
363	Afghanis paid the price of the obscurantism of these peasants by the organisation of Al-Qaeda, but their situation has not improved today.
364	Former Mujahidin, the Afghan Government and the current Taliban are allied in the desire to keep women in an inferior position.
365	The main anti-Soviet war leaders returned to power in 2001.
366	They became profiteers, seizing government land to resell as building land to refugees returning from Iran and Pakistan, benefiting from huge American outsourcing contracts.
367	They have become discredited; what is more, most of them did not fight themselves.
368	The people, as I heard in the countryside, want a Government that is not made up of thieves.
369	Many young people want to leave, as those who were able to benefit from American largesse will leave: the flight of capital is considerable.
370	The young people are tired of war and its ideologies.
371	They have rubbed shoulders with the modern world during their exile in Iran or Pakistan, and appreciated the benefits.
372	Roughly 65% of the population is less than 25; Kabul now has 5 million people, a fifth of the total population.
373	In towns and cities, the state schools are full, with girls and boys alike.
374	It will be necessary to provide work for those young people who no longer want to return to the obscurantism of the former parties or the corruption of certain leaders.
375	All of them, including the armed opponents, are partial to mobile phones; television, with its Turkish soap operas that show a modern world, is followed everywhere.
376	The army is now present.
377	Will the authorities who command it be considered legitimate?
378	Former commanders of the anti-Soviet struggle are already thinking about restoring provincial militias, which will escape the central power.
379	Afghanistan, land of mountains, with strong local identities, should be able to benefit from a certain decentralisation, in the image of the Western nations, but the United States wanted to turn it into a centralised State, with strong presidential power, abolishing the post of Prime Minister, which had existed since the 1964 Constitution.
380	President Karzai does not want any foreign controls, particularly on the occasion of the elections in April 2014.
381	But, since the 50s and already well before, his country has been dependent on foreign aid.
382	No industries have been re-established, no dams are in good condition, no major irrigation systems have been repaired.
383	Everything is imported; nothing is produced, apart from fruit and vegetables.
384	The Priority is left to private initiative.
385	In a country ruined by thirty years of war, government control over the infrastructure would have been necessary.
386	The rumour was spread that Afghanistan had huge mineral wealth.
387	This only added to the feeling that the Westerners were only there to seize it.
388	With no energy to process the iron ore or copper on site, or means of transport to export it across the mountains, there is no mining.
389	The Chinese have already almost left the Mes Aynak copper mine, leaving international archaeologists (funded by the World Bank) to search the huge Buddhist site and remain the largest employers in the province.
390	One day it will also be necessary for Afghanistan and Pakistan, on which imports and exports largely depend, to restore normal relations.
391	The departure of French combat troops was completed on 20 November.
392	The new cooperation treaty provides for the continuation of traditional aid: girls' high school, boys' high school, French Department at the University, French Institute, cooperation in the military, legal, medical and agricultural fields, support to the archaeological Delegation.
393	These projects, involving large numbers of local labour, have helped to contain the insurgency: irrigation, wells, drinking water, reforestation, fruit trees, soil protection and increase in cultivable areas.
394	What will we leave as a souvenir, after two billion euros of military spending?
395	A much more modest budget would contribute to improving local living conditions, which are very hard in these valleys often located over 2,000 metres above sea level.
396	The Embassy has received dozens of written requests for small agricultural projects from local communities in Kapisa province.
397	To be in a position to free themselves from the uprising led by foreign groups, which is what farmers told me they want, a small amount of civil aid should be maintained in their favour, well controlled and directly affecting them.
398	A Constitution by force in Egypt
399	A new gamble for President Mohammed Morsi.
400	While Egypt remains more divided than ever around the constitutional declaration, which temporarily grants him full powers, he has decided to go for broke.
401	Taking everyone by surprise, he announced on Wednesday that the Constituent Assembly would vote on its final text the following day.
402	Just a week ago, the head of State had given the Assembly two more months to finish its work.
403	For two years Egypt has relied on a provisional text, amended several times and this has weakened institutional stability and led to legal imbroglios.
404	This new initiative has only served to enhance the divide in the country.
405	His supporters affirm that this is the quickest way to put an end to the institutional and political crisis, by speeding up the transition process.
406	A referendum is due to be held within the next two weeks.
407	A very short period, which forces the Brothers to abandon their plan to explain the text, article by article, to the Egyptians.
408	For the President, it is also a way to achieve popular and democratic legitimacy while the dispute rages throughout the country.
409	Mohammed Morsi seems convinced that Egyptians will vote favourably, as he stated in an interview with the American weekly Time.
410	It was in a strange atmosphere that 85 members of the Constituent Assembly, with a large Islamist majority, voted on the text yesterday.
411	Most of the liberals were missing.
412	In mid-November, shortly before the constitutional declaration, they had slammed the door, feeling they had failed to assert their views.
413	Representatives of human rights, religious minorities or civil society had done likewise.
414	In order to obtain a quorum, 11 members, alternates, were hastily added yesterday morning.
415	Some of them are very close to the Muslim Brotherhood.
416	Not surprisingly, the articles were for the most part voted unanimously.
417	Commentators were also amused that one of the only diversions of the day was expressed with regard to... the hour of prayer, some Committee members feeling that the Constituent Assembly clock was wrong.
418	The text, which was still being voted on yesterday evening, has 234 articles.
419	For the Islamists, the fact that this article was not amended is a guarantee of their goodwill and their respect for the other elements of Egyptian society.
420	Because in their opinion Islamisation of the Constitution is done through other articles.
421	They refer in particular to article 220, which grants Al-Azhar University an advisory role, with particular reference to verifying the conformity of the laws with sharia.
422	The liberals' fears are also fuelled by the fact that the next Rector of the university will probably be much less moderate than the current one.
423	Beyond its religious aspect, the text voted on yesterday is highly criticised due to the extensive powers it grants to the President of the Republic.
424	The Muslim Brothers argue that they are significantly reduced compared to what they were under the former regime.
425	Another issue: the powers conferred on the army.
426	In accordance with the wishes of the military, the Defence budget review will be not submitted to Parliament, but to a National Defence Council.
427	Nor will trials of civilians will be banned in military tribunals, as requested by associations for the defence of human rights.
428	Who also voice their concerns about the text, which they consider repressive.
429	The offence of blasphemy is maintained and insults are now prohibited, which could have serious consequences on freedom of expression, particularly for the press.
430	In addition, no longer does any of the articles refer to the protection of women, highlights Heba Morayef, from Human Rights Watch.
431	In her opinion, the only positive point is the prohibition of torture in article 36.
432	The word was not included in the previous Constitution.
433	While the Egyptian President was speaking yesterday evening on television, demonstrations are planned for this afternoon.
434	Supporters of the Head of State will march on Saturday.
435	In Israel, holy places await Ukrainian tourists, the omphalos and a sea of saline water
436	The Holy Land combines the splendour of biblical truths, modern comfort and primeval nature.
437	AiF [Argumenti i Fakti] newspaper highlighted the five most important reasons why it is a must to visit Israel.
438	Let's worship the holy places
439	It is worth visiting the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized.
440	Galilee is the place where Jesus performed his magic: turned water into wine at a wedding, walked on water, calmed a storm, and filled the nets.
441	This is also where Jesus came before his disciples and after the resurrection.
442	But the biggest number of holy places is in Jerusalem.
443	Believers walk through the Way of Grief or Via Dolorosa.
444	It starts by the Antonia Fortress - Praetorium - where the judgement took place, and brings us along the streets of the Old Town to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Golgotha - the place of the crucifixion, Stone of Unction and the place of Jesus' burial.
445	This is also the location of the symbolic Christian omphalos, which symbolizes the salvation of mankind.
446	The Holy Cross Monastery in Jerusalem is erected at the site that, according to Christian legend, yielded the tree used to make the cross for Jesus' crucifixion.
447	Jerusalem has the most holy places for the Jews as well - the Wailing Wall, which remained from a temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
448	According to tradition, people of different faiths leave notes here with their wishes, which are then fulfilled.
449	Travel along a vertical
450	Ruins of the Massada Fortress remain from a secret refuge from enemies, built by Herod in 25 BC for his family.
451	They are located on cliffs in the mountains at an elevation of 450 m above sea level.
452	They can be reached on foot only by those who are into mountain climbing.
453	Others are delivered to this historical mountaintop by a cableway.
454	In the north of the country, at an elevation of 1600-2040 m, there is a famous ski resort called Hermon, which fills up with tourists in winter months.
455	A shuttle bus brings people to it from the foot of the mountain.
456	The total length of ski pistes is 45 km.
457	According to an ancient legend, pagan gods used to live on the mountain.
458	Visit unique museums
459	This country has about 300 museums.
460	You won't be able to visit all of them on one trip
461	But at least the five most interesting ones are worth a visit.
462	Among them - Museum of Israel, located close to Knesset (Parliament).
463	It has ancient Qumran manuscripts and Dead Sea scrolls found in the caves of the Judean desert, along with about 500,000 archaeological and anthropological artefacts.
464	The Museum of Art in Tel-Aviv is also interesting.
465	Its exhibits include a wide range of impressionists and expressionists like Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Cezanne, Matisse, Modigliani, Chagall, Picasso.
466	In Akko, you can visit the bath museum Al-Basha, which consists of several rooms of ancient Turkish baths with models of visitors and bath attendants of the time.
467	In Caesarea, it is worth visiting the unique private Ralli Museum, where you can enjoy the sculptures of Dali and Rodin.
468	There are no tour guides or gift shops.
469	Entry is free of charge, and contributions are strictly not allowed.
470	The fifth one is the Holocaust Museum or Yad Vashem in Tel-Aviv, which tells one of the most dramatic stories in history.
471	The most tragic section is the children's memorial, built in memory of 1.5 million children killed in concentration camps and gas chambers.
472	You go in and find yourself in complete darkness.
473	Stars are glimmering,
474	and you listen to names of Jewish children and countries where they died.
475	Ukraine is mentioned there too.
476	Wellness
477	There are three resort areas in Israel, located on the coasts of the Mediterranean, Red, and Dead Seas.
478	Each have swimming pools, aqua parks, dolphinaria and oceanaria.
479	It is notable that one can swim in the Red Sea even in winter months, because the water temperature does not drop below 21 degrees and the air warms to 23 degrees.
480	The Dead Sea is even warmer, and people swim in it all year round.
481	Incidentally, it is the most unusual sea in the world, located in the lowest point of the planet - 417 m below sea level.
482	Its azure water is saline and easily keeps you afloat, even if you don't know how to swim.
483	The surrounding landscapes are surreal in their beauty.
484	People come here to undergo a course of treatment using salt water - wraps and medicinal muds, and to improve their health if they have dermatitis, allergies, asthmas, eczemas, arthritis, bronchitis, or diabetes, or to return emotional balance.
485	Touch the mysteries of antiquity
486	They are preserved in the old section of Tel-Aviv - in the town of Jaffa on the Mediterranean Sea.
487	The famous sea route connecting Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia runs through it.
488	The city is mentioned in ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian legends.
489	According to legends, this is where Noah built his ark and Perseus saved the beauty Andromeda, with whom he lived a long and happy life.
490	Tourists really like to wander the narrow streets named after signs of the zodiac.
491	They say, if you touch the walls on the street of your sign, fortune will come to you.
492	In Jaffa, you can meet newlyweds who come from all over Israel and even from other countries for photo sessions.
493	During the Roman period, Caesarea was the main city of Judea and the residence of Roman prefects, including Pontius Pilate.
494	The carefully restored theatre is now used for evening concerts and opera performances.
495	A note for the tourist
496	When you go to Israel, don't worry about your bad English knowledge: approximately 30% of the country's population speaks Russian.
497	For the trip, it is better to take dollars, not euros, because they are easily exchanged for shekels (currently 1 dollar = 3.8 shekels).
498	City transportation is mainly buses, but Jerusalem has a high-speed tram, and Haifa has the only subway line in the country, comprising six stops and connecting upper town with lower.
499	In essence, it is an underground cable railway.
500	A ticket for any type of city transportation costs 6 shekels, and you can ride for 1.5 hours with transfers.
501	According to the Jewish tradition, Sabbath is celebrated in Israel.
502	Between Friday evening and the sunset on Saturday, markets, stores, and public transportation stop working.
503	The work week starts on Sunday morning.
504	Many cafes, restaurants and hotels have only kosher food, with no pork, seafood, fish with no scales, or dishes that combine milk with meat.
505	There is a wide selection of dishes from lamb and beef, soups and desserts cooked using coconut milk, traditional Jewish hummus paste, various sauces, falafel (balls made of ground chickpeas), fruits and vegetables.
506	The streets of Israel don't have homeless dogs.
507	But there are many well-fed cats, which walk around lazily.
508	In the evening, they can even be seen sleeping on roofs of parked cars.
509	These pussycats like busy places and do not refuse treats.
510	Car rental, depending on car type, costs from 37 (Hyundai Getz) to 188 (Audi A6, Volvo S80) dollars a day.
511	Plus insurance of 15 dollars a day.
512	Bike rental costs 15 shekels a day.
513	Museum entrance costs 30 shekels on average.
514	In numbers
515	In 2012, over three million tourists from around the world visited Israel.
516	Visitors and holidaymakers arrive mostly from the USA, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, England, and Ukraine.
517	Between January and October 2012 118,800 Ukrainian tourists visited the Holy Land, which is 51% more than a similar figure in 2010, before the removal of the visa regime on February 9, 2011.
518	While deputies and human rights activists argue about the purpose of the law on mandatory language testing, the country already has scam artists who sell fake certificates.
519	Every year, 13 million migrant workers come to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities in Russia.
520	Mostly these are citizens of Central Asia: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
521	Their only goal is to earn money to support families back home.
522	A new law came into effect on December 1, which obliges every migrant worker to pass a Russian language test.
523	For the moment, this law applies only to those who intend to work in services, housing and utility services, household services, and retail.
524	But with time - as promised by the Federal Migration Service - tests will become mandatory for all non-residents.
525	In addition to language, Russian history and basics of the legal system will be tested.
526	Language knowledge will have to be confirmed both to receive and to extend the work permit.
527	An exception is in effect only for citizens of countries where Russian is a state language.
528	People who received education certificates and diplomas before the fall of the USSR in 1991 are also exempt under the law.
529	Purpose, doomed fate, and the protection of rights
530	Seven testing points will be operating under the auspices of the Pushkin Institute of Russian Language, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Moscow State University (MGU), St. Petersburg State University (SPbGU), and other Russian education institutions.
531	Migrants can take the tests in all cities; more than 160 such centres have been opened.
532	The initiative to introduce the testing was supported by State Duma members and the Federal Migration Services.
533	But human rights activists, asked the question repeatedly in the press before the law came into force: what will it actually achieve?
534	What will the obligation to know Russian change for the Russians and for the non-residents?
535	First of all, according to representatives of the migration service, this will allow to reduce the number of people suffering from labour slavery.
536	Many speak about protection of the rights of work migrants, explains the Head of the representative office of the Federal Migration Services of Russia, Viktor Sebelev.
537	Rights protection should begin before their departure.
538	Only the system of organized selection will enable us to solve 90% of the problems of foreign workers.
539	Migrants without profession, education, who do not know Russian, who do not have a medical certificate start to have problems.
540	We receive many complaints from our migrants.
541	Not be angry, boss!
542	Nonetheless, many citizens of Central Asian countries, who plan to go to work in Russia, admit that not only their understanding of the language of the country where they are going is not good, but they can barely write in their own language.
543	Naturally, this is not so much their fault, but due to poverty: very few Turks, Uzbeks, and Tajiks can afford even a basic education.
544	Their families don't even have food to feed their children, not to mention decent clothing, shoes, and supplies.
545	After reaching adolescence, these kids go to work at the first opportunity.
546	It is hard, if language knowledge is bad, they admit.
547	You feel humiliated and inferior.
548	But human rights activists note one important point about the law on language.
549	Testing will be conducted only for those migrants who have legal status.
550	If they have no status, there will be no testing, nor any official work in the future.
551	In the meantime, most of the migrant workers continue to live in Russia illegally.
552	Welcome, or No Unauthorized Entry
553	Many of the foreigners assert that receiving official status in our country is not that easy.
554	The reason lies in bureaucratic hurdles and the already mentioned language difficulties.
555	In addition, legalization costs money: from 12,000 to 16,000 rubles.
556	Whereas a fake registration is done quickly and costs only one and a half thousand.
557	Officers of the Russian Police know that we mainly have fake papers, without registration, hence the extortion.
558	Roll up, don't be cheap, get your artwork
559	On the first day of the law's entry into effect it turned out that not only migrant registration documents can be fake.
560	A few forged certificates about passing language tests have been seized by Federal Migration Services officers already.
561	Forged documents are printed on a standard colour printer.
562	Naturally, they were not free for their owners: each of the migrants, who had hoped to facilitate the task of passing the tests in this way paid seven thousand rubles for them.
563	It is two and a half times more than the process of official testing, which costs three thousand.
564	Government officials and human rights activists agree that the main goal in the near future is to protect the system from corruption, so that the certificates could not just be bought.
565	For the moment, the authorities can promise migrant workers who could not pass the test the first time to give time to complete a basic language course.
566	In addition, those who come without Russian language knowledge will be offered work in areas that do not require active communication with people.
567	The Ministry of the Interior does not put arms from the illegal market back into circulation
568	The share of crime involving legal weapons is extremely low
569	The Russian Ministry of the Interior is proposing to toughen up the law for owners of civil weapons.
570	This is the reaction of authorities to recent incidents: CLICK shots at weddings, where there were no casualties, and the massacre staged by Moscow lawyer Dmitry Vinogradov, resulting in CLICK the death of seven people.
571	Policemen want to prohibit the carrying of weapons in public places and raise the legal age of weapons licensing from 18 to 21.
572	The idea was supported by the head of the Duma Committee on Safety and Anti-Corruption, Irina Yarovaya, who promised that the amendments to the law on weapons will be brought to the State Duma in the near future.
573	The percentage of crime involving registered weapons is minimal, said criminal lawyer Vasily Lesnikov to BBC Russia.
574	According to the Ministry of the Interior's statistics, 142 crimes using firearms registered with law enforcement agencies have been committed in the six months of 2012, whereas 1,168,000 crimes have been recorded in total for this period.
575	According to them, one can find any weapon at a low price right now.
576	Nonetheless, the Ministry of the Interior asserts that the situation of the spread of illegal arms is under control.
577	Suppliers: from plants to officers
578	There are five such channels, explains retired colonel Viktor Baranets, who has worked in the Ministry of Education and the General Staff for 10 years.
579	Screenshot of the site that accepts orders for weapons.
580	Baranets explains that this covers weapons taken from police warehouses and those stolen directly from law enforcement agencies' employees.
581	Illegal arms are taken to be sold from military warehouses.
582	Explosions have often been heard at military warehouses.
583	Manufacturers of weapons make their contribution, according to Baranets.
584	An especially high number of guns and machine guns come from poor countries like Kyrgyzstan.
585	Where do the weapons come from?
586	A report about this was prepared by the Centre of Problems Analysis and Public Management Planning in 2011.
587	Experts analysed the reports of the Department of the Interior and Rosstat, criminology literature and open data from portals on weapons.
588	The overwhelming majority of illegal weapons, according to the researchers, comes from the military and security forces.
589	According to him, dealers go to the military warehouse for a new batch of goods.
590	One piece, for example a TT gun can be bought from a warrant officer.
591	It is issued to him, and given through the fence.
592	Like in a luxury store
593	The buyer and seller often find each other through friends.
594	I found out the price of the weapon only there
595	military commentator Viktor Baranets
596	To get a weapon, I need someone with connections, says the sales consultant. - I have an acquaintance, but I'm not sure it's reliable.
597	Right now, even if I need a few knuckledusters, I get them through someone I trust.
598	He also supplies them only to me, because he knows that I won't give him away.
599	Beginners look for weapons in different ways.
600	Former military man Viktor Baranets tried himself as a buyer of illegal weapons in the mid-1990's, when he was preparing to publish an article about this.
601	The formulas are still the same, according to him.
602	According to Baranets, the buyer is not offered a pig in a poke - you can try out everything.
603	I, the potential client, am not just buying; we go to the forest with the seller and set a target there.
604	Store on a sofa
605	No documents or personal meetings are needed.
606	Users leave their requests and ask questions.
607	Can a minor buy?
608	Federal Security Service now spread a big network of fake sites and there are tons of potential buyers of military weapons.
609	People come like hungry fish to bait, and then mine coal in Siberia.
610	military commentator and former military man Viktor Baranets
611	I heard about this: normally the site is registered outside the area of applicability of the laws of Russia.
612	People accept orders.
613	The buyer pays at an ATM.
614	Viktor Baranets confirms that after leaving a request on the site you can stay without a weapon and go to jail.
615	The Federal Security Service now spreads a big network of fake sites and there are tons of potential buyers of military weapons.
616	Makarov for 100 dollars
617	When buying illegal firearms, 100 to 900 dollars is enough according to experts.
618	According to Dmitry Kislov from the Rights to Weapons organization, a Makarov gun can be acquired for 100-300 dollars.
619	The wait time is a month to a month and a half.
620	It is shipped from long-term storage warehouses by the mid-level management of these warehouses.
621	According to official statistics of the authorities, the number of such crimes in Russia on the whole dropped 7% as compared to January-October 2011, amounting to 22,900, while the number of cases of theft and extortion of weapons, ammunition, explosive substances and explosive devices dropped by 7.8%.
622	Fast-food and supermarket workers are on strike in the U.S.A.
623	Up to a fourth of all American teenagers have worked the cash register at McDonald's at one time or another
624	In the last few days, there is a wave of protest actions in the U.S.A. against low salaries in supermarkets of the Walmart chain and popular fast food chain restaurants like McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy's and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
625	Right now, nobody is able to predict whether this wave will turn into the ninth wave or it is destined to fizzle out early.
626	Actions are being supported by unions and a series of left-wing organizations.
627	In addition to increasing the low wages received by employees of Walmart and fast food chains, the goal of the protesters is to create unions within them.
628	This sector of the economy is not covered by any union movement yet.
629	46 cents a year?
630	Actions began last week after Thanksgiving, on Black Friday, when massive sales drew millions of people in America, sometimes accompanied by clashes.
631	On this day, some employees of the Walmart corporation, which employs 2.2 million people around the world, left their workplaces and picketed together with the unions and left-wing activists from the corporation stores that sell products to people on low-to-medium incomes.
632	Walmart sells everything imaginable, from diapers, hunting rifles and car batteries, to vacuum cleaners, eggs and milk.
633	Products in its stores are on average 8% to 27% cheaper than in major supermarkets.
634	So many low-paid Walmart employees shop only at their workplace.
635	Availability and assortment made Walmart one of the biggest American corporations.
636	According to critics, Walmart can afford to sell the products cheaply partly because it pays little to its employees.
637	These latter also complain about hard work conditions, for example lack of lift trucks and hand-held scanners.
638	Protesters on Black Friday demanded a salary increase and complained that the cost of medical insurance provided by the corporation went from 30 to 100 dollars a month.
639	A typical Walmart employee, receiving 9.5 dollars/hour, cannot afford this.
640	Scientists from the Berkeley University in California argue that if Walmart raises the average salary to 12 dollars/hour, it will cost the corporation 3.2 billion dollars.
641	This is about 1.1% more than it spends on salaries right now.
642	If Walmart fully shifts the cost of increasing wages to the shoulders of consumers, each visit to the store will cost only 46 cents more.
643	In one year, they will only spend 12.39 dollars more than now.
644	Walmart supporters happily note that the protests took place in nine states and did not cause any damage at all to the corporation.
645	Black Friday continued in its stores from 8 in the evening on Thursday till midnight the next day, and during the period Walmart sold about 5000 products a second.
646	In total, its cash registers conducted nearly 100 million transactions on Black Friday.
647	Free cash register!
648	Protests continued this week in New York, where their object was not Walmart (they're not so welcome in the progressive city, that is why they don't exist here yet), but McDonald's and other cheap restaurants.
649	McDonald's says that it sells billions of portions, and despite this it doesn't even give you sick days or pay you for honest work!
650	Jumaane Williams, member of the City Council of New York
651	At the moment, the minimum salary according to federal and NY law is 7.25 dollars an hour.
652	Fast food restaurants increase it with time, but very little. On average their ordinary employees in New York earn 8.90 dollars/hour.
653	Nobody earns less in this expensive city.
654	I cannot understand how one can survive in New York on this money.
655	Once upon a time, almost a fourth of American teenagers went through McDonald's, working part-time after school, living with parents.
656	Few saw this as a source of living or planned to stay there for long.
657	Now I continuously come across interviews with McDonald's employees, who complain that they have to survive on this salary and sometimes even feed their children.
658	On the other hand, there is a comment on the Wall Street Journal forum, whose author notes that it is irresponsible to have children if you do not know how you will feed them.
659	Participants of the protest that began at 6.30 a.m. on Thursday near the McDonald's on 40th street and Madison Avenue demanded that cashiers and cooks of the fast food chain be paid at least 15 dollars/hour, i.e. more than double their present wages.
660	They also demanded the creation of unions in the fast food industry.
661	American law prohibits the administration from preventing this or punishing activists of the union movement by nagging or firing.
662	On the other hand, the administration does not often ease their life.
663	But for objective reasons it is hard to cover fast food with a union.
664	One of them is the unusual turnover of employees.
665	Disagreeing
666	Noisy protests began on this day in a number of other cheap restaurants in Manhattan.
667	According to the New York Times, this was the biggest action of this kind in the history of the American fast food industry.
668	But only a few hundred people took part in it, and many of them were not fast food employees, which comprise tens of thousands of people in New York.
669	It is unclear right now whether this will spark a mass movement.
670	At the moment, the mind cannot be deceived too well
671	Among modern technology fans a popular topic is augmented reality, lately seen primarily through the prism of special glasses.
672	At first, a functional model was shown by Google in the summer, at its annual conference. Then, in November, it was announced that Microsoft filed an application for patent too.
673	However, according to the conversation with the leader of the group of interactive 3D technologies in the Cambridge laboratory of Microsoft, Shahram Izadi, glasses are a thing of the past for scientists in this company.
674	They are drawn by the prospect of manipulating virtual objects in the air with bare hands, creating virtual open spaces.
675	- Please tell us, in simple terms, about the work your research group does.
676	- We work on the interaction of people with machines, at the same time trying to expand the boundaries of this interaction.
677	While people in general are stuck at working with pixels on a flat screen and sometimes pointing fingers at them.
678	We want to look 5-10 years into the future and predict cardinal changes in this interaction.
679	For example, Xbox and Kinect sensors are a step forward. Almost no Xbox is sold without Kinect today, because everyone likes control by gestures.
680	- What else awaits us in the future?
681	- Despite the fact that Kinect shifted the interaction to the physical level, much still occurs on a flat screen, sometimes in 3D.
682	Information entry has improved (the system receives more data), but output still needs to get better.
683	We are trying to change this, working on truly three-dimensional display systems based on various technologies, including projection technologies.
684	We need to let the computer world into our physical world, make it more tangible.
685	But for this, we need to identify both the user and the space around him.
686	Then we will be able to supplement the real world with virtual objects in a much more convenient form.
687	Above all, get rid of these stupid virtual reality helmets!
688	- What do you think about voice control?
689	It's a popular thing, but is it overestimated?
690	- It clearly cannot be called a cure-for-all - there's a question of privacy, because we do not always want to let the others know about our actions and intentions.
691	In reality, all types of interaction with computers are good, but each in their own niche.
692	For example, we had a project to control devices in public places, in which we thought about movements, not wide movements, but small, reserved ones.
693	Movements were not recorded by a camera, but by a hand bracelet that determined the movement of bones and muscles.
694	It's big right now, but in theory it can be reduced to the size of a hand watch.
695	In general, the future lies in the mixed control, e.g. movement + voice.
696	- What do you mean?
697	- For example, how would you ask me to give you this bottle of water?
698	You will talk and show at the same time.
699	- Usually I just say.
700	- Oh, that will be very hard to detect.
701	- So you want to make the users adapt to what the machine can or cannot do at that moment?
702	- Not necessarily, but it is a mutual approximation.
703	I think in the near future, we will mainly work on developing new sensors that will enable more precise determination of a person's reaction.
704	This could be, e.g. laser sensors. They have a decent depth resolution, which is very important.
705	- If we talk about your work with Xbox Kinect sensors, what are your complaints about modern cameras?
706	Not enough resolution, depth or something else?
707	- In general, the current generation is what we can base ourselves on in working on three-dimensional recognition.
708	Of course, it would be good to have eight mega pixels with 1000 k/s speed.
709	It's not just the mega pixels, though, but the quality of the matrix and the depth.
710	From the latter point of view, all current technologies are not good enough for us - this adds work to the algorithm designers.
711	So it's important to remember about the resolution on the X, Y, but also the Z axis.
712	Speed, the number of images per second, is also very important.
713	Human movements are relatively dynamic, and the current 30 k/s is really not enough, especially for gestures.
714	Steven Bathiche from our Redmond laboratory created a touch sensor with a regulated processing delay from 1 to 100 ms, while modern serial sensors are closer to the latter indicator (60-100).
715	Not everyone understands how this affects the interaction between man and machine.
716	In my work, it would be very useful to have a device that does not require touching and would have more images per second.
717	- Does the number of cameras need to be increased?
718	- In Kinect there are three cameras now, one of which is actually an infrared emitter and the second one, the recipient of the signal.
719	The third one is actually a regular sensor of visible range.
720	It is not applied to determine the object's depth.
721	Potentially, a large number of cameras could solve the problem...
722	Or make it worse, by increasing the required volume of calculations.
723	It would be nice to create a flexible analogue Kinect, play with the flexion of camera disposition and see how this will help in three-dimensional determination of the position.
724	- As far as I remember, Microsoft did not present its glasses to the public, unlike Google.
725	Don't you think this is one of the most promising platforms from the point of view the everyday use of augmented reality technologies?
726	Glasses are a very personal device, that is their strength (private things are seen only by you) and, at the same time, their weakness - augmented reality based on glasses will not allow you to work on virtual objects together with other people.
727	- Let us imagine for a minute that manipulation of virtual holographic objects in the air is available not only to Tony Stark from Ironman, but to a regular person.
728	There is one problem with this idea that the critics often point out: no tactile feedback!
729	Hands feel nothing!
730	What answers does your group prepare to this challenge?
731	- In my lectures I often say that augmented reality is the seventh consecutive attempt at the interaction between man and machine.
732	I think that the eighth will probably be the addition of tactile sensations.
733	For now, one of the interesting tricks is to use the second hand as a sort of matrix for the image.
734	It is great at registering pushes!
735	There are also wrist bracelets that affect the nerve endings in fingers, which is also a promising area.
736	- Have you tried to deceive the mind?
737	To force it to think that it feels something that it should be feeling when it sees something?
738	- This is a good idea and we haven't tried this yet.
739	It conceals one challenge that will not be solved so quickly - how to force a person, who is physically in a very limited space to believe that he is walking along an open, almost limitless space; we are working on the concept of treadmills (not at all like in clubs), moving platforms, and giant balloons.
740	So far deceiving the mind has had limited success, there's work for many years to come.
741	That's what makes working on virtual reality so attractive to researchers - many things are in their very beginnings.
742	Judgement calls instead of culture - Rosbalt.ru
743	Rosbalt continues the project St. Petersburg Avant-garde, dedicated to residents who are ahead, in the avant-garde of culture and art.
744	This top list already includes outstanding figures of the art scene of St. Petersburg, whose achievements reach beyond the scope of the city, often recognized in Europe, bypassing fame in Russia.
745	The new player in Rosbalt - the bold artist Kirill Miller.
746	The whole city knows Kirill Miller, a bearded man dressed all in red, who can be seen by the Russian Museum, or by the Summer Garden, or at fashionable parties and shows.
747	Kirill Miller's work always brings in crowds of people, no matter where they are exhibited.
748	Kirill Miller is one of the purely St. Petersburg social and philosophical storytellers and creators of new mythology.
749	Kirill Miller is an outstanding man of the St. Petersburg avant-garde of the late 80's early 90's.
750	Moreover, he is a city man, who makes people smile on the street and lifts up everyone's spirit.
751	Recently he took up the street organ and became St. Petersburg's music man, because he was ready for this complex role with all his Bohemian existence, philosophy and image.
752	- Kirill, why do you walk around the city all in red, not yellow or turquoise, for example?
753	- I chose the colour red as a fashion designer engaged in look and image.
754	In this world, red is a compromise between artist, image-maker and society.
755	Although in society, everything that is not grey causes aggression and agitation of the bad kind.
756	But my provocations are aimed at starting conversation.
757	The whole history of my provocative actions is an invitation to discussion.
758	- When did you realise that you must be an artist?
759	- At an exhibition in the Nevsky House of Culture, where my work was displayed.
760	It became clear to me that this is my path.
761	Then, the wave of older free, unofficial artists was gone, while new, free artists like me were not understood.
762	I'm drawn to theatre, clothing, music, all genres except for literature.
763	- And all this has been united in your Art-clinic... - It was important for me to find myself in the centre of the culture of St. Petersburg, where all the best creative forces should come together.
764	In 1995, I occupied the territory on Pushkinskaya-10, and while the renovation work had not started, there was a musical and creative club, a Bohemian club, the house of the St. Petersburg Bohemia.
765	Many were born there: NOMy, Tequila Jazz, I remember when Shnur was brought there with the Van Gogh's Ear project.
766	Shnur and his friends lip sang easy songs, wearing tight leotards, and the now trendy composer Igor Vdovin was with them.
767	When the group began to play live, it became Leningrad.
768	Trakhtenberg was the presenter of many programs before Hali-Gali times.
769	We gave them Trakhtenberg, and a great career was on its way, but the basic education and mentoring he received from us.
770	Gallery D 137, Griboyedov club - all these echo the Art-clinic.
771	That is where our staff and regular customers left for.
772	I am a hero of the last century, when culture meant something.
773	In 2000, there was a poll in the press, for the People of Our City prize.
774	I was nominated Artist of the Year, my climax came to an end.
775	In the new times, it is uncomfortable to work by old rules. I'm a man of truth, honesty and culture of the last century.
776	In our time, it is easy to become popular, but culture and popularity are different. You can be popular, but not very cultural.
777	- Your work is marked by a recognizable style.
778	- Many of my works are hits, with clearly reflected relevance and acuity.
779	Clowns are a timeless category.
780	I was social before, now it is painful and scary to be like that.
781	But everything is blurred in clowns, tragedy is removed.
782	I like grotesque, I have grotesque ideas.
783	For example, saving the world by totalitarian changing of clothes by order.
784	Nowadays, people are judged by appearance, not their inner qualities.
785	Who knows, maybe you cannot shake his hand, and need to spit in his face.
786	And the lie will go away with the help of changing clothes.
787	- Recently we saw you in the role of music man. - A cultural city should have such a character.
788	Who fits the role better than I?
789	- Maybe commercial art can also be beautiful?
790	- Nowadays, commercial art should be neat, considerate, sweet.
791	There is a disintegration of cultures.
792	People used to get together in flocks, Bohemians liked one thing, the simple people, something else.
793	Now, everybody is divided into micro societies, it's hard to be liked by everyone.
794	I am not a hundred dollar bill to please all.
795	Now you have to think who you will please.
796	Now, each cult hero has 100 fans.
797	- But several thousand come to Stas Mikhailov!
798	- The cast-outs go to see him, the sexual-social sphere is at work there.
799	But 300 people will come for culture, not 10,000. In the end, there's less management, money, everything dies out.
800	I have fans; the main thing is not to betray them, not to spoil what I have earned.
801	In my youth, I painted such art that one collector had it hanging on the same wall with Falk and Larionov.
802	I started with paintings, which people usually end with.
803	Concepts are often mixed up these days.
804	People say: spiritual culture, consumer culture.
805	I am a man of yesterday's culture. I grew up on examples of artists who lived poor and died in poverty, refused money for the sake of painting.
806	This is the culture I'm for.
807	- Kirill, what is St. Petersburg missing?
808	- Good cultural experts.
809	There is such a thing: an official for culture.
810	But not everyone can be engaged in culture.
811	Under the right rulers everything was different. Kings may not have understood culture very well, but they understood that they needed to stick with the right experts.
812	There are good consultants in Moscow right now.
813	Here in St. Petersburg, there are people who could be experts, but they are pushed to the side, because more advanced experts are needed, who will correctly evaluate these experts and give way to them.
814	Judgement calls are what thrive now.
815	Even Erart, but they're different because they say honestly that we don't accept all modern art. There are some artists, who need to find other museums for themselves.
816	- What does St. Petersburg mean to you?
817	- St. Petersburg is not a cultural capital, Moscow has much more culture, there is bedrock there.
818	It's hard for art to grow on our rocks.
819	We need cultural bedrock, but we now have more writers than readers. This is wrong.
820	In Europe, there are many curious people, who go to art exhibits, concerts.
821	Here, this layer is thin.
822	We need to make art fashionable, as it was in the beginning of last century.
823	The project is supported by the St. Petersburg grant.
824	Give birth in space
825	The earth is in danger.
826	Global warming or an encounter with a killer asteroid.
827	Caravans of cosmic ships with humans on board leave in search of a replacement planet.
828	To save humanity, the question is how to propagate our race in conditions of weightlessness or on that replacement planet?
829	I think the choice is small.
830	There are only two actual planets that can be explored even hypothetically.
831	But while conditions on Mars are more appropriate for life, Venus has 500-degree temperatures.
832	Life is possible only at a high altitude or on the orbit of Venus... in space.
833	The question of reproduction in space began with flora.
834	Half a century ago, experiments were run on plants.
835	Four generations of peas grown in orbit were no different from their earth counterparts.
836	Then, insects were bred in orbit, small fruit flies.
837	In 1979, quail eggs were sent to space, to check how an embryo develops in weightlessness.
838	We get an absolutely normal chick.
839	But then the problem begins.
840	Having found no support, chicks were tumbling around in disorder.
841	After 10 hours, the newborns experienced complete atrophy of instincts.
842	Chicks did not react to light and sound.
843	And the problem was that they simply died after four days.
844	In spring 2013, experiments will continue.
845	However, only same-sex beings will be on the Bion bio-satellite.
846	There was an experiment with rats, who were sent to space with foetus.
847	In principle, there was nothing extraordinary there.
848	After landing, the cosmic rats had babies.
849	But it's hard to solve the problem of reproduction directly in space.
850	It's not an easy task.
851	Animals simply cannot follow their sexual instinct, when they're out of their familiar environment.
852	In principle, people, unlike animals, can.
853	Homo sapiens have abstract thinking, and are able to create a fitting emotional background.
854	Such experiments are not conducted for ethical reasons.
855	But women have been flying to space for 50 years.
856	The biggest risk was for Tereshkova.
857	The most valuable thing for humanity is the female body.
858	Whether she will be able to give birth after this flight.
859	In June 1964, only a year after flying to space, the first woman in space Valentina Tereshkova gave birth to a daughter.
860	The child's father, Andrian Nikolaev, was also a cosmonaut.
861	In 1988, the second woman cosmonaut, Svetlana Savitskaya, who went into orbit twice and even worked in open space, gave birth to a son.
862	However, the risk remains.
863	We have few, very few cosmonauts, who were OK and had healthy children after long flights.
864	And yet, humanity needs to seek out some new avenues in biotechnologies, protection from radiation, creation of artificial gravity.
865	Hydro-laboratory of CPK - mandatory phase of training for a flight.
866	Here, cosmonauts practice skills of working in open space in zero-gravity conditions.
867	Water imitates weightlessness.
868	If for adults water is a foreign medium, although comfortable, for infants it is a native element.
869	Small amphibians seem to confirm that life came to land from the ocean.
870	There is a connection with the fact that an infant spends about 9 months in amniotic fluid in the womb; it is easier to get used to water after that.
871	In principle, it is logical, because only two weeks pass from birth until the first bathing.
872	In other words, if for a newborn weightlessness is more natural, a woman needs gravity, earth's pull.
873	Stomach and pelvic muscles usually quickly degenerate in weightlessness; the ability to push out the embryo is reduced.
874	Well, let's assume that childbirth stimulators will work out.
875	Maybe she will push out the baby in a special room.
876	On the other hand, a baby also needs artificial gravity.
877	When a body does not feel the earth's pull, it does not form the skeletal and muscular system.
878	It is not possible to dress a newborn in orbit into a special loading suit for training, as they do with adults.
879	He will simply not have what he needs to survive.
880	For the moment, birth of children in space is just a theory.
881	However, with time, it will become reality, when earthlings will go to a faraway planet in their ships, and it will become the home for their offspring, who were born in space.
882	NKU Head: Svarc System audit has failed because of politicians.
883	The Czech Republic has sound control bodies and a good standard of legislation when it comes to public contracts, but it lags behind in their application.
884	This was said by Miloslav Kala, vice-president of the Supreme Audit Office (NKU) in an interview for Aktualne.cz.
885	Similar conclusions are also reached by the joint audit from the Czech and German auditors.
886	The Prime Minister recently claimed that the ODS will not be burdening business owners with its checks - so is it forbidden or allowed?
887	At the audit committee's session in the House of Deputies, you spoke about a joint project between the Czech Republic and Germany, within which legislation relating to public contracts in both countries was compared.
888	What exactly was this about?
889	This is about parallel auditing, which we began around two years ago.
890	Simply put, this is about how European legislation governs the handling of public contracts, followed by individual state legislations and then the actual practice itself.
891	This confirms that creating more and more concise rules is not enough, and that attention must be paid to the actual application of these laws.
892	What does this project actually help you with, and what do you think its outcome will bring?
893	This kind of joint audit could contribute to curtailing these efforts to specify our law, to reduce and perfect boundaries, when it does not have such a positive impact.
894	Economy means acquiring the required thing at a reasonable (which does not always mean the lowest) price, so that profiteering and possible criminal proceedings may be avoided.
895	However, just because we have reduced the order limits, does not mean something will be procured.
896	The system might become overloaded with the amount of paperwork, and those, who wish to look for loopholes in it, will be able to take advantage far more easily than if the limits had remained higher.
897	These are domestic problems about the practical implementation of legislation relating to public contracts.
898	How does the audit system work in Germany?
899	Is there an office like the NKU, or is it organised differently?
900	As far as the office is concerned, the Bundesrechnungshof functions like our NKU, and it is organised like ours, it also has a committee although it is appointed slightly differently, but basically both offices operate similarly.
901	Powers are also similar to a degree, though of course Germany is organised federally, so these courts of auditors are also at the member state levels - in this respect their system slightly differs from our own.
902	The BRH can only audit federal money, known to us as state funds.
903	Public funds, which, for us, are administered by regional and municipal authorities, are audited by the federal courts of auditors there.
904	When it comes to their legislation, is it more straightforward than ours?
905	Overall, I would not like to make a comparison without any specific data, nevertheless in certain respects Germany serves as an example, but it certainly cannot be said that it is better in every aspect.
906	Is this because, perhaps, they have better enforcement?
907	That is certainly not true, but again, I prefer not to make such comparisons.
908	It should be said that even in a country we perceive as exemplary, they encounter a whole range of problems.
909	If that were not the case, they would gain nothing from working with our office, would they?
910	Coming back to domestic legislation, what did the amendment to public contracts legislation mean for your office, is its impact being felt already?
911	The period since the amendment came into force has been quite short, so it has not manifested itself in our audit work yet.
912	Since we carry out our audits ex-post, a certain delay has to be taken into account.
913	So do you see the adoption of this legislation as a benefit, or rather as another burden on the bureaucratic system?
914	I believe this legislation is a step in the right direction, and I hope this will be confirmed.
915	Under the previous rules, parties being audited were already bound by their audit provider (for example, in the case of regional operational programmes, the regional office) to the fact that every infringement of public contracts law means a breach of budgetary discipline.
916	Is it worth constraining the law in this way, in that case?
917	I do not think this is the way.
918	The system should prevent those who want to attack and abuse it, but not penalise those, who make a mistake on a technicality, which does not affect the final decision.
919	This kind of system will only increase pressure on bureaucracy.
920	So how can we get out of this?
921	Let's see where this dead-end takes us.
922	Is the Svarc System prohibited or allowed?
923	The Law must be set out one way or the other, and if it prohibits something, then even the Government's head cannot prevent the work of its department, which is duty-bound to monitor and enforce.
924	The law on public contracts has relatively strict rules about the formalities which must be adhered to - which is the right way to ensure public tenders are protected.
925	On the other hand, it is a tragedy, when a bidder with the best offer is excluded on a technicality.
926	The Law will never be perfect, but its application should be just - this is what we are missing, in my opinion.
927	Roads are icy in places, but mostly passable.
928	In several places in the Czech Republic, the main roads are icy and snowy.
929	However, the majority of roads are passable, with extra care needed in places.
930	Carlsbad region
931	In the Carlsbad region, the roads have been usable this morning, though in some places they were icy and snowy.
932	The temperature has dropped to between five and ten degrees below zero, though it is expected to get warm slightly during the day.
933	Snowing in the region has stopped, and only a thin layer of snow remains in the lowlands.
934	However, the ridges of the Krusne Mountains have around 30 centimetres of snow.
935	In some locations there is limited visibility due to mist, according to the local highway service.
936	The R6 high-speed motorway and primary roads in the region are now usable without restriction.
937	Caution is, of course, appropriate, for example, on certain bridges, where the surface can be icy and slippery.
938	All secondary and tertiary roads are also passable, including mountain roads.
939	In certain stretches of these roads there might be remaining frozen and compacted snow patches.
940	Above all, at higher levels, extra care should be taken while driving.
941	Pardubice and Hradec Kralove region
942	On some roads in Eastern Bohemia, there might be a risk of black ice, at higher altitudes and in the mountains there might be a layer of compacted snow, according to the Road and Motorway Directorate.
943	The highway service is warning the drivers against black ice, which might occur at higher altitudes of the Pardubice region in particular.
944	Black ice may occur around Lanskroun, Usti nad Orlici, Policky, Svitavy, and Vysoke Myto, and particularly on secondary and tertiary roads.
945	The I/43 and I/34 roads have been chemically treated around Svitavy.
946	Snow is particularly affecting the roads in the Krkonose and Orlicke mountains.
947	At higher altitudes, there is a compacted snow layer on the roads around Rychnov nad Kneznou and Trutnov.
948	In Eastern Bohemia the day will be mostly clear to partly cloudy, and dry.
949	Temperatures will be between minus three and plus one degree Celsius mostly, with a light wind.
950	Pilsen region
951	The roads in the Pilsen region have been usable this morning, with extra care needed in some places. Drivers should take the weather conditions into account.
952	The morning will be frosty, with temperatures ranging between three and nine degrees below zero.
953	Due to the existing snow and subsequent drop in temperature, certain roads may be icy.
954	Drivers should expect mist in places, though visibility will gradually improve.
955	This information was reported by the region's highway service.
956	The D5 motorway is drivable almost without restriction, but the road services recommend extra caution between the 80th and 131st kilometre marks.
957	Most primary road surfaces are dry and frost-free.
958	Southern areas of the Pilsen and Tachov regions may have icy patches.
959	Secondary and tertiary roads are wet, and may therefore also have icy patches.
960	Drivers should be cautious especially on less frequented roads in the Bohemian Forest.
961	Olomouc region
962	Drivers should expect snow slush on the roads if heading for the higher parts of the Olomouc region.
963	It is a result of the chemical treatment carried out at Cervenohorkse sedlo and on the way to Videlsky Kriz.
964	Snowploughs were brought out by falling snow overnight, the Sumperk region, according to highway maintenance, got around three centimetres of snow.
965	In other parts of the region, roads are mainly passable without restrictions.
966	Their Jesenik counterparts also made an outing overnight; the roads all the way to the highest altitudes are now clear and wet following the chemical treatment, according to them.
967	The Olomouc region's roads are usable without restriction, while in the area of Sternberk drivers should beware in wooded areas, where roads have remained wet.
968	Usti nad Labem region, Liberec region
969	Since this morning, the snowploughs have reported several places, which are difficult to pass in northern Bohemia.
970	Besides certain snow-covered places, or some icy frost patches, the mountain road from Telnice to Kninice in the Usti nad Labem region is also closed, according to the police database.
971	Temperatures remain below zero and roads are likely to remain snowy and icy. In the lowlands, however, particularly southeast of the Central Bohemian Uplands, there are no problems and roads are mostly dry.
972	No traffic hold-ups have so far been reported.
973	Icy frost patches have been reported in particular by road maintenance around Steti.
974	According to meteorologists the conditions for this were perfect - rain and melting snow during the day, with a clear night and freezing temperatures.
975	Adverse conditions are expected on the main sections of the I/13 road between the Usti nad Labem and Liberec regions.
976	The closure of the Telnice to Kninice road was caused by bent tree branches, which were weighed down to road level by snowfall.
977	Simon Ornest: At the concerts we want a fusion of positive energy
978	What is your opinion on the end of the world that might come in less than a month?
979	It is just another startler, which we like to latch on to.
980	Together with The Tap Tap band, we tend to joke about it, saying that we might be the only band on earth that could draw enough positive energy to hold off or avert the end of the world completely.
981	In December you are even organising a unique series of three concerts against the end of the world.
982	Can you give our readers some details on this?
983	This is a nationwide fund-raising event, which we have been planning for the past two years.
984	We decided to make use of the marketing potential of the end of the Mayan calendar, due on the 21st of December at 11:10 a.m.
985	On the eve, the 20th of December, at 9pm, 3 concerts will take place in parallel in Prague, Brno, and Ostrava.
986	They will end at around the time when Kiribati Island in the Pacific, which is 12 hours ahead of us, reaches the end of the Mayan calendar.
987	Who came up with this idea?
988	Initially it was probably my idea, later we worked all the details out with our designer, Honza Augusta.
989	Apart from the fact that we want to collect enough positive energy to stop the end of the world, we also want to allow ourselves and the public to spare some thoughts for the state of our planet, when we, one day, hand it over to our children.
990	On the occasion of the end of the Mayan calendar, we have also prepared a range of unique items, shoes, t-shirts, bags, and original keys against the end of the world, which can be purchased at www.e-tap.cz to support our cause.
991	It is already well received on YouTube, will it figure at the fund-raising concerts?
992	Of course, for the grand finale, as long as the world does not end beforehand.
993	It will be sung by all the artists at all the three concerts at the same time.
994	The anthem will also be featured in a unique live broadcast on Czech Television.
995	The words were written and the role of Jesus in the video clip was played by Tomas Hanak, Xindl X also sings in it...
996	How did you end up working with them?
997	We collaborate also with other personalities of the Czech cultural scene, due to organising a lot of fund-raising events and concerts...
998	We try to really get them involved in these projects.
999	It turns out that most of them are interested and enjoy working with us.
1000	What will the proceeds from the concert against the end of the world go to?
1001	Equipping the wheelchair-accessible educational Studeo centre, which is already in its sixth year, in collaboration with the citizens association Tap from the Jedlicka Institute for the disabled.
1002	Tutors come in regularly to spend time with the Jedlicka Institute's students and run activities, which they enjoy and interest them.
1003	The students themselves do not have the funds to afford tutors, so we try to provide this for them in this way.
1004	Within the construction project at the Jedlicka Institute, a separate building is planned, which we can move into with this project.
1005	Every concert sees the appearance of several bands and artists.
1006	How do you select them?
1007	We have tried to compile a programme, which speaks for all ages, including children.
1008	For example, in Prague, Chinaski, Support Lesbiens, Illustratosphere with Dan Barta, The Tap Tap, Marian Bango and Jiri Suchy will appear.
1009	Further details can be found at www.kpks.cz.
1010	In May, we will be making our first appearance in the Prague Spring, so we will definitely be preparing a good line-up with some interesting guests.
1011	Next year, we would like to play at the Czech National House in New York, and I personally - since we will be in the USA - would like to build in appearances in Washington and Chicago.
1012	Your international plans are not modest; you have already performed, for instance, in Madrid, Brussels, London, and Moscow.
1013	The Tap Tap is nonetheless a band composed of handicapped people.
1014	How do you cope with these journeys in terms of logistics and organisation?
1015	It is not as scary as it might seem at first.
1016	We have five members in electric wheelchairs, which must be transported in the luggage area; we must also, of course, carry around with us a lot of luggage and instrument cases...
1017	Nevertheless, we have so far managed it without any problems, CSA and British Airways were well prepared for us, so much so that, on occasion, I was quite surprised.
1018	Even in Moscow, which we have just returned from, it all went smoothly.
1019	Thanks to these international trips, you will have had a chance to compare specific accessibility issues, public attitudes to disability and so on.
1020	What have been your experiences so far?
1021	After Madrid, Luxembourg, London and other places, where everything functions better than here, we have just witnessed that in the East everything is still in its beginnings.
1022	Compared to Prague, Moscow is rather inaccessible; it still remains unusual there for a person in an electric wheelchair to be travelling around the city centre on his or her own.
1023	Obvious things, such as giving wheelchairs priority in lifts, are not commonplace there.
1024	Fortunately, citizens associations are emerging there too that are trying to draw attention to the problems faced by people with disabilities.
1025	And on the other hand, where do we still lag behind more advanced countries?
1026	There are a lot of things, which we still lag behind on...
1027	It is important to mention that improvements to the current situation always depend on the efforts of the people who are affected.
1028	In London and Madrid it is completely natural for people with serious handicaps to be independently out in public, and they can use the toilets, go to the museum, or wherever...
1029	It is less common there for large groups of people with disabilities to actively take part in social life, in this respect with The Tap Tap we are a step ahead!
1030	Public respect or accessibility is one thing, but it is only when we can become famous athletes, artists, actors, politicians, or lawyers that things will really begin to change.
1031	So far there are only exceptional cases, people who are strong-willed.
1032	The Tap Tap band is currently very popular, but let us look back a few years, what prompted you in 1998 to form it?
1033	I began my job as a tutor at the Jedlicka Institute, where I was surrounded by a lot of young people, who were interested in doing something.
1034	Since I am a musician myself - among others I play the saxophone - I started a music club with a colleague.
1035	With time, as our moderator Ladya Angelovic says, it has grown a little out of our control (laugh).
1036	Your popularity has only come about in the last few years, or am I mistaken?
1037	It is true that we have been helped by creating ties to famous singers and also by our proactive work on promoting the band.
1038	We realised that work, which goes on unseen can be like it never existed.
1039	Thanks to funds from the European Union we can even afford top quality tutors, equipment and so on.
1040	Was it your goal to take The Tap Tap to such heights?
1041	From the outset, I felt there was potential to do things a little differently.
1042	Show business is filled with things, where one imitates the other.
1043	It is logical in its own way; all new things are taken in hesitantly and take a long time.
1044	Things, which are unique, are few and far between, but I would dare to claim that Tap Tap is one of those things.
1045	A person's first impression on seeing you is, of course, pity - it is a natural reaction...
1046	But that pity is simply wasted, because handicapped people are not abandoned and suffering beings, who need to be pitied.
1047	They are people, who can fully live life and blossom, assuming, of course, that they have the right environment for it.
1048	I say that when a person with a handicap succeeds in something, it is not just progress for them but for society as a whole.
1049	Has your success also been helped by your firm hand as a leader, as many people are suggesting?
1050	If we want to achieve top class work, we must be uncompromising in many things and require a certain level of discipline.
1051	I think this is to be expected.
1052	Some people come to us with a romantic idea and their head in the clouds, and when they find out they have to go to rehearsals twice a week, attend practice sessions and put up with a lot of time travelling to concerts, their enthusiasm quickly disappears.
1053	That is how it works everywhere, with every group that wants to work and wants to achieve something.
1054	The Tap Tap band currently has twenty members.
1055	How many of those were present at the beginning in 1998?
1056	Only one, Ladya Angelovic.
1057	We are an open group, people come and people go, this is unavoidable.
1058	Those who have the interest and the drive will always find our door open.
1059	The event takes place the day before the end of the world is expected, on Thursday 20.12.2012 from 9pm.
1060	The venues will be Praha Incheba, Brno Fleda, and Ostrava Plynojem with performances from 12 bands and other musicians from the Czech Republic.
1061	The concert's goal is to raise funds to equip the STUDEO multi-functional wheel-chair accessible learning centre at the Jedlicka Institute in Prague in the sum of 25 million Czech crowns.
1062	Admission fee to the concert is 400 CZK, children under 12 years of age go free, tickets on sale from Bohemiaticket.
1063	Poland and the Cosmos.
1064	Last week the council of ministers of the European Space Agency admitted Poland as the twentieth member of the agency, being the second nation from the former Eastern Block (after the Czech Republic, which became a fully fledged member of the ESA on the 12th of November 2008).
1065	Poland began close cooperation with the ESA in 1994, and in the following years it has participated in a series of agency projects.
1066	Of course, Poland's path to the space had begun much earlier.
1067	Polish boffins devoted their time to space flight even before the Second World War, but were not always met with understanding.
1068	I look back, for instance, to the lecture of A Sternfeld in Warsaw's astronomy observatory, who, on the 6th of December 1933, presented ideas on his pioneering work Entry into space.
1069	The thoughts of the young engineer (born 1905) left his audience cold, and years later Sternfeld remembered that only Dr. Jan Gadomski had shown an interest in his work.
1070	In 1934, for his work Entry into space, Sternfeld received the Robert Esnault-Pelterie and Andre Louis Hirsch prize in France.
1071	The above mentioned Dr. Jan Gadomski (1899 - 1966) later became a strong promoter of astronomy and astronautics.
1072	He published hundreds of articles in Polish journals, and wrote a series of books on these scientific subjects.
1073	Gadomski became a world-known promoter of astronautics and his contribution was, notably, recognised when a crater on the far side of the Moon was named after him.
1074	In 1925, Poland had already built a handcar which was supposed to be fitted with a rocket engine.
1075	Unfortunately, both the project's designer, and the project's details, are unknown.
1076	It is not even clear, whether the rocket was intended to start the handcar or to slow it down.
1077	Information about this rail track is only known from press articles of the time.
1078	In 1933 the Polish artillery started their engagement in flying bombs.
1079	The research was undertaken by the Weapons Technology Division in collaboration with Prof. Mieczyslaw Wolfke and Prof. Gustaw Mokrzycki.
1080	From the documents, it is clear that the research reached the stage of practical tests.
1081	Of course, the advance of the German army interrupted the research.
1082	In 1937, the concept of a photoelectric homing rocket designed by engineer Rohozinski appeared in the trade press, and in the following year The Rocket - air torpedo and flying rocket-bomb appeared, authored by Leliwy-Krywoblocki.
1083	Both projects were destined for military use of rocket engines.
1084	Immediately prior to the War, all projects for military use of rocket technologies were overseen by the Provisional Scientific Advisory Board (Tymczasowy Komitet Doradczo-Naukowy) that coordinated all the work.
1085	The Board was appointed in 1937, but after two years of activity their operations were ended by the start of the War.
1086	Further work devoted to astronautics appeared in the Polish Press after the War thanks to the Polish Astronautics Company (Polskie Towarzystwo Astronautyczne).
1087	The first reference to the company figures in the November issue of the magazine Problems in 1954, in which four in-depth articles are on the subject of astronautics.
1088	In one of these, by Prof. Subotowicz, the establishment of a company is proposed, which would dedicate itself to astronautics.
1089	At the time, there were already projects underway for artificial satellites and it was clear that cosmic research was an emerging sector.
1090	From the beginning of 1956, the Polish Astronautics Company (PTA) sought entry to the International Astronautics Federation (est. 1951) and by autumn the PTA was already a full member.
1091	In the following year, the PTA's first chairman, Kazimierz Zarankiewicz (1902 - 1959) was appointed Deputy Chairman for the International Astronautics Federation.
1092	He served in this capacity until his death in 1959.
1093	From 1956, the PTA played a significant role in the successful development of meteorological rockets RM (Rakieta Meteorologiczna), which became the first Polish rocket to enable scientific research.
1094	The first RM-1 model was completed in 1957 and the first launch took place on the 10th of October 1958.
1095	The rocket, with a ceiling of 1800 metres, measured around 80 cm in length and weighed a little under 5 kg.
1096	Later, the improved RM-1A version was constructed and in the summer of 1959 launch tests were initiated for the two-stage RM-2 rocket in the Bledowsky Desert.
1097	The rocket was 1.4 metres in length and weighed approximately 11.5 kg.
1098	A further development model was designed for real scientific work - the RM-34 rocket was to reach 14.5 km and be tasked with monitoring high altitude winds.
1099	Of course, in 1962 further research was stopped.
1100	The successor to the RM rocket type was the Meteor-1 rocket, developed from 1962 to 1965.
1101	The rocket was designed as a two-stage rocket, with a total length of 510 cm and a launch weight of 32.5 kg.
1102	Three models were developed (designated Meteor-1A, -1B, and -1C), which differed in the room available for scientific apparatus.
1103	In the Meteor-1A rocket, a space of 0.4 litres was available, Meteor-1B had 0.34 litres, and Meteor-1C had 0.62 litres.
1104	The maximum altitude for all three models was 37km.
1105	Between 1965 and 1968, the development of Meteor-2 was underway in the Aeronautics Institute, with its first launch tests in October 1970.
1106	The Meteor-2 rocket had a launch weight of 380 kg, and was capable of lifting a useful load of 10 kg to a height of around 60km.
1107	Subsequently built models were the Meteor-2H and Meteor-3.
1108	Poland's admission to COSPAR (Committee for Space Research) in 1960 should be mentioned, as well as the appointment of a national COSPAR board two years later.
1109	Poland also participated in the Interkosmos space programme for space research on Soviet artificial satellites, and in 1978, the Polish pilot Miroslaw Hermaszewski became the second intercosmonaut after Vladimir Remkov.
1110	Abolishing the legislation on public works is not the solution.
1111	Last week the Constitutional Court abolished the law on public works.
1112	The resolution caused lively public debate.
1113	It will certainly be interesting to look at this issue from a broader perspective.
1114	Liberally oriented financial systems in the EU, just as those in the globalised world, are based on the principle of an unregulated economic competition.
1115	Its effect means that individual financial entities and national economic systems are in a state of permanent conflict among themselves.
1116	The cause is the principle of free trade and free, completely unregulated movement of private capital together with uncontrolled financial speculation.
1117	Due to significant labour cost differences (salaries) there is pressure on prices.
1118	On a wider scale, this means most businesses must move production abroad, import cheaply from abroad, or close down. The result is high unemployment in countries where labour costs are high compared to other economies.
1119	Since private capital is not bound by social responsibility, and therefore also not by the unemployment it causes, the social costs born by the state must necessarily increase.
1120	The whole situation is bolstered by the businessman's complete unwillingness to pay taxes, which would alleviate the economical and social harm caused in the pursuit of profit.
1121	The situation is so well known that there is no need for actual statistical data.
1122	The ruthless private capital practices create particular economic situations, where the State in these countries is forced to enter in the mutual competition, aiming to artificially lower the social standard of its own citizens in order to attract foreign investment.
1123	In other words, governments stake their own citizens because of private capital while disregarding the drop in social standards.
1124	This occurs chiefly in amendments to existing law.
1125	The aim is to economically force the domestic population to accept prices dictated by private capital, especially in terms of salaries.
1126	On one hand, this economic system of force, in case of long-term unemployment, on the other, restricted employee rights in the workplace.
1127	This yields growing poverty and an increasing void between the poor and the rich.
1128	In Germany there are already a host of food hand-out centres for the poor, who are not able to feed themselves on their own wages.
1129	The number of these people is already in the millions.
1130	In the name of improving the competitiveness of the German economy, it commonly occurs that properly employed people receive such a salary that the State needs to top it up to the minimum wage.
1131	Just such a scandal was revealed in the case of auxiliary staff in the Bundestag.
1132	The austerity measures for all the southern EU states will undoubtedly lead to the same situation, where people are pressured by a catastrophic drop in living standards to emigrate as it was in the 19th century, or to eke out an existence on starvation wages on the edge of society, in the hope that the country will eventually see some foreign investment.
1133	At this point we have to ask where this may come from?
1134	If it is to come from other EU states, then poverty is being shifted from one country to another, or it will not come at all, because Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, Turkish, Moroccan, Egyptian, and African labour is still at a fraction of European wages.
1135	This applies to all of Latin America.
1136	Liberal theory and the Media incessantly claim that the State may not participate with capital in its own economy, and that a controlled economy leads to economic ruin.
1137	Private capital cruelly insists on the viewpoint that the State must not intervene in the economy.
1138	Thereupon, we should ask ourselves whether private capital has no influence, or whether it actually leads politics and thereby the whole country, for its own selfish ends.
1139	Here, the answer must be yes.
1140	The proof is the existence of the almost omnipotent, and in all states, omnipresent lobby.
1141	The result is a desperate situation manifesting itself through corruption, through mutual benefits and legislation, where almost everything is criminal, but nothing is punishable.
1142	In Germany the situation is such that state ministries, through lack of financial resources, contract out the drafting of laws to private law firms, who are basically connected with industry.
1143	These laws are then approved in the Bundestag.
1144	Real power does not come from the people as the Western-style constitutions claim, but from strong financial organisations that look after their own interests.
1145	With bribery, illegal acquisition of benefits, and with stones or swords.
1146	The conclusion, just as in antiquity, the current society is built on unscrupulous tendencies for personal gain without regard to the interests of society as a whole.
1147	Private capital in its present state is not able to understand the interests of society as a whole.
1148	The outcome is now, as it was then, an unprecedented decadence of the elite with no attempts whatsoever on deeper reaching reforms.
1149	The causality of the rise of the fascist and communist regimes should therefore be sought in the misguided liberalisation of the economic system in the 19th and 20th centuries.
1150	The current state of affairs, when we consider the demise of those systems in favour of liberalised democracy as an interlude, can expect its next cycle.
1151	The particularly catastrophic reality is that the current elite is completely ignoring the potential lost of hundreds of thousands of lives, humanitarian and social disasters, which we are already witnessing, as well as crimes against humanity, as we are familiar with from ancient and modern history.
1152	The abolition of the law on public works is not the answer, at least not in the long term.
1153	Under the pressure of economic competition, internationally as well as within Europe, the Government of the Czech Republic will be forced to pursue ways of lowering the population's living standards.
1154	This pattern is thus systemic.
1155	To address this, there are targeted political and social reforms, which strengthen the state's capital participation in the economy, increase the people's influence over the state and weaken the monopoly held by private capital over society in favour of the state.
1156	Israel: Chaos Lab.
1157	The latest wave of violence between Israel and the Gaza strip, as always, has sparked a lot of reaction.
1158	Some stand by Israel, arguing it has the right to self-defence, and Palestinians are portrayed as terrorists, while others support the Palestinians, claiming racism by the Israeli state, claiming that genocide is being committed against Palestinian Arabs, and that Israel is a terrorist state.
1159	I do not want to dwell, in these repeated periodic waves of killing, on who is the transgressor and who is the victim, after all, today's inhabitants of Israel, including the self-governing territories, were born into the current political situation, and did not live through the start of the violence.
1160	I would like to offer the readers a peek behind the scenes, a look at whom, most of all, this 95-year long tension is serving (starting from Balfour's declaration in November 1917) on this small piece of land in the Middle East.
1161	Some of my thoughts are supported by available historical facts, while others are derived from my own understanding of who, that is, which group of people is the main source of events in modern history.
1162	Human history is in the first instance about the struggle for power.
1163	In every era we can find an Alexander the Great or a Napoleon.
1164	What is not quite so apparent is whether these were the people, who had chosen their path independently, or whether behind their throne stood someone who directed their actions towards a pre-calculated goal.
1165	We must accept that we live in a time when the world's wealth is concentrated into the hands of a few individuals, and that this concentration of wealth and the power it exudes could not happen in one generation's lifespan.
1166	Among these astronomically rich families, one stands out, which could be considered the puppet master (whether someone else stands above them, I am unsure, but I would not rule it out) - the Rothschilds.
1167	Not much is written about them.
1168	Understandably.
1169	The first news agency (Reuters) they bought in the 90's of the 19th century, in order to prevent their name being connected with acts of high criminality, which appeared in their background and which always meant securing power, increasing wealth, or both.
1170	They hold majority stakes in almost every central bank in the world, and against the countries, where they do not hold a stake, they are either waging or preparing for war (before the assault on Afghanistan it was 7 countries, after Iraq it was 5, after the overthrow of Kaddafi 4 remained, but in the meantime Russia submitted its central bank to the Russian Government).
1171	Whoever attempted to defy this family died.
1172	Abraham Lincoln refused to renew the status of the central bank to the Rothschild Bank of America, and during the Civil War he began to issue his own (that is state-issued) money and was assassinated in 1865 at the theatre.
1173	JFK began issuing his own money and wanted to close the Fed (Federal Reserve), and was killed in 1963, Congressman Louis McFadden was poisoned in 1936, after he had intended to sue the Fed for causing the Great Depression of 1929.
1174	Their thirst for global power led in the years of 1859 - 1871 to the formulation of a three-world-war plan by the freemason leader of the 33rd degree, Albert Pike.
1175	The first war was to remove the large monarchic state bodies in Europe, the second was to remove colonial rule, especially from Great Britain, and the third will reduce the world's population down to 0.5 - 1 billion people (this number of slaves will suffice for their comfort and luxury, and will not use up so many resources), the creation of one universal faith (ecumenism is just an appetiser for this solution), and finally the seizing of absolute power.
1176	The method, which the group of wealthy families with the Rothschilds leading the way, employ is the instigation of crises, followed by the offering of a solution (order ab chao - order from chaos).
1177	These solutions are false, however, and always lead to a worse situation (vide establishment of the Fed, so that the crisis of 1907 would not be repeated).
1178	Thus, having succeeded in assassinating Ferdinand, the Habsburg heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo thereby unleashing World War I, they destroyed tsarist Russia with the Bolshevik revolution.
1179	The First World War ended abruptly, militarily and economically unsubstantiated, with German capitulation (the war was no longer needed to destroy tsarist Russia) and the central European powers of Austria-Hungary were subsequently dismantled.
1180	To facilitate the inception of the Second World War, they allowed bankers and politicians to create a latent conflict situation by saddling Germany with huge war reparations, thereby making a radicalist example of the impoverished masses, it remained only to introduce a sufficiently convincing culprit and a leader with a simple solution, while also creating a multi-racial Czechoslovakia with a strong German minority to play, and indeed did, the role of a fifth colony, once the war had been ignited.
1181	At the end of the 19th Century, the Rothschilds instigated the establishment of the Zionist movement, one branch of which strove to form the Jewish State, seeking out an area of historic Judea, Jerusalem, to make its capital (the Return to Zion).
1182	The aforementioned Balfour Declaration formed the basis for the mass immigration of Jews to Palestine, where the first conflicts began with the local Arab population.
1183	Terrorist attacks occurred on both sides.
1184	World War II broke out, and whether Hitler broke free from the leash, which international bankers were holding him on, or whether his actions were all part of the plan, is difficult to determine, nevertheless the suffering of European Jews in the concentration camps created the foundation to the world's acceptance of the Jewish State.
1185	Israel was officially formed in 1948, and just as the war reparations for World War II were layed on Germany, the announcement of the State of Israel became the third war's hotbed.
1186	Provided the international bankers succeed, the Jewish Nation, as with the second, will be the victims on the front line, now together with the Arabic - or more generally, Muslim - population of the Middle East.
1187	Israel is like a huge laboratory, a source of discord and chaos not only within the country, but on an international level (just look at how strongly people are split into supporters and opponents of Israel).
1188	Who is the wrong-doer and who is the victim in the Palestine-Israel conflict, where injustice breeds injustice in an endless cycle of violence, while everything began from the greed of a few and their lust for global power?
1189	Here, we must differentiate between Israel's general population and their leaders, because, just as it happens here, the international bankers introduce their own selection of candidates for people to vote for.
1190	Israel's current prime minister, Netanyahu 'the hawk', is a typical example of a fascist politician, loyal to the international bankers, who does everything to instigate war with Iran, which would, due to its membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (China, India, Russia, Pakistan, ...) lead to a greater threat of global conflict, and through its control of the Hormuz Strait, where 20% of the world's oil must sail (the channel is only 2 miles wide), to the destruction of the world's economy.
1191	The New World Order in their eyes is one of master and slave.
1192	A world where the rest of the human population serve the luxury of a handful of financial aristocrats.
1193	A world, where each new-born is implanted with a chip, which makes their existence completely subjugated.
1194	He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is six hundred and sixty six.
1195	Argo: When things are at their worst - call Hollywood.
1196	In November 1979, a mob of Islamic student demonstrators took over the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 diplomats hostage.
1197	They were to be released in exchange for the overthrown Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who fled after the revolution to the USA, which had actually supported his regime for several decades.
1198	For the American administration the situation did not offer a positive solution - it could not throw the Shah overboard, because this would seriously jeopardise the trust of other allied countries.
1199	The release of the hostages in Iran, where the revolution resulted in the establishment of the theocratic regime, could not be achieved.
1200	This was a blow to the prestige of the United States, which was later compounded by the fiasco of attempting to free the hostages by force.
1201	The incarcerated diplomats were finally released after 444 days, following negotiations mediated by the Algerian government.
1202	Their ordeal provoked a wave of solidarity and anti-Iranian feelings at home.
1203	The debacle in Iran significantly influenced Jimmy Carter's loss with Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential elections.
1204	The film Argo, directed by the actor Ben Affleck, recounts one episode in this story, which brought America a small victory.
1205	Just before the embassy was seized, six employees escaped.
1206	After some peripeteia, they ended up in the Canadian ambassador's residence.
1207	The CIA, in collaboration with the Canadian authorities, succeeded in getting them out of Iran, helped by an extravagant cover story - they left on Canadian passports as members of a film crew, who were surveying locations for a sci-fi blockbuster.
1208	A combination of genres
1209	For the story to be believed, the film project was reported on in specialist magazines, press conferences were organised, and the fictitious production company had a real office.
1210	The details of the operation were, for a long time, kept secret; the film draws on the memories of Tony Mendez.
1211	Affleck's film is a peculiar mix of genres.
1212	The mood alternates in the film - on one side, sharp documentary-style sequences in Tehran (the title sequence shows iconic photos from news of the time, relating to the same events portrayed in the film - there are no big differences).
1213	On the other hand, lighter sections from Hollywood, laced with irony and a little exaggeration.
1214	Then there are scenes from the CIA headquarters and other agencies - men in suits debating the situation around meeting tables, in office corridors, over the phone...
1215	Ben Affleck has managed to restart his career in extraordinary style.
1216	The derided actor has become a respected director, and his acting is no longer the target of ironic comments.
1217	Argo is his third big-screen movie, following his dark crime movie Gone Baby Gone (2007) and the thriller The Town (2010).
1218	It is also Affleck's first picture, which does not take place in the director's hometown of Boston.
1219	The atmospheric feel in different locations is one of the characteristics, which took his earlier films above Hollywood standards.
1220	The best scenes of the film take place in the streets, in the reconstruction of real events - the opening sequence of the siege on the embassy is impressively lucid, creating at once feelings of confusion and surprise, which come flooding in, as history suddenly takes a turn.
1221	A similar effect is achieved by Affleck and his team in the fictitious scenes (the fake staff at the Tehran bazaar).
1222	Too much action in too many places
1223	The director had to tackle the issue that the story being told does not offer many nail-biting scenes for the film.
1224	What little there is, is worked well, with some occasional embellishments to reality - these do not all come off so elegantly (the scene, where a looming crisis is averted at Tehran airport by a phone call in America, followed by a chase on the runway seems quite far-fetched).
1225	Argo's weakness is its divergence, which comes from the need to show too many events in too many places.
1226	Alan Arkin and John Goodman play their roles as the Hollywood assistants with great charm; their characters deserve more room, and are not by far the only ones in this film.
1227	Affleck's film loses the dramatic pull a little, it is a film, which can be watched with reasonable interest, its production and retro-style are evocative of thrillers from the 70's.
1228	It does not really captivate.
1229	As a reminder of history's particular ways and a testimony to how exaggerated the views are on the all-powerful all-controlling secret services, this will do.
1230	Rules for blowing up balloons, for bananas and a circus
1231	Among the latest nominated absurdities, for instance, is the recent decision by the European Court to unify insurance premiums for men and women.
1232	Until now, women were favoured in life insurance prices, because they constitute a lower risk for insurers.
1233	Among the controversial EU regulations, we might include the mandatory addition of bio-ingredients to fuel, which consequently harms the environment, the ban on reliable mercury thermometers just because they contain a relatively small quantity of a toxic substance, or the rules on the size of chicken cages, which significantly raised egg prices this year.
1234	First rate bananas are to measure 14 centimetres
1235	The Union's machine often makes decisions under pressure from this or that commercial or industrial lobbying group, whose demands in Brussels are usually defended by state or group of states' interests (just as the Czech Republic is promoting the demands of its banks under threat of being vetoed).
1236	The European Commission defended itself, saying that it was only harmonising existing disjointed national standards, which complicated trading.
1237	Norms relating to fruit and vegetables have already been softened by the EU despite opposition from certain states, referring to the food waste caused by the existing directives.
1238	One possible prize-winner in the poll may be the last year's EU regulation according to which inflatable balloons must be sold with a warning that children under 8 years of age may not inflate them without parental supervision.
1239	Here, the EU pointed to an American research, which indicated that, among other toys, balloons are one of the main causes of child suffocation.
1240	A similar restriction now applies to children under 14 years of age using party blowers.
1241	Strange ideas are conceived at home too
1242	Fairly absurd is the rule relating to individual European officials - everyone in the EU, who holds an official post, may not use the term Macedonia due to it being a sensitive topic for Greece, and instead the acronym FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) should be used.
1243	The Bankovnipoplatky.com server in collaboration with the Liberal Economist Association, Laissez Faire, also nominated, aside from the aforementioned absurdities, for example the Union's regulation on the volume of food provision stocks held in an EU member state.
1244	The EU stipulated the maximum volumes of food provisions, which may be present within the CR on the day of our entry to the Union.
1245	The Czech Republic thereafter exceeded, for instance, the permitted volume of mushroom preserves, which incurred a high penalty.
1246	The poll's organisers were also impressed by the idea of paying certain countries because they do not have a coastline, or the suggestion of allocating funding for a request for funding.
1247	These ideas did not come from Brussels, however, but from Prague.
1248	His argument was that there had been a good harvest of cereals, and due to the so-called buy-out interventions, the state's warehouses were full and were forced to export.
1249	The Czech Republic is further away from a port, so according to Palas the EU should be paying us hundreds of millions of Euros.
1250	The European Commission finally met the CR halfway by organising a tender for the purchase of cereals from countries that do not have access to the sea.
1251	Funding to subsidise funding requests was offered to foreigners by the Ministry for Regional Development's minister, Pavel Nemec (US-DEU), specifically this was meant for making requests for funding from Brussels.
1252	EU: Bizarre legislation is the exception
1253	Regulations may well become the target of criticism among member states, but the EU's efforts at regulation, more effective operation, and development of the entire Union deserve recognition, according to a number of experts.
1254	A more important issue, according to experts, is the drawing of EU funds on projects, which have hardly anything in common with strengthening the European integration, but which was pushed through by member states during a budget meeting.
1255	Emotions flare among Czechs when, just as other countries in the Union, the CR must fight in Brussels for the right to particular labelling on its traditional products, in which it does not always succeed.
1256	The Czechs fought for six years with the Germans and Austrians to protect the labelling of their Olomoucke tvaruzky, however the tuzemsky rum, whose tradition reaches back to the 19th century here, had to be renamed tuzemak by the manufacturers.
1257	The appellation of rum can only be given to products distilled from cane sugar, and not sugar beet.
1258	Carlsbad wafers, Pohorelicky and Trebonsky carp, and Zatec hops have been added to the official list of registered products of the EU, alongside the world-renowned feta cheese and gorgonzola, German marzipan from Lubeck, and Parma ham.
1259	The EU's stamp of protection can also be proudly shown on Pardubice gingerbread and Horicky tubes.
1260	People want me to save the republic, but I am an amateur, says Okamura
1261	Senator, how does a person decide they want to run for President?
1262	This is not about me being a senator or president.
1263	If everything in our country worked without problems, then I would not be running for any post.
1264	I cannot watch any longer the country having been robbed over the past twenty years, thieves roaming about there and people's taxes and retirement age increasing.
1265	I had no ambition to be a politician.
1266	When I see something I do not like, though, I try to find a solution to change things.
1267	Since I have already turned forty, and I am an independent non-party man, I have no other choice to influence things but to stand for senator or president.
1268	You have already reached the Senate, but shortly after that you are taking off for the Castle.
1269	Are you not turning your back on those who voted for you in doing this?
1270	I have been saying the entire time that I would fight for the Castle based on the results in the Senate's elections.
1271	Later, I added that if I were elected as senator, I would be standing for president.
1272	My goal, though, is not the post, the post is a tool to allow my vision to be realised.
1273	Therefore, I need the greatest influence, and the strongest mandate possible.
1274	The trouble is not just that as a nation we swear in the pub or at the television, but that we trample anyone, who wants to try to change things.
1275	The Media add to this, misleading the public, and mistaking freedom of speech with freedom to lie.
1276	For example, I was allegedly bribing reporters, or I was allegedly an advisor of Jiri Paroubek.
1277	Let's talk about your vision.
1278	You set out on your castle siege with a thesis on the material and criminal responsibilities of politics, and a retroactive financial disclosure of assets over twenty million.
1279	You need to change the law for this.
1280	As president, though, you do not have this power, and only the Senate as a whole may propose laws.
1281	How are you going to solve this?
1282	When I lobbied, as a citizen, for tour guide work to be a free trade, it was successfully carried through.
1283	The problem is political squabbling - when someone comes with a good idea from the left or the right, it will be deliberately rejected, causing delays for the public.
1284	As an independent non-party man, I stand a far better chance of gaining support from all parliamentary sides.
1285	The advantage I hold is that without the political pigeonholing or dogmas I can take what is best for our country from any side, and apply it.
1286	Do you see yourself as a person from the right, or the left?
1287	From the Czech viewpoint, it seems they tend to put me to the left.
1288	For me, it just does not matter if it is a little to the left or right.
1289	The important part for me is moving forward.
1290	It is not about whether someone is from the left or right, I just want to bring people together.
1291	I always support any good public solutions, even if they are put forward by the KSCM or the ODS, and, in the same way, I will oppose bad ideas.
1292	You get angry when someone calls you a populist.
1293	Are you not confirming this with what you have stated?
1294	When you make a company business plan, you also have some ideal goal and vision.
1295	You try to come close to it.
1296	Some may call it populism, but all the proposals I speak about are already working elsewhere, or they have been put forward by experts.
1297	But without the support of the Parliament you will be left with just slogans.
1298	You will not last long in politics with that.
1299	Or do you believe that if you walk among the public and talk with them, that you will succeed, say, in passing criminal and material responsibility?
1300	I have no alternative.
1301	I need to convince politicians, reporters, and the public, and try to get them on my side, so we can put this through.
1302	If I were elected president, it would not be a problem to arrange a live television broadcast, where I ask the leaders of the parliamentary parties to pass a law on material and criminal responsibility for politicians, civil servants, judges, and the Attorney General.
1303	And, as the case may be, they would need to explain why they did not want this.
1304	When there is a strong figure to point out the issues, it just needs some pressure on the political scene.
1305	Take for instance the direct election of the president, it was achieved thanks to public pressure.
1306	I will say frankly that I am an amateur, I am not a genius or an intellectual.
1307	I am looking for allies to share my opinions and vision.
1308	I have just started out in politics, and I am looking for a majority support for my agenda.
1309	I will try to make things progress, but it if does not work out, in six years I will finish and return to the private sector.
1310	It sounds a little like Okamura is trying to save the Czech Republic.
1311	I am no saviour.
1312	I know that alone I will not achieve anything, so I have asked acquaintances, whether they would run for the senate.
1313	I went to Radim Jancura, who declined due to his workload.
1314	So I, at least, support investigative journalist, Jana Lorencova, who uncovered fraudulent activity with light heating oil.
1315	I put myself forward, because people are really discontented, but now I have my doubts.
1316	Sixty percent of people did not go to vote, and those who did mostly voted for leaders of the establishment.
1317	In the senate, there are only two independents, including me.
1318	People have voted for a senate that will make it difficult to enforce changes.
1319	Nonetheless, I will fight for my vision, for example, for the direct election of mayors or regional council presidents.
1320	Are you considering having your own party?
1321	I have not considered it yet, because I have neither the time to verify that every party member has a clean background, nor the money to do it.
1322	I have no money even for a presidential campaign, my transparent account holds just 20 thousand.
1323	You have no money?
1324	You are talking about financial disclosures, but what is yours like?
1325	I estimate my private assets to be around 60 million.
1326	In Prague, I have land worth around 25 million, an apartment worth ten million, another apartment worth eight million, an artwork collection worth around ten million, an Aston Martin worth 3.5 million, a Skoda Superb worth a million, and I have a few million in my account.
1327	I have the Aston Martin, by the way, because it was my dream as a boy - I always liked James Bond, who drove the car, was gallant with women and also fought against evil and villainy.
1328	You drive an Aston Martin, have assets worth 60 million, but you have no money for a campaign?
1329	You say you want to change the Republic, but you are not keen on putting your own money into it.
1330	This does not inspire much confidence.
1331	I do not have 15 million for a campaign.
1332	Should I take out a loan?
1333	I have already put 2.5 million into the campaign.
1334	The fact that I do not have any sponsors is evidence that there is no real interest in my programme.
1335	I have no obligation to pay for my own campaign.
1336	The expenditure on my campaign is basically covered by the pay I will be receiving as a senator.
1337	However, I would not be able to live on it, for instance, I could not pay for my son's English school, which costs 30 thousand a month.
1338	If I were only interested in making money, I would not be standing for election.
1339	So you will still be in business so that you can make a living?
1340	Did you not say you would be putting this on hold?
1341	This depends on the rate of pay.
1342	As I promised, my activities have been partially reduced.
1343	For example, my deputy is taking over as the CEO of the travel agency in spring.
1344	People would like me to be a Samaritan, who saves the Republic.
1345	But I must also live off something.
1346	As a businessman, what would you usually make monthly?
1347	Two hundred to 400 thousand, which I still do.
1348	And if I became president, then I would end my business activity.
1349	The full interview can be read in Saturday's issue of Pravo.
1350	However, I do wonder why people would need another library in this day and age.
1351	Everyone has the Internet, an iPad and eBooks.
1352	No-one goes into one of these old-style libraries voluntarily nowadays, or am I wrong?
1353	Spijkenisse, a sleepy town outside the gates of Rotterdam, which barely merits a visit, is a special record-holder.
1354	The 80,000-resident municipality has the lowest literacy rate in the whole of the Netherlands.
1355	In order to counteract this asinine situation, the decision was made a number of years ago to make a contribution towards general education and to recreate the seven fictitious bridges that feature on the Euro notes as pretty, painted reinforced concrete miniatures.
1356	The success of the education offensive was limited.
1357	And so the city fathers acknowledged that there was only one way to become master over the statistics: a library had to be built!
1358	Winy Maas of the Rotterdam-based architectural firm MVRDV, master of audacious bar charts and producer of humorous and often cynical buildings, took the project on with his customary composure, and turned up at the competitive hearing in 2003 with five books under his arm and a grin on his face.
1359	So this is my suggestion for the Spijkenisse Book Mountain - for the so-called Boekenberg!
1360	Nine years later, the 30-million-euro mountain has been lifted up.
1361	It is part of a revitalisation project, which also includes an underground car park, a supermarket, a post office and a small number of adjacent apartment buildings and terraced houses, with a total of 50 dwellings.
1362	In addition, the project is also nominated for the Dutch National Wood Award 2012.
1363	Thus, the faceless small-town retort, that until now had nothing more to offer than a post-modern pedestrian area and a stunningly ugly town hall, behind whose white facades one would expect to find a dairy plant, has been bolstered by a piece of contemporary architecture.
1364	First and foremost, however, Spijkenisse now has its first public cultural building in the history of its existence.
1365	The long journey to the book
1366	The first impression: the Eldorado of books beneath a cheese dome.
1367	There is in fact a lift that climbs through the centre of the mountain massif, however, the true joys of space and literature are revealed when scaling the topography on foot.
1368	The interior space, glazed throughout, is bright and open, the fired clinker floors and the elegant street lamps speak the unmistakable language of a public town square.
1369	The urban ambiance is perfect.
1370	You are already on the lookout for a park bench, a dog, and boys and girls playing football.
1371	And everywhere there are books, books, books.
1372	We turned the classical spatial configuration on its head and turned the reading area inside out.
1373	The interior of the Bücherberg is cleverly used: in the centre there are offices, an Internet library, a chess club, an environmental centre and the central technical support room.
1374	One particularly special feature are the black book shelves, which simultaneously act as wall cladding, parapets and railings for the stairway.
1375	The appearance, feel and scent are foreign.
1376	Even die-hard architects and construction engineers shake their heads at the unknown construction materials.
1377	And thus one day we stumbled across a suitable waste product used in agriculture, on a Frisian farm.
1378	For many years, millimetre-thick artificial fabric has been used in greenhouses and fields in the Netherlands as a base layer.
1379	It is inexpensive and saves time.
1380	The thin textile lasts for two seasons and is then disposed of as bulk waste.
1381	For the library, the fabric was - for the first time in these quantities - pressed into four-centimetre-thick boards.
1382	Under heat and pressure, the so-called Landbouw plastic (KLP) changes colour to a dark, homogeneous and robust material, that smells like a mixture of new car smell and the smell of trainers.
1383	After 105 steps you have reached the summit.
1384	At the end of the 500-meter-long journey, you are rewarded in the Literature Café, not only with a fantastic view of the city, but also with Dutch croquettes and potted ficus trees.
1385	These provide atmosphere, but most importantly, regulate the air humidity in the literary mountain range.
1386	Donations for the new soul
1387	It is heated and cooled using geothermal heat.
1388	Although the Bücherberg has a glass cover, the sun only shines only briefly into the interior, even on sunny days.
1389	The broad, laminated wood glue beams positioned at right-angles to the glass facade, provide shade and absorb the majority of the sunlight.
1390	The indoor temperature is very pleasant.
1391	The rest is taken care of by fully automatic roller blinds.
1392	Stefan Spermon, initially a sceptic of the IT sector, has already ventured into the new library.
1393	Lisette Verhaig has also visited already.
1394	The reason: At the inauguration just a few weeks ago, every citizen was invited to donate a book from his/her personal collection.
1395	This was, for the time being, to fill the optical gaps in the not yet fully stocked library - currently there are 70,000 items.
1396	The concept has been a success.
1397	The shelves are full to capacity.
1398	In the vote on the incorporation of Palestine, Germany abstained from voting.
1399	According to Stephen Szabo, Expert in US-European relations, in so doing Berlin is walking a thin diplomatic line.
1400	Deutsche Welle: At the beginning of the week, Germany had initially signalled that it would vote against the Palestinians' application for observer status within the United Nations.
1401	However, Berlin subsequently abstained from voting.
1402	Why?
1403	Stephen Szabo: Germany does not support what the Israelis have done in Gaza.
1404	Now, however, due to their special relationship with Israel, Germany must be cautious.
1405	At the same time, however, I do not believe that it supports the American position either.
1406	Germany wanted to demonstrate its independence - albeit without being too critical of Israel.
1407	During the uprising in Libya in March 2011, Germany likewise abstained from voting, when it came to establishing a no-fly zone.
1408	This was ultimately implemented by NATO.
1409	Does Germany find it difficult to adopt a clear position when it comes to important international affairs?
1410	Yes, it does.
1411	That is because it has just reorganised its foreign policy, indeed moving away from a policy that was, so to speak, managed by the USA, in favour of a German foreign policy.
1412	This situation is aggravated by the fact that the Europeans do not have a coherent and standardised policy.
1413	The Germans thus find themselves caught between two fronts.
1414	It is expected of them that they play a more independent role, yet this is something that they are not accustomed to.
1415	A foreign policy similar to that of France, or Great Britain.
1416	It shows a willingness to adopt positions on international matters, which are independent of those of the USA or European partners.
1417	I believe that the German foreign policy is motivated by the economic policy, that is, by export and its relations with certain regions such as Russia, China or the Near East.
1418	Germany's economic interests are to a certain extent different from those of the other major powers and therefore Germany must protect its interests.
1419	Have these economic interests had an influence on their attitude towards the Near East conflict and their voting in the UN?
1420	On the one hand, Germany has major revenue markets in the Near East, and particularly in the Gulf States.
1421	Therefore it must be careful not to affront the public, but also the elite in the Arabic countries.
1422	In any case, this plays a role.
1423	However, I wouldn't want to ascribe too much weight to this. This is not an entirely one-sided relationship.
1424	Nonetheless, it does play an important role in Germany's considerations.
1425	Has Germany damaged its relations with the USA, by abstaining to vote on important decisions, such as the vote on Palestine?
1426	I think that in Europe, and even in the USA, a great understanding for the German position prevails.
1427	Therefore I do not think that this was as dramatic a fracture as was the case in the matters regarding Libya.
1428	Perhaps it will even earn Germany a certain degree of respect.
1429	After all, it signals that the country must be taken seriously as an international player and that its interests must be considered.
1430	In Europe there are diverse opinions regarding the Palestinian initiative.
1431	The USA, on the other hand, have spoken out clearly in favour of a veto.
1432	Are there differences of opinion between the USA and the many European nations?
1433	Due to the American domestic policy, these differences have always existed.
1434	I think that secretly, the government under Obama actually has a great deal of understanding for the European situation.
1435	However, due to the political situation here, the government is naturally unable to voice this position publicly.
1436	It is my belief that the actual differences in opinion are not so vast as they always appear.
1437	If you look at the relations between Obama and Prime Minister Netanjahu, Obama is really not quite so enthused by Netanjahu's policies.
1438	Does Germany find it difficult to reconcile its close relations with Israel and the USA on the one hand, and the position of its most important partners in the EU on the other?
1439	I think that this is precisely what makes things so difficult for the Germans.
1440	It would of course be a little simpler for the Germans if there were a coherent and standardised European policy, which is currently not the case.
1441	Thus they are unable to be part of a wider authority and must instead drive matters forward from their own position.
1442	This is precisely what they are doing with the Euro.
1443	I believe that in the future Germany will take on a leading role in urging Europe towards a standardised European position.
1444	This is, of course, no simple task for Germany, on account of its relations with Israel.
1445	This has always been a sensitive subject.
1446	Yet I do think that Germans are clear that they must play a more independent role.
1447	Does Germany view itself as playing the role of an important international player - does Germany actually want to assume a leading role?
1448	Or does Germany still find leadership roles difficult?
1449	Germany is still not used to it, the country continues to be uncomfortable and, for obvious reasons, still finds it difficult to play a more prominent role.
1450	If we look at the Euro crisis for example, every time that Germany assumes a more prominent role, various anti-German feelings become apparent.
1451	This does not make matters simple for the Germans.
1452	This is actually the same old problem: one does not want to be surrounded by hostile countries.
1453	From this stance, Germany is in a much more difficult position than the USA.
1454	It must be receptive to the most diverse of neighbours and opinions, and this is not easy.
1455	The influence of the USA over European politics is continually diminishing, yet the EU is currently not feeling this vacuum, so who is filling the gap?
1456	The Germans will simply have to play a greater role.
1457	Even if they do not like it, even if it is uncomfortable and makes them even more unpopular - c'est la vie!
1458	Stephen Szabo is associate director of the Transatlantic Academy in Washington, an institute in which academics and political experts from Europe and North America come together to research the challenges of the transatlantic community.
1459	Szabo is also a member of the German Marshall Fund, in which he has specialised in German policy, US foreign policy and transatlantic relations.
1460	Armani is a world-famous brand, Polo Ralph Lauren likewise.
1461	However, what is Armani Polo?
1462	Behind this name hides a fully officially registered brand in China, however, one that has nothing whatsoever to do with the original companies.
1463	Nonetheless, it is enjoying protection, provided the actual creators of the names do not sue.
1464	And even then it is not clear whether they will have any rights.
1465	Every week a new case lands on my desk.
1466	All the copycats require are a few additional letters in order that they can register their brands.
1467	Thus Gucci simply becomes Lu-Gucci, Prada-Kny is registered in place of Prada.
1468	German companies are also 'legally' copied in this manner, such as manufacturer of sporting apparel, Puma.
1469	Pattloch opens a file containing registrations with the trademark office in Peking.
1470	On 14 September 2010 a Chinese company copyrighted the brand name Zegna DF Puma there, an alias that also helps itself to the name of fashion retailer Ermenegildo Zegna.
1471	The fact that the Chinese are world champions in copying and infringing on intellectual property is well-known.
1472	In the major cities there are multi-level department stores that sell counterfeit goods almost exclusively.
1473	Pattloch's cases, however, are slightly different: on behalf of his clients he takes action against the fact that Chinese companies can be granted the right to use a name by the trademark office, fully officially, which is already protected elsewhere.
1474	This refers to women who latch onto rich men.
1475	The Chinese authorities are unaware of any wrongdoing.
1476	The brand is watered down, its uniqueness disappears - the image damage is enormous.
1477	The financial losses and process costs of the affected branches amount into the millions, especially in the case of expensive flagship products.
1478	According to information from market research company CLSA, with a volume of 15 billion euros annually, China is the third largest market for luxury items, and the fastest growing.
1479	However, the deletion of dubious entries in the trademark registry are difficult to achieve, and cost a pretty penny.
1480	The process can last for up to nine years, with an uncertain outcome.
1481	If the complainant is unlucky, he may even have to pay the plagiarist money for having infringed on his trademark in China, said Pattloch.
1482	Sometimes the law of the jungle prevails here.
1483	Famous cases also relate to graphic elements.
1484	In 2009, Daimler lost a legal battle with the construction machinery manufacturer Sany, the company that recently acquired German concrete pump manufacturer Putzmeister.
1485	Even today, the Chinese company is therefore permitted to use an emblem that resembles the Mercedes star.
1486	Volvo-purchaser Geely originally used a blue and white logo that resembled the BMW logo; the dispute was arbitrated and Geely was forced to change it.
1487	Fashion house Lacoste lost a suit in China against copycats from Hong Kong and Singapore, who were using the famous crocodile looking in the other direction.
1488	The Chinese authorities are unaware of any wrongdoing.
1489	The CTMO trademark office in Peking does acknowledge that there were bottlenecks in 2010 due to limited staffing and equipment.
1490	Thus the stock of unprocessed appeal proceedings was reduced by 22 percent.
1491	Almost 57,000 such cased were closed, 75 percent more than in the previous year.
1492	Nonetheless, there are still 81,500 appeals waiting to be resolved in the office.
1493	To remedy this is very expensive
1494	As is so often the case in China, the figures are imposing.
1495	In the past year, more than 1.4 million applications for trademark protection were submitted to the CTMO, almost one third more than in 2010.
1496	This is a record and means that China, for the tenth time in succession, is the global leader when it comes to new trademark applications, informed the authority.
1497	The same applies for the inventory of valid trademarks, totalling 5.5 million in number.
1498	In 2011, 1.8 billion yuan in fees were received.
1499	Put simply, this means that each application costs on average 1,280 yuan, or 160 euros.
1500	To appeal against an application costs many times this amount, as can be seen in the case of the German family business, Freudenberg.
1501	For more than seven years, the group has been contesting against a Chinese plagiarist.
1502	The Germans did in fact manage to expose the company's illegal manufacturing of copied motor vehicle parts.
1503	However, the copycat still secured the Chinese rights to the Freudenberg brand.
1504	This is something we missed ourselves, as family names cannot be protected in Germany, said Hanno Wentzler, Chairman of the Board of Management at Freudenberg Chemical Specialities in Munich.
1505	The CTMO trademark office then also dismissed the Munich-based company's appeal.
1506	In the next two instances, Freudenberg was proven right, however the opposing party continues to contest the matter to this day.
1507	You have to pay extremely careful attention.
1508	The matter is now pending before the Supreme Court.
1509	Wentzler is confident that the matter will be brought to a positive conclusion and praises the professionalism of the courts.
1510	The internal costs can barely be calculated, the company archive even had to look through century-old records in order to provide proof.
1511	The dangers in the Far East even threaten to spilling over, back into Europe.
1512	Particularly if imitators secure unprotected brand names there.
1513	For example, a Chinese manufacturer wanted to register the Freudenberg label for shoes and leather in Germany.
1514	This is a business sector that the group had long vacated, yet nonetheless managed to prevent the registration.
1515	Both he and Pattloch advise companies to be very careful when conducting business with China.
1516	Otherwise costs can be much more expensive than the registration fee.
1517	In actual fact: if Freudenberg were to loose at the final hurdle of its trademark drama, they would probably have to pay the opposing party license fees for the use of their own name, explained Wentzler.
1518	Or alternatively we would be forced out of the market in the respective sector.
1519	World AIDS day: Stomp, sing, help
1520	In Heidelberg, the Imbongi choir is rehearsing - and in the Swaziland, AIDS orphans are delighted.
1521	The history of a link that overcomes far more than a distance of 8,733 kilometres.
1522	First of all, the stamping: cowboy boots, basketball shoes, ladies' pumps and men's loafers attempt to find the beat on the parquet floor, and quickly do just that.
1523	One-two-three-four.
1524	Only then do the voices of the singers slowly swell - alto, bass, tenor and soprano surge, beguile and haunt.
1525	And Fiete Hopf, the 29-year-old conductor, almost rises up out of his shoes as he brings the ensemble together with his smooth, yet wild gestures.
1526	It is Monday evening and in the music room of the Institute for Medical Psychology in Heidelberg the Imbongi Choir are practising a new song.
1527	The fifteen singers, aging from 23 to 69 years old, range from human geneticists to the maintenance man.
1528	Helping others to help themselves
1529	There are around 34 million people infected with HIV around the world, as according to the estimations of Unaids, the United Nations' programme to battle AIDS.
1530	Of these, 23.5 million live in South Africa.
1531	In Swaziland, there are 245,000 AIDS orphans.
1532	Meanwhile, more than 40 percent of the population are HIV positive.
1533	The Voices for Africa Association has found sponsors in Germany for 180 AIDS orphans in the village of Esitjeni.
1534	70 of these attend a secondary school.
1535	For 15 or 20 euros per month, you can become a sponsor.
1536	This guarantees the child money for school, a school uniform and a warm meal each day in the Gogo Centre.
1537	In Zulu, Imbongi means storyteller or worshipper.
1538	In this region, no-one can speak the Bantu language fluently, but they can sing it.
1539	For almost ten years the choir has been practising songs in this foreign, 'soft' language, and now and then they bring them back to where they originally came from: the South of Africa.
1540	For an 8,733-kilometre flight away from Heidelberg, in the north west of the Swaziland Kingdom, lies the village of Esitjeni, which relies on the vocal power of the German choir.
1541	Forty percent are infected.
1542	Around 2,000 people live there, some still in simple mud and straw huts, and the majority of them are children.
1543	More than 300 of them no longer have parents, as they succumbed to the HIV virus.
1544	In Esitjeni you get a small foreshadow of the illness from which all of Swaziland is suffering: according to Unicef, the region has the highest HIV infection rates and the lowest life expectancy in the world.
1545	Circumcision, which has been proven to reduce the risk of contracting the virus by half, is barely practised by the population.
1546	More than forty percent of people in the Swaziland carry the immunodeficiency virus, and dying in you mid-thirties is by no means rare.
1547	On a group trip to Africa in early 2005, the Choir visited the village, but first and foremost, the Imbongis saw many children on the streets, lacking not only in parental care but in practically everything else as well: food, clothing, education.
1548	Without a school leaving certificate, there are barely any opportunities, particularly in a poor country.
1549	Initially it was the private commitment of individuals to send a child to school and enable him/her to have one warm meal a day for a few euros per year.
1550	Facts on sexually transmitted infections.
1551	What are the most important sexually transmitted diseases?
1552	Bacterial STIs include syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhoea.
1553	Common viral STIs are HIV, human papilloma viruses, herpes genitalis and hepatitis.
1554	Crabs and scabies belong among the parasitic STIs.
1555	Who are the main affected groups?
1556	Syphilis and gonorrhoea occur primarily in men that have intercourse with other men.
1557	The Robert Koch Institute understands that at least four in five of all syphilis cases reported in Germany are transmitted by means of sexual contact between men.
1558	Among heterosexual adults, chlamydia infections, trichomoniasis, candidiasis (fungal), gonorrhoea and human papilloma viruses are frequently occurring sexually transmitted diseases.
1559	The spread of HIV among heterosexual adults in this country is relatively low; however, around 20 percent of newly contracted cases of HIV are found in this group.
1560	Among young people, chlamydia infections are much more common than in other population groups.
1561	According to European surveys, three quarters of all infections affect young people between the ages of 15 and 25.
1562	In this country, human papilloma viruses are also frequently found in young people.
1563	How has the number of infections developed?
1564	Not all sexually transmitted diseases are notifiable.
1565	According to the Robert Koch Institute, the number of syphilis infections has more than doubled from 1,697 cases in 2001, to 3,698 cases in 2011.
1566	The number of newly contracted cases of HIV has been on the decline since 2007.
1567	In 2011 there were around 2,700 cases.
1568	This is around one tenth fewer than the previous year.
1569	Which symptoms indicate a sexually transmitted disease?
1570	The infectious diseases can cause ulcers in the genital area, discomfort when urinating, discharge, lower abdominal pain and blisters or warts.
1571	However, often they cause no pain or any other symptoms, thus remaining undetected.
1572	How can you protect yourself?
1573	Condoms can reduce the risk of contraction, however, they do not offer 100% protection.
1574	This is because occasionally, the pathogens of sexually transmitted diseases can also be passed on via smear infections and close bodily contact.
1575	Therefore, first and foremost experts recommend that people with frequently changing sexual partners undergo regular examinations.
1576	If diagnosed early, the majority of STIs can be cured and long-term consequences avoided.
1577	Through sponsorships donations and by no means least the funds that the choir raises across the whole of Germany, the money all adds up.
1578	In the village itself, Zodwa Dlamini, a self-assured and assertive woman, manages the money from Germany.
1579	She makes sure that the orphans have good accommodation, for example with one of their grandmothers.
1580	The Gogos, as the old ladies are called in Zulu, are the pillars of the village.
1581	Some of them have up to 14 orphans living with them, providing them with a roof over their heads and making sure that the children get to their school classes punctually every day, in their school uniforms.
1582	Anyone who doesn't have anyone left, arrives at the shelter with Khanyisile, a single woman who earns the same salary from the association as the two cooks who cook for more than 200 hungry children every day.
1583	This is nothing to be taken for granted, as is clearly the attitude towards illness throughout the entire country, the best way of keeping things under wraps is if people are dead.
1584	A king with 14 wives
1585	This is actually strange for a country in which the king officially has 14 wives.
1586	The last absolute monarch of sub-Saharan Africa, King Mswati III., is known for his excessive lifestyle.
1587	Polygamy in place of democracy.
1588	Among other factors, the fact that the HIV virus has spread quickly over the past number of decades can also be attributed to this officially sanctioned lifestyle.
1589	Another factor is the large number of migrant workers who carry the virus across the country.
1590	In order to promote the cultural exchange, the Imbongi choir travels through Southern Africa every two or three years and sings songs of melancholy, fighting spirit, confidence and black self-esteem, which many from the southern tip of the black continent still know from the times of apartheid.
1591	A bus full of white people, who sing songs in a black language - this degree of recognition brings not only morale and joy, but some grim-faced border soldiers even shed a few tears.
1592	The journey always leads to Esitjeni, where the singers visit their sponsor children.
1593	Even though you can barely find the small village on a map, it is more than well-known in the valley of the Ezulweni River.
1594	And if you make the 8,733-kilometre flight back to Heidelberg, to visit the stomping singers in their rehearsal room, you'll see that the light is there too.
1595	Messenger: NASA discovers ice on Mercury
1596	The Messenger probe has found evidence of ice on the planet Mercury.
1597	It is thought that the ice cover may be up to 20 metres thick.
1598	The US space agency, NASA, has proven the existence of ice on the planet Mercury.
1599	The Messenger probe has found evidence that there is an ice cover in the region of the planet that lies permanently in shadow.
1600	This is thought to be at east 30 centimetres and perhaps up to 20 metres thick.
1601	The water presumably came from comets or perhaps also asteroids that impacted with Mercury.
1602	However, no-one is linking the discovery of ice with the existence of life on the planet, said Chief Scientist for the Messenger probe, Sean Solomon.
1603	The temperature on Mercury can reach up to 426 degrees Celsius.
1604	That said, the findings could help explain how water and other building blocks of life reached other regions of the solar system.
1605	Unknown to the majority of the Earth's inhabitants, there are probes, telescopes and small robots such as the Phoenix, deployed to research the depths of the universe.
1606	From time to time, they transmit images to Earth: small peepholes into the infinite expanse.
1607	This image comes from a camera developed by German researchers at the Max Planck Institute.
1608	The eight planets of our solar system, plus the dwarf planet Ceres.
1609	Like Pluto, which orbits around the sun behind Neptune, Ceres is not a planet according to the new definition of the term issued by the International Astronomical Union in 2006.
1610	This star-forming region - rather unromantically named W5 by scientists - was discovered by the Spitzer telescope in the Cassiopeia constellation, at a distance of 6,500 light years away.
1611	This shimmering glow of a dying star was captured by NASA's Spitzer telescope.
1612	The donut-shaped ring consists of material, ejected by the star in the process of dying.
1613	In the huge Trifid Nebula, 5,400 light years away from the Earth, new stars are created from gas and dust.
1614	NASA's Spitzer telescope shot this photo of the galactic delivery room.
1615	With the telescope, however, the colours really come into their own.
1616	In this infrared photo, the Helix Nebula looks back at the observer like a red eye.
1617	It is located 700 light years away in the Aquarius constellation.
1618	Its similarity with the continent resulted in this Nebula acquiring the title 'North America'.
1619	A combination of normal and infrared photography produced the spectacular colouring.
1620	This baby star could only be captured in its full beauty using the Spitzer telescope's infrared detectors.
1621	Saturn and its rings: How these occurred is the greatest puzzle in the field of astronomy.
1622	Perhaps they are the remnants of a moon of Saturn, which disappeared without a trace 4.5 billion years ago.
1623	One of the largest and sharpest pictures from the Hubble telescope: the Whirlpool Galaxy
1624	Depending on the colouring, photographs of spiral galaxies can become genuine works of art.
1625	The photograph published by the European Southern Observatory shows the Trifid Nebula in the Sagittarius constellation, several thousand light years away.
1626	The name Trifid stems from the Latin word trifidus (divided into three parts), as dark stripes of dust divide the core of the birthplace of stars into three parts.
1627	In the Ophiuchus constellation, astronomers have photographed the signs of a cosmic collision: 400 million light years from the earth, the cores of two merging galaxies move rapidly towards one another, destined to collide.
1628	This star birth was captured by the Hubble telescope in the M83 spiral galaxy.
1629	Anyone who doesn't like technical abbreviations may prefer to call it by its nickname, the Southern Catherine Wheel.
1630	The photo taken by the Hubble space telescope shows a section of the Iris Nebula in the Cepheus constellation.
1631	The nebula, 1,400 light years away, consists of particles of dust that are ten to one hundred times smaller than standard house dust.
1632	This image was put together from the X-ray images captured by various telescopes.
1633	It shows a ring of black holes, 430 million light years away from the Earth.
1634	This group of galaxies, named Arp 273, was pictured for NASA by the Hubble space telescope.
1635	Scientists call the larger spiral galaxy UGC 1810.
1636	This star nebula is home to the brightest group of young stars in our Milky Way.
1637	This 'star cradle' continually produces new youngsters.
1638	Likewise, this star cloud, connected to the Rosette Nebula, continually produces new baby stars - 5000 light years away from the Earth.
1639	In this bright shining galaxy with one small black hole, there exists no dust - only gas.
1640	Researchers presume that it only came into being shortly after the Big Bang, when the universe was comprised primarily of hydrogen.
1641	Our view of the universe: the most important telescopes
1642	The telescope is thought to have been invented in 1608 by Hans Lipperhey - even before Galileo Galilei used the device to observe the stars one year later.
1643	Since then, the mirrors in optical telescopes have become increasingly large and the insights that they provide increasingly profound.
1644	For a period of 30 years, namely from 1947 until 1975, the Hale telescope in the Palomar Observatory near San Diego was the largest telescope in the world.
1645	The mirror, shown in the image, had a diameter of five metres.
1646	Arizona, USA,is home to the Large Binocular Telescope.
1647	It enables views of space via two mirrors, each with a diameter of 8.4 metres.
1648	The inner workings of the Gran Telescopio Canarias on the Canarian island of La Palma are huge - the mirror alone has a diameter of 10.4 metres.
1649	The mirror of the Southern African Large Telescope in South Africa is segmented - to reduce costs.
1650	In spite of this it achieves a diameter of around eleven metres.
1651	The disadvantage of this inexpensive construction method: the telescope is securely clamped at its angle of inclination and its movement is therefore limited.
1652	The Hobby Eberly telescope in Texas also has a fixed angle of inclination.
1653	What sets it apart: the high light-gathering capacity.
1654	This - in spite of its comparatively low mirror diameter - even matches that of the world's largest reflector telescopes.
1655	With the help of a radio telescope in Arecibo (Puerto Rico) researchers can listen for extraterrestrial signals in space.
1656	The radio telescope has a diameter of 305 metres.
1657	View of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in the Chilean Andes.
1658	This is home to the Very Large Telescope, which lives up to its name.
1659	With its total of four mirrors, the telescope can also focus on the medial infrared spectrum.
1660	Likewise to be located at the ESO Observatory in Chile, the European Extremely Large Telescope is also being planned.
1661	Its main mirror is to span a full 42 metres and will be made from almost 1,000 mirror elements.
1662	However, images are not to be expected until 2018 at the earliest.
1663	Until 2007, the two Keck telescopes at the Hawaiian volcano, Mauna Kea, were the largest in the world.
1664	They each have two mirrors, each with a diameter of ten meters.
1665	The Keck Telescopes are part of the Mauna Kea Observatory, which alongside the Keck telescopes, can look to the heavens with the help of the Subaru telescope and the IRTTF.
1666	Another huge new telescope is also to be built on the Mauna Kea, with a mirror diameter of thirty metres.
1667	Here you can marvel at an artist's impression.
1668	However, the most important insights into space are provided by the Hubble space telescope.
1669	Since 24 April 1990 it has been supplying images of distant worlds.
1670	Since March 2009 the Kepler space telescope has been searching for extra-solar planets, especially for any that may be inhabitable.
1671	On 2 February 2011 it was announced by NASA that 1,235 planetary candidates had been identified since the mission began.
1672	The image documents the final launch preparations on the Kepler space telescope.
1673	The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be launched into space on board an Ariane5 rocket by 2018 at the earliest.
1674	The primary mirror of the infrared space telescope has a diameter of 6.5 metres.
1675	One of the telescope's tasks is to search for light from the first stars and galaxies that emerged after the Big Bang.
1676	Scientists are assuming that ice also exists at Mercury's south pole.
1677	However, there is no reliable data in support of this as the Messenger orbits around the planets much closer to the north pole.
1678	For decades, radar measurements have indicated that there is ice on Mercury.
1679	Thanks to the Messenger probe that was launched in 2004, the first to orbit Mercury, scientists can now be certain.
1680	Drink butter on a daily basis - and live to 168 years of age
1681	In Southern Azerbaijan, many people reach biblical ages.
1682	There is even a museum of longevity.
1683	A hunt for evidence in the country in which 97 years old is still comparatively young.
1684	In Southern Azerbaijan, many people reach ages that can almost be considered biblical.
1685	There is even a museum of longevity.
1686	A hunt for evidence in the country in which 97 years old is still comparatively young.
1687	The journey through the Talysh Mountains can be described as wild and romantic.
1688	The minibus rumbles over the winding streets, past densely wooded hills, raging rivers and simple farmhouses.
1689	Everywhere is green and lush - you could be forgiven for thinking you were in the Black Forest.
1690	However, this is the deep south of Azerbaijan, and the border with Iran is just a few kilometres away.
1691	This is the home of the Caucasian people group, the Talysh, of whom not much is known except that they speak perfect Persian and Azeri and live long lives.
1692	The final stop is Lerik.
1693	The small town is bursting with overpowering architecture from Soviet times, which doesn't fit with the picturesque mountain landscape at all.
1694	Tourists from Europe rarely come here; the journey from Azerbaijan's capital city, Baku, is too arduous.
1695	It takes eight hours to travel the 323 kilometres, as too much of the route is just a single track.
1696	The fabulous wealth, for which the country has its oil in the Caspian Sea to thank, has not yet arrives here in the province.
1697	Yet Pilata Fatulayeva (48) is convinced that Lerik has what it takes to be a tourist attraction.
1698	She is the Director of the Museum of Longevity, most likely the only of its kind in the world.
1699	Here the lives of eight dozen Talysh from the area who lived to older than 100 are documented. Fatulayeva points out a black & white photo.
1700	This here is my grandfather, he was 120 years old.
1701	At the age of 136 he fathered another child.
1702	However, the unrivalled star of the museum is shepherd Shirali Muslimov who is said to have lived to 168 years old.
1703	However no birth certificate exists to confirm this.
1704	And given that the longest confirmed lifespan was 122 years of age, Muslimov's claim seems extremely doubtful.
1705	The man married three times and had 23 children, and is said to have fathered another daughter at the age of 136.
1706	So did Shirali Muslimov miscalculate his age by a couple of decades?
1707	But Rembrandt Scholz, researcher on ageing at the Max Planck Institute in Rostock, has also heard of people living to impressive ages in Central Asia.
1708	Due to lacking documentation, however, there is no scientific proof of age, particularly as there are no birth registers.
1709	Melted butter by the glass, every day
1710	However, the fact remains that the people of the region surrounding Lerik reach a biblical age with striking regularity.
1711	There are currently 20 individuals older than 100 years of age.
1712	So why do so many very old people live here in the south?
1713	The Azeri travel guide Farid Mugimzadeh explains this as being due to the special Talysh genetics.
1714	In contrast, Museum Director Fatulayeva believes that it is due to diet.
1715	However the notion that the calorie-rich diet of the Talysh, who love meat, bread and especially dairy products, and of whom many drink a glass of melted butter on a daily basis, could be considered healthy from a nutrition science perspective does not really seem plausible either.
1716	Or is it the traditional way of life that keeps the people young? In Cengemiran, a tiny settlement not far from the town of Lerik, lives Rubaba Mirzayeva.
1717	At 97 years old she is still comparatively young for the area.
1718	Mirzayeva, who claims to have 143 descendants, lives in a simple wooden house, which is typical of the entire Caucasus region.
1719	She sits on the floor with a butter churn, which she rolls backwards and forwards tirelessly.
1720	Eight people live here under this roof, including one of Mirzayeva's sons and a daughter, both of whom have been grandparents for some time.
1721	There are also two small children running around.
1722	In the kitchen, tea is prepared for the guests, which is served in typical, bulging Armadu glasses.
1723	Mirzayeva's white teeth stand in perfect rank and file, beneath her headscarf she conceals long, dark blond plaits, which her son proudly reveals for us.
1724	I have always washed my hair with milk, and it has never fallen out or lost its colour.
1725	Monthly pension is enough to live on
1726	She has only ever eaten what she could get from her own farm - tomatoes, potatoes, peas.
1727	My whole life I have never once bought groceries in the supermarket.
1728	Then she tells of her husband who was in the army.
1729	Things were at their worst during the time after the Second World War.
1730	The propaganda seems strange coming from the mouth of an old lady.
1731	Yet the cult that revolved around the father figure for the nation, who governed his country like a dictator practically knows no limits in Azerbaijan.
1732	He held power until 2003 and his son Ilham later took over the helm.
1733	At least there is no deprivation among Azerbaijan's elderly.
1734	Mirzayeva receives 230 Manat (around the same sum in euros) per month as her pension, which in a local context is an amount on which one can live comfortably.
1735	They live among their extended family, are loved, cared for and are happy.
1736	If this is not a reason to live for as long as possible, then what is?
1737	The revolution has returned to Cairo.
1738	Competing demonstrations in Cairo reveal the deep division within the country.
1739	The future constitution based on Sharia law is fiercely disputed.
1740	The Egyptian President is not holding back his emotion.
1741	We must make the transition.
1742	His speech was aimed at the entire population,however in particular at the Coptic Christians, the liberals, enlightened Muslims and secularists.
1743	For all of them, until now hopelessly estranged in a bewildered opposition, are fearful.
1744	They are fearful of a God State on the Nile at the mercy of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood.
1745	However, Egyptians - and the world - are not entirely sure what the 61-year-old engineer who holds a Doctorate from the American University of Southern California, really wants to save.
1746	Should the judiciary be deprived of power?
1747	In actual fact, the 234 articles, which have been pushed through by the Islamic-dominated 110-person Constituent Assembly, are in some aspects cause for concern.
1748	This was and remains subject to interpretation and there is concern that the Islamists will make use of the woolly formulation and the resulting room for legal manoeuvre in favour of a stricter interpretation of Sharia law.
1749	This is at least suggested by one newly added article: in all issues affecting Sharia law, the Al Ashar University must be consulted, the country's most important Islamic institution, which has great influence throughout the whole of Sunni Islam.
1750	This can, but does not necessarily have to mean that the clergy will oversee legislation, which would result in the de facto incapacitation of the judiciary.
1751	Much in the constitutional draft is open to interpretation
1752	Also problematic: civil military jurisdiction will continue to be upheld.
1753	During Mubarak's rule, these courts served to suppress opposition.
1754	Following the fall of the dictator, up to 11,000 civilians were under military imprisonment.
1755	From a legal perspective, this is formulated in such an unclear manner that state institutions could even use this article to control the content of cinematic art and literature.
1756	In plain language, this is nothing other than censorship.
1757	Incidentally, no article explicitly establishes the equality of men and women.
1758	Another does prohibit the insult or slander of the prophet Mohamed and his emissaries.
1759	However, what constitutes an insult and how this should be sanctioned remains unclear.
1760	Is a caricature of the president sufficient, or a joke at the expense of a jurist?
1761	The revolution is back
1762	For weeks the opposition has been gathering to combat the superior strength of the Islamists.
1763	Tens of thousands gathered on Friday evening at the Tahrir Square in Cairo, in unfamiliar unity, and pledged to bring down the charter before it has even come into effect.
1764	And several judges have signalled that they do not want to oversee the referendum, which would render it invalid.
1765	The Koran is our constitution
1766	The well-organised Muslim Brotherhood gathered for a counter-demonstration, although acting cautiously they did not choose the Tahrir Square but rather a mass prayer on the other side of the Nile, outside the Cairo University.
1767	A struggle for control over the symbolic Tahrir Square, where everything began, would have most likely provoked events verging on civil war.
1768	Quite clearly, this was something that Mursi's followers did not want to risk.
1769	The Muslim Brothers stated that both those against and those in favour of the constitutional draft had expressed themselves loud and clear.
1770	Now is the time to let the population decide at the ballot box, in which direction the country should move forward.
1771	It is a certainty that there is a majority in favour of the Islamists' draft.
1772	The term 'human rights' does not even appear once
1773	Hafez Abu Saeda is furious about this forced constitutive process, which actually should have lasted until February and should have involved all social interest groups.
1774	The 48-year-old human rights lawyer and Chairman of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) defended the Muslim Brotherhood, when imprisoned or in court under Mubarak.
1775	Not because he shared their world view, but because for him, human rights are indivisible.
1776	For this he was battered, condemned and imprisoned.
1777	The lawyer has resigned himself to Mursi extending his power to all three branches of state government.
1778	These measures are blatant breaches of the ground rules of democracy and will guide Egypt into a new dictatorship.
1779	Yet without civil society organisations, a democracy cannot function.
1780	Saeda feels abandoned,even by the international community, which is observing the battle over the ideological direction on the Nile with a mixture of curiosity and excitement.
1781	This could come back to haunt them.
1782	Norway's rakfisk: Is this the world's smelliest fish?
1783	Norway's five million people enjoy one of the highest standards of living, not just in Europe, but in the world.
1784	Could the secret of the country's success be connected to the local appetite for some exceedingly smelly fish?
1785	Take a selection of over-ripe cheeses.
1786	Place them in the midst of a pile of dirty, wet soccer kit.
1787	Leave for a week.
1788	Now you have the nose-numbing smell of rakfisk, one of the great Norwegian delicacies.
1789	I am in the small town of Fagernes, about three hours from Oslo.
1790	There is snow, spectacular scenery - and that odour, ever present, hangs in the air.
1791	Rakfisk is trout sprinkled with salt and fermented in water for - depending on how smelly you like your fish - up to a year.
1792	As the dark sets in and the weather turns cold, Norwegians flock to a festival here in Fagernes devoted to this most, well, captivating of foods.
1793	All around us people are eating little cubes of the fish and knocking back quantities of drink.
1794	The drink can kill the smell.
1795	I try a few pieces.
1796	If you can avoid passing it under your nose, it is not bad - not unlike a slice of sushi that has been on rather a long bus journey.
1797	Rakfisk is a product of very different, poverty-stricken times in Norway when, pre-refrigeration, fish was soaked in airtight barrels of water and salt in autumn.
1798	Then in the depths of winter, well and truly fermented, it is taken out and - no doubt with the senses knocked out by alcohol - eaten.
1799	Only a generation ago, thousands of Norwegians were forced to leave their country in search of work, emigrating mainly to the US.
1800	Now the population is expanding fast - more than 13% are immigrants, attracted by plentiful jobs, high wages and a comprehensive care system.
1801	People from Sweden, the old rival and not so long ago far richer than Norway, stream in to work.
1802	Rakfisk is seen as signifying something important, a vital if rather smelly part of Norway's past.
1803	It is among the more expensive dishes you can buy.
1804	But then everything is expensive - a small glass of beer or a sandwich knock you back £9 ($14) each.
1805	Norway does not often make it on to the global news agenda - and most seem to like it that way.
1806	People here are still loath to mention by name Anders Breivik, the right-wing, racist extremist who gunned down and killed 77 men, women and children last year.
1807	Norwegians find it very difficult to believe that in their peace-loving country one of their own was capable of such brutality and murder.
1808	The growth since the early 1970s of one of the world's biggest oil and gas industries lies behind much of Norway's present-day wealth.
1809	We are a - how you say - prudent people.
1810	Her English, like that of most people here, is flawless.
1811	We are not very showy, we do not like ostentation.
1812	Norway has handled its oil wealth very carefully - all but a small percentage of money from the industry is invested in a special fund for the benefit of future generations.
1813	When everyone else was throwing around money they did not have, in the years leading up to the global financial crash, Norway kept its purse strings tightly bound.
1814	I stand in the snow and queue for something to eat - I have had enough rakfisk.
1815	Now an elk burger is certainly something different and rather succulent to the taste.
1816	But in the evening, it is more of that smelly fish.
1817	The hotel I am staying in is one of a number of venues hosting a rakfisk dinner where guests vote on the best - or perhaps the most nasally challenging - fish.
1818	There is a live TV link up to a compere in a bow tie surrounded by plates of rakfisk.
1819	It is like the Eurovision song contest.
1820	What score do you have for the best fish up there in the mountains Thor-Juergen?
1821	Here are our points, Havard.
1822	There is clapping, laughter.
1823	A man falls off his chair, perhaps overcome with aquavit.
1824	Or maybe it is the fumes from all that fish.
1825	Mexico's Enrique Pena Nieto faces tough start
1826	As Mexico's incoming President Enrique Pena Nieto prepares to take office, the BBC's Will Grant looks at the challenges facing him and the mixed expectations of his population.
1827	Traffic in Mexico City is particularly bad at present.
1828	A congested city at the best of times, a ring of steel has been erected since Monday cutting off several key routes into the capital and causing chaos on the roads.
1829	The aim, however, wasn't to stop commuters getting to work but prevent protesters from reaching parliament.
1830	On Saturday, Mexico's new president Enrique Pena Nieto will receive the presidential sash and take over the running of the nation.
1831	He faces a complicated task.
1832	Mexico has been performing well economically under the outgoing administration of Felipe Calderon, but the country is in the grip of a drug war, which has already claimed an estimated 60,000 lives in six years.
1833	I will be proposing a new security strategy which will allow us to achieve that aim.
1834	Before rubbing shoulders with the US president, Mr Pena Nieto's previous political experience was as governor of his home state, the State of Mexico.
1835	A populous, sprawling state surrounding the capital, opinions about the new leader are divided in his old stomping ground.
1836	A straightforward man
1837	In the bucolic town of Valle del Bravo, for example, he is remembered fondly.
1838	Residents credit him with boosting tourism in the resort and building infrastructure.
1839	To reach the town you can drive along one of Mr Pena Nieto's new motorways, a vast improvement on the cracked and bumpy roads it replaced.
1840	Plaques bearing his name also hang outside a modern sports centre and an impressive interactive museum about climate change.
1841	Particularly in terms of security and the economy, we're hoping for an interesting and true change which our country so badly needs.
1842	After an unbroken 81 years in power, the PRI was ousted in 2000 by Vicente Fox.
1843	Congressman Olvera admits that after 12 years outside the presidential palace of Los Pinos, there is much expectation within the party about Enrique Pena Nieto.
1844	And he rejects the opposition's characterisation of the new president as lacking substance.
1845	He's a very straightforward man, very committed with an excellent vision of the country.
1846	He's an excellent statesman and, above all, he's someone who knows how to listen.
1847	But on the other side of the state, that is not the impression many people have of their former governor.
1848	In Nezahualcoyotl, also known as Ciudad Neza, the contrast with the cobbled streets of Valle del Bravo couldn't be sharper.
1849	Tucked away under motorway flyovers, it is in many ways a suburb of Mexico City itself.
1850	And the problems in the municipality are also gritty and urban.
1851	Earlier this year, the military was called in to help tackle the drug gangs operating in the neighbourhoods, and violence against women is particularly acute.
1852	On a patch of wasteland by a vast landfill site, the bodies of dozens of murdered women have been dumped over the past two years alone.
1853	More than 1,000 women were killed in Mexico State while Mr Pena Nieto was governor, a rate much higher than in the notoriously violent city of Ciudad Juarez - a place synonymous with the murder of innocent women.
1854	Mr Pena Nieto's critics say, at best, he failed to adequately address the problem of femicide while he was in office.
1855	At worst, they accuse his administration of turning a blind eye.
1856	In a concrete home typical of the rundown neighbourhood, Irinea Buendia struggles to fight back the tears as she shows me photos of her late daughter, Mariana Luna.
1857	According to the official version of events, Mariana committed suicide in 2010.
1858	However her family believes she was murdered by her partner.
1859	There were signs she'd been beaten, and rigor mortis had already set in.
1860	As her mother recounts the story, a picture of Mariana looks down from the walls, next to a cross bearing a single word: Justice.
1861	However, that is exactly what the family say they have been denied.
1862	The state authorities have treated me like I'm an old gossip, a trouble-maker, a whiner.
1863	What they want is that one simply accepts what they say and shuts up.
1864	As President Pena Nieto receives the sash on Saturday, it comes with a heavy responsibility.
1865	Tens of thousands of families have been affected by violent crime in Mexico over the past six years and the new president has promised to make them a priority during his time in office.
1866	That, however, is exactly what victims' families in Ciudad Neza most fear.
1867	Bradley Manning didn't complain about mistreatment, prosecutors contend
1868	Prosecutors try to counter Bradley Manning's claims of abuse in confinement
1869	The hearing focuses on Manning's time in the military brig at Quantico, Virginia
1870	Defense wants case dismissed on grounds that Manning's confinement was harsh
1871	The Army private is accused of stealing thousands of classified documents
1872	Prosecutors tried to establish Friday that Army private Bradley Manning -- charged in the largest leak of classified material in U.S. history -- missed multiple opportunities to complain about the mistreatment he's alleging he suffered in military custody.
1873	While cross-examining Manning at a pre-trial hearing at Ft. Meade, Maryland, prosecutor Maj. Ashden Fein asserted that records of weekly visits Manning had with unit officers during nine months of detention at Quantico, Virginia, show no complaints about his treatment.
1874	The cross-examination -- during a hearing on a defense motion to have Manning's case dismissed on grounds that his confinement has been harsh and has amounted to enough punishment -- came a day after Manning testified that he had considered suicide while in custody.
1875	The Army intelligence analyst, arrested in June 2010, is accused of stealing thousands of classified documents while serving in Iraq.
1876	The material was then published online by WikiLeaks.
1877	WikiLeaks has never confirmed that Manning was the source of its information.
1878	In Friday's hearing, Fein reviewed with Manning the forms that officers filled out after meeting with Manning during his detention at Quantico's brig, where he was held under a heightened confinement status from July 2010 to April 2011.
1879	Officers would ask Manning questions and write down his responses.
1880	The forms show no complaints of mistreatment, even though the officers asked Manning directly about his treatment, Fein contended.
1881	Manning responded that he would verbally express concern about issues and that the visiting officers would talk through the concerns and indicate that they would be addressed, but they didn't record the issues.
1882	The judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, also asked Manning why he didn't complain about his treatment during a January 2011 meeting with a board examining the suicidal thoughts he expressed in a form months earlier.
1883	The military said they put him on this restrictive status -- a step below suicide watch -- for his protection and the safety of others.
1884	Manning testified Thursday about his arrest in Iraq and his transfer to Kuwait, where he was held for nearly two months before being transferred to the brig at Marine Base Quantico in Virginia in July 2010.
1885	He said he contemplated suicide in Kuwait and once passed out there due to the heat.
1886	He said not being allowed to know what was happening to him or in the outside world was distressing.
1887	I thought I was going to die in that cage.
1888	Once at Quantico, Manning said, he spend most days in a small cell -- at least 21 hours and often more than 23 hours -- with no company.
1889	Manning said he was allowed only a mattress, blanket, flip-flops, some clothes and his glasses.
1890	He said he tried to keep moving, because sleeping during the day or even lying down was against the rules.
1891	Manning said he always slept with light from outside his cell in his eyes.
1892	If guards could not see his face when he rolled over at night, he said they would wake him to roll back over.
1893	Manning's lawyer filed a formal objection to Manning's treatment in January 2011.
1894	Manning was moved to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in April 2011.
1895	Also Friday, the judge asked Manning about an allegation that he made in Thursday's testimony -- that after being forced to sleep naked one night in his Quantico cell, he was forced to stand naked in front of guards and other inmates during a morning head count.
1896	Manning had testified that he was never given a chance to cover himself with his blanket during the head count.
1897	Under questioning from the judge Friday, Manning said that he inferred from his guard's order that he should drop a blanket that could have covered him, but he acknowledged that no one had ordered him to drop it.
1898	Manning testified Thursday that he was forced to sleep naked the previous night because of his attempt to show an officer that he wasn't a danger to himself.
1899	Manning said that he told the officer that he could have used the waistband of his underwear or his flip-flops to hurt himself but hadn't done so.
1900	That night, Manning testified, his underwear, flip-flops and glasses were removed from his cell.
1901	His lawyers hope the judge will at least take his experiences during confinement into account and sharply reduce his sentence should he be convicted at his court-martial, which is expected to begin early next year.
1902	The defense has said it plans to have Manning plead guilty to lesser offenses and fight other charges as being too extreme.
1903	The hearing is scheduled to resume this weekend, with prosecutors expected to argue that the detention conditions were warranted.
1904	The Pentagon has maintained that Manning was held in accordance with rules governing all maximum-custody detainees at Quantico.
1905	Counts against Manning include aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet, transmitting national defense information and theft of public property or records.
1906	If he's convicted on all counts, he could face a life sentence.
1907	My Mexican-American identity crisis
1908	He says many were forced to leave Mexico because of the lack of opportunities there
1909	Mexicans tend to fault those who left; they remind Mexicans of hard times, he says
1910	Navarrette says Mexican-Americans are caught between two worlds
1911	On a recent trip to Mexico City, I had barely made my way down the concourse and arrived at the immigration processing area when I got stumped.
1912	I stood there for a few seconds, unsure of where to go.
1913	But, this was Mexico.
1914	And, in the homeland of my grandfather, there was no need for shorthand or hyphens.
1915	I was simply an American.
1916	I speak Spanish, good enough to handle either end of an interview in that language.
1917	But I don't have the vocabulary of a native, and I can't shake my American accent.
1918	So I took my U.S. passport and got in the line for Extranjeros.
1919	I thought about that moment this week when Mexican president-elect Enrique Pena Nieto visited the White House to meet with President Obama.
1920	On the agenda, as usual, when the leaders of these two countries meet: immigration, drugs and trade.
1921	Pena Nieto was also eager to talk about the growth of the Mexican economy, which is one reason that Mexicans are now just as likely to stay in Mexico as venture to the United States.
1922	He wants to partner with the United States and Canada, and create a European Union-style trading bloc in North America.
1923	And Pena Nieto vowed to continue Mexico's war against the drug cartels, even though he offered no specifics.
1924	For Mexico, the relationship with the United States is complicated and filled with hard feelings.
1925	Most Americans probably never give a thought to the fact that, in 1848, the United States invaded Mexico and forced its leaders to sign over half their territory at the point of rifle.
1926	But for Mexicans, who think in terms of centuries, not minutes, the reminders are everywhere.
1927	So the minute that a U.S. official says anything the least bit critical of Mexico, you start hearing -- in the Mexican press, and among the elites -- complaints about how the Americans are encroaching upon their neighbor's sovereignty.
1928	And the children of Montezuma go on the warpath.
1929	And yet, for Mexico, the really challenging relationship is with the more than 35 million Mexican-Americans living in the United States.
1930	You want to talk about hard feelings?
1931	There is plenty.
1932	Mexico has winners and losers, people for whom the country provides opportunities and others for whom it doesn't.
1933	The only reason you have so many people of Mexican ancestry living in cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver or San Antonio is because, at some point in our family tree, there was a person, maybe a parent or grandparent, who was shut out from opportunity in Mexico and had to go north.
1934	And more often than not, that person fit a profile -- dark skin, little education, from a poor village, etc.
1935	We're their offspring, and we're loyal to them.
1936	Not Mexico.
1937	And even though we may now be living the American Dream, having gone to good schools and taken good jobs, we can never lose sight of the fact that it's the American Dream we're living, and not the Mexican one.
1938	Our identity might sometimes be fuzzy, but our loyalty is clear.
1939	It's to the United States.
1940	Besides, we're aware that many of the elite Mexicans in the ruling class don't like us.
1941	The feeling is mutual.
1942	They see us as a reminder of a humiliating defeat and look down on us as inferior stock that isn't sufficiently Mexican.
1943	Our Spanish will never be good enough, our ties to Mexico never strong enough.
1944	Our existence is, as they see it, all about failure.
1945	If our families hadn't failed in Mexico, they wouldn't have left.
1946	And we wouldn't now find ourselves trapped behind the silk curtain, living well in the United States but lost souls nonetheless.
1947	My wife, who was born in Guadalajara and came to the United States legally as a child, reminds me that there is friction between Mexicans and Mexican-Americans because Mexicans have a firmer grasp of who they are and Mexican-Americans resent that.
1948	While she's a U.S. citizen, she sees herself as a part of two countries.
1949	Meanwhile, many Mexican-Americans I know don't feel like they're a part of either.
1950	We love listening to the Mexican band, Los Tigres del Norte, but also to Bruce Springsteen.
1951	You get the best of both worlds, but you're rooted in neither.
1952	In Mexico, we're seen as Americans.
1953	And in the United States, we're considered Mexican.
1954	Now, to complicate the relationship even further, as I learned during my trip, some Mexican leaders and parts of the intelligentsia want to reconnect with the Diaspora.
1955	We would tell our fellow Americans what a great country this is to visit and pressure political leaders to strengthen ties with Mexico.
1956	Yeah.
1957	That's not going to happen.
1958	Too many hard feelings.
1959	And, with income inequality and rampant corruption and drug violence, many of us are not so sure that it is a great country.
1960	I'm afraid you're on your own, amigos.
1961	That's fair.
1962	If at least some Mexicans aren't yet ready to forgive the United States for how it treated Mexico a century and a half ago, then they have to accept the fact that some Mexican-Americans still hold a grudge for how their family members were treated much more recently than that.
1963	Hmmm.
1964	Old battles, new Middle East
1965	The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could yet be an unlikely foundation for peace
1966	Can there ever be a lasting peace between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East?
1967	Another round of bloodshed suggests that any such hope is vain.
1968	Amid the usual futile arguments over who started it, scores of buildings have been reduced to rubble; more than 140 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and six Israelis have been killed; and, for the first time, missiles from Gaza have landed near Tel Aviv, Israel's metropolis, and the holy city of Jerusalem.
1969	But though the Israelis and Palestinians seem stuck in their ancient conflict, all around them the Middle East is changing.
1970	The Arab spring has thrown the pieces up in the air, and, like it or not, the Palestinians and Israelis are caught up in the regional turmoil.
1971	Maybe this will make their struggle bloodier than before.
1972	However, there are reasons for thinking it could just break their lethal stalemate.
1973	A war that is neither lost or won
1974	At first sight, optimism looks very hard to justify now.
1975	Even if the ceasefire agreed on November 21st holds, this week's fighting has strengthened the hawks on both sides.
1976	The leaders of Hamas, the Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza since 2007, will claim to have forced the Israelis to back off, even though Gaza has taken a drubbing.
1977	Despite killing some of its leaders and bottling up Gaza's 1.7m people in one of the most wretched and crowded corners of the planet, Israel has failed to destroy Hamas.
1978	Indeed Hamas is gaining on the West Bank, the other bit of Palestine currently run by its bitter rivals in Fatah, the more moderate Palestinian faction.
1979	Moreover, Hamas's leaders may well conclude that time is on their side.
1980	As Islamists across the Arab world have gained clout, so Hamas has made powerful and rich friends.
1981	Turkey, a resurgent regional power that was once Israel's closest Muslim ally, has taken up Hamas's cause; so has Qatar, one of the richest and most dynamic of the Gulf states.
1982	Jubilant Hamas people say an Islamist crescent is curving around Israel, from Lebanon in the north, where the Hizbullah party-cum-militia holds sway, through Syria, where rebels of an increasingly Islamist bent may topple Bashar Assad, and on down through Jordan, where Hamas's allies are menacing the king.
1983	Above all, on Israel's southern flank, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood under President Muhammad Morsi in Egypt, by far the most populous and pivotal of Arab countries, has changed the region's balance.
1984	Hosni Mubarak, the secular despot who ran Egypt for 30 years until his downfall in 2011, had little time for Hamas.
1985	By contrast, the Brotherhood is a cousin of Hamas, and its leaders are more subject to popular opinion.
1986	In future diplomacy Hamas may emerge as an actor that cannot be shut out even by Israel and America.
1987	Meanwhile, Israel's hardliners will draw the opposite conclusions.
1988	In military terms, Hamas has been put back in its box.
1989	Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system has proved its worth and many of Hamas's missiles have been destroyed.
1990	Israelis will sleep more soundly - for a while.
1991	In diplomatic terms, America is as steadfast as ever; many European countries also blamed Hamas for starting the latest round of violence.
1992	Above all, Israel has prospered, especially under Binyamin Netanyahu, a prime minister who has largely ignored the peace process.
1993	Although rockets from Gaza have killed around 30 Israelis since 2004, Israel has been fairly free of suicide-bombers, thanks in part to the barrier that bites into the West Bank, the main chunk of a would-be Palestinian state, and protects the Jewish settlements that continue to expand despite their illegality in international law.
1994	Mr Netanyahu, whose Likud party has merged with an even more hawkish lot under Avigdor Lieberman in the run-up to an election on January 22nd, is sitting pretty.
1995	Why coddle those twisty Palestinians by giving them a state of their own?
1996	If they really ran the West Bank, would they not fire rockets, just as their compatriots have done in Gaza?
1997	Better to keep them behind that wall and smite them if they raise their heads.
1998	Maybe the hardliners will win out; yet the Arab spring may change their calculations.
1999	Even if the Islamists taking power in Egypt and elsewhere have little love for Israel, their priority will be tackling difficulties at home.
2000	Israel's defence budget is bigger than that of its four Arab neighbours combined.
2001	Starting a war with the local superpower will hardly help the new Arab governments mend their economies.
2002	That the pragmatic Mr Morsi worked with Barack Obama to obtain a ceasefire augurs well - and might just mark the start of something.
2003	Israelis too should look to the longer term.
2004	With the rest of the Arab world becoming more democratic, depriving Palestinians of their right to self-determination is creating a powder keg that is bound one day to explode in the territories occupied by Israel - much as a bus exploded in Tel Aviv this week.
2005	Repression is already undermining democracy in the Jewish state, and demography exacerbates this as the Arab population swells.
2006	Bloody missions against Gaza every few years to knock back Hamas will exact a growing diplomatic toll.
2007	Both sides need prodding by outsiders
2008	The answer remains the one trumpeted by sensible people on both sides, most of the outside world and this newspaper: two states, with Israel ceding territory for security.
2009	The hope - a small one in the short term - is that the ceasefire will give a little more leverage to outsiders pushing that cause.
2010	Egypt, which must now set about stopping the flow of arms into Gaza, along with Turkey and Qatar, is better placed than ever to persuade Hamas to accept the idea of a Jewish state based on the 1967 boundaries with land swaps and a shared Jerusalem.
2011	Arab outsiders should also press Hamas and Fatah to come together.
2012	That would do more to create a Palestinian state than the imminent bid for virtual statehood at the UN.
2013	Mr Obama also has a part in getting Israel to the table.
2014	During his first term, he neglected to present his own plan for peace.
2015	Back in the White House, he is looking just as reluctant to be drawn in.
2016	This is woefully short-sighted.
2017	America has a vital interest in a stable Middle East.
2018	That means a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
2019	Cigarette plain packaging laws come into force in Australia
2020	Smoking warnings and diseased body parts emblazoned on dull green boxes that are the same for all tobacco brands
2021	Australia's world-first laws on cigarette and tobacco plain packaging have come into force, replacing brand logos and colours with generic drab olive green coverings, gruesome pictures of diseased body parts and depictions of children and babies made ill by their parents' smoking.
2022	Apart from the varying health warnings and images the only difference between the packs, mandatory from Saturday, are the brand names, and these are all printed in identical small font.
2023	It is the world's most strict regime for the packaging of tobacco.
2024	Australia's federal government says the aim is to deter young people from smoking by stripping the habit of glamour.
2025	It is relying on studies showing that if people have not started smoking by age 26 there is a 99% chance they will never take it up.
2026	While Australia has one of the world's lowest smoking rates and the changes will have little impact on multinationals' profits, other countries are considering similar steps.
2027	The tobacco industry lobbied hard against the laws.
2028	Tobacco firms said they would boost black market trade, leading to cheaper, more accessible cigarettes.
2029	Counterfeiters from China and Indonesia will bring lots more of these products down to sell on the streets of Australia.
2030	Others say the laws have boosted their business.
2031	Sandra Ha of Zico Import Pty Ltd, a small family business, said demand for cigarette cases, silicon covers to mask the unpalatable packages, had shot up from almost nothing two months ago since British American Tobacco, Britain's Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco lost a challenge to the laws in Australia's high court.
2032	Ha said Zico had sold up to 6,000 to wholesale outlets and was awaiting new stock.
2033	This is good business for us.
2034	The potential hitch, experts say, is the popularity of social media with the very demographic the plan is targeting.
2035	After a series of Australian laws banning TV advertising and sports sponsorship and requiring most sellers to hide cigarettes from view, tobacco marketing has moved online.
2036	Australia has banned web advertising by local companies and sites but cannot restrict overseas sites.
2037	We have to ask, is that just a private citizen who really loves Marlboro cigarettes and they've gone to the trouble of making a video, or is there a marketing company involved?
2038	British American Tobacco Australia said the industry was focused on dealing with the new rules rather than marketing.
2039	The industry has gone as far as paying for Ukraine, Honduras and the Dominican Republic to challenge the new rules - the countries are claiming at the World Trade Organisation that trade is being unfairly restricted, despite none of the countries having significant trade with Australia.
2040	A WTO ruling is likely in mid-2013.
2041	Plibersek said the government had held discussions with other countries considering similar laws on packaging.
2042	Canada was the first country to make photograph warnings mandatory in 2001.
2043	They now extend to more than 40 countries including Brazil, Turkey and Ukraine.
2044	Tougher laws are being considered in Britain, New Zealand, South Africa and India.
2045	Many smokers in Australia remain defiant.
2046	The pictures don't affect me.
2047	I just ignore them.
2048	Honestly, there's only one reason I'd stop, and that's my little girl.
2049	James Yu, who runs the King of the Pack tobacconist in central Sydney, said the uniform packaging made it harder to stack his shelves
2050	In a Constantly Plugged-In World, It's Not All Bad to Be Bored
2051	I spent five unexpected hours in an airport this Thanksgiving holiday when our plane had mechanical difficulties and we had to wait for another plane to arrive.
2052	So I had plenty of time to think about the subject of boredom.
2053	I won't lie to you.
2054	Half a day in an airport waiting for a flight is pretty tedious, even with the distractions of books, magazines and iPhones (not to mention duty-free shopping).
2055	But increasingly, some academics and child development experts are coming out in praise of boredom.
2056	It's all right for us - and our children - to be bored on occasion, they say.
2057	It forces the brain to go on interesting tangents, perhaps fostering creativity.
2058	And because most of us are almost consistently plugged into one screen or another these days, we don't experience the benefits of boredom.
2059	So should we embrace boredom?
2060	Yes.
2061	And no.
2062	But I'll get back to that.
2063	First of all, like many people, I assumed that boredom was a relatively recent phenomenon, with the advent of more leisure time.
2064	There's Latin graffiti about boredom on the walls of Pompeii dating from the first century.
2065	Then there's the question of how we define boredom.
2066	The trouble is that it has been defined, and discussed, in many different ways, said John D. Eastwood, an associate professor of psychology at York University in Ontario, Canada.
2067	What separates boredom from apathy, he said, is that the person is not engaged but wants to be.
2068	With apathy, he said, there is no urge to do something.
2069	Boredom can sound an awful lot like depression.
2070	But Professor Eastwood said that while they can be related, people who are bored tend to see the problem as the environment or the world, while people who are depressed see the problem as themselves.
2071	Sometimes we think we're bored when we just have difficulty concentrating.
2072	Some groups heard a loud and unrelated television program in the next room, others heard it at a low level so it was barely noticeable, while the third group didn't hear the soundtrack at all.
2073	The ones who heard the low-level TV reported more boredom than the other two groups - they had difficulty concentrating but were not sure why, and attributed that difficulty to boredom.
2074	When you're trying to focus on a difficult or engaging task, disruption of attention can lead to boredom, said Mark J. Fenske, an associate professor of neuroscience at the University of Guelph in Ontario and one of the authors of the study.
2075	In fact, he said, we now know that squirming and doodling, often seen as a sign of boredom, can actually help combat it by keeping people more physically alert.
2076	We all experience boredom at some points - my flight delay, a droning speaker, a particularly tedious movie.
2077	But some individuals are more likely to be bored than others.
2078	Using such scales, researchers have discovered that boys tend to be bored more often than girls, said Stephen Vodanovich, a professor of psychology at the University of West Florida, especially when it comes needing more, and a variety of, external stimulation.
2079	But in general, teenagers are a pretty jaded lot.
2080	In 1991, Reed Larson, a professor of human and community development at the University of Illinois, conducted an experiment in which he contacted almost 400 teenagers and their parents seven to eight times a day by beeper.
2081	He found that 32 percent of adolescents said they were bored in school and doing homework, while 23 percent said they were bored when they weren't in school.
2082	On the other hand, 3 percent of parents said they were bored.
2083	Professor Larson said he did not know whether the boredom percentages now, 21 years later, would be higher or lower.
2084	So back to my original question: Is boredom good for you?
2085	Sometimes no, because in its extreme it can lead people to take absurd physical risks, gamble or indulge in substance abuse as a way to ease it, research shows.
2086	On the other hand, many philosophers and writers discuss the connection between boredom and creativity, said Professor Vodanovich, who has been studying the issue for more than two decades.
2087	But the brain doesn't always know the most appropriate thing to do.
2088	If you're bored and use that energy to play guitar and cook, it will make you happy.
2089	But if you watch TV, it may make you happy in the short term, but not in the long term.
2090	So if your child is bored and you give him an iPad, he may not be bored anymore, but he hasn't learned how to entertain himself, or self regulate, Professor Fenske said.
2091	Your kid doesn't just learn to entertain himself, but gets more self-control in other areas.
2092	I don't think we really want to celebrate boredom.
2093	Nor should we be too critical of it.
2094	Rather, our goal should be to feel comfortable away from the constant chatter of activity and technology.
2095	Professor Eastwood agreed.
2096	What people are really searching for, he said, is a way to unplug and enjoy down time.
2097	In Colorado, No Playbook for New Marijuana Law
2098	Anthony Orozco, 19, a community college student and soccer player in southeastern Colorado, is facing criminal charges for something that will soon be legal across this state: the possession of a few nuggets of marijuana and a pipe he used to smoke it.
2099	Mr. Orozco said that one day in September he and a few friends were driving in Lamar, on the plains near the Kansas border, when they were pulled over.
2100	After the police officer found marijuana in the car, Mr. Orozco was issued a summons for possession and drug paraphernalia - petty offenses that each carry a $100 fine - and given a court date.
2101	But is he one?
2102	In the uncertain weeks after Colorado's vote to legalize small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, the answer in hundreds of minor drug cases depends less on the law than on location.
2103	Hundreds of misdemeanor marijuana cases are already being dropped here and in Washington State, which approved a similar measure.
2104	Police departments have stopped charging adults 21 years and older for small-scale possession that will be legally sanctioned once the laws take effect in the coming weeks.
2105	But prosecutors in more conservative precincts in Colorado have vowed to press ahead with existing marijuana cases and are still citing people for possession.
2106	At the same time, several towns from the Denver suburbs to the Western mountains are voting to block new, state-licensed retail marijuana shops from opening in their communities.
2107	Regulators in Washington State are also scratching their heads.
2108	And they are looking for guidance on how to set up a system of licenses for production, manufacturing, distribution and sales - all by a deadline of Dec. 1, 2013.
2109	They say that Colorado, for better or worse, is ahead of most states in regulating marijuana, first for medical use and now recreationally.
2110	But no place or system, Mr. Smith conceded, can do more than suggest what might work.
2111	Washington's law, called I-502, takes effect on Dec. 6, which also leaves a year of limbo during which the state licensing system will not yet exist, but legalized possession will.
2112	Chief Oates said that the police would enforce city codes regulating medical marijuana growers, and that they would still pursue drug traffickers and dealers.
2113	In northern Colorado's Weld County, the district attorney, Ken Buck, represents a stricter view.
2114	After the vote, he said his office would continue pursuing marijuana possession cases, mostly as a way to press users into getting treatment.
2115	Right now, 119 people face charges of possessing two ounces or less of marijuana, though many are facing other charges.
2116	The response has been complicated even in places like rural Mesa County, where voters rejected the marijuana initiative.
2117	The police in Grand Junction, the county's largest city, are no longer citing adults for possession of small amounts.
2118	The county's district attorney, Pete Hautzinger, supported that decision, but also decided not to dismiss all of the pending possession cases.
2119	Although 55 percent of Colorado voters supported the measure, bringing recreational marijuana into the folds of government and the legal system was never going to be simple.
2120	And the contradictory reactions across the state lay bare a deep ambivalence among local officials about the state's big green experiment.
2121	As the first states to treat small amounts of marijuana like alcohol, Colorado and Washington are poised to become national test cases for drug legalization.
2122	As advocates and state officials plan for a new frontier of legalized sales, they are also anxiously awaiting direction from the federal government, which still plans to treat the sale and cultivation of marijuana as federal crimes.
2123	Advocates for legalized marijuana are hoping the Justice Department yields.
2124	Despite some high-profile arrests of medical marijuana patients and sellers, the federal government has mostly allowed medical marijuana businesses to operate in Colorado, Washington and 16 other states.
2125	While drug agents will probably not beat down doors to seize a small bag of the drug, they are likely to balk at allowing the state-regulated recreational marijuana shops allowed under the new laws, said Kevin A. Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama administration.
2126	Several cities in Colorado are not waiting for federal authorities to act.
2127	Even before Election Day, some local governments approved moratoriums on any new marijuana shops, even though it will be about a year before any can open.
2128	Last week, the western city of Montrose took up a six-month ban, and is likely to pass it next week.
2129	Our community voted against this amendment.
2130	We're looking at what the community voted for versus what the state voted for.
2131	There's an awful lot of questions.
2132	Petronella Wyatt: I was bullied out of Oxford for being a Tory
2133	It is not just today's university students who are attacked for their views
2134	I can't remember a time when I didn't dream of winning a place at Oxford University.
2135	Both my father and my elder brother had been at what I imagined was the world's greatest seat of learning, a modern-day wine-blushed Greek symposium encouraging the dual pillars of civilisation, free thinking and tolerance.
2136	Yet, within two weeks of taking up my place at Worcester College in the late Eighties to read history, I'd packed my bags, precipitating the first scandal of my life.
2137	My father broke down and cried.
2138	Friends were baffled.
2139	The Evening Standard diary claimed I'd quit because I objected to fellow undergraduates having sex in the room next to mine.
2140	The writer A N Wilson announced waggishly that I'd departed because I was forced to drink out of chipped mugs.
2141	The truth was less droll.
2142	I ran away.
2143	Yes, ran, because I had been subject to systematic bullying and intimidation.
2144	Not on account of my rather outré name, or the fact that I came from a private school.
2145	I was persecuted for one reason only, and in this cradle of supposed enlightenment it was both bigoted and barbaric: my father, the late Woodrow Wyatt, was a high-profile adviser to Margaret Thatcher and I was a Conservative supporter.
2146	Why bring this up now, you might ask.
2147	Well, recent reports suggest that a new generation of Right-of-centre students are suffering a similar persecution.
2148	Such is the institutionalised and increasing hatred of Tory students at Oxford that last week a group of them demanded the same equal-rights protection as gays, disabled people and ethnic minorities.
2149	They want to create a post on the college's equal opportunities committee to ensure that their opinions can be aired freely.
2150	Their situation wasn't helped by a recent BBC Two documentary, Wonderland: Young, Bright and on the Right, about student politics, which portrayed Tories as oddballs and neo-Nazis.
2151	It featured graduate Joe Cooke, former president of the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA), travelling in a Rolls-Royce, sporting a silver suit and silver-topped cane.
2152	I was in a minority of one during my first few weeks at Oxford.
2153	I had gone up in September 1986, a cripplingly shy 18-year-old.
2154	Hatred of the Conservative Party was at its most febrile.
2155	The year before, the university had voted to refuse Margaret Thatcher - a former student - an honorary degree, because of cuts in higher education funding.
2156	The atmosphere would have made a Stalinist shudder with apprehension.
2157	I was to find that the dons not only connived in the taunting of Tory undergraduates but took part with relish.
2158	My first one involved translating 18th-century French texts into English, and I was unprepared for what followed.
2159	I stumbled over it.
2160	A small man with a face like cake batter, Pitt was big on bile.
2161	The other undergraduates giggled.
2162	Tears pricked the back of my eyes.
2163	I walked back to my rooms a disconsolate figure.
2164	At dinner in college that evening I sat by myself; then I felt a light tap on my shoulder.
2165	It was a second-year English student named James who introduced himself as a member of the OUCA.
2166	I'm afraid it's like that.
2167	Anyone suspected of being a Tory is picked on.
2168	It's bad enough for me, but they know your father is close to Margaret Thatcher, so it will be worse for you.
2169	Most Tory freshers pretend they're Labour.
2170	Later, at a local pub, I cravenly attempted to dissimulate.
2171	I insisted that I didn't agree with everything Mrs Thatcher said.
2172	This ploy proved unsuccessful.
2173	You're contaminated.
2174	Other students took up the refrain.
2175	I was perverted, dirty.
2176	They beat each other, don't they?
2177	I felt the way homosexuals must have felt before the liberal legislation of the Sixties.
2178	Would I ever be able to lead a normal life at Oxford?
2179	Would I be forced to meet like-minded people only after dark?
2180	Would I have to turn to Labour and suppress my natural inclinations?
2181	The three years before me stretched out as a purgatory of ostracism and isolation.
2182	The only openly Tory don was Norman Stone, Professor of Modern History, who was based at my college.
2183	He was hated for being not only a Conservative but a foreign policy adviser to Thatcher and one of her speech writers.
2184	He was hardly ever there.
2185	He loathed the place as provincial and petty, and for its adherence to the Marxist-determinist view of history.
2186	In 1997 he took up a professorship at the University of Bilkent, in Ankara, Turkey.
2187	I told my father I hated Oxford and why.
2188	He was incredulous.
2189	During his time there in the Forties, all political views had been accepted.
2190	They wouldn't do that, not among my dreaming spires.
2191	Even my Communist friends always had impeccable manners.
2192	His rheumy eyes began to cloud.
2193	Give it a chance.
2194	I'm sure it's all just a tease.
2195	It would break my heart if you left.
2196	Exhausted by my frequent trips to London, my emotional resistance was deteriorating.
2197	A male friend of mine, also a Tory supporter, had succumbed to pressure and renounced his creed.
2198	The respite was short.
2199	It was my father who drove the nail into the coffin of my Oxford career.
2200	At the time, he wrote two columns in the Murdoch press each week.
2201	My door was locked.
2202	I cowered inside, and after five minutes, my pursuers gave up.
2203	When they left, I packed a suitcase and caught the first train to London.
2204	I never went back.
2205	You may call me a snivelling wimp.
2206	But no 18-year-old should be subject to such intimidation and vitriol in an educational institution.
2207	Even more tragic is that it was Oxford, which not only produced 14 Tory prime ministers, but, to this day, hides behind an ill-deserved reputation for equality and freedom of thought.
2208	Valentino prefers elegance to notoriety
2209	Somerset House, former home of Queen Elizabeth I of England, is the only place in the British capital worthy of hosting a Valentino Garavani exhibition.
2210	Valentino has always been fascinated by the rarefied and distant world of the nobility.
2211	In the first room of the exhibition, open until March 3, there are a number of private letters and photos signed by the cream of aristocracy, from Princess Salimah Aga Khan, Lord Snowdon, Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece to Margaret of England.
2212	Valentino exhibits these personal memories as if they were trophies of his social ascent from humble couturier in Voghera, northern Italy, to idol of the international jet-set.
2213	There is nothing wrong with loving royalty.
2214	In the '60s and '70s, we both lived in the Alps and were good friends.
2215	Valentino is a spectacular host whose entertains with generosity and elegance.
2216	Valentino has always preferred elegance to notoriety.
2217	And yet, he is a star.
2218	Valeria Mazza, wearing a Valentino.
2219	The Argentine model Valeria Mazza also recalls the couturier's charisma.
2220	Many years ago, after a fashion show in Piazza di Spagna in Rome, we went for dinner at his flat.
2221	There were twenty of us, including Sharon Stone and John Kennedy Jr.
2222	Nobility parade
2223	Garavani's life is not a story of obsession, but of well reciprocated love.
2224	He loves well-educated people who come from good backgrounds, and they love him.
2225	In this crowd of mannequins, names stand out such as Sibilla of Luxembourg, Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, Mette-Marit of Norway, Rosario of Bulgaria and Sofia of Habsburg.
2226	Naty Abascal and the designer, in 2006
2227	I remember it perfectly.
2228	Their proportions are perfect.
2229	The princess and fashion advisor Patricia della Giovampaola d'Arenberg also remembers the first time she wore a Valentino.
2230	As a teenager living in Italy, I dreamed of reaching the age when I'd have the chance to wear one of his evening gowns...
2231	My time finally came in the late '90s.
2232	I bought my first Valentino dress to wear at a party in the castle belonging to my cousin, Prince Edouard de Ligne.
2233	Cavaliere di Gran Croce (the highest-ranking distinction in Italy), Cavaliere del Lavoro, Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and awarded the Legion of Honour, Garavani accumulates as many honours as any of his clients' husbands.
2234	The last time I saw him was a month ago at a gala dinner at the Orsay Museum.
2235	He was on the table of Countess Jacqueline de Ribes, a great friend of mine.
2236	He was immaculate, time stands still for him.
2237	If a princess says that...
2238	The hardest job in the world: the human mules of Kawah Ijen
2239	For four euros, the Indonesian volcano porters risk life and limb carrying 70 kilos of sulphur along steep stone paths.
2240	There are people for whom work is hell, and others who - literally - work in hell.
2241	This is the case of Anto Wijaya, one of the 400 miners who make their living taking sulphur from the Kawah Ijen volcano, east of the Indonesian island of Java.
2242	To do so, he has to descend every day to the bottom of the crater, where the sulphurous gas emanating from the bowels of the earth solidifies on contact with air.
2243	After breaking off large sulphur rocks, which in total can weigh up to 70 kilos, he carries them in two bamboo baskets on his shoulders along the steep stone paths.
2244	It is only 250 metres to the top of the volcano, which rises to 2,386 metres above sea level, but the exhausted porters take over 40 minutes to get there, at snail's pace, keeping their balance and measuring their steps carefully to avoid slipping and falling over the precipice.
2245	They know that one slip could cost them their lives, as happened to a French tourist who plunged to her death a few years ago on the hazardous Kawah Ijen cliffs.
2246	The Kawah Ijen miners are paid 5 euro cents for each kilo of sulphur removed.
2247	Once at the top, they make their way past the tourists who photograph them like circus monkeys and then, lugging their heavy baskets, they walk three kilometres to the scales installed by a mining company a little further down, 1,850 metres above sea level.
2248	This is PT Ngrimbi Candi, a company which, since 1960, has been exploiting the volcano, and quite literally its workers, whom it pays 662 rupees (5 euro cents) per kilo of sulphur.
2249	It then sells the sulphur for 10,000 rupees (83 cents) to the petrochemical industry, as the mineral is widely used in everyday life and is used in the manufacture of matches, fireworks, cosmetics, dynamite and even for whitening sugar.
2250	Each one takes three hours and you end up exhausted, but it means he gets 138,000 rupees (11.5 euros) at the end of the day.
2251	Although it seems a pittance for such an inhuman effort, it is three times what he would earn in the field.
2252	Anto has asthma, he has difficulty breathing, coughs constantly and his eyes are irritated by the toxic gases.
2253	At 27 years old, Anto has been risking his life for three years in the Kawah Ijen volcano, and the sulphur has already begun to take its toll on him, even though he covers his face with special mask and goggles.
2254	He has asthma, he has difficulty breathing, coughs constantly and his eyes are irritated by the toxic gases from the volcano.
2255	This is the price you have to pay to realise your dreams.
2256	Punished for life, this pleasant, intelligent young man could be a tour guide, waiter or hotel receptionist, but instead he does the work of a mule.
2257	Sharing a filthy wooden hut with other porters, he gets up every day at two in the morning because the sulphur doesn't stop flowing at night, when its characteristic yellow colour turns blue and it glows in the dark.
2258	Defying the shadows, Anto descends the crater and lights the path with a small torch attached to the helmet he bought with his money.
2259	Some 400 porters carry sulphur baskets on their shoulders from the crater.
2260	Despite their huge profits, the mining company has not mechanised the sulphur extraction process to save costs, nor has it provided any equipment for the porters, who work for themselves and by the kilo.
2261	In fact, they do not even see any of the 30,000 rupee (2.5 euro) per camera surcharge that, on top of the 15,000 rupee (1.2 euro) entrance fee, the guards of this natural reserve charge to tourists who come to photograph the volcano and their human mules.
2262	I won't retire, I'll die here because the volcano has been my whole life.
2263	Although the sulphur burns your throat and stings your eyes when the wind suddenly changes and traps the miners in the thick columns of smoke coming out of the volcano, they are so hardy that no-one complains of serious illnesses... apart, of course, from their common respiratory problems, osteoarthritis, knee pain and sores on the shoulders, which have been misshapen by the weight of the baskets.
2264	Balancing the basket on his back, Unainik can only carry 50 kilos now he is 53 years old.
2265	Every day, he and his fellow workers break off 15 tonnes of sulphur from the volcano, which three lorries move to the warehouse in Tamansari, 18 kilometres away along a goat path that passes through scrubland.
2266	The oldest of his five children, 30 years old, also works carrying sulphur.
2267	Time passes, but poverty perpetuates from generation to generation in one of the hardest jobs in the world: the one done by human mules in the Kawah Ijen volcano.
2268	Singapore seeks babies to save its economy
2269	Singaporeans blame their careers, stress and the cost of property and education for not having children.
2270	Singapore's population needs to grow.
2271	I'm a patriotic husband, you're my patriotic wife, let's do our civic duty and create life!
2272	It may seem unlikely that these verses are part of an advert for mint sweets, but in spite of this - or perhaps because of it - the video went viral on YouTube in Singapore earlier this year.
2273	The advertising company that made the video, BBH, is hopeful that the advertisement will manage to focus attention to the problem in a fun way.
2274	It's purely an Internet thing, so we had to make it fun and amusing.
2275	It's the biggest problem facing this country.
2276	We are the world's worst at reproducing our own progeny, so we felt it was an issue we had to address.
2277	We knew the Government had tried many things, like launching perfumes with pheromones or organising speed dating evenings.
2278	Many of these ideas may have been creative, but they didn't necessarily work.
2279	So we thought: why not be as creative as possible to solve the problem, by composing a rap?
2280	1.2 children
2281	But the Singapore Government is not taking it so lightly.
2282	It spends USD 1,300 per year on policies to encourage people to have more children.
2283	A government package for marriages and parents grants up to USD 15,000 per child, extends maternity leave and distributes tax benefits.
2284	But this has all had little effect.
2285	Singapore is a rich, high technology city State in Southeast Asia, also known for the conservatism of its leaders and its strict social controls.
2286	The birth rate in Singapore, according to its national population division, currently stands at 1.2 children per woman.
2287	The last time it was over 2, known as the replacement rate, was in 1976.
2288	So why are Singaporeans not having children?
2289	These changes in social norms have contributed to increasing numbers of people who are single, and delaying marriage and births, which has resulted in a decrease in the birth rate in Singapore.
2290	Meanwhile, an EU immigration policy aimed at dramatically increasing immigration to cope with the population decline has created resentment among the local population.
2291	In Singapore, there are websites where xenophobia against many new immigrants is widespread and thinly disguised, especially the Chinese who are criticised for keeping wages low and not integrating.
2292	Increased immigration is also seen as one of the reasons why, last year, the Singapore ruling party experienced its worst election result since independence.
2293	Since the election there has been an attempt to correct the problem, with the highest taxes and levies for foreign workers.
2294	Unexpected consequences
2295	While a fall in the birth rate has known effects on a nation's economic growth, tax revenues, healthcare costs and immigration policies, in Singapore's case there are also some unexpected consequences.
2296	The Government is trying not to build so many small houses.
2297	For example, it has started to influence the real estate sector.
2298	These apartments have a surface of 46 square metres and have been very successful in terms of sales.
2299	However, there is concern that they may promote a single-living lifestyle and discourage developers who want to build large family houses.
2300	They are more popular, in the sense that the units sell days, even weeks, faster than larger units.
2301	This means they are much better for our cash flow.
2302	However, he admits that the new regulations give clearer guidance to developers, who previously had obstacles put in their way if they provided for too many small units in a project.
2303	Too stressed
2304	Singapore is a city State.
2305	Although these new rules may be a step towards increasing the national birth rate, when talking to Singaporeans working in the central financial district, it seems they will not have much impact.
2306	Other people can have children.
2307	Men and women alike mention their careers, stress and the cost of property and education as the reasons preventing them from having children.
2308	So, much as the Government is trying to encourage its citizens to have children, when it comes to babies, the Singaporeans have the last word.
2309	What is private offline is private online
2310	Privacy.
2311	What is privacy for an under 16?
2312	How do you apply this definition to their daily life and social networks?
2313	Do they understand the dangers they are exposed to by airing information over the Internet which they probably would not share offline?
2314	ElPeriódico interviewed five children aged between ten and 15 years old who are frequent Internet users.
2315	On FB I upload nice pictures or games.
2316	And I have fun with people I know.
2317	The child recognises that it is bad to post obscene pictures of naked people, crimes, or write humiliating or aggressive comments.
2318	Jorge says he knows the 35 friends he has on FB and his nine followers on Twitter.
2319	Most are relatives.
2320	His mother is included, and she has the password to one of the accounts.
2321	I opened Twitter to express myself and post interesting tweets.
2322	He does not hesitate to reply that he would never accept a request from an unknown person.
2323	Nor would he take any notice of someone who recommends a stranger to him.
2324	The case of Joseph, aged 14, is different.
2325	This teenager has accounts with Hotmail, Facebook, My Space and Ask, and in the last case he admits not knowing 20 of the people added to his friends list.
2326	The boy says that no-one has suggested anything to him or asked him for his home address or phone number.
2327	Joseph became a follower on Ask, after reading a recommendation on Twitter.
2328	This teenager is not alien to experiences of what is now known as cyberbullying.
2329	An acquaintance of a friend of mine was being pestered on a social network.
2330	They were threatening him and demanding money from him.
2331	The victim, according to José, did not close his account.
2332	He just made it private.
2333	He then explains a series of steps to configure the account safely.
2334	Unlike Jorge, this boy would upload photos of acquaintances in uncomfortable or embarrassing situations.
2335	I would do it if I didn't like somebody, or they made me want to do it.
2336	Key questions
2337	Marielos Porras, an English teacher with a degree in Education and Learning, believes that to guide children and teenagers, they should understand that the purpose of social media is to inform.
2338	Porras says the scholar Marc Prensky, with a Master's degree in Education from Yale University and author of the work Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, coined these terms to explain the phenomenon.
2339	Digital natives are those children and young people born with technology.
2340	According to the specialist, the most effective way to teach children and teenagers what privacy is, is through questions that make them think.
2341	Porras then lists some options: There are things you wouldn't tell a stranger, so why do it online?
2342	Or, would you like a friend to publish a photo of you like the one you posted of a friend?
2343	Do you know what others publish about you?
2344	When tagging party photos, did you ask the other people's permission to tag them?
2345	And one more question: does everyone need to know what you're doing all the time?
2346	Another point is to make them see that they must behave online as they do offline.
2347	The rules are the same.
2348	Monitoring
2349	Stuart Guard, a university professor, primary school teacher and educational consultant, says it is essential for parents to read social networks' policies thoroughly.
2350	By understanding all the clauses, they have solid grounds to talk to their children about the implications of opening an online account.
2351	Unasur Summit closes without making public the Lima Declaration
2352	The Sixth Presidential Summit of the South American Union of Nations (Unasur) concluded today in Peru without making public the Lima Declaration, previously announced and theoretically signed by the seven attendee leaders.
2353	Efe repeatedly tried to gain access to the document signed at the Sixth UNASUR Meeting of Heads of State and Government, but Presidential and Chancellery sources initially said they would deliver it after the summit closed, but later they claimed that it will be published at some point on the Peruvian Government website.
2354	When asked about the text, they pointed out that the content had been disclosed by Peruvian President, Ollanta Humala, during a brief statement to the press.
2355	Journalists' access to information from the Summit was restricted at all times.
2356	The little information that circulated among reporters was given by the press spokesmen of some of the UNASUR governments attending the meeting, but not the Peruvian Government.
2357	The only document released during the summit was the list of attending presidents, which angered hundreds of journalists from various national and international media, who asked for more details.
2358	Last October, Peru hosted the Third Summit of South American-Arab Countries (ASPA), and this time, despite repeated requests from the press, the previously announced Lima Declaration was again not made public.
2359	The ASPA official website confirms that the document was published last Tuesday.
2360	At both international events, the Peruvian authorities were at pains to ensure that there were broadcasting systems assured for all the journalists, but limited the obtaining of information to a maximum.
2361	The summit also concluded with the joint commitment of Chile and Peru to accept a ruling by the Hague Court to adjudicate a border dispute between the two countries.
2362	The Presidents of Peru, Ollanta Humala, and Chile, Sebastián Piñera, met during the regional event and confirmed that they will respect the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which on Monday, at The Hague, will start to hear the arguments of both parties, in the lawsuit Lima has filed against Santiago.
2363	Confirmation of both presidents that they would submit to the ICJ came after Colombia this week denounced the Bogotá Pact, whereby it accepted to submit to the judgement of this international court, following a decision on its maritime boundary with Nicaragua which it regarded as seriously flawed.
2364	The summit was held with the absence of the Presidents of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff; Venezuela, Hugo Chavez; Bolivia, Evo Morales; and Argentina, Cristina Kirchner.
2365	Paraguay, which was suspended by UNASUR in 2011 after the dismissal of former President Fernando Lugo, was not involved in the meeting.
2366	Host President Ollanta Humala was responsible for opening the session in the morning and closing the summit, just after noon in Lima.
2367	The President read the final document which reported that 16 agreements were adopted and the action plans laid down for 31 projects between the South American countries, for a total of 17 billion dollars of investments.
2368	Among these projects, he mentioned that five are in Peru and are located in the transverse axes of its territory, between the coast and Brazil, and two focus on increased connection with Ecuador, although he gave no further details.
2369	Also, the final document mentioned the political situation in Paraguay.
2370	The need for Latin America to remain a prosperous, peaceful and integrated nation, with good neighbourly relations, was another issue highlighted by the summit.
2371	In this sense, the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, said before attending the start of the regional event that he expected to meet with his counterpart from Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, on Saturday in Mexico, to respectfully discuss the maritime dispute after the failure of the ICJ, questioned by Bogota.
2372	Santos and Ortega are due to meet on Saturday in Mexico, where they expect to attend the inauguration of the country's new President, Enrique Peña Nieto.
2373	Also, as part of the summit, the bloc's foreign defence ministers met in advance to approve the 2013 Action Plan, which seeks to strengthen dialogue and consensus on defence in the region.
2374	Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, Guyana, Surinam and Paraguay make up UNASUR, although the latter is currently suspended.
2375	Peru has the pro tempore presidency of the regional bloc.
2376	To this end, he defended the project to establish South American citizenship encouraged by member countries of UNASUR.
2377	The Ecuadorian President was also in favour of the restructuring of the Organisation of American States (OAS) under the premise of reducing the influence of the Anglo-Saxon states and taking into account those who have signed the Pact of San José on human rights.
2378	Those who speak with authority never commit to anything, whereas we South Americans sign everything.
2379	Correa said that there is a risk of deterioration of Assange's physical and mental health.
2380	What there is, is the danger that his physical and mental health may deteriorate due to being locked in a small space without any outdoor exercise.
2381	Correa said that the solution to the asylum granted to Assange in June by the Ecuadorian Embassy, in London, through the issue of a safe-conduct pass that permits travel to Ecuador, is in the hands of Great Britain, Sweden and the European legal authorities, and stressed that there have been talks with London to seek a solution to the imprisonment of the WikiLeaks founder.
2382	We do not negotiate with human rights, we do not use that word in this case, but there have been ongoing discussions.
2383	And if Sweden, as its legislation perfectly well allows it to do, and as it has done in other cases, questions Mr Assange at the Embassy of Ecuador in London, or interrogates him via Skype tomorrow, this problem is over.
2384	For now that ruling is not being followed.
2385	It is a problem between a South American country and a Central American one.
2386	Conflict is inevitable, but must be overcome by the desire to walk together.
2387	They need to be processed in a comprehensive manner to overcome them and move forward.
2388	Correa said that if he loses the elections in February 2013, he will retire from public life.
2389	Personally, I've never been interested in power, but in situations as unjust as those in Ecuador, socio-economic poverty can only be corrected by political power.
2390	If I won, it would be my last period in office and then I would leave public life.
2391	If I lose, likewise.
2392	Correa also referred to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's new health treatment in Cuba.
2393	I just spoke with Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro and he tells me that Chavez went for treatment that was already planned, routine treatment, and it was expected he would win the campaign and return to Cuba.
2394	In Lima today, the Ecuadorian Head of State attended the Sixth Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), which concluded with calls for greater regional integration to sustain progress, equality and security.
2395	Deaths caused by AIDS are nowadays due to late detection
2396	Fabrizio was 21 years old when they confirmed his test result: HIV positive.
2397	The boy hid it from his family.
2398	He decided to care for his illness alone and began to learn about it; thanks to his efforts he has just celebrated his 43rd birthday.
2399	He is undoubtedly one of the oldest patients in the HIV Unit of the Guadalajara Civil Hospital (CHG), where he arrived in 1994 after several battles with his health.
2400	Fabrizio has lived with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) for 22 years, hard to imagine in the early '90s, when there were many questions, few treatment options and a great deal of stigma.
2401	At that time, having Aids was synonymous with death.
2402	Now it is possible to survive the syndrome and do so with quality of life.
2403	Infectious disease specialist and expert in HIV/AIDS, Andrade Villanueva said that since 2008 scientists had concluded that AIDS was not a death sentence, but that life expectancy and quality of life depend on the degree of damage to the immune system that patients present when they are diagnosed, with a higher life expectancy for non-drug users: up to 30 years for patients with a 200 CD4 count and 50 years for those reporting a 500 CD4 count.
2404	To gauge this progress, it should be remembered that the average life expectancy of Mexicans today is 76 years.
2405	Although mortality has dropped significantly in recent years and, in the case of Mexico, the number of people dying of AIDS has fallen from 6,678 in 2007 to 4,862 in 2011 (UNAIDS annual report), it is also true that since the advent of AIDS, 60 per cent of patients in the national database have died.
2406	In Jalisco alone, only 255 people died in 2011, and there have been 187 deaths up to May of this year; however, we are assured that there has been universal access to antiretroviral drugs since 2005.
2407	- Why are do still deaths occur?
2408	- I think the problem is not to do with access to treatment.
2409	That's how I view it, and that's how it's been at our hospital.
2410	For at least the last 12 years we've had no shortage of medicine, the problem is that patients arrive in an advanced state of illness because they are unaware of their HIV status, that is to say, the later stages of the disease.
2411	Specialists and officials of the State Council of AIDS Prevention in Jalisco (COESIDA) agree on this proposal, as do the patients themselves, such as Fabrizio, who came to be tested at a private laboratory, motivated only because a friend had done so and, despite his young age, he was around in the AIDS era and had even suffered Kaposi sarcoma, a cancerous tumour that is one of the common complications.
2412	Everything changes when you know you have AIDS.
2413	Some people think they're going to die and don't want to know anything.
2414	The change was for the better; I eat well, I exercise, I take my drugs.
2415	To date, his parents are only aware he had cancer.
2416	I live as normal a life as anyone else.
2417	They should get tested if they are at risk. because the sooner they know if they are HIV positive, the better, and if they have already been diagnosed, they must learn to live like any other person, while being responsible.
2418	This is his message, which summarises the theme of the fight against AIDS in 2012.
2419	Condoms behind the counter.
2420	The gaps between health programmes and ordinary citizens are huge, said Ricardo Salazar, a journalist from Guadalajara who has taken up the HIV cause.
2421	And the greatest cure is prevention.
2422	Among the most vulnerable to new infections are teenagers.
2423	It was decided to change such inefficient allocation, and that condoms should not only be placed behind counters, but that packets of one hundred should be found in public toilet dispensers in places frequented by young people.
2424	This is not promoting promiscuity.
2425	It is not about paying for their beers or motel fees, as Governor Emilio Gonzalez said, when asked if there would be distribution of condoms during his administration.
2426	Jalisco key points
2427	There are 13,435 cumulative cases (12,158 AIDS and 1,317 HIV).
2428	The state is 4th in the nation in new and cumulative cases of AIDS and 13th in HIV.
2429	92% of new infections are through sex, 6% via the bloodstream and 2% perinatal.
2430	An estimated 50,000 people may be living with HIV, as for each registered case there are around 4-5 people who do not know they are positive.
2431	Ratified by a United States court of appeal, a judgement which ignores the restructuring of the Vitro Group's debt achieved via a bankruptcy in Mexico, the scenario is an ominous precedent for any national company with offices in the neighbouring country that has solvency problems.
2432	It seems, then, that the proceedings in support of survival of firms permit Mexican law are not valid in the land of stars and stripes, contrary to international conventions.
2433	In practical terms, the endorsement of the judgement delivered on 15 June by Judge Harlin Hale of the Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of Texas, leaves Mexican firms defenceless against possible seizure of their property outside of Mexico.
2434	However, the decision opens the door for the leading glass manufacturer in Mexico to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, claiming three inconsistencies.
2435	From the start, while the trial judge notes that creditors should be governed by the United States Bankruptcy Code, the Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, states that the main action is the insolvency action handled in Mexico.
2436	The first point would involve ignoring international procedural cooperation in cases of insolvency of companies with transnational profiles.
2437	Indeed, the UN Model Law for International Trade Law Uniformity was created for this purpose, with the American Law Institute positioned as arbitrator.
2438	Secondly, the judgement establishes that without the intercompany vote, with the debts the Vitro subsidiaries had with their parent company recognised in the critical mass of the insolvency, the majority needed to approve the restructuring might not be achieved.
2439	However, Mexican law recognises the possibility.
2440	In fact, the Vitro case was not the first one in which the scheme was accepted.
2441	There are half a dozen examples, including Agremex and Commercial Mexicana, whose intercompany debts were endorsed by the Federal Bankruptcy Institute.
2442	The vote was apparently 45 percent versus 37.
2443	This data is omitted by the Court of Appeal.
2444	From another perspective, the latter blames Vitro for the difficult situation it has faced since 2008, while trying to avoid the severe economic crisis faced by the United States, turning its back on the country.
2445	For now, the Gonzalez Sada family firm has lodged a motion for reconsideration before the Court of Appeal for the vote to reach the plenary of the court, that is, the five judges, given that only three voted previously.
2446	Should this fail, an appeal for review by a higher court, in this case the US Supreme Court, will be filed.
2447	Moreover, it should be noted that the country yielded to the principles of the United Nations Commission on International Trade, that is the rules set for cross-border insolvency cases, ensuring fairness for debtors and creditors.
2448	Double whammy: Vitro hit and country hit.
2449	Balance Sheet
2450	With the complaints put on the table by the unions of Mexicana Airlines against the former owner of the company, Gastón Azcárraga Andrade, who is accused of mismanagement, dormant for several months, the Airline Pilots Union Association already found the bottleneck.
2451	The proceedings headed by Carlos Diaz Chavez Morineau has just filed a criminal complaint against the National Banking and Securities Commission, which is accused of obstructing justice.
2452	The claim is that the supervisory authority has consistently refused to provide reports to the Attorney General's Office on a transaction carried out by the employer to remove 198 million pesos from trust F/589 of Banco IXE, on behalf of Mexicana de Aviación.
2453	The resources were apparently channelled towards the purchase of shares in the company Administradora Profesional de Hoteles.
2454	As you know, Azcarraga Andrade is the main shareholder of the Posadas hotel chain.
2455	Opposing Dragon Mart
2456	A group of local and foreign environmentalists, academics, businessmen and members of the public gathered at the weekend at a forum at the University of the Caribbean to approve the creation of a broad front to oppose the opening of the Chinese Dragon Mart in Cancun.
2457	As you know, we are talking about a huge sales and distribution centre in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, selling Chinese products, with a residential area at the bottom for employees of 150 companies.
2458	Previously, Canacintra had managed to unite the governors of the southeast of Mexico to oppose the monumental building that destroyed part of a protected area and represents the mother of all threats to industry.
2459	The death of ACTA
2460	The Government ignored an order of the Senate to explain under what terms and conditions the Mexican Ambassador in Japan signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, known by its acronym ACTA, according to the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property, and the matter has already been archived.
2461	As you know, the action was taken even though the Senate had ruled out the possibility, deeming it an infringement of freedom of expression on social networks.
2462	Homex long term
2463	In effort to repay long-term debt without affecting short-term debt, the housing developer Homex is placing securities exchange certificates on the market for 500 million pesos.
2464	The issue is the first of four identical issues which are offering to repay interest every 28 days.
2465	Birth of Competival
2466	A consortium under the name Competival has just been established, comprising the companies NYCE, e-Quality and Kernet, leaders in information technology, the objective of which will be to market the services of software clusters in Central and South America.
2467	Investments in this area exceed USD 1.5 billion.
2468	Reyes was immersed in the sport for over 60 years before being confined to a wheelchair in 2008 following a stroke; he was a minor league player, National Superior Basketball player, BSN representative and manager with the Bayamón Vaqueros or President of the Basketball Federation.
2469	Basketball has been my life.
2470	Reyes is not exaggerating when he makes that statement.
2471	The walls of his house are almost totally decorated with pictures and memorabilia denoting his long career, which goes to prove it.
2472	Bayamón at heart
2473	Of them all, the ones he treasures with the most emotion are the ones that remind him of his time spent with the Vaqueros, from the mid-50s as a player until 1982, when he completed 15 years serving as co-agent or agent of the franchise.
2474	Do you want him?'
2475	And that was the beginning of Mincy, one of the best players Puerto Rico ever had.
2476	Bartow then recommended the sharpshooter Gausse Raymond, who established residency here and was one of our best shooters.
2477	I remember him saying that if Mincy had given Bayamon one championship, Gausse would help get another.
2478	The Vaqueros' championship with Gausse was enjoyed, but from a distance, because in 1988 he was already becoming a federative bigshot.
2479	For that time, he preferred to enjoy his own and Mincy's accomplishments in the national team.
2480	I remember when we beat the United States for the first time during the 1989 Pre-Olympics in Mexico.
2481	Then came the 1990 World Cup, where we came fourth and it should have been bronze, but for the Canadian referee who made us repeat the final play for the second time, said Reyes.
2482	Is the 1990 World National Team the best you've ever seen?
2483	It's one of the best, as good as the one that beat the Dream Team in the 2004 Olympics.
2484	However, my favourite was the one in the 1991 Pan American Games in Cuba, when we won gold and gave the US team a beating, which was quite similar to the time we won bronze at the World Cup.
2485	That team not only again included Mincy, Gausse, Ramon Rivas, Fico López and 'Piculín' (Ortiz), but also the young (Javier) 'Toñito' Colón and James Carter, the Leon brothers (Francisco and Edgar) and Mario 'Quijote' Morales, who was kept out of the 90 team by a knee injury.
2486	A team that maybe was not the best in terms of members, but which gave us a gold medal and was a great joy to work with, was the 1995 Pre-Olympic team in Neuquen, Argentina.
2487	With role players such as 'Canito' Nieves, Pablo Alicea and the young Rolando Hourruitiner replacing the players suspended after the shambles of the Mar del Plata Pan-American Games, we won gold against all the odds.
2488	Who was the best Puerto Rican player?
2489	Without any doubt, Piculín Ortiz.
2490	His numbers at international tournament level are awesome.
2491	Nobody in Puerto Rico has dominated at that level like Piculín did.
2492	Not to mention his career in the various leagues he played in.
2493	Who was the best Puerto Rican manager?
2494	That's a difficult one.
2495	We had a very good team, including Julio Toro, Flor Melendez, Carlos Morales, Raymond Dalmau, Armandito Torres.
2496	Of the youngsters, I really like the work of Leo Arill.
2497	What do you consider your greatest achievement in the federation?
2498	Having been part of the National Team's most glorious era between 1988 and 1995 and in the early 90s the BSN had up to 17 teams in a season.
2499	What was there left for you to do?
2500	There were things I'd have liked to implement, such as regionalising the minor leagues.
2501	For example, the boys of Ponce only play in their area and only get to face teams from other parts of the island in the national playoffs.
2502	Right now the kids are riding and playing too much, unnecessarily.
2503	At least I see the fruit of compulsory certifications and a course for leaders, table officials and referees.
2504	That pleases me.
2505	What are you doing now?
2506	The most I do is listen to music, watch music videos from my era on YouTube, enjoy my grandchildren and occasionally go to basketball games.
2507	And of course, enjoy the company of my wife, Elizabeth, who has always been with me.
2508	Actor Larry Hagman dies
2509	He was 81.
2510	Larry's family and closest friends were with him in Dallas for the Thanksgiving Day holiday.
2511	Linda Gray, who played his wife in the original series and the sequel, was with Hagman when he died in a hospital in Dallas, said her publicist, Jeffrey Lane.
2512	He brought joy to all who knew him.
2513	He was creative, generous, funny, loving and talented, and I will miss him dearly.
2514	Hagman was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in 1992 and admitted that he had drunk a lot over the years.
2515	In 1995 a malignant tumour as found in his liver and he underwent a transplant.
2516	He played Captain Tony Nelson, an astronaut whose life is changed when he meets an attractive genie, played by Barbara Eden, and takes her home to live with him.
2517	But it was his masterful interpretation of delightfully detestable JR that led to Hagman reaching his peak of stardom.
2518	The drama series on CBS about the Ewing clan and other characters in their orbit aired from April 1978 to May 1991.
2519	It also helped give the series a record audience at the time.
2520	It was JR's sister-in-law Kristin (played by Mary Crosby) who shot him.
2521	JR got her pregnant then threatened to say she was a prostitute unless she left town, but there were others who also had reasons to attack him.
2522	Hagman portrayed Ewing as a corrupt insatiable man with a charismatic smile: a dishonest entrepreneur and cheating husband who tried to have his alcoholic wife, Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), sectioned.
2523	This is the only deal he lost.
2524	He is unforgettable and irreplaceable, for millions of fans around the world, and in the hearts of each one of us who was fortunate enough to know and love him.
2525	He had already finished recording five episodes for the second series and a sixth was in process, the chain reported.
2526	Immediately after, there was no statement from Warner or TNT about how the series would handle the loss of Hagman.
2527	Martin was still a teenager when she had him in 1931 during her marriage to lawyer Ben Hagman.
2528	He tried his luck in the New York theatre scene in the early '50s, and later served in the Air Force from 1952 to 1956, in England.
2529	While there, he met the young Swedish designer Maj Axelsson and married her.
2530	The couple had two sons, Preston and Heidi, and lived for a long time in the Californian city Malibu, home to many celebrities.
2531	After his liver transplant, he became an organ donation promoter and worked as a volunteer at a hospital, helping fearful patients.
2532	He was also an anti-smoking activist and took part in several campaigns.
2533	Each week, students explore apocalyptic themes such as nuclear war, zombies, viruses and germs, and global warming.
2534	If you look at what has been happening in the world today as if we were at 30 days and counting, this has been a really good period.
2535	And remember that bad is good for those with an apocalyptic mentality.
2536	Each week, students explore apocalyptic themes such as nuclear war, zombies, viruses and germs, and global warming.
2537	If nuclear material falls into the hands of terrorists, for example, a war could break out.
2538	This month students analysed movies with an apocalyptic theme and explored how they compare with real-life examples.
2539	The courses proved quite popular.
2540	We received emails for weeks and weeks before the start of the term, from people asking if there were any places.
2541	Students, meanwhile, say the course is one of the most interesting around.
2542	And the apocalyptic, secular or religious mentality is just a matter consolation or a lack of it.
2543	Will Wekesa, a 25-year-old post-graduate Psychology and Nursing student, said he had seen all the apocalyptic movies.
2544	I enjoy it.
2545	But none of the students interviewed - much less any professor - said they believed in the end date of December 21st.
2546	The Mayans never predicted the end of the world: it is just a key point in the calendar, said Restall.
2547	But he said that Western culture suffers from apocalyptic anxiety, which goes back several centuries, in which people react to changes around them by predicting the end of the world.
2548	The Internet has caused a boom in these speculations.
2549	It's mostly in the English-speaking world.
2550	We have an indulgence from the Pope.
2551	Students and teachers are taking the date lightly.