powerful pic of arab spring

The World Press Photo jury has selected a New York Times photo taken in Yemen last fall as the photo of the year for its encapsulation of the anguish that accompanied the Arab Spring uprisings.

"A thin man rests his head on the shoulder of a burqa-clad woman, the pair collapsed together against a wall," Kerri McDonald writes on the New York Times Lens blog. "The expression on her face can't be seen. But her body language--right arm wrapped tightly around his neck, left hand clinging to his arm-—conveys everything her expression cannot."

New York Times photographer Samuel Aranda took the shot--which the Times describes as having "the mood of a Renaissance painting"--at the entrance to a mosque-turned-hospital.

Koyo Kouoh, one of the jurors, added: "It stands for Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, for all that happened in the Arab Spring."

sorry for sony

hmm....

Singapore has been ranked the third most ideal place to live in, due to its quality of life and career opportunities, according to HSBC's Expat Explorer survey.

Australia is first and USA second

Sopa: Sites go dark as part of anti-piracy law protests

Thousands of internet sites are taking part in a "blackout" protest against anti-piracy laws being discussed by US lawmakers.

The Wikipedia encyclopedia and blogging service WordPress are among the highest profile pages to remove material.

Google is showing solidarity by placing a black box over its logo when US-based users visit its site.

The Motion Picture Association of America has branded the action as "irresponsible" and a "stunt".

Visitors to Wikipedia's English-language site are greeted by a dark page with white text that says: "Imagine a world without free knowledge... The US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia."

It provides a link to more details about the House of Representatives' Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).

If users try to access its other pages via search sites, the text briefly flashes up before being replaced by the protest page. However, people have been sharing workarounds to disable the redirect.
Global protest

WordPress's homepage displays a video which claims that Sopa "breaks the internet" and asks users to add their name to a petition asking Congress to stop the bill.

"The authors of the legislation don't seem to really understand how the internet works," the site's co-founder, Matt Mullenweg told the BBC.

Across the globe, several Pirate Party sites have been taken offline. The political parties - which advocate reform of copyright laws - took the action in the UK, Spain, Sweden, Argentina, Canada and elsewhere.

Google posted a blog on the subject claiming that the bills would not stop piracy.

"Pirate sites would just change their addresses in order to continue their criminal activities," it said.

"There are better ways to address piracy than to ask US companies to censor the internet. The foreign rogue sites are in it for the money, and we believe the best way to shut them down is to cut off their sources of funding."

Other net firms that have criticised the legislation decided not to take part in the blackout.

Twitter's founder, Dick Costolo, tweeted that it would be "foolish" to take the service offline.

a cultural gap

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/norway-authorities-take-away-indian-couple-s-kids-say-feeding-with-hands-wrong-167660

ew Delhi: Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya - an Indian couple from Kolkata are living a nightmare in Norway. Their children - a three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter - were taken away from them by Norway's child protective services and placed in foster care eight months ago.

The drastic measure was taken because, according to the child protective services, the couple were not bringing the children up properly. What did they do wrong? They fed the children with their hands and the infants slept in the same bed as the parents.

"My son was sleeping with my husband. They said he should sleep separately from your son," said Mrs Bhattacharya.


"Feeding a child with the hand is normal in Indian tradition and when the mother is feeding with a spoon there could be phases when she was overfeeding the child. They said it was force feeding. These are basically cultural differences," said Mr Bhattacharya.

Recently, the Indian Embassy in Oslo stepped in and an officer even met the children, though the parents were not allowed to.

Norway's Child Protective Service is a powerful body charged with protecting the rights of children living in difficult family situations. But there are many reports of excesses.

"There has been a report in UN in 2005 which criticized Norway for taking too many children in public care. The amount was 12,500 children and Norway is a small country," said Svein Kjetil Lode Svendsen, lawyer.

The Bhattacharyas' visas expire in March. If they don't get their children by then, the couple will be forced to stay on.

"What we have thought is we are not going to apply for visa for my children. But if the case doesn't get sorted we have to apply because we cannot come back to India without our children," said Mr Bhattacharya.

It's a nightmare that, at this moment, seems without end.


BUT...PLEASE DO BE CAREFUL BEFORE WE JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS...
READ COMMENTS

...Nothing can be said without proper data and information. I was in one of these scandic countries with a similar aged daughter, and find their kindergarten and nurseries are extremely well managed and caring for kids. These kinds of things do happen, but in very rare cases, and it can happen to any parents. But there are many steps before this takes place, and cannot happen without any distinctive proof .... There are many steps goes into before this extreme ... 2/3 stages of counseling, counseling if there is autism ... many checks goes into health care, immunization record, family issue, etc. etc. before the foster care comes into place ...... so I am really skeptical about what is the reality here ...

... The parents are not saying what they really did wrong here .... norway is not a lawless country ...there is no dictatorship there.... its been over 8 months since the babies were taken away, and if the parents are not able to get them back legally ...then there is more to the story than what we are being told here!

west vs east...media

COMPARE THIS

A Kansas City teenager is receiving backlash for a comment she made against her state's governor on Twitter. Emma Sullivan was attending a Youth in Government event with her classmates listening as Governor Sam Brownback spoke, when she tweeted, "Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot." The 18-year-old Shawnee Mission East senior is now declining her school principal's request for her to write a formal letter of apology to Governor Brownback saying she "isn't sorry and doesn't think such a letter would be sincere." Governor Brownback's office, which monitors social media for any posting with the governor's name, saw Sullivan's tweet and contacted the Youth in Government program. What followed was a verbal scolding from Sullivan's principal. Before the incident, Sullivan had 65 followers, currently her following has increased to more than 6,500. She said that she feels her tweet has helped to "open up dialogue" about free speech in social media.

UPDATE: On Monday afternoon, Governor Brownback submitted a statement to Yahoo! News apologizing to Emma Sullivan, saying, "My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms," he said.

WITH THIS

On the other side of the world, Ampon Tangnoppakul, a 61-year-old truck driver from Thailand, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sending cell phone text messages that were deemed insulting to the country's monarchy. The law imposes seemingly severe penalties for publicly or privately making insults or threats directed at King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 83, and his family.

1 RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS CLAIMED, NO APOLOGY; INSTEAD GOVERNOR APOLOGIZES
VS
2 20 YEAR JAIL TERM...

Are you Oxbridge material? Here's how you can tell...

If you could attempt an answer to any of these questions then you might want to consider applying to study at Oxford or Cambridge. With nearly 29,000 students competing for 6,500 places every year competition for places at Oxford and Cambridge is intense.
• Why don't we just have one ear in the middle of our face?
• What percentage of the world's water is contained in a cow?
• Of all 19th-century politicians, who was most like Tony Blair?
• Here is a piece of bark, please talk about it. (Biological sciences, Oxford.)
• Are you cool? (Philosophy, politics and economics, Oxford.)
• At what point is a person "dead"? (Medicine, Cambridge.)
• Put a monetary value on this teapot. (Philosophy, politics and economics, Oxford.)
• Why can't you light a candle in a spaceship? (Physics, Oxford.)
Spokesman for the universities:
"Applicants should be aware that it might be in the interest of commercial companies to create the impression that the admissions interview at Oxford colleges is 'eccentric'. This is not the case. The aim of the interview is to assess each candidate's ability and potential on an individual basis," she said.
"What our admissions tutors are looking for is how well candidates can explain what they know, and whether they can apply their knowledge to a new problem or argue their position."
A Cambridge spokesman said: "There's no need to have special training for Cambridge interviews. Indeed, applicants who are 'over-rehearsed' tend to come across less well than students who are natural and spontaneous."


THIS IS REALLY FUN - IF WE ONLY WE HAD TIME - WE SHOULD CONTEMPLATE SUCH QUESTIONS DURING GP