Freedom of religion has also been curtailed in the new constitution. Egypt's previous constitution guaranteed the freedom of religion and religious practice. The same wording was used in earlier drafts of the new constitution. But the document that was voted on last night only promises freedom of practice for the Abrahamic religions – Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.This leaves other religious sects in Egypt, such as Egyptian Bahai'is, stripped of the right to publicly practice their faith."To say that they can't even practice their religious rights is terrifying," says Ms. Morayef. She notes that the limitation could easily be appled to Baha'is, who have already fought an uphill battle in Egypt just for the right to leave the religion section of their national identity cards blank. (ID cards include citizens' religion and the options are limited to Islam, Christianity, or Judaism.)Under former President Hosni Mubarak, Baha'is, as well as Ahmadis, Shiites, and Quranists were regularly arrested for their beliefs.WOMENOn women's rights, an article in a previous draft said women's equality was guaranteed so long as it did not contradict Islamic law. That clause was dropped completely from the final version.But the article prohibiting discrimination fails to mention sex, or any other grounds, simply stating that "citizens are equal before the law and equal in rights and obligations without discrimination." While some rights activists feel the broader clause is better because it doesn't limit the prohibition on discrimination, Morayef says it could be detrimental for women's rights to not explicitly prohibit discrimination against them.The only article that specifically mentions women's rights says that the state should "balance between a woman's obligations to family and public work" and provide "special protection" for single mothers, divorced women, and widows. The vague wording could give grounds for the state to interfere in a woman's rights – for example, if it decided a woman should not travel because she was not balancing her obligations to her family by doing so.The same article states that the "state should commit to preserving the true nature of the Egyptian family," and the next article states that the state should "protect ethics and morals and public order."According to Human Rights Watch, the language in these provisions is overly broad and could be used to restrict rights. What's more, the constitution says that the rights and freedoms it guarantees may be exercised as long as they do not contradict the principles in these articles. According to Human Rights Watch, that stipulation "appears appears to place the 'true nature of the family" and morals and public orders above fundamental rights."But rights activists point to positive points in the new document, as well.The document specifically mentions and prohibits torture, something rights activists had pushed for. Police abuse and torture, widespread under Mubarak and until now, was one of the main grievances of protesters during the uprising against the former president. The document also promises protection from arbitrary detention, another hallmark of the Mubarak years, and provides protection for freedom of movement, privacy of communication, and freedom of assembly and association, according to Human Rights Watch.THE MILITARYThe new constitution guarantees the Egyptian military many of the prerogatives it had sought to maintain since the transition began. The military's attempt a year ago to maintain its power and privileges brought thousands of protesters – including the Muslim Brotherhood – into the streets of Cairo.Now, the constituent assembly dominated by the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party has granted the military much, though not all, of what it wanted. The military's budget is protected from parliamentary oversight, one of its demands last year. The constitution provides for the establishment of a National Defense Council, whose members include government and military officials, that will oversee the defense budget and should be consulted on laws relating to the military. The constitution also mandates that the post of defense minister be filled by a military officer.The constitution allows the continuation of military trials for civilians. After the military junta took control of Egypt when Mubarak stepped down, it sent more than 12,000 civilians before military tribunals, where the trials sometimes lasted for just five minutes and which rights groups say are inherently unfair. While a previous draft of the new constitution had stated that the military could not send civilians before military trials, the constituent assembly deleted that clause at the request of the military. The draft voted on yesterday states that civilians may be tried before military courts for crimes that harm the military "as defined by law." The military interprets that clause very widely under the military code of justice.BALANCE OF POWERAfter the uprising against an authoritarian president, many in Egypt had argued the new constitution should shift the balance of power toward Parliament, reducing the power of the presidency. While the new constitution does not make Egypt a parliamentary system, it does give the Parliament more authority.The new constitution limits the president to two four-year terms. It also requires parliamentary approval when the president's prime minister forms a new government. If the Parliament votes against the government twice, it is given the authority to form a government on its own."It's a complicated relationship. It's not the case that the president is elected, he appoints a prime minister who chooses a cabinet, and if the Parliament isn't happy about it it's their problem," says Mr. Ali, of the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Parliamentary checks on presidential powers are now "very present," he says.The Parliament's oversight over government is also increased in the new constitution. It is given new powers for forming special investigatory committees, says Ali, while it keeps the power to force government ministers or officials to appear before parliament for questioning.One of the "worst" parts of the new text, according to Ali, is its continuation of the centralization of government in Egypt. The document keeps most authority with central government and does not empower local governments, or make them more accountable to the people.The new document delegates defining the power, mandate, and appointment of governors to legislation.Under current legislation, governors are appointed by the central government, rather than elected. Elected governors was one demand of many of the protesters during the revolution. The constitution provides for the election of local councils, but strips them of any real power, stipulating that the central government will "answer requests for assistance" from local councils. "What that means is that the central government will be providing all essential services," says Ali. "What you're doing is you're electing people who don't have any authority. It's actually worse than not electing them at all."
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Sunday, December 02, 2012
A note about Egypt's new constitution
Palestine, nonmember observer state: Why did so few countries vote with the United States on the United Nations resolution? - Slate Magazine
The U.N. General Assembly voted to accept Palestine as a "nonmember observer state" on Thursday, by a vote of 138- 9. Only Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, and Palau joined the United States and Israel in opposing the measure. (Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, among others, chose to abstain.) Why was the United States so far outside the global mainstream on this issue? Because the U.S. cast a vote about process, not principle. The Obama administration considers the Palestinian push for U.N. recognition an attempt to internationalize the Middle East peace process and isolate Israel. The United States has long argued that direct talks are the only solution, and fears that internationalization of the process will signal to Israel that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas isn't committed to bilateral negotiations. (Abbas has insisted that U.N. recognition is consistent with direct negotiations, and some influential Israelis concur.) As for the 138 countries that voted "yes" on Thursday, their motivations are varied. Some argued that U.N. recognition of Palestine would pressure the Israelis to make concessions. Others share U.S. concerns that the resolution will hamper direct negotiations but still chose to make a symbolic vote in favor of Palestinian statehood. Voting against recognition of Palestine would have been a problem domestically for many leaders—especially if their rationale was based on a nuanced view of diplomatic process. Advertisement U.N. recognition of Palestine also has important legal ramifications. Palestine's new status will improve its chances of joining the International Criminal Court, where it could attempt to prosecute Israeli military and political officials for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza and the West Bank, including the construction of settlements in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. As it is, Israeli officials have refused to deplane in England after receiving reports that they could be arrested for war crimes. The United States, United Kingdom, and other countries pressed Abbas before Thursday's vote for assurances that Palestine wouldn't attempt to join the ICC, or at least wouldn't prosecute Israeli officials. Many took Abbas' refusal to provide such guarantees as an indication that Palestine intends to haul Israelis before the criminal court, ratcheting up international pressure against them. The United States also objected to the timing of the U.N. resolution. President Obama reportedly asked Abbas to delay the General Assembly vote, giving the United States time to reinvigorate direct negotiations between Israel and Palestine. When Abbas refused to honor President Obama's request, he severely diminished the chances that the U.S. would vote "yes" on the resolution, or at least abstain. Concerns about timing are minor to most of the 138 countries that voted in favor of U.N. recognition of Palestine, because they aren't involved in negotiations.
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Saturday, December 01, 2012
Spirit of Lassie and Ashapoo
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composite of the Dark Triad—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—correlates with effective adornment
People With Dark Personalities Tend to Create a Physically Attractive VeneerAbstractWhich personality traits are associated with physical attractiveness? Recent findings suggest that people high in some dark personality traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy, can be physically attractive. But what makes them attractive? Studies have confounded the more enduring qualities that impact attractiveness (i.e., unadorned attractiveness) and the effects of easily manipulated qualities such as clothing (i.e., effective adornment). In this multimethod study, we disentangle these components of attractiveness, collect self-reports and peer reports of eight major personality traits, and reveal the personality profile of people who adorn themselves effectively. Consistent with findings that dark personalities actively create positive first impressions, we found that the composite of the Dark Triad—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—correlates with effective adornment. This effect was also evident for psychopathy measured alone. This study provides the first experimental evidence that dark personalities construct appearances that act as social lures—possibly facilitating their cunning social strategies. |
Thursday, November 29, 2012
"This is a military, Ikhwanul and Salafi Constitution not Egypt's"
The 100-member Islamist-dominated committee, at the heart of a polarizing battle between secularists and Islamists, moved to complete the draft before a Supreme Constitutional Court hearing Dec. 2 in which its legitimacy is being challenged. The panel's predecessor was disbanded following a court ruling.
About a quarter of the new committee's members had withdrawn, arguing Islamists are seeking to dominate the process and impose their vision for the country without regard for broader national interests. Eleven representatives were replaced and 85 were in attendance at the start of voting, Hossam el- Gheriani, the head of the committee, said in a live television broadcast.
Among the most divisive of the draft charter's articles was one dealing with whether Shariah, or Islamic law, would be the main source of legislation for the nation. The panel left the clause unchanged to read "principles of Shariah" were the main source.
Escalating Tensions
"What's happening today in terms of speeding up the vote on the final draft of the constitution robs the committee of being a national committee," Mohamed Adel, one of the co- founders of the April 6 youth movement that helped Mursi win office, said in an e-mailed statement. "It has become one operating under the orders of the president of the republic to cook up a constitution that removes President Mursi from the current political crisis."
The vote comes amid escalating tensions that boiled over this week with mass demonstrations against Mursi's Nov. 22 edict shielding his decisions from judicial review and giving the committee immunity from dissolution by the courts. Mursi said the decree is temporary and not a power grab, as critics contend.
Egypt's benchmark stock index has plunged more than 11 percent amid unrest since Mursi issued the decree. His government is seeking to revive an economy that stalled after last year's revolt against Mubarak, as tourists and investors stayed away. Egypt has reached a preliminary agreement with an International Monetary Fund team for a $4.8 billion loan, with the fund's board expected to meet next month to review the country's request.
Cairo Demonstrations
Renewed demonstrations are expected tomorrow. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Cairo and other cities on Nov. 27 to denounce Mursi's decree and call for the dissolution of the committee. The protests left more than 200 wounded, according to health officials.
The Muslim Brotherhood is planning a Dec. 1 mass rally in Cairo's Tahrir Square in support of Mursi's decree. In a statement, the group urged Egyptians "to stand together against all attempts at agitation and misinformation, and to work to continue the march of democratic transformation." Mursi may also address the nation today, MENA cited Rifaa El-Tahtawi, the head of the presidential office, as saying.
April 6's Adel said the Brotherhood's call for protests Saturday in Tahrir was a call "for a small-scale civil war" and that the plaza would become a "graveyard for the revolution instead of its incubator."
The new charter, if approved, would be sent to Mursi. The president then has to put it to a national referendum.
Temporary Transfer
Pushing ahead with the process "is a way to try to end the constitutional and legal vacuum in the country that's been going on for almost two years," Yasser El-Shimy, Middle East analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said by phone from Cairo. "But we would have liked to see a more consensual approach."
The draft charter also approves the temporary transfer of legislative authority to the upper house of parliament, which currently only has a consultative role, until a new lower house is elected, MENA said. Under an earlier edict, Mursi took legislative authority after the lower house was dissolved.
"Egypt's constitution now no longer includes an obligation not to discriminate against women = ZERO protection for women's rights," Heba Morayef, Human Rights Watch Egypt director, wrote on her Twitter account.
Military Trials
The draft also includes articles allowing for the military trials of civilians for crimes related to the armed forces, and the establishment of a National Defense Council responsible for the armed forces' budget and laws related to the military.
The charter will also bar former senior officials in Mubarak's ruling party from holding office for a decade, the state-run Ahram Gate website reported. A similar law was struck down by the constitutional court earlier this year.
The draft enables the army to be a "state within a state," Ashraf el-Sherif, adjunct lecturer in political science at the American University in Cairo, said by phone. "This is a military, Brotherhood and Salafi constitution."
"These are the groups that wrote it," he said. "This is not the constitution of Egypt."
To contact the reporters on this story: Tarek El-Tablawy in Cairo at teltablawy@bloomberg.net ; Mariam Fam in Cairo at mfam@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
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World Economy in Best Shape for 18 Months, Poll Shows
Two-thirds of the 862 surveyed described the global economy as either stable or improving. That's up from just over half who said that in September and is the most since May 2011.
The U.S. came out on top for the eighth straight quarter when investors were asked which markets will offer the best opportunities over the next year. China ranked second, reversing a decline to fourth in the September poll of investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers. The European Union, beset by a debt crisis, was seen offering the worst returns.
"The global economy is improving, recovering and healing, thanks to the U.S. and the emerging markets," said Andrea Guzzi, a poll respondent and vice president of IST Investmentstiftung fuer Personalvorsorge, which manages money for Swiss pension funds. "More people are becoming wealthy, less and less are poor."
Stocks were seen as the asset of choice, with more than one in three of those surveyed on Nov. 27 forecasting equities would have the best returns in the coming year. Real estate came in second: Just less than one in five investors singled it out favorably, the best showing since the quarterly poll began in July 2009. Bonds were seen as offering the worst returns.
Fed Purchases
The Federal Reserve is expected to provide continued support to the bond market after its Operation Twist program ends next month, according to the poll. About three in four said the U.S. central bank will begin outright purchases of Treasury securities after its plan for swapping short-dated securities for longer-dated ones expires.
A plurality -- two in five -- said the Fed also will continue buying mortgage-backed securities into 2014, a strategy dubbed QE3 by investors, shorthand for the third round of quantitative easing by the central bank.
"The Fed is being very clear about monetary policy," Gala Prada, a poll respondent and portfolio and asset manager for Fiatc Mutua de Seguros y Reaseguros, a Barcelona-based insurance company, said in an e-mail. "If the economy doesn't improve, there will be a QE4 or more asset purchases."
Tighter Rules
The growing optimism among investors about the world economy was not reflected in their views of the prospects for the financial services industry. About seven in ten said they expect large banks to reduce payrolls further in the next year after cutting at least 188,000 jobs over the last two years. A majority blame regulatory changes for the reductions.
Banking authorities have tightened rules and raised capital standards on banks after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression forced governments to spend billions of dollars to rescue ailing financial institutions.
"Many countries have oversized banking sectors, which need to go back to more sustainable sizes," Guzzi said in an e-mail from Zurich.
The optimism on the world economy is based in part on an expectation that the U.S. will avert $607 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases scheduled for Jan. 1. Three out of four surveyed anticipate that President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders will reach a short-term agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff.
OECD Warning
The 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris warned this week that the world economy would tip into recession if the U.S. failed to act.
Close to half of investors said they plan to increase their exposure to equities over the next six months, up from less than two in five in September.
Respondents are most bullish about U.S. equities. A majority forecast that the Standard & Poor's 500 Index will rise during that time frame. S&P 500 futures rose 0.6 percent to 1,415.8 at 7:08 a.m. in New York amid optimism President Barack Obama will reach an agreement with Congress over a new budget. The stock gauge has increased 12 percent this year.
"U.S. companies have better profit potential, balance sheets and access to capital," Christian Thwaites, a poll respondent and president and chief executive officer in New York of Sentinel Investment, which manages more than $27 billion, said in an e-mail.
Property Prices
U.S. property prices also are heading up, investors said. More than three in five forecast that housing values would be higher six months from now. A minority responded that way in the last poll in September.
Home prices rose in the year ended in September by the most since July 2010, climbing by 3 percent, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities.
The housing market has been supported by the Fed, which has said it expects to hold overnight interbank rates near zero until at least the middle of 2015.
Forty-five percent of investors said the U.S. central bank would enhance understanding of its policies and help the economy if it tied its pledge to keep rates low to specific thresholds for unemployment and inflation. One in four said such a move would be confusing if such a goal-oriented commitment replaced the Fed's current calendar-specific rate promise.
The Fed itself is split over the issue. Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans have supported a switch, while Philadelphia's Charles Plosser and the Dallas Fed's Richard Fisher have voiced doubts.
Commodities, Bonds
Commodities lost some favor in the latest survey. Only 12 percent said it will be the best-performing asset class over the next year, down from 18 percent in September.
Investors remain downbeat on bonds. Forty-eight percent intend to reduce their holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds over the next six months, the most since the poll began asking that question in May 2011. By a slim margin -- 50 to 45 percent -- respondents viewed Treasuries as a safer investment than AAA- rated U.S. corporate bonds, such as those of Microsoft Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp.
More than two of five investors expect European Union markets to offer the worst opportunities over the next year. That was the most negative reading in the poll, followed by Japan, with 23 percent, and the Middle East, with 17 percent, up from 7 percent in September.
Iran Strike
Forty percent of respondents are less likely to put money into Egypt since President Mohamed Mursi took over in July -- 10 times the amount who said they are more likely to invest.
Protesters and police clashed in Cairo on Nov. 28 as Egypt's opposition resolved to stand firm against Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood in a showdown over his self-decreed powers.
Half of those surveyed said they don't expect a military strike against Iran's nuclear program in 2013.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly warned that time is running out to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb, which he expects to be aimed at Israel.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who regularly denounces Israel as an illegitimate regime that should "disappear," says his country's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
The poll of Bloomberg customers was conducted by Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based company. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rich Miller in Washington at rmiller28@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net
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Is Egypt about to become the new Iran? by Con Coughlin
via http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/concoughlin/ It is not only the anti-government protesters in Egypt's Tahrir Square who should be concerned about President Mohammed Morsi's audacious power grab. Mr Morsi's claim at the weekend that "God's will and elections made me the captain of this ship" has echoes of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's claim during the 1979 Iranian revolution that his mission to overthrow the Shah enjoyed divine guidance. Since his announcement that he was granting himself sweeping new powers, Mr Morsi has been trying to reassure sceptical Egyptian voters that he has no ambition to become Egypt's new Pharaoh. But you only have to look at the violent scenes that have once again erupted in Tahrir Square to see that the majority of Egyptians remain unconvinced. When Egyptian demonstrators first occupied Tahrir Square last year to call for the overthrow of Mr Morsi's predecessor, President Hosni Mubarak, they were calling for a secular, democratic system of government that would represent the interests of all Egyptians, and not just the corrupt clique of presidential supporters. Similar sentiments were expressed by Iranian demonstrators during the build-up to the Shah's overthrow in February 1979 as they sought to remove a similarly corrupt regime. But as we now know to our cost, the worthy aspirations of the Iranian masses were hijacked by Khomeini's hardline Islamist agenda, and within months of the Shah's overthrow Iran had been transformed into an Islamic republic. Mr Morsi says he has no desire to become a dictator, but his announcement that, henceforth, all presidential decrees will be immune from legal challenge does not bode well for Egypt's transition from military dictatorship to democracy. I am sure I am not the only one wondering whether Mr Morsi is about to become the new Ayatollah Khomeini. Certainly, unless Mr Morsi backs down, all those who sacrificed their lives in the cause of the Egyptian revolution will have died in vain. |
a bitter letter from a dad to his children
via http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Dear All Three With last evening's crop of whinges and tidings of more rotten news for which you seem to treat your mother like a cess-pit, I feel it is time to come off my perch. It is obvious that none of you has the faintest notion of the bitter disappointment each of you has in your own way dished out to us. We are seeing the miserable death throes of the fourth of your collective marriages at the same time we see the advent of a fifth. We are constantly regaled with chapter and verse of the happy, successful lives of the families of our friends and relatives and being asked of news of our own children and grandchildren. I wonder if you realise how we feel — we have nothing to say which reflects any credit on you or us. We don't ask for your sympathy or understanding — Mum and I have been used to taking our own misfortunes on the chin, and making our own effort to bash our little paths through life without being a burden to others. Having done our best — probably misguidedly — to provide for our children, we naturally hoped to see them in turn take up their own banners and provide happy and stable homes for their own children. Fulfilling careers based on your educations would have helped — but as yet none of you is what I would confidently term properly self-supporting. Which of you, with or without a spouse, can support your families, finance your home and provide a pension for your old age? Each of you is well able to earn a comfortable living and provide for your children, yet each of you has contrived to avoid even moderate achievement. Far from your children being able to rely on your provision, they are faced with needing to survive their introduction to life with you as parents. So we witness the introduction to this life of six beautiful children — soon to be seven — none of whose parents have had the maturity and sound judgment to make a reasonable fist at making essential threshold decisions. None of these decisions were made with any pretence to ask for our advice. In each case we have been expected to acquiesce with mostly hasty, but always in our view, badly judged decisions. None of you has done yourself, or given to us, the basic courtesy to ask us what we think while there was still time finally to think things through. The predictable result has been a decade of deep unhappiness over the fates of our grandchildren. If it wasn't for them, Mum and I would not be too concerned, as each of you consciously, and with eyes wide open, crashes from one cock-up to the next. It makes us weak that so many of these events are copulation-driven, and then helplessly to see these lovely little people being so woefully let down by you, their parents. I can now tell you that I for one, and I sense Mum feels the same, have had enough of being forced to live through the never-ending bad dream of our children's underachievement and domestic ineptitudes. I want to hear no more from any of you until, if you feel inclined, you have a success or an achievement or a REALISTIC plan for the support and happiness of your children to tell me about. I don't want to see your mother burdened any more with your miserable woes — it's not as if any of the advice she strives to give you has ever been listened to with good grace — far less acted upon. So I ask you to spare her further unhappiness. If you think I have been unfair in what I have said, by all means try to persuade me to change my mind. But you won't do it by simply whingeing and saying you don't like it. You'll have to come up with meaty reasons to demolish my points and build a case for yourself. If that isn't possible, or you simply can't be bothered, then I rest my case. I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed. Dad |
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
10 places you must visit in this globe
 (Photo: Courtesy davidspiel/myBudgetTravel)Yes, they are mentioned in every travel guide. Yes, they're teeming with tourists. But not all "tourist traps" are created equal. Here are 10 places our audience couldn't resist. And neither should you. The Great Wall Built between the 5th century B.C. and the 16th century A.D. to block outsiders, the 5,000-mile Great Wall has ironically become the very thing most visitors come to China to see. From Beijing, skip the most popular section, Badaling, which can be an exercise in dodging crowds. Instead travel an extra 30 minutes to the well-preserved segment in the model village of Mutianyu, itself worth exploring. Make the 90-minute journey by taxi—independent cabbie John Ping charges $112 round trip. Book him a week in advance and factor in a customary 10 percent tip (beijingcardriver.com). Why it's a must: It's an astonishing testament to human ambition, ingenuity, and xenophobia, not to mention the fact that its size is astounding—it drapes the mountains in sections for 1,500 miles, from the Yellow Sea to its curiously abrupt conclusion in the middle of the far-west Gobi Desert. Eiffel Tower  (Photo: Courtesy lavenderdays/myBudgetTravel)Believe it or not, the Eiffel Tower wasn't appreciated when it was built as the entrance to the International Exposition of 1889. A "barbarous mass overwhelming and humiliating all our monuments," and "a truly tragic street lamp" are just two of the protests published before it was built. Gustave Eiffel's contract called for the tower to be dismantled in 1909, but—luckily for the rest of the world—by then it was being used as an important communications tower and was allowed to stay. Today, it's the most visited monument on the planet. Skipping the elevator and taking the stairs to the first or second floor (1er or 2ème étage) can easily save you an hour or more in wait time and leave you with a few extra euros in your pocket. Why it's a must: Yes, Paris' appeal goes well beyond classic images, but there's also something to be said for paying your respects to the most visited landmark on the planet—and the quintessential symbol of Paris. Pisa  (Photo: Courtesy ibnelly/myBudgetTravel)The ornate bell tower's dramatic flaw made it an engineering calamity, then a curiosity, and ultimately, an icon. The tower started leaning shortly after construction began in 1173, and the tilt got worse as work on the building continued over two centuries, with several delays and attempts to correct the problem. Blame the marshy soil of coastal Tuscany. An 11-year, $27 million restoration that removed soil beneath one side and shifted the top of the tower closer to vertical by 16 inches, or half a degree, was completed in 2001 (but don't worry, it's still leaning to one side). Most people make Pisa a day trip from Florence; it's an hour-long $10 train ride away. Why it's a must: Because there is nothing else like it in the world. Go in knowing that you're there for the obligatory picture of you pushing or leaning on the tower. Acropolis in Athens  (Photo: Courtesy tsanta/myBudgetTravel)Towering above Athens you'll find the architectural pinnacle of one of history's most advanced civilizations. The 2,500-year-old complex includes the Parthenon temple and Erectheion, the tomb of the mythical Athenian king, Erectheus. Come early in the morning—not only will you beat the crowds and the heat, but you'll get to watch the sunrise rise against the ancient pillars. Just down the hill from the Acropolis sits architect Bernard Tschumi's modern three-decades-in-the-making addition to the ancient site. The exterior of the glass-walled space, which holds 40,000 artifacts, reflects the Parthenon. One of the coolest features is the glass floor built over an excavation area dating back to 500 B.C. Why it's a must: Yes, you've seen countless images of the acropolis, but no photo can prepare you for the feeling you'll get when you're standing before this massive, ancient structure. Chichen Itza  (Photo: Courtesy Akwinelvr/myBudgetTravel)The mysteries surrounding the ancient Maya seem only to heighten their appeal. Yet, there is one fact about this Mesoamerican civilization that we can all agree on—the architecture they left behind is some of the most elaborate of all of the Mesoamerican civilizations. The massive Maya site of Chichen Itza is a prime example of their structural prowess. The site was recently named one of the Seven Modern Wonders of the World. One of the most visited archeological sites in Mexico, visitors come from far and wide to see ruins such as the sacrificial altar, the stone temple of the warriors, the ball court with its incredible acoustics, and, of course, the pyramid itself. Chichen Itza can be reached by car or organized bus tours (typically about $35 per person) from nearby tourist hubs like Cancun or Cozumel. Why it's a must: There's no better way to understand the scale and mystery of the ancient Maya. Angkor Wat, Cambodia  (Photo: Courtesy Abdul Mirza/myBudgetTravel)Just outside the city of Siem Reap, in northern Cambodia, lies a vast complex of ancient temples so breathtaking they've become a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a national symbol. In the 1960s, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy ventured here despite the Vietnam War raging across the border just to see the site; more recently, portions of Angelina Jolie's first Tomb Raider movie was filmed in one of its tangled, tree-filled ruins. The main "city temple" is a 12th-century structure that began as an homage to the Hindu god Vishnu, then switched to a Buddhist sanctuary in the 16th century. An example of Cambodian Khmer architecture, the complex has three rectangular galleries, central towers, a moat, and elaborate bas-relief carvings illustrating scenes from Indian mythology. Why it's a must: When a country considers a place so iconic that they emblazon an image of it on their national flag, that's a sign that it's worth seeing. Join the visitors who flock here during sunrise and sunset for the best photos of the towers. Uluru (Ayers Rock) in the Australian Outback  (Photo: Courtesy loua71/myBudgetTravel)Located in Australia's Red Centre, in the heart of the continent, this natural rock formation is one of the main attractions in the World Heritage Site Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Uluru is a flat-topped sandstone rock standing about 1,100 feet high and almost six miles around, with a soulful, deep-red hue that changes throughout the day. (The site is also known as Ayers Rock, so named by the colonial surveyor who "rediscovered" the place in 1873.) The site is sacred to the Anangu people of the Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal tribe, who believe the rocks were built during the ancient creation period and are still inhabited by ancestor spirits. Visitors can drive or join a bus tour to the park from Alice Springs (280 miles away), or fly to Ayers Rock Airport/Connellan (AYQ); Qantas and Virgin Australia offer direct flights from several major domestic cities. Why it's a must: It's the world's largest monolith and one of Australia's most famous natural landmarks. If that's not enough, Archeologist work suggests there were humans in this area over 20,000 years ago. The Pyramids of Egypt  (Photo: Courtesy SusanHalay/myBudgetTravel)The pharaohs built things to last. That's why the name of Cheops has survived for 4,500 years. After all, nothing says "Cheops was here" like a 450-foot-high pile of stones weighing 6 million tons and covering 13 acres. This Great Pyramid is the oldest, and last surviving, member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It bakes under the desert sun in the western suburbs of Cairo, surrounded by nine smaller siblings and the inscrutable gaze of the Sphinx. An old Arab proverb holds that "Man fears Time, but Time fears the Pyramids." Summer delivers 90-plus-degree temperatures and winter brings tourist throngs, but the shoulder seasons (March to May; September to November) promise fewer, and less-sweaty, crowds. Why it's a must: It's a scene that mankind has been marveling at for the past 5,000 years. Barcelona  (Photo: Courtesy Olney20866/myBudgetTravel)Whether you're a first-time visitor or a regular, Barcelona has a way of seducing all who pass through. You have the daring design of Antoni GaudÃ, whose gorgeously macabre Gothic cathedral, La Sagrada Familia, is the city's most famous tourist site. You have loud and lively tapas bars, which range from rustic spots with sawdusty floors to clean-lined spaces starring globally trained chefs—the very embodiment of the mashed-up nature of Barcelona's culture. And then you have the beaches, where you can sunbathe, people watch, and swim to your heart's content. It's all so intoxicating, you'll find yourself thinking one thing: What should I try next? Why it's a must: Culture, cuisine, and coastline—what more do you want in a vacation? Venice  (Photo: Courtesy Kaeli Conforti)Venice teeters on the edge of cliché with its lacework of canals, its domes and gilded spires, its kiosks with straw gondolier hats and refrigerator magnets in the shape of the Piazza San Marco. Postcard fodder, and yet ... Venice is beautiful. It has been so for centuries. To be a tourist in Venice is to join a procession reaching back to the 14th century, when pilgrims stopped en route to the Holy Land. To capitalize on its geography as the departure point for voyages to the East, the canny Venetians created festivals to coincide with the influx, a hint of the commercialism to come. Irritating, that wallet-squeeze, but one you inevitably force yourself to stomach, particularly when catching sight of the Venice silhouette for the first time from the mainland shore of the lagoon. Yes, you have to take a boat or walk to get anywhere and then there are infinite detours, but that is all part of the charm. Embrace it, and make sure you see the city as it was intended to be experienced—on foot and by boat. Why it's a must: It's one of the most unique cities in the world, not only for its breathtaking architecture, but for its frailty. Visit now, while you still have the opportunity. |
Inspiring Graham Hughes
via CSM A British adventurer has become the first person to travel to all 201 sovereign states in the world without flying, ending his four-year odyssey early Monday when he arrived in South Sudan, the world's newest nation. Graham Hughes has used buses, boats, taxis, trains, and his own two feet – but never an airplane – to travel 160,000 miles in exactly 1,426 days, spending an average of less than $100 a week. "I love travel, and I guess my reason for doing it was I wanted to see if this could be done, by one person traveling on a shoestring," Mr. Hughes tells the Monitor Monday by telephone from Juba, South Sudan's capital. "I think I also wanted to show that the world is not some big, scary place, but in fact is full of people who want to help you even if you are a stranger." Are you smarter than a diplomat? Take our Foreign Service Exam. Hughes, 33, set out from his home in Liverpool in northern England on New Year's Day 2009. Since then, he has visited all 193 United Nations member states plus Taiwan, Vatican City, Palestine, Kosovo, Western Sahara, and the four home nations of the United Kingdom. GUINNESS CONFIRMED Guinness World Records have confirmed that Hughes, who has been filming the trip for a documentary and raising money for a charity called Water Aid, is the first person to achieve this feat without flying. "The main feeling today is just one of intense gratitude to every person around the world who helped me get here, by giving me a lift, letting me stay on their couch, or pointing me in the right direction," Hughes said Monday. "There were times, sitting in a bus station in Cambodia at one in the morning, riding some awful truck over bad roads, when I thought, why am I doing this? But there was always a reason to keep going." Highlights were swimming in a lake of jellyfish in the Pacific archipelago of Palau, watching one of NASA's last Space Shuttle launches, and dancing with the jungle tribes of Papua New Guinea. "People asked me how I was going to get to Afghanistan or Iraq or North Korea, but they were the easy ones, you don't even need a visa for Iraq, you just walk across the border from Turkey," he says. "The really tough ones were places like Nauru, and the Maldives and the Seychelles, island countries where there were also sometimes pirate threats." Are you smarter than a diplomat? Take our Foreign Service Exam. To cross oceans, Hughes hitched lifts with cargo ships. He spent four days in an open fishing canoe from Senegal to Cape Verde, and was then arrested when he arrived. Later, officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo jailed him for six days believing he was a spy. "None of this put me off, it just made me more bloody-minded to succeed," he says. DEATH IN THE FAMILY The hardest point, "when I just wanted to give up," he remembers, was after his older sister, Nicola, died from cancer two years ago at the age of 39. Hughes rushed home to see her before she died. "She told me not to stop the trip, but I was at a real low point. I'd done 184 countries and had only 17 to go and I thought why not leave it there," he says. The memory of his sister spurred him on, as did the people that he met as he traveled and the money he was raising for Water Aid, which works to bring clean water to people in the developing world. "If you take everything that you know of the world from the news, it's all the bad stuff and you get very paranoid that everyone is out to get you," he says. "But the most amazing thing to me is that everyone I met looked after me and I didn't even know them." Hughes plans to stay in South Sudan only until Wednesday. But he will not then be flying home. He says to "keep in the spirit of the adventure" he will continue through Africa and across Europe by bus and boat, aiming to return home to Liverpool by ferry from Ireland in time for Christmas. "Someone wrote to me and pointed out that this would be the trip of a lifetime for most people, but for me it's essentially just the bus home," he says. After a long rest, he says he will then begin exploring options to continue with a career in film-making. |
Monday, November 26, 2012
@ the dentist
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Sunday, November 25, 2012
in memory of Ken Fernandes
I don't know why this old writing has become one of the popular post today. I wrote this as a part of assignment for my lecture Ken Fernandes who already passed away in 2009 due to the cancer. He is one of my favorite lecture during my study in Melbourne... He has opened my mind about the global injustice in this world.So, in memory of Mr Fernandes, I re-blog my old post here. (Icha) |
Friday, November 23, 2012
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
The Prayer of an Unconventional Family By ANNE LAMOTT
The Prayer of an Unconventional FamilyThank you, God, or whatever you call yourself, if you are really there at all, and if you have a nice sense of humor (on which I am banking), for the family you gave me. I grew up wanting a normal family that said prayers and went to church, but thank God you mostly ignored my menu choices, because instead I got left-wing intellectuals. I got parents who worshiped at the temples of James Joyce and Willa Cather, John Updike and John Cheever, Dorothy Parker and Evelyn Waugh - whom, until I was 12 or so, I imagined as a nice Midwestern lady out in a garden who rolled her stockings down around her ankles when the Wichita sun grew too hot. I wanted an Eastern blue blood PTA mother, but thank you for a Liverpudlian who studied classics in college. She could quote Aristotle - and W. B. Yeats and Doris Lessing, and had long, beautiful, dark hair. My dad wrote like a dream and looked like a Kennedy. They married and had three children. We grew up on Homer, E. B. White, Edith Hamilton and dictionaries, so we could learn where various words had gotten their humble and exhilarating starts in life. Thank you for a father who made his living as a writer, such as that living was. But would it have killed you for us to have one single year when my parents didn't worry about the bills month to month - O.K., wait. Never mind. Thank you for a dad who got up at 5:30 every morning, rain, flu or hangover notwithstanding, who taught me the habits of writing: that you sit down at the same time every day, and you just do it, scribble away scratchily on legal pads, tap tap tap away on the old Olympia. You had to slide in a sheet of carbon paper between the original and the copy, and you didn't whine. No one was making you do it - it was a privilege, for the few, we happy few. My parents' unhappy marriage would turn out to be the stuff of most great literature. They'd started out with a quest. They had wanted to be lords of their own castle, free of their parents finally, grown-ups together. And they had this magic time where everything worked, all that beauty and youth and brilliance and hope and sex. But the differences and wounds grew too big, and the specter and bright promise of having children brought them only a temporary state of unity. All those parts and pieces of them spiked out and imploded, and nightmare parts banged, lurched, dove and floated all over the small apartment and then the small rental homes, and then the first and only home they ever owned. But through it all, there were books, and wine. Eugene O'Neill said that man is born broken, and the grace of God is glue. Books and wine were our glue, and so also our grace. Thank you for parents who read to us every night - Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Louisa May Alcott - and who limited TV, which we three kids were completely bitter about back then but which turned us into voracious, lifelong readers. The rustle of pages was our family's most sacred sound, our hymns, about wolves, and pioneer children, the little Japanese peach boy, the talking animals of Aesop, and then, oh, my God, Dr. Seuss. Thank you, Betty McKegney, for letting me be your big girl helper at our tiny local library every Thursday night, when our family came to pick out books for the week. It was our musty cathedral, our mosque, stuffed from floor to ceiling with old books and magazines. People with allergies need not enter. I loved stamping the due dates on the old library cards, ca-chunk. The planes and boats of my family were paper, between hard covers, flat sheets from which sprang fully formed worlds of people sort of like us; magic carpets that let us see from up above and be blown away on the winds to castles, planets and plantations, and then delivered us back, somehow stunned and calm and changed, all at once. Chapter books were my salvation, in the same way as Jesus was for other kids. Our family was always broke, but my parents always shelled out our version of a monthly bar bill for Scholastic paperbacks. Thank you, Astrid Lindgren; when you gave us Pippi Longstocking, you gave me life. I read the book like I read the first issue of Ms. magazine 10 years later. The experience was like Helen Keller breaking the code for the word "water." I wanted to race around spreading the good news. I could breathe again, forever. There was going to be a spot for me in this joint, the earth, after all. It was never going to be a great match for someone as bright and strange as me, but books were going to make it survivable. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for giving my family all those Roger Tory Peterson field guides. Tramping around those Northern California woodlands and fields, sharing one pair of binoculars, consulting the field guide to see if the bird with the yellow feathers and red spots on its wings was a starling, a nuthatch or even a rare cedar waxwing. Those were the hours when my family functioned as a unit - was fully alive, in focus, in awe. Those were the walks when I really began to notice and appreciate the details: the beauty of black things against the green - the fields of cows on the way to Stinson, white egrets in the wetlands, red-winged blackbirds anywhere. You could talk to my father about any author, because writers back then took it upon themselves to study at the feet of the masters, instead of getting M.F.A.'s. I'd sit with my father in his study and ask about Beowulf, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett and Flannery O'Connor, and J. D. Salinger, Shirley Jackson, Allen Ginsberg and Robert Heinlein, writing so gorgeous, heartbreaking, hilarious, lovely and sometimes shocking, that you might get startled in the good way, like splashing in cold water instead of lowering yourself down into a warm bath. You would recognize yourself in the prison, or placidly gathering rocks for the lottery, and you'd awaken: wow. Books and The New Yorker were the collagen that kept my parents together for close to three decades, but eventually and badly, they parted ways. My mother got all the M.F.K. Fisher books. My father got the first edition James Thurbers. Thank you for helping them be friends again from 3,000 miles away by the time he died in his mid-50s. One of us read "Sailing to Byzantium" at his memorial service at sunset on the Bolinas Ridge, and my mom did a lot of the cooking for the gathering afterward. It might have been a book party except for the weeping. Everyone grieved for the man they had lost, but they'd also lost a valued writer, another travel guide in this nutty and harrowing journey of life. Writers show us the glades we'd somehow missed, the trickling voices of streams, the eyes of a barn owl watching us. We couldn't always see this in our own lives, but a writer like my father revealed a shape and movement amid it all, layers, meaning, perspective, joy, because he paid such careful attention, and paying attention is about the biggest redemption there is. And that was always our prayer. Anne Lamott is the author, most recently, of "Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers." This post has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: November 19, 2012 An earlier version of this essay misspelled the name of an epic poem. It's "Beowulf," not "Beowolf." |
Monday, November 19, 2012
Blood test
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