Facebook's new 'dislike' button shows how little it cares about the victims of online bullying - The Independent

September 17, 2015 at 12:18am

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Wednesday 16 September 2015
Facebook's new 'dislike' button shows how little it cares about the victims of online bullying
Far from expressing 'empathy', as Mark Zuckerberg hopes, the social network's new function will be abused by trolls and bullies

Ever since Facebook introduced its iconic “like” button in 2009, users have been clamouring for a matching “dislike” button. The wait is finally over. On Tuesday the social media network’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that Facebook is working on a “dislike” option to reflect the fact that, in his words, “not every moment is a good moment”.
While designed to bring more emotional nuance to Facebook, the introduction of a “dislike” button is another example of the social media platform’s failure to protect users from online harassment.

Zuckerberg was keen to stress that the button is not designed to “down vote” posts, but instead to offer a way for people to show sympathy for others when they share bad, sad or frustrating news. But with so many of us experiencing online harassment, and reports that 7 out of 10 young people in the UK have been the victim of cyber bullying, I greet the introduction of this new Facebook function with trepidation.

Facebook has a long history of failing to protect vulnerable users from cyber bullying. The platform’s unwieldy form for reporting abuse is infamous for telling users to just ignore or unfriend their harassers. Memorial pages are often bombarded by trolls mocking grieving families. A “dislike” button will now make it even easier for bullies to target their victims. It will take abusers a matter of minutes to scroll through every post on a user’s page, clicking dislike and adding to the overwhelming onslaught of negativity that many victims experience when they log into Facebook.

The introduction of a “dislike” button was originally delayed because big brands were worried about the negative impact it would have on their social media operations. Now that these worries have been dispensed with (partly due to the greater understanding that any online response - good or bad - can work in a brand’s favour), Facebook is introducing the button, and in doing so it is reaffirming its lack of interest in making the platform a safe space for users.

The failure to mention community guidelines or support reveals that protecting users from cyber bullies is simply not a priority for Facebook.


Mark Zuckerberg told a Q&A audience he doesn't like spending on "frivolous" decision and that includes his attireThe Facebook founder is often seen wearing Adidas flip flops, a gray T-shirt and a hoodieThat's Mark Zuckerberg wearing his signature gray shirt (again)...And againZuckerberg showed up for Facebook's IPO wearing his favourite hoodie Zuckerberg pictured with his wife, Priscilla, wearing THAT hoodie Zuckerberg speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco Zuckerberg rings the bell to open the Nasdaq

As Zuckerberg’s comments demonstrate, it’s not fair to suggest that Facebook is unaware of the potential for this scheme to go awry. By acknowledging the potential for the “dislike” button to be misused, the social network is effectively covering itself against future accusations that it does not take online harassment seriously.

People who don’t use Facebook often, or are completely unfamiliar with the platform, can be forgiven for thinking that Zuckerberg simply saying the “dislike” button should not be abused will be enough to stop misuse. But after a decade of watching the site being subverted by hate groups, cyber bullies and sexual predators, Facebook staff know that good intentions are never enough. Words must be matched by actions.

Without stricter community guidelines and more support for victims of cyberbullying, a “dislike” button will make it easier for bullies to target vulnerable people without fear of recrimination. It might be designed to make it easier for users to express sympathy for each other online, but until Facebook finds a way to protect vulnerable users online it should stay away from the “dislike” button and start developing an “empathy” button instead

Doubts rise over China’s official GDP growth rate - Financial Times

September 17, 2015 at 12:23am

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. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/723a8d8e-5c53-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2.html#ixzz3luZaDYIX

September 16, 2015 12:29 pm
Doubts rise over China’s official GDP growth rate
Josh Noble in Hong Kong


The view that China is growing far slower than official figures show is increasingly going mainstream, with big global investors among those now basing decisions on a rate of about 5 per cent.
According to government statistics China’s economy grew at an annual pace of 7 per cent in the second quarter of this year, in line with Beijing’s target for the year and the World Bank estimate of 7.1 per cent.

However, doubts have long lingered about the veracity of Chinese economic data, with many analysts believing them to be understated during times of rapid growth and overstated during the current slowdown. A strategist at one European asset manager described the official growth figure as “a very crude propaganda tool”.
The recent decision by the People’s Bank of China to devalue the renminbi, a move that rattled markets across the world, has been seen as further evidence that China’s economy is in far worse health than official data show.
Some have instead turned to alternative estimates, such as the “Li Keqiang index” — a composite of various indicators favoured by the Chinese prime minister, such as electricity production and railway freight volumes. Many of those gauges fell into outright contraction late last year.
Bob Browne, chief investment officer at Northern Trust, said the fund manager recently lowered its growth forecast for China for the next five years to “5 per cent and change”, which he said was a recognition that using official statistics was “really no longer appropriate”.
“We just can’t reconcile it with the private sector surveys or more valid government bottom-up numbers,” he said.
The true nature and rate of Chinese growth is a key ingredient for investors and economists as they seek to measure demand for global commodities and forecast growth rates for the countries that produce them.
Sharp falls in the price of many raw materials, including oil, copper and iron ore, over the past year have been seen as added proof that China, the biggest consumer of many commodities, is actually growing well below the stated rate.
“If you look at the kind of hard data that are entering into the composition of the so-called Li Keqiang index, the growth is today probably closer to 5 per cent than to 7 per cent”, said Jean-Louis Nakamura, chief Asia investment officer at Lombard Odier.
Some are even more bearish. Lombard Research reckons China grew at an average rate of 4.7 per cent in the first half of the year, while Citi’s chief economist Willem Buiter believes growth could already be as low as 4 per cent.
Martin Wolf

A new Chinese export — recession risk

Beijing will let its currency go rather than continue to use reserves, some of which are highly illiquid
Read more
Those views chime with a recent confidential survey conducted by Consensus Economics, a researcher, which asked economic forecasters what they believed the true rate of Chinese growth has been this year. Those polled gave an average growth figure for the second quarter of just 4.3 per cent, and a forecast for the current quarter of 5.1 per cent.
A separate Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey of fund managers released on Tuesday showed that the majority of investors now expect China to be growing at 4.1–5 per cent in three years’ time. Most gave an answer of 5.1–6 per cent just a month ago.
Figures around 5 per cent contrast with the consensus estimate from investment bank economists, which is currently 6.9 per cent for 2015.
David Meier, economist at Julius Baer, has an official forecast for this year of 6.7 per cent, but notes “suspicion that the figures could be 1-2 per cent overdone”.
“At the end of the day, we have to comment, analyse and publish forecasts based on the official [gross domestic product] data series,” he said.

Goldman CEO Weighs In on China, Donald Trump, the Fed - Wall Street Journal

September 18, 2015 at 12:29am

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Goldman CEO Weighs In on China, Donald Trump, the Fed

Lloyd Blankfein criticizes China’s handling of its stock market and gives his views on Donald Trump and the Fed’s rate decision
Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of the Goldman Sachs group, says recent data hasn’t given the Federal Reserve a reason to raise interest rates. Excerpted from Wednesday's "Viewpoints" conversation with WSJ Editor in Chief Gerard Baker.
By JUSTIN BAER
Sept. 16, 2015 8:23 p.m. ET

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein criticized China’s handling of its stock-market swoon in an interview that also included the Wall Street veteran’s views on Donald Trump and the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision.

Mr. Blankfein reserved some of his toughest remarks on Wednesday for China’s handling of its recent market difficulties. “They don’t have a lot of experience in this market stuff,” Mr. Blankfein said. Some of the decisions, he noted, have been “sloppy” and “ham-handed.”

In recent months, Chinese stocks have declined, despite government attempts to foster confidence and potentially boost its economy through devaluing its tightly controlled currency.

In a "Viewpoints" discussion on Wednesday, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein explained why he would not invest in China right now, following the country's "ham-handed" handling of the recent market crisis.
Mr. Blankfein said China’s economy faces some of toughest “execution issues” ever. The country’s government officials “know what the problems are,” he said, and are “smart about it.” The nation needs to modernize its capital markets and create its own institutional investors. “But,” he added, “it’s really hard.”

Turning to U.S. politics, Mr. Blankfein sought to explain Mr. Trump’s surprising appeal as a presidential candidate, noting the real-estate developer and reality-television star may have tapped into voters’ longing for more pragmatism in Washington.



“We’ve put together a country that lets everyone into Washington with an absolute pledge not to compromise on anything,” Mr. Blankfein said. “And then Trump comes along and talks the language of dealing.”

Mr. Blankfein, a Democrat, stopped well short of endorsing Mr. Trump’s run. Some of Mr. Trump’s statements, the Wall Street executive said, are “wacky.” And the image of Mr. Trump “with his finger on the button blows my mind,” he said at The Wall Street Journal’s “Viewpoints” breakfast in Manhattan, drawing some laughter from the audience.

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s chairman and chief executive, remarked on Donald Trump’s surprising appeal as a presidential candidate. Excerpted from a "Viewpoints" conversation with WSJ Editor in Chief Gerard Baker.
An avid reader of history, Mr. Blankfein drew parallels to an earlier election cycle when, in the early 1800s, an unconventional populist, Andrew Jackson, won the presidency.

“We’re being kind of dismissive of things. But people must’ve dismissed that.” When asked if he could live with Mr. Trump in the White House, Mr. Blankfein demurred: “I didn’t say that.”

In explaining recent polls showing that support for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has dipped, Mr. Blankfein traced it to Mrs. Clinton’s role as the leading “establishment” candidate at a moment when the nation’s mood has turned against institutions.

“We’ll see what happens” next year as voters weigh more seriously the consequences of their decisions, Mr. Blankfein said.

A former trading executive and lawyer who steered Goldman through the financial crisis, Mr. Blankfein acknowledged the widening gap between the nation’s wealthiest and everyone else. “That’s all true,” he said. “At the same time,” he added, “it’s never been easier for people to start a business.”

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, reserved some of his toughest remarks on Wednesday for China’s handling of its recent market difficulties. ENLARGE
Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, reserved some of his toughest remarks on Wednesday for China’s handling of its recent market difficulties.
It also has rarely been more popular to merge businesses together, something Mr. Blankfein said would likely continue. The Goldman executive said many of the recent deals have been between two companies, rather than buyouts by private-equity firms.

“The deals getting done are in turn driving other deals,” Mr. Blankfein said. “Companies are getting bigger,” he said, compelling rivals to respond with acquisitions of their own.

As for the Fed, he supported the view of most investors and traders this week projecting that the Fed will hold off on raising interest rates for the first time since 2006.

“If the decision gets made [to raise interest rates this week], it’s not because there’s a tsunami of evidence of a hardening and quickening economy, tightening of labor, acceleration of inflation,” Mr. Blankfein said. “I wouldn’t do it.”

Among his current worries, Mr. Blankfein said, are the risks posed by “another crisis” in Europe, and how that Continent deals with the influx of migrants from war-torn Syria.

Write to Justin Baer at justin.baer@wsj.com

The South China Sea Is Ours Because It’s Got ‘China’ in the Name, Chinese Admiral Says -TIME

September 16, 2015 at 9:26pm

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The South China Sea Is Ours Because It’s Got ‘China’ in the Name, Chinese Admiral Says
Hannah Beech / Shanghai @hkbeech Sept. 15, 2015   

What’s in a name? An entire sea, says Chinese Vice Admiral Yuan Yubai. On Sept. 14, at a defense conference in London, Yuan said that “the South China Sea, as the name indicates, is a sea area that belongs to China,” according to defense media. The commander of the Chinese navy’s North Sea fleet added that the vast waterway has been Chinese from the time of the Han dynasty, which ruled from 206 B.C. to A.D. 220.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea’s rocks, shoals, reefs and islets as its own, carving out the waterway with a so-called Nine Dash Line that extends southward toward Borneo to include 2 million sq km of sea. However, five other governments — those of Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines — are also vying for ownership of various bits of sand and rock in the resource-rich waters. Maritime clashes over these shoals and reefs have, over the decades, claimed dozens of lives.

Tensions have escalated again over the past 18 months, as China has expanded the disputed territory it controls by reclaiming land around tiny islets. While other countries have also engaged in island-building, China’s efforts far outstrip those of other claimants. Defense analysts believe the People’s Liberation Army will be able to land fighter jets on these artificial islands, turning them into what U.S. Pacific Command commander Admiral Harry Harris characterized as potential forward operating bases during possible combat situations. This summer Harris called China’s island expansion “changing facts on the ground [by] essentially creating false sovereignty.”

While the U.S. says it takes no side in the dispute, Washington has defended freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and has called on Beijing to try to resolve territorial disputes through international arbitration. This summer, in fact, the Philippines took China to court in the Hague, through the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. But China has refused to participate in the court proceedings, arguing that the South China Sea dispute is not covered by the U.N. treaty.

Meanwhile, there is no word as to whether Vice Admiral Yuan thinks the Indian Ocean belongs to India — or the Gulf of Mexico to Mexico — simply because of their names.

For Those Who Remain in Syria, Daily Life Is a Nightmare - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/world/middleeast/for-those-who-remain-in-syria-daily-life-is-a-nightmare.html?emc=edit_th_20150916&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=56381892&_r=0

For Those Who Remain in Syria, Daily Life Is a Nightmare
By MAHER SAMAAN and ANNE BARNARDSEPT. 15, 2015


Syrians amid the rubble of buildings destroyed by airstrikes in the rebel-held area of Douma, a suburb of Damascus. Credit Abd Doumany/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — Every morning, at the dawn call to prayer, women and children move silently from the Damascus suburb of Douma to the surrounding farm fields, seeking safety from the day’s bombardments by the Syrian government.

The walk is part of a surreal routine described by the fraction of Douma’s residents who remain: shopping on half-demolished streets, scavenging wild greens, carrying out mass burials. But not even the fields are safe; recently, medics said, bombs killed two families there — 10 people, including seven children.

As crowds of Syrians transfix the world with their flight to Europe, this kind of life is one of the many nightmares they are fleeing. They leave behind increasingly empty neighborhoods — from the Damascus suburbs to the northern city of Aleppo — that testify to the scale of their exodus.



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Such bombardments have been going on for years in insurgent-held areas like Douma, one of the first areas to revolt against the government in 2011. And yet, the situation can still get worse. The past month in Douma made that clear.


Government forces began a barrage even more intense than usual, using not only the artillery shells that Douma has come to expect, but also airstrikes. Perhaps four out of five residents had already fled what was once a bustling community of around half a million, and emergency workers say the new bombings drove out thousands more.

More than 550 people, mostly civilians, have died in the past month in Douma and nearby suburbs, 123 of them children, Red Crescent medics say. August was one of the bloodiest months in the district, with at least 150 trauma injuries being treated each day from Aug. 12 to 31 — a number that includes only patients from 13 makeshift clinics that work with Doctors Without Borders.

Such concentrated violence has shaken even the most steadfast holdouts, said Ahmed, a Douma resident and a paramedic in his 20s who asked to be identified only by his first name for his safety. Of those who remained in early August, half have fled, he said, while the rest trek daily to hide in the fields or stay “trapped at home, praying they won’t get killed.”

As international focus has shifted to the Islamic State’s highly publicized violence and the threat it poses beyond Syria, less attention has been paid to the original struggle between President Bashar al-Assad and the insurgent groups that rose up after the crushing of a protest movement in 2011.


Advocacy groups for the Syrian opposition, as well as international watchdogs like Human Rights Watch, have long contended that the security forces’ bombardment of insurgent-held areas like Douma takes the largest toll on civilians, killing far more people than the Islamic State. Although no definitive numbers exist, a tally by a Syrian civilian opposition group, the Violations Documentation Center, said that 18,000 had been killed by airstrikes, which only the government has the ability to carry out, and that more than 27,000 had died in shelling and rocket attacks by all sides.


The Syrian government says it is bombing terrorists.

Douma, like other poorly served cities around Damascus, rose up early, and many there took up arms. It is now a stronghold for the Army of Islam, an insurgent group. The Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s arm in Syria, is also active there, while the Islamic State is not known to play a role.


Insurgents also use indiscriminate tactics. After the new wave of attacks in Douma, they shelled Damascus, killing at least 20 people, according to death notices on pro-government websites. No one claimed responsibility.

But in terms of scale, the government’s bombing of rebellious areas is on another level. It has laid waste to large sections of central Homs in western Syria, Aleppo and the Damascus suburbs. In Aleppo, the weapons of choice are shrapnel-packed barrel bombs, unguided and dropped from helicopters.

In the past month, more than 450 civilians died from government bombings in East Ghouta, a semicircle of opposition-held working-class towns around Damascus, according to lists kept by the local branch of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Many of the victims were in Douma, the group said, including elderly people, women and children.

But it is not just bombings that deform life in Douma. Years of government blockades have forced residents to depend on tunnels and smugglers for daily goods. Humanitarian aid is largely blocked, and few people can get in or out.


Government and opposition fighters alike take their cuts of bribes and smuggling revenues. Some insurgents act as warlords, enriching themselves and cracking down on dissent. The human rights lawyer Razan Zeitouneh and other secular opposition activists disappeared from Douma in 2013, believed to have been kidnapped after criticizing the Army of Islam.

So escape means dealing with smugglers and new risks, even for those who have no plans to take a boat on the Mediterranean. It begins from the moment of leaving one’s own block, on the way to Damascus.

“It’s completely normal for people to wish they can go overseas,” Ahmed, the paramedic, said. But, he added, “Can they?”

Those who do reach Damascus — joining seven million Syrians displaced within the country — can be harassed or even arrested by security forces suspicious of people from opposition areas.That drives many to Lebanon, Jordan or Turkey, which host most of the four million Syrians officially registered as refugees abroad. The Damascus suburbs have hemorrhaged 165,000 people to Lebanon alone. But those countries have become less hospitable, with residency crackdowns and shrinking benefits. So refugees can go further afield, including to Europe. Or they can go back to Douma, and to a war that has killed a quarter of a million Syrians. Because of the siege and restrictions on journalists by combatants, life there can only be glimpsed on videos posted by insurgents, anti-government activists and rescue workers. They show streets engulfed by uneven piles of brick, rooftops tilted askew and steel reinforcement bars pulled apart like spaghetti.

In one recent clip, a volunteer — perhaps a teenager — slung over his shoulder the limp body of a small boy. In another, a slight youth dug a ragged, bloody corpse from under rocks until a voice behind him says, “Don’t film the body. Enough.”


“Neighborhoods fell on the heads of the residents,” Imad al-Din, a Douma resident, said recently over Skype. “The screaming can still be heard.”

Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011, the U.S. has taken in less than 1,500 Syrian refugees, the vast majority this year.



“Black Sunday” is what Douma residents call Aug. 16. At least 122 people died in one of the war’s deadliest air attacks, on a vegetable market, according to rescue officials, the Syrian Network for Human Rights and other monitoring groups.

Bilal Abu Salah, a resident who left the market just before the strike, is haunted by the faces of the pushcart vendors who sold him cucumbers, zucchini and eggplant. Minutes later he saw one covered with blood; one died, two were seriously injured.

Dr. Adnan Tobaji operated in a makeshift basement clinic, sometimes on the floor, without anesthetic or sterile supplies. Shortages could be deadly, he said. One woman died waiting for a blood bag to arrive.

The new attacks have gutted Douma’s meager remaining street life and local institutions. Nine civil defense workers were killed. The local authorities imposed a curfew and even canceled Friday Prayer.

Douma’s free fall has prompted Dr. Tobaji and several hundred colleagues and residents to sign a petition calling for a complete humanitarian truce, hoping it spurs talks and ends the war.


The call is striking coming from rebellious Douma. It sets no preconditions for the fate of Mr. Assad, long a sticking point.

“The fate of Assad for us is nothing compared to the fate of Syria the country, the people and the children,” Dr. Tobaji said. “At this moment while we are talking a Syrian is being killed. We need a solution by any means to stop the fighting.”

The solution, he added, “might not suit me or many other people but it’s not for me or for this or that person. It’s for Syria.”

10 Pieces of Advice From a Self-made Millionaire - Business Insider

http://time.com/4032188/advice-money-from-self-made-millionaire/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29


10 Pieces of Advice From a Self-made Millionaire
Steve Siebold / Business Insider @businessinsider Sept. 11, 2015  

Last year, my wife and I decided to turn our North Georgia summer retreat into our full-time residence. We decided to make a few changes to the property now that we would be living in it year-round.

As I was getting into my car one morning, three of the workers paused from what they were doing and stared me down.

I stopped and asked if everything was ok, and one of the men said, “It’s not fair. You have this beautiful home and a nice car while we are stuck doing hard labor for just a little more than minimum wage.”

I approached the men, and we ended up speaking about building wealth for more than an hour. I shared with them that life wasn’t always this good, and at one point I was $50,000 in debt and didn’t know how I would climb out of it. The men shook my hand and thanked me for sharing my insights.

Fast forward and a man driving a truck down the street stops in front of my house and yells, “Mr. Siebold, I took your advice and started my own company. I have five employees working for me and business is booming. My family and I are experiencing freedom like we never thought possible.”

He continued, “Please share your words of wisdom with others.”

So moved that this man turned his life around, I’m now going to take his advice and share the takeaways from that conversation:

1. In a free-market economy, anyone can make as much money as they want.

2. Your background, highest level of education, or IQ is irrelevant when it comes to earning money.

3. The fastest way to make money is to solve a problem. The bigger the problem you solve, the more money you make.

4. Don’t listen to the naysayers who tell you that life is supposed to be a struggle and that you should settle and be grateful for what you have.

5. Expect to make more money. For this one you have to think big. $100,000, $500,000, or why not $1 million?

6. Lose the fear and scarcity mindset and start seeing money for all the good things: freedom, opportunity, possibility, and abundance.

7. Being rich isn’t a privilege. Being rich is a right. If you create massive value for others, you have the right to be as rich as you want.

8. Don’t wait for your ship to come in. You’re not going to be discovered, saved, or made rich by an outside force. If you want a lot of money, build your own ship. No one is coming to the rescue.

9. Stop worrying about running out of money and focus on how to make more. Constantly worrying about money is no way to live. Dream about money, instead.

10. Stop telling yourself that getting rich is outside of your control. The truth is that making money is an inside job.

Just like the man working at my home who was frustrated over his finances and held a grudge against the rich, you too have the power to change your financial situation. Maybe you’ve been living in debt for years or maybe you’ve just dreamed of having more; it’s all possible if you make the decision and really set your mind to it.

Steve Siebold is author of How Rich People Think.

This article originally appeared on Business Insider.

China’s Economic Slump Continues Despite State Interventions - TIME

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China’s Economic Slump Continues Despite State Interventions
Nash Jenkins @pnashjenkins 12:23 AM ET  

A laborer cuts steel bars at a railway-bridge construction site in Lianyungang, in the Chinese province of Jiangsu, on Sept. 12, 2015
Analysts said that economic growth rates could fall to their lowest since the global financial crisis

China’s economic slowdown continued through August, with both factory output and investment growth in the mainland failing to fulfill forecasts. The slump comes despite numerous state interventions to spur growth, including the repeated slashing of interest rates since last November.

Analysts told Reuters that Chinese economic growth in the third quarter — which closes at the end of September — may fall below 7% for the first time since the global financial crisis.

From January through August, the pace of fixed-asset investment growth fell to around 11% — its slowest since 2000, due in part to a chastened property sector. Factory output rose by a disappointing 6.1%.

“The economy is showing no sign of recovery,” Ding Shuang, a Hong Kong–based economist, told Bloomberg. “From the perspective of monetary policy, the government has done what it can, but demand from the real economy needs to pick up to really make use of that.”

Despite the recent slowdown, however, foreign firms remain focused on the Chinese market and unlikely to reduce investment even when facing an unprecedented wave of domestic competition, Wendy Liu, who heads China equity research at Nomura, told the South China Morning Post.

“Foreign businesses can’t ignore the mammoth market that still contributes a big portion of global economic growth,” she said.

Eastern Bloc’s Resistance to Refugees Highlights Europe’s Cultural and Political Divisions - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/world/europe/eastern-europe-migrant-refugee-crisis.html?emc=edit_th_20150913&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=56381892

Eastern Bloc’s Resistance to Refugees Highlights Europe’s Cultural and Political Divisions
By RICK LYMANSEPT. 12, 2015

WARSAW — Even though the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been asked to accept just a tiny fraction of the refugees that Germany and other nations are taking, their fierce resistance now stands as the main impediment to a unified European response to the crisis.

Poland’s new president, Andrzej Duda, has complained about “dictates” from the European Union to accept migrants flowing onto the Continent from the Middle East and Africa.

Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, says his country will accept only Christian refugees as it would be “false solidarity” to force Muslims to settle in a country without a single mosque. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s hard-line prime minister, calls the influx a “rebellion by illegal migrants” and pledges a new crackdown this week.

The discord has further unsettled a union already shaky from struggles over the euro and the Greek financial crisis and now facing a historic influx of people attracted by Europe’s relative peace and prosperity.


A woman in Warsaw reacted to a protest against accepting migrants. Credit Jacek Turczyk/European Pressphoto Agency
When representatives of the European Union nations meet on Monday to take up a proposal for allocating refugees among them, Central and Eastern European nations are likely to be the most vocal opponents. Their stance — reflecting a mix of powerful far-right movements, nationalism, racial and religious prejudices as well as economic arguments that they are less able to afford to take in outsiders than their wealthier neighbors — is the latest evidence of the stubborn cultural and political divides that persist between East and West.

When joining the European Union — as the former Communist countries have done since 2004 — nations are asked to pledge support to a raft of so-called European values, including open markets, transparent government, respect for an independent media, open borders, cultural diversity, protection of minorities and a rejection of xenophobia.

But the reality is that the former Communist states have proved sluggish in actually absorbing many of these values and practicing them. Oligarchs, cronyism and endemic corruption remain a part of daily life in many of the countries, freedom of the press is in decline while rising nationalism and populist political movements have stirred anti-immigrant tensions.

“People must remember that Poland has been transitioning from communism for only 25 years,” Lech Walesa, who led that country’s independence movement, said in an interview. “Our salaries and houses are still smaller than those in the West. Many people here don’t believe that they have anything to share with migrants. Especially that they see that migrants are often well-dressed, sometimes better than many Poles.”

Few migrants, in fact, are particularly interested in settling in Eastern Europe, preferring to head to Germany or Scandinavia, where social welfare benefits are higher, employment opportunities greater and immigrant communities better established. In that sense, migrants are aligned with leaders in Eastern and Central European capitals, who frequently argue that the 28-member bloc should focus first on securing its borders and figuring out a way to end the war in Syria before talking about mandatory quotas for accepting refugees.

But as often as not, the political discourse in these countries has quickly moved toward a wariness of accepting racial and religious diversity.

“This refugee flow has outraged the right wing,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “If you scratch the surface, why are they so upset? It’s not about jobs or the ability to manage them or social welfare. What it is really about is that they are Muslim.”

Unlike countries in Western Europe, which have long histories of accepting immigrants from diverse cultures, the former Communist states tend to be highly homogeneous. Poland, for instance, is 98 percent white and 94 percent Catholic.

“And the countries that have very little diversity are some of the most virulently against refugees,” said Andrew Stroehlein, European media director for Human Rights Watch.

Even mainstream political leaders eager for closer ties to Brussels, the European Union’s headquarters, feel pressure to appeal to this growing nationalist wave.


A huge rally in Copenhagen on Saturday to show support for refugees. Credit Scanpix Denmark/Reuters
“By toughening up their rhetoric and showing a strong hand toward the Roma minority, facing down the E.U. and refusing a common solution to the refugee crisis, they are trying to outbid the far right and keep the traditional political parties in power,” said Zuzana Kusá, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

There is also widespread disappointment with the pace of economic change since communism’s fall, and a sense that the countries are too poor to offer substantial support to immigrants.

“There is a long history of victimization in our region,” said Csaba Szaló, a professor of sociology at Masaryk University in Brno. “We are the ones who have always been victims of injustice, the ones who have suffered. And now there is somebody trying to grab that status. People find it very difficult to accept that somebody might suffer more than us.”

While rising xenophobia is playing a role, there are other factors behind the East-West divide, said Marcin Zaborowski, executive vice president at the Center for European Policy Analysis and head of its Warsaw office.

“The primary reason for this difference in attitude is that we come from a region where the tradition of accepting culturally different refugees is very weak,” he said. “And now there is this wave of refugees from another continent that has no precedent, so people don’t know what to think.”


Most of the countries, like Poland, have “no proper infrastructure in place to deal with such cultural assimilation” and little appetite to spend precious resources building one, Mr. Zaborowski said.

As for the region’s seeming indifference to the migrants’ plight, that is partly because unlike France, Britain and Germany, the former Communist states have no history of colonialism, he said.

“The attitude is: We didn’t meddle in these countries that are now sending the refugees, like other nations did, and so we have no sense of guilt about our obligation to deal with them,” Mr. Zaborowski said.



In Hungary, Mr. Orban has taken a particularly uncompromising approach, demanding more help from Brussels in dealing with the tens of thousands who continue to enter his country while insisting that Hungary is under no obligation to endanger its traditional Christian values by accepting large numbers of Muslims.

35 Business Leaders Share Their Daily Habits -TIME

http://time.com/4027015/business-success-habits/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

35 Business Leaders Share Their Daily Habits
Christina DesMarais / Inc. Sept. 10, 2015  
How to stay on top of your game



When it comes to achieving success, actions speak louder than words, connections, or opportunities. Think about the importance of your daily habits, for example. Do you run five miles every morning because you value being fit and healthy? Or is it your regular routine to watch three hours of television every night because you feel the need to escape? Without a doubt, what you achieve in life depends on your actions. Take it from 35 founders, entrepreneurs, and executives who have achieved great things and credit simple daily rituals for helping them do it. Here are their quotes on what helps them get more out of business and life.


1. Hold Back-to-Back Meetings in One Location

If I must have multiple meetings throughout a day, I often aim to set them back-to-back in one location. This way, I maintain efficiency and focus throughout the meetings, setting the pace according to the agenda and maximum time allotted, [while] knowing we must get straight to the points at hand since the next meeting is impending. Additionally, placing these meetings back to back enables me to maintain a clear frame of mind during the times before and after the block of meetings, since I am freed from the constant self-reminders to be punctual to the next meeting.
– Tiffany Pham, founder and CEO of MOGUL, an award-winning technology platform for women


2. Read Voraciously

My first job at Warner Bros. was preparing a daily press packet without internet. I had to read everything physically, clip pertinent articles, copy and distribute them to execs. This job taught me the power one garners by knowing everything that’s going on in business and the world — who’s doing well and might be a candidate for a sale of a popular Warner Bros. TV series or movie and who is in trouble and might need a hit TV series or movie. One needs to be able to converse with other executives intelligently about their business.
–Eric Frankel, founder and CEO of AdGreetz, a cloud-based SaaS platform that empowers brands such as Intel, NBC, and Toyota to deploy relevant, personalized video messages that build stronger customer relationships and increase engagement, activation, and revenue

3. Constantly Triage Your To-Do List

The role of the CEO is really to keep the team focused on the most important topics, and it’s important that you do the same for yourself.
–Vikram Aggarwal, CEO of EnergySage, a solar-marketplace company that recently secured a $1.5 million Series A round of funding and announced a partnership with Green America


4. Unsubscribe Mercilessly

I get a lot of unwanted email from folks who’ve subscribed me to lists that are irrelevant to me. I combat this clutter daily and find it’s a useful way of removing one distraction from my day.
–Apu Gupta, CEO of Curalate, a platform for marketing with images that works with 650 brands, reaching millions of consumers a day




5. Block Time on Your Calendar According to Tasks

It is so easy to fall into daily distractions, forcing you to play catch up the next day. This cycle can go on forever. Time blocking keeps me on track. I schedule a timeframe where I am responding to emails, then the next hour is blocked for meetings, etc.
–Jayna Cooke, CEO of EVENTup, an online marketplace for event venues that has listed more than 15,000 venues and attracts more than one million consumers a month


6. Connect With Your Passion

Every week I check in and participate with the product and technology teams. Even as the company has grown, I have forced myself to make time to stay connected. As an engineer, I personally enjoy participating in the technology challenges and love to learn about the solutions our team comes up with. Not only does it keep me up-to-date on the latest ideas, but it also gives the team an opportunity to see the bigger picture and ask why? Not all startup CEO/founders are technologists, but each CEO has a passion. Staying connected with your passion will keep you engaged, even when your job evolves to require bigger strategic thinking. Sometimes you have to let yourself have fun with the things you love.
–Alex Muller, CEO of GPShopper, a developer of mobile apps with a focus on the retail industry and annual revenue growth of 50 to 70 percent


7. Limit the Time Spent on Email Every Day

It’s easy to get caught up answering emails all day and feeling like work is being done but by the end of the day realize that no progress has been made on strategically pushing the business forward. You just spent the whole day fighting fires and solving immediate problems but the to-do list remain the same as the day prior. Email can also be a bit of a disruption given that it comes in in random intervals and thus can take focus away from projects and work that require a continuous block of time and thinking. As a result, it is really important to invest blocks on time on email every day but also block off times where email is not checked. I do not let email become the default work item because it eventually [becomes an] insidious kind of semi-procrastination.
–William Hsu, co-managing partner of Los Angeles-based venture capital Mucker Capital, which was ranked as the No. 2 accelerator in the U.S. by Seed Accelerators Ranking, a joint study by MIT and Rice University


8. Spend One Hour Outside Every Day

As a digital-only company, almost all of my time is spent in an office in front of a computer. This is why I make it a rule to be outside for at least one hour a day. Be it walking my dog, riding my bike or just sitting on a patio with friends, I find being outside to be a form of meditation. No matter if it’s broken into 20-minute chunks or late at night, the fresh air helps me relax, release any stress, and restart my mind for the next challenge.
–Alex Matjanec, CEO of MyBankTracker, a Brooklyn-based personal finance and banking hub, which helps more than 1.5 million visitors a month make smarter banking decisions



9. Use Technology for Personal Relationship Management (PRM)

Every CEO has a to-do list or actions they need to accomplish daily. While we have many strategic objectives and initiatives that we work on, one daily habit is to target relationships to accelerate our organization’s progress. These include clients, partners, internal team members, and board members. I schedule a weekly agenda of engagement with each of these relationships via a PRM tool, CallPlease, which allows for real-time daily prioritization of my relationship interactions. I leverage the mobile CallPlease app on my iPhone and, since it is a team-based system, my executive admin can support these interactions via a web console through its workflow.
–Kris Snyder, CEO of Vox Mobile, a Cleveland-based enterprise mobility solution provider with annual growth that trends above 30 percent, a recent funding round closing at $6.7 million, and consistent inclusion in Gartner’s MMS Magic Quadrant. Snyder is also the founder of the Global Enterprise Mobility Alliance (GEMA).


10. Prioritize Key Employee Objectives

I know even my best employees have a range of focus and performance. In addition to motivating them through traditional recognition methods, I’ve found that letting them know their personal objectives are important to me earns their best efforts and loyalty. In the past this has included sponsoring night classes not directly related to their job and helping an employee secure a book deal with a major publisher.
–James Roche, CEO of Houseplans.com, a San Francisco-based stock home design site that has grown 25 percent year over year


11. Focus on 2 to 3 Things a Day

I can’t multitask. It creates too much chaos.
–Tim Eisenhauer, president of San Diego software provider Axero Solutions, a profitable bootstrapped company with hundreds of customers playing in the crowded enterprise software market with huge venture-backed competitors

12. Have a Family Dinner

We may be co-founders, but we are also mom and dad to three daughters. No matter how hectic running a fast-growing startup is, we make sure to shut off the cell phones and have a family dinner with our girls. While many CEOs are still going strong at 6 p.m., we’re passing the green beans and focusing on what matters most to us — our family. What’s most amazing is how many of our business and marketing ideas have come from our twin 8-year-olds and our 11-year-old right at the dinner table.
–Scott and Missy Tannen, founders of Boll & Branch, a New York-based company with a line of accessibly priced luxury bed linens that launched in January 2014 with first-year revenue topping $2 million and more than a $10 million run rate in its second year in business



13. Get Home on Time

I try and be religious about the time I leave my house in the morning for work and the time I get back. It helps balance things and ensures I am present, both physically and mentally, with my family.
–Jeff Braverman, CEO of snack and candy store Nuts.com, which has grown revenue to $35 million, up from $1.5 million in 2002

14. Exercise Every Day

I try to run every day, and science now shows a positive correlation between running and creativity. It has helped me maintain a sense of balance. It grounds me and offers an outlet on my most stressful days, and allows me to lean into risk and uncertainty. What I find is that many people, especially executives, take the workouts off the calendar when they get busy or are dealing with a particularly stressful time in their careers or lives. It should be opposite. The more stressed out you feel, the more important it is to carve that time for workouts that nourish not only your body but your soul as well.
–Julie Smolyansky, CEO of Lifeway Foods, which has grown gross sales to $130.2 million


15. Read 20 to 30 Unsolved Customer Support Tickets Every Morning

I think proactively knowing about customer problems can really help you build a long-term intuition about the important things you need to get right when you build your company. And it helps you build empathy with the people that ultimately have to do the hard work of working through those customer problems.
–Suhail Doshi, CEO of Mixpanel, an analytics platform for mobile and web that helps companies gain insights into user activity and leverage this data to build better products. Mixpanel now tracks 50 billion actions people take in applications per month

16. Check KPIs First Thing in the Morning

As an organization grows, it’s easy to let a little distance get between the CEO and the day to day. By checking KPIs first thing in the morning, I already know the answer to how we’ve been performing and can immediately move on to the why. I’m in a better position to ask my team important questions, and we can all work more efficiently and effectively.
–Michael Ortner, CEO of Capterra, a web service that has helped companies such as Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Home Depot find and purchase business software



17. Be Unpredictable

Successful people predict trends but are original and innovative. Have your own workflow, stick with it or break the rules, but try to stay ahead of others by getting away from patterns.
–Serban Enache, CEO of global stock photo site Dreamstime.com, which has been used by more than 11 million users since its launch in 2000


18. Always Ask Why

So much of work becomes too focused on the what — the plan we’re writing, the project we’re trying to complete on time, the deadline we missed. We don’t ask why enough, even though it’s the best way to get context for the stuff we’re trying to get done. I’ve found asking it of myself is as important as asking it of the people I work with. It’s critical to staying grounded in what’s most important. I try to keep asking why until I can’t go any deeper. Then get going.
–Jay Simons, president of software company Atlassian which offers team collaboration products including JIRA, Confluence, Bitbucket, and HipChat, which are collectively used by more than 48,000 companies worldwide


19. Allow Enough Unscheduled Time During the Day to Think, React or Write

This enables me to get things done on the same day instead of allowing the guilt pile to build up. I keep blocks on my schedule to avoid overscheduling each day… I am significantly more productive when I am not forced to multitask. Studies have shown that multitasking leads to inefficiency. By creating pockets of time in which I can work alone, I am able to accomplish tasks on the same day and leave time for collaboration.
–Dr. Walter S. Scott, founder, executive vice president, and CTO of satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe, which provides images and geospatial content to U.S. government defense and intelligence agencies, international governments, and major online mapping platforms such as Google


20. Exude Positivity

I’ve made it a habit to be a positive, enthusiastic source within my company. Even in the morning, ‘hi’ or ‘welcome’ has huge ripple effects across the organization at scale. It seems simple but has the power to make employees feel valued and appreciated.
–Kris Duggan, CEO of BetterWorks, an employee-related goals platform that recently closed a $15.5 million Series A round and is more than doubling active users every quarter


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21. Prioritize a Daily To-Do List

I’m a zero-inbox CEO. Occasionally I don’t get there, but each night I give it my all to power through via all available gmail shortcuts and give folks the response they need as quickly and efficiently as possible. I hate feeling like a delay on my response might prevent Omada employees from quickly progressing their work.
–Sean Duffy, CEO of Omada Health, a digital-therapeutics company that was selected by Fast Company as one of “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies”

22. Talk to People

This is often described as ‘managing by wandering around,’ but don’t undervalue it. Having random conversations with different people across the organization will help you keep your ear to the ground on what is really happening. Be respectful and don’t interrupt people who are working, but catching someone making a coffee in the kitchen, give them a big smile and learn a bit about their day in a friendly, non-creepy way. You will easily stay on top of the pulse of the organization.
–Jonathan Cogley, CEO and founder of IT security company Thycotic, which ranks 2,671 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in 2014, up 760 spots from 2013


23. Prepare Budgets by Initiatives and Expected Outcomes Rather Than by Functions

Thinking about spending this way keeps me focused on how each dollar contributes to building the company.
–Mike Zivin, co-founder and CEO of Whittl, an online appointment booking platform for neighborhood businesses, which recently raised a $3.3 million Series A round with backing from GrubHub co-founder Mike Evans, as well as GrubHub’s first VC, Origin Ventures in Chicago

24. Get Coached

Olympic athletes have coaches — so should CEOs. I have had a coach for years, Ed Batista, who I work with at least biweekly to recognize and improve my weaknesses.
–Douglas Merrill, former CIO of Google and now CEO of ZestFinance, a big-data startup that uses more than 100,000 data points about an individual to figure out if he or she will pay back a loan



25. Keep a Close Eye on the Competition

I use the first 15 minutes of each day to read competitive websites and any press they might be receiving. Knowing what our competition is doing or thinking is critical to our ability to both win and keep business.
–Darin LeGrange, CEO of Aldera, a company that provides health plan insurers with the back-office technology to handle billing, claims processing, coverages, and more

26. Get Moving

I am a huge believer in walking, and in moving around in general. At the very least, I make sure to get up from my chair every hour and walk the office. Not only does this get the blood flowing, it helps me see what the team is working on and helps spur the spontaneous discussions that lead to new ideas and innovations. I also love to do walking meetings. Instead of going into a conference room, we’ll walk around our neighborhood, a mix of businesses and beautiful old houses and apartment buildings. I find this brings out more natural and authentic discussions, and keeps people in the moment — you can’t mentally check out like you can if you’re sitting at a table.
–David Kalt, founder and CEO of Reverb, a marketplace for musical instruments and gear that has raised about $5 million in funding and expects to do $130 million in transactions this year, up from $40 million last year


27. Read the News About Your Industry First Thing in the Morning

The first thing I do once out of bed is read 15 to 30 minutes religiously. I jot down anything interesting for rumination vis-a-vis healthcare, [such as] Netflix’s god mode, or Jaguar’s brainwave tracker. It’s amazing how many dots you can connect by just reading.
–Ahmed Albaiti, founder and CEO of Medullan, a digital health innovation company that works with payers, providers, and pharma on patient engagement


28. Adjust Your Perspective

Every Tuesday at noon, San Francisco administrators test the emergency alarm system, which I now use as a marker for a notable time each week. Every Tuesday at noon, I deliberately try to “let go of all things negative, retain all things positive, and march forward to a better week, and a better you!” Though this started as a personal habit, it’s become a company-wide event across multiple time zones.
–Neha Sampat, CEO of digital tech solutions provider Built.io, which powers innovation at the intersection of enterprise mobility and the internet of things (IoT) for startups and industry-leading companies. Sampat also co-founded KurbKarma, was named a “San Francisco Business Times 40 under 40″ honoree, as well as one of “50 Women in Tech Dominating Silicon Valley” in 2015


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29. Get to Inbox Zero

Anything that’s not actionable immediately, I get out of my inbox. This frees me up to think and focus on the tasks that I know will take up most of my time, like building a team of amazing people who are smart, thoughtful and motivated to achieve something. That is the No. 1 most important thing in building a company, as I truly believe a company is only as good as what is made up of.
–Rick Morrison, CEO of Comprehend Systems, which works with big names in the life-sciences industry, such as Boston Scientific, Astellas, and AstraZeneca, modernizing and improving the quality in their clinical process through cloud-based tech


30. Make a daily ‘top three’ to-do list

“As CEO, my to-do list is never ending, so it’s important for me to prioritize. Typically, I’ll make a daily list of the three most important things I need to get done that day. It really helps to make my day more manageable. As a morning person, I tend to complete those activities before noon, which then gives me time to address other urgent items that come up during the day.”
–Ratmir Timashev, CEO of Veeam, a data center backup company founded in 2006 that now employs more than 1,500 employees around the world and brings in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, with its sights on reaching $1 billion in revenue in the next five years


31. Get Up to Speed With Direct Reports First Thing

Informally, I call each of my direct reports between 7 and 8 a.m. daily to catch up and get updates on various parts of the business.
–Michael MacDonald, CEO of nutrition and weight-loss company Medifast

32. Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan

I think Evander Holyfield said that. But anyhow, I use [the project management app] Trello to manage my day-to-day. It’s color-coded between Hiring, Investor, Legal, Sales/Marketing/Press, Product, Admin and JFDI. Every Sunday night, I get my week prepped by looking at my calendar and my Trello board. Then, every morning, I take a quick look at the Trello board and mentally prep myself for the day.
–Jason van den Brand, co-founder and CEO of online mortgage refinancing startup Lenda, which graduated from Silicon Valley-based 500 Startups last year. Since then, the company has raised its first round of funding, grown 40 percent month over month, and passed the $40 million mark in loans financed through the platform



33. Keep a Short To-Do List

I keep my to-do list short. Every morning I write down the three most important things I need to do that day to move the needle forward. This helps me to make sure I’m playing more offense than defense. It’s so easy to get bogged down in email and other people’s to-do lists that when you look up at the end of the day you realize you didn’t make any progress on the things that are most important. Keeping my to-do list forces me to prioritize and do just the things that are most important.
–Ethan Austin, founder of the online fundraising website Give Forward, which has raised more than $150 million and hosts 20,000 active fundraisers at any given time


34. Take time to reflect

As a CEO, you can’t be afraid of the decisions you make. But it’s just as dangerous to have full confidence in your decisions. Every day I reflect back on the effects of my decisions that day and how I can improve upon them in the future.
–John Yung, CEO of cloud application management platformAppcara which is used by customers including Sysorex, AIS, HP Cloud Services, and Intermedia


35. Be Consistent and Proactive

I was an avid bodybuilder back in my college days, and to succeed you had to be religiously consistent day after day with diet, nutrition, and training. I applied the same in business. It takes time to create great products and a stable business, so I’ve learned that to succeed you have to remain consistent, especially when you truly believe in something. It’s a two-edged sword that if not managed can also have negative ramifications, so I also try to be proactive to know when to change angles when the need arises.

– Payman Taei, CEO and founder of Visme, a DIY online tool that has empowered over 200,000 businesses and nonprofits to create better presentations and infographics. Taei is also the founder of HindSite Interactive, an award-winning web agency that helps companies improve their online presence with effective websites

This post is in partnership with Inc., which offers useful advice, resources and insights to entrepreneurs and business owners. The article above was originally published at Inc.com

The U.S. Has a Moral Obligation to Help Syrian Refugees - TIME

September 11, 2015 at 12:05am

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http://time.com/4024901/the-u-s-has-a-moral-obligation-to-help-syrian-refugees/

The U.S. Has a Moral Obligation to Help Syrian Refugees
Rabbi David Wolpe Sept. 9, 2015   
syrian refugees greece
Alkis Konstantinidis—Reuters

David Wolpe is the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.
Indifference is a betrayal of America's founding mission

Moral clarity is important because moral decisions are often difficult. The easy choices that pose no risk—one should contribute to charity, help old people across the street, and be kind to children—these are not moral dilemmas. Today, with an estimated 4 million Syrian refugees streaming across the globe, we see a genuine moral crisis in the capitals of the West.

What makes this a moral dilemma is not only a claim on resources. It is also the lurking suspicion that we might be admitting people who, arriving from a region where terrorism and anti-Western feeling is rife, will end up causing harm.

We need to remind ourselves that this is not primarily a problem for the Western world. The countries that have the most refugees per capita are Lebanon, followed by Jordan. Countries including Chad and Turkey have a higher per capita refugee population than Germany or the U.S. The Western country with the highest per capita refugee population is Sweden.

The U.S. has admitted some 1,500 Syrian refugees. With our resources, we can devote more time and energy to the vetting process involved when admitting. Will we ever get it wrong? Of course. But the U.S. standard has been to admit those with a well founded fear of persecution, a criteria more than amply met by those fleeing the conflict in Syria.

There is a temptation for everyone who has made it safely to the shore of a secure nation to roll up the drawbridge behind them. Those who come after may spoil it for those who are already here.

But America was founded on the ideal of refuge. Indifference is a betrayal of its founding mission. The words on the Statue of Liberty cannot be an empty promise if we are to remain the great nation we have been for close to 250 years.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
We cannot take everyone. We have to exercise caution when refugees arrive from a region that breeds anti-Western terrorists. But we remain that shining city on a hill. We must not close our arms to the world, or to the family on a raft, tempest-tossed, praying for safety. No country can afford to be all things to all people. Equally, this country cannot afford not to be America.

iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus: Top 10 New Features - New DelhI TV News

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/features/iphone-6s-and-iphone-6s-plus-top-10-new-features-738148

iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus: Top 10 New Features by Manish Singh , 10 September 2015


On Wednesday, Apple unveiled the latest refresh to the iPhone lineup: the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus. Being an 's' upgrade, both the new iPhone models largely look largely identical to their respective immediate predecessors (iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus), but both the new iPhone models come sporting new hardware capabilities, and a bunch of software features that are exclusively available for the new models.

"The only thing that's changed is everything," said Tim Cook, Apple CEO on Wednesday as he announced the two new iPhone models. Regardless of which iPhone generation you currently use (or whatever Android handset you rock), the new features offered on both the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus might be enough to entice you to upgrade. Here are top 10 features that the new iPhone models offer.

1. 3D Touch

Apple announced at the event that both the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus come with Retina displays that support 3D Touch. The pressure-sensitive touch technology allows the handset to distinguish between a quick tap and a long press, triggering actions accordingly. The idea is that when you long press on an app's icon, you're now bestowed with several contextual options that could act as shortcuts and let you perform tasks quickly without actually opening the app first. You can, for instance, know direction to your home, listen to the album you like, update your Facebook status, as well as take a quick selfie camera without opening the corresponding apps.

iPhone_6s_3d_touch_apple.jpg

2. iSight camera improvements - 12-Megapixel and 4K

Both the new iPhone models come with improved cameras, upgrading the resolution from 8-megapixel to 12-megapixel. The range of the iSight camera has increased, and the colour accuracy has also improved, said Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing. The company promises that it hasn't made any trade-off for increasing the megapixel count. To keep the noise low, the company introduced something called "deep trench isolation" which makes the photo diodes separate and deliver precise colour.

There's a new flash as well, which the company said adjusts to the colour and lighting of its surroundings to offer accurate flash. The new 12-megapixel rear camera now lets you record videos in 4K video resolution, a significant improvement from FHD quality (1080p) in several older iPhone models.

3. FaceTime camera improvements - 5-megapixel and 720p HD

The selfie camera is finally getting an improvement on the iPhone models. The company has upped the megapixel count from 1.2-megapixel to 5-megapixel on both the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus models. The iSight camera is getting a new flash as well. Instead of introducing a separate sensor, the company said that the front display will flash for a split second.

4. Live Photos

The new iPhone models are now capable of capturing Live Photos. The company said that it is bringing life to the static photos that we all take. By "live" it means that a static image will capture a second and a half before and after the image is shot to show continuity. One could set this as a wallpaper as well.

live_photos_iphone_6s_1.jpg

5. Faster Touch ID

The company has also made refinements to Touch ID, its fingerprint scanner that allows one to unlock the device, feed password to accounts, and facilitate quick Apple Pay payments with simply putting the finger on the sensor.

The company said Wednesday that the Touch ID is now twice as fast, and more accurate as well.

6. More LTE bands

Apple has also upped the network capabilities of the iPhone, adding support for several LTE bands. The iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus now support up to 23 LTE bands, which is the most in any smartphone. The Advanced LTE in the new iPhone models, among other bands, supports T-Mobile's 700MHz, confirmed the carrier's CEO. It will support speeds of up to 300Mbps.

7. Faster Wi-Fi

The company, while didn't discuss the technical improvements to the wireless adapter chip, announced that it is improving the Wi-Fi capabilities of the device. The device now supports two spatial streams for up to 866Mbps on 5GHz 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

8. A9 processor

The processor inside the iPhone is getting an upgrade too, of course. The new iPhone models come with the Apple A9 SoC, which is claimed to deliver 70 percent faster CPU performance than the A8 processor on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and 90 percent faster GPU performance. The M9 coprocessor among other things, supports "Hey Siri" always-on voice search.



9. Rose Gold colour variant, and 7000 series aluminium body

The company received a lot of flak last year when several users reported that their iPhone 6 Plus and the iPhone 6 were bending. Apple has quietly addressed that with a sturdier aluminium body - featuring 7000 series aluminium-zinc wrought alloy, the same used in the Apple Watch Sport edition.

10. iOS 9

The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus ship with iOS 9, Apple's latest iteration of its mobile operating system. It brings several new features, from proactive assistance and new and improved Siri features, to a brand new Notes app, revamped Maps app, and the News app.


Apple iPhone 6s Plus
SPECIFICATIONS

Apple iPhone 6s Plus Apple iPhone 6s Plus
KEY SPECS
NEWS
Display
5.50-inch
Processor
A9
Front Camera
5-megapixel
Resolution
1080x1920 pixels
RAM

OS
iOS 9
Storage
16GB
Rear Camera
12-megapixel
Battery capacity

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Apple iPhone 6s Plus detailed specifications
GENERAL
Release date September 2015
Form factor Touchscreen
Dimensions (mm) 158.20 x 77.90 x 7.30
Weight (g) 192.00
Removable battery No
Colours Silver, Gold, Space Gray, Rose Gold
SAR value NA
DISPLAY
Screen size (inches) 5.50
Touchscreen Yes
Resolution 1080x1920 pixels
Pixels per inch (PPI) 401
HARDWARE
Processor make A9
Internal storage 16GB
CAMERA
Rear camera 12-megapixel
Flash Yes
Front camera 5-megapixel
SOFTWARE
Operating System iOS 9
CONNECTIVITY
Wi-Fi Yes
Wi-Fi standards supported 802.11 a/ b/ g/ n/ ac
GPS Yes
Bluetooth Yes, v 4.20
NFC Yes
Infrared No
Wi-Fi Direct No
MHL Out No
HDMI No
Headphones 3.5mm
FM No
SIM Type Nano-SIM
GSM/ CDMA GSM
3G Yes
4G/ LTE Yes
Supports 4G in India (Band 40) Yes
SENSORS
Compass/ Magnetometer Yes
Proximity sensor Yes
Accelerometer Yes
Ambient light sensor Yes
Gyroscope Yes
Barometer Yes
Temperature sensor No

Donald Trump’s 16 Biggest Business Failures and Successes - TIME

http://time.com/3988970/donald-trump-business/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

Donald Trump’s 16 Biggest Business Failures and Successes
Jacob Koffler @JacobKoffler Aug. 7, 2015  

Ventures that went belly-up and plenty that made it big

Donald Trump promised to “take the brand of the United States and make it great again” when he threw his hat into a crowded ring of 2016 GOP presidential candidates. Trump has since consistently cited his credentials as businessman, as well as his (disputed) $10 billion fortune, when asked how, exactly, he would “Make America Great Again.” But it’s not just Trump’s immigration comments that are landing him in hot water; even his business deals have come under scrutiny, most recently in the August 7 GOP debate. The candidate deflected questions about how he plans to run America’s economy when his own companies have filed for bankruptcy multiple times. Here’s a closer look at some of his biggest success and failures in business.

Not-so-Succesful

Trump Airlines

In 1988, Trump bought Eastern Air Shuttle, an airline service that ran hourly flights between Boston, NYC and DC for 27 years prior, for $365 million. He turned the airline, once a no frills operation, into a luxury experience, adding maple-wood veneer to the floor and gold-colored bathroom fixtures. The company never turned a profit and the high debt forced him to default on his loans. Ownership of the company was turned over to creditors. It ceased to exist in 1992.

Trump Vodka

Trump unveiled his own vodka line in 2006 paired with the characteristic slogan “Success Distilled.” Advertising for the product claimed that the vodka would “demand the same respect and inspire the same awe as the international legacy and brand of Donald Trump himself.” Trump had high hopes for his liquor brand, predicting that the T&T (Trump and Tonic) would become the most ordered drink in the country and stating on Larry King Live that he got into the vodka business to outdo “his friends” at Grey Goose. The company stopped production in 2011, reportedly due to a lack of interest.

Trump Casinos

Trump Entertainment Resorts, which is composed of three Trump-owned casinos, all in Atlantic City, filed for bankruptcy for the fourth time in 2014. Trump has distanced himself from the company, saying that besides the company having his name, he has “nothing to do with it,” despite the fact that he owned 28% of its stock.

Trump: The Game

Trump launched a Monopoly-like board game in 1989, which was discontinued a year later due to lack of interest. He tried his hand at game making once again in 2005, when he launched an updated version tied to The Apprentice. It was also discontinued.

Trump Magazine

Trump launched an eponymous magazine in 2007 that, in a press release announcing the publication’s arrival, was described as “[reflecting] the passions of its affluent readership by tapping into a rich cultural tapestry.” A year and a half after the launch, the magazine ceased publication.

Trump Steaks

Donald Trump was featured on the June 2007 cover of the Sharper Image catalogue hunched over a platter of meat to kick off his line of premium steaks that he dubbed the “world’s greatest.” The company has since been discontinued—maybe it had something to do with the Trump Steakhouse in Las Vegas being closed down in 2012 for 51 health code violations, including serving five-month old duck.

GoTrump.com

Trump launched this luxury travel search engine in 2006, only to shut it down a year later, despite being powered by booking giant Travelocity.

Trump University

In 2005, Trump opened the non-accredited, for-profit Trump University. In 2010, four students sued the university for “offering classes that amounted to extended ‘infomercials.’” Following the suit, the “university” changed its name to “The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative,” before ending operations one year later. In 2013, the New York Attorney General sued Trump and the “university” for $40 million for allegedly defrauding students.

Trump Mortgage

In 2006, Trump forayed further into the real estate industry, launching a mortgage company. The Donald had high hopes for the company, asking CNBC, “Who knows more about financing than me?” Trump Mortgage shut down within a year and a half, in part because Trump selected E.J. Ridings, a man who claimed to be a top executive at a prestigious investment bank but had actually only worked on Wall Street as a registered broker for six days, to run the company.

Successful

Grand Hyatt Hotel

Trump bought the former Commodore Hotel, which had fallen into relative disrepair, from Penn Central Railroad in 1974 and after six years of construction, the Grand Hyatt Hotel debuted. Smack dab in the heart of New York City, with the image of Grand Central reflected off its glass façade, the 34-story hotel is still booming business today.

Trump Tower

Trump broke ground on his now-famous 48-story Trump Tower in 1980. The luxury high-rise opened in 1983 and, with upscale restaurants and stores located in the mostly residential building, is still highly sought after real estate.


Wollman Rink

Trump renovated Wollman Rink in 1986 after contacting Mayor Ed Koch and offering to complete the renovation for $3 million. He finished the project on time and $750,000 under budget. Wollman Rink remains a Central Park fixture with more than 5 million annual visitors.

40 Wall Street

Trump purchased the building in 1995 for $1 million and renovated it for $35 million. Today, 40 Wall Street, one of the tallest office buildings in downtown New York, is worth over $500 million.

Trump Place

After years of negotiations, Trump finally broke ground on Trump Place, the gargantuan housing development along the Hudson River. The development includes 25 acres of open space and 5,700 apartments housed in 18 residential buildings.

The Apprentice

The Apprentice premiered on NBC in 2004 to great ratings. Trump served as not only the host but also the executive producer, raking in $1 million per episode. The show was successful enough that it inspired a spinoff, The Celebrity Apprentice.

Trump International Tower Chicago

Trump bought the former Chicago Sun-Times headquarters in 2005 for $73 million and converted it into the second tallest building in Chicago. It houses a hotel, condos, restaurants and shops, and was named Travel+Leisure’s best large city hotel in North America in 2010.

A Picture Changed The World In IST - New Delhi TV News

September 8, 2015 at 5:56pm

PublicFriendsOnly MeCustomClose FriendsFamilyGo Back

http://www.ndtv.com/opinion/spare-3-year-old-aylan-kurdi-the-platitudes-1215270

A Picture Changed The World In IST (Internet Standard Time)

Attention is the start of empathy. You really have to look at the world. Physical details matter, context matters. The meaning you make from those things is only as sound as your observation of them.

When photojournalist Nilufer Demir photographed a dead baby on a beach in Turkey, she could not have known that the images would rocket around the world and significantly impact global attitudes, both public and official, towards the Syrian refugee crisis. In one image, a tall Turkish official stands near the small body, making it look smaller still. In another, the officer is carrying him away in his arms. He was later quoted as saying that that body, light as a feather, was the heaviest burden he'd ever carried.


Speaking to Turkey's Dogan news agency, Mehmet Ciplak recounted how he prayed the little boy was still alive as he walked towards him and scooped him up from the water's edge (AFP PHOTO / DOGAN NEWS AGENCY)
But perhaps the most arresting image is a close-up of the baby, photographed from behind and low down. It captures the sweetness of babyhood-his rounded head, his plump little bottom, his tiny shoes. He could be any baby napping, except that he's lying in the surf.

That image of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi became the defining image of the Syrian refugee crisis in Internet Standard Time, which is to say, no time at all. It forced people to confront a statistical abstraction at a personal, emotional level. What does it mean to be a refugee, fleeing war and oppression for a precarious future? It means risking everything. It means heart-breaking, desperately unjust vulnerability. It means that dead babies wash up with the tide. Suddenly, the whole world empathized with a conflict that had long ago fallen off the front pages.

But, also in no time at all, those images were subjected to a kind of maudlin fakery that is somehow worse than frankly not giving a toss. They were manipulated in any number of ways. One illustrator represented an image in cartoon or graphic form; someone added angel wings to the boy's back and a rose to his hand; someone had a bunch of cartoon squids and whales sticking out of the waves, weeping over his body. Someone placed his body in the same attitude but sleeping safe in a bed.

These memes come, no doubt, from a good place. But it's a place of empty platitudes. They try to make palatable what is not palatable. They sanitize the scene, appealing to sentimentality rather than speechless pain, skipping the horror and going straight to "a better place". They vandalize the original image by not paying attention. Because that child was not holding black balloons, he was not flying up to heaven; he was face down in the surf, nostrils filled with wet sand, his body already decomposing.

Is that offensive? Yes. It should offend us that a child is dead. But we can only be truly offended if we are very clear on what it means to be dead, and we can only be very clear if we look at the reality with attention.

The world endlessly debates the ethics of shocking visuals. Those debates at least partly elide the fact that we would rather not be forced out of our comfort zones, would rather not be invited to examine our responsibility. I cannot see how shielding a viewer from disturbing truths is more important than drawing attention to those truths so that the world might be moved to act on them.

Aylan Kurdi's image in death was widely published and broadcast as media companies correctly determined that doing so served the larger good, and it did. The images galvanized global attention around the Syrian refugee crisis that has thus far largely been missing, and spurred many private citizens as well as governments to action. They might increase the world's investment in resolving the horror that is Syria. Germans have cheered and applauded Syrians in welcome; the UK has been shamed, including by its own citizens, into reconsidering how many refugees it can take; Hungary has gotten bad press for its hardline anti-refugee attitude.

And the images come out of the fact that Syrians can no longer wait to be noticed. They have stormed the barricades of the world's complacency, metaphorically and literally - as refugees and sufferers of conflict everywhere are trying to. The tragedy on the beach in Turkey is only one of innumerable tragedies that have taken place in that attempt.

And that's the other half of the arc of attention that these images command. The death of a child always seems particularly heartbreaking. But Aylan Kurdi wasn't just a baby: he was a Syrian person, one of millions of Syrian people, who bear the cost of a war not of their making, either by staying or by fleeing. All of those people are going through hell. The empathy we feel for Aylan Kurdi should extend to all of them: they are all innocents.

Images of tragedy and violence should offend only our sense of natural justice. We live in a country where words like "ass" and "bastard" are muted in television sitcoms to protect our sensibilities, while we walk blithely by hordes of destitute people suffering and dying on our own streets. There's something terribly wrong with what we choose to look at and what we find offensive. Our greatest failing is our inability to pay attention to reality.

(Mitali Saran is a freelance writer and columnist based in New Delhi.)