60th Anniversary of Castle BRAVO Nuclear Test, the Worst Nuclear Test in U.S. History:
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Friday, February 28, 2014
Jack's Africa: Exciting times ahead for SA oil, gas industry | Op...
Jack's Africa: Exciting times ahead for SA oil, gas industry | Op...: Exciting times ahead for SA oil, gas industry | Opinion & Analysis | BDlive : 'via Blog this'
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Understanding The Risks Of Travel To Mexico
Understanding the Risks of Travel To Mexico
By Tristan Reed
Many people who visit Mexican resort areas during North America's spring break season ignore travel warnings, meaning they may not be aware of the threat posed by transnational criminal organizations, more commonly known as cartels. Since 2012, cartel violence has spread from the northern border regions of Mexico south into Mexican states hosting popular destinations for spring break travelers. Nothing in the behavior of Mexican cartels indicates that they would consciously keep tourists out of the line of fire.
Learn more about travel security in our seven-part series.
While most of the approximately 150,000 U.S. citizens who travel to Mexico each year do so without incident, tourists are by no means immune to cartel violence or even common crime. Mexico's criminal cartels are more than just drug traffickers -- they participate in extortion, robbery, kidnapping and carjacking. And where cartels are fighting each other violently, local gangs are able to take advantage of law enforcement's resulting distraction to commit crimes of their own. We will explore the nature of the risk from cartel and ordinary violence before giving an in-depth review of select major tourist destinations.
Cartel Crime
For more than two decades, Mexico's criminal cartels have fought each another for control of drug trafficking operations in various parts of Mexico. Cartel turf wars typically focus on specific drug trafficking routes, ports of entries into the United States along Mexico's northern border towns and areas where illicit drug production and cultivation are concentrated. Mexico's cartels increasingly have turned to other criminal activities to fund the defense of their territories from potential rivals. Such operations include human smuggling, kidnapping, extortion, counterfeiting goods and hydrocarbon theft. This diversification has seen turf wars break out in resorts.
While cartels typically direct their violence toward rival groups, outside parties often wind up in the crossfire. In one instance, gunmen belonging to a faction of the Gulf cartel opened fire on a bar in Cancun, Quintana Roo state, on March 14, 2013, killing seven people and wounding five others. Though the gunmen were targeting three leaders of a taxi union in Cancun, they were clearly unconcerned by the presence of bystanders. Similarly, five students in Reynosa, Tamaulipas state, were killed Dec. 19, 2013, after a vehicle carrying cartel gunmen fleeing the Mexican army struck the group. And in probably the most extreme example, Los Zetas set fire to the Casino Royale in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state, on Aug. 25, 2011, allegedly in an effort to send a message to the casino's owner. More than 50 patrons and staff died in the blaze.
In the past decade, violence in Mexico escalated nearly every year, from 25,133 overall homicides in 2007 to 38,052 in 2012, according to the National System of Public Safety, though 2013 saw a drop to 34,648. Years of law enforcement and military efforts to contain cartel violence have allowed already-high levels of other crimes, many of which could affect tourists, to persist or even rise. For example, 1,407 kidnappings were reported in 2012 versus 1,702 in 2013, the highest level since at least 1997, according to the National System of Public Safety. Since most kidnappings in Mexico go unreported, the true number is likely much higher.
Much of the reduction in homicides in 2013 can be attributed to the continued decline of turf wars in what were once among Mexico's most violent states -- places such as Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. At the same time, however, cartel turf wars intensified in states farther south, including Guanajuato, Michoacan and Jalisco. These southern states contain several towns and areas popular with tourists. These conflicts are likely to continue in 2014, and they could even spread due to increased challenges to the Sinaloa Federation, whose top leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera was arrested Feb. 22.
Ongoing conflicts between Mexico's most powerful crime bosses and their diversifying criminal activities have resulted in growing ties between previously unaffiliated street gangs and the cartels. Cartels often hire street gangs as foot soldiers, something seen with Los Aztecas, Los Mexicles and the Artistas Asesinos in Ciudad Juarez. Los Aztecas, a Juarez cartel ally, fought against Los Mexicles and the Artistas Asesinos, which in turn were helping the Sinaloa Federation take over the Juarez plaza. As cartels continue to expand into other criminal activities, their contact with local street gangs already engaged in such crimes expands, creating alliances and, at times, new turf wars. An example of the latter is Los Pelones' turf war with Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel in Cancun. While cartels may not specifically target foreigners, more localized criminal actors often see tourists as potential targets. In any case, the dividing lines between cartel and local gang activity have become increasingly blurred.
Local Crime
Common criminals belonging to a local gang or acting alone are more likely than cartel enforcers to target foreigners in Mexico. But the presence of cartels, especially in areas where multiple cartels are engaged in competition, causes a deterioration of security conditions that lends itself to the formation of local gangs. These local gangs may not be affiliated with the cartels, but still present many of the same security concerns: Like the cartels, they may be involved in killings, extortion, carjacking, sexual assaults and kidnappings, and they may cause collateral damage.
According to a Jan. 9, 2014, travel warning update by the U.S. Department of State, Tamaulipas state witnessed a 75 percent increase in kidnappings of U.S. citizens in 2013. (The actual number of incidents was not reported). The same travel warning stated that the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City received reports of 90 U.S. citizens kidnapped throughout Mexico between April and November 2013.
Citizens of many countries have fallen victim to such crime. For example, a gang targeted Spanish tourists in a bungalow on Feb. 4, 2013, in Acapulco, Guerrero state, binding and robbing the males before sexually assaulting the females. In the same part of Acapulco, a gunman shot and killed a Belgian national in a parking lot in the Diamante tourist zone on Feb. 23, 2013. Authorities discovered the victim's body next to his vehicle with a gunshot wound to the chest and a spent .45-caliber casing nearby. And sometime after Jan. 25, 2014, a U.S. citizen who had been traveling through the southwestern states of Michoacan and Guerrero was reported missing. The missing person had been headed to Zihuatanejo, Guerrero state, a popular spot with foreign travelers for fishing and surfing close to some of the most violent, and underreported, criminal turf wars in Mexico.
Kidnappings do not always follow the same pattern. They could involve anything from classic high-value target abductions to express kidnappings in which the victim can spend a week in the trunk of a vehicle as the kidnappers go from one ATM to the next withdrawing all the money in the victim's account. They even include so-called virtual kidnappings, a technique by which perpetrators falsely claim to have kidnapped someone to extract a ransom from a friend or relative of the victim. Reports of virtual kidnappings in Mexico have become more frequent, even in popular resort destinations such as Cancun.
While there are examples of groups such as the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas participating in kidnappings throughout the country, localized kidnapping rings that operate independently from the drug trade have flourished due to the lack of security in Mexican cities. There is little uniformity with kidnapping rings in terms of resources, targets and tactics. Though the vast majority of reported kidnapping victims have been Mexican nationals, the risk to tourists remains, especially for tourists perceived as being wealthy. The gangs' victims range from wealthy businessmen to poor farmers, so assumptions should not be made regarding their typical target set.
Law Enforcement
Visitors to Mexico should not expect law enforcement officers to behave in the same way as their North American counterparts. As mentioned, law enforcement efforts in many areas of Mexico primarily are aimed at combating drug trafficking. In some cases, law enforcement officers have been found to be on the cartel payroll, forcing the Mexican military to assume law enforcement responsibilities in some areas. For example, Tamaulipas state's municipal and state police were effectively disarmed over corruption concerns, which required the military to assume the role of the state police.
As previously mentioned, the country's security services sometimes pose security risks, too. When driving, it is important to pay attention to highway roadblocks manned by military personnel and to checkpoints established to screen vehicles for drugs and cartel operatives. Police officers and soldiers have opened fire on vehicles driven by innocent people who failed to obey instructions at such checkpoints, which often are poorly marked.
Resorts
Many popular spring break locations foreigners perceive as having "acceptable" levels of crime have experienced violence related to the drug wars raging in Mexico. Firefights between federal police or soldiers and gunmen armed with assault rifles have erupted without warning throughout Mexico, affecting mountain villages, large cities like Monterrey, and resort towns like Acapulco and Cancun. While the cartels have not often intentionally targeted tourists, their violence increasingly has been on public display in popular tourist districts.
While there are important differences among the security environments in Mexico's various resort areas and other parts of Mexico, the country's overall reputation for crime and kidnapping is deserved. Locals and foreigners alike often become victims of assault, express kidnappings, high-value target kidnappings, sexual assaults, carjackings and other crimes.
Far more dangerous to tourists and others than government roadblocks are instances of cartel gunmen operating mobile or stationary roadblocks disguised as government troops, a well-documented phenomenon. We have not confirmed whether these have been encountered in popular resort areas, but there is the strong possibility they will be eventually, given the increased violence in major port cities. An encounter with a checkpoint or roadblock operated by gunmen disguised as federal police or military personnel can be deadly. Driving city streets in resort towns or roads in the surrounding countryside is also becoming increasingly dangerous because of such roadblocks.
Many Mexican coastal resort areas better known for their beautiful beaches also depend on their port facilities, and these have come to play a strategic role in the country's drug trade. Drug trafficking organizations use legitimate commercial ships as well as fishing boats and other small surface vessels to carry cocaine from South America to Mexico, and many cartels often rely on hotels and resorts to launder drug proceeds. Because of the importance of these facilities, the assumption has been that drug trafficking organizations seek to limit violence in such areas not only to protect existing infrastructure but also to avoid the attention that violence affecting wealthy foreign tourists would draw.
This is no longer a safe assumption. The profound escalation of cartel-related conflict in Mexico has created an environment in which deadly violence can occur anywhere, with cartels displaying complete disregard for bystanders whatever their nationality or status. As violence escalates near Mexico's resort towns, Stratfor anticipates that the cartels will not hesitate to use all tools at their disposal to defeat their opponents. Moreover, the threat to vacationing foreigners is not just the potential of being caught in the crossfire but also of inadvertently drawing the attention and anger of cartel gunmen.
Acapulco
Acapulco has become one of the most violent cities in Mexico, with 143 murders per 100,000 residents during 2012. Homicides per capita dropped in 2013, but nonetheless remain high. According to Mexican nongovernmental organization the Citizen Council for Public Safety, Acapulco ranked third in the world for homicides per capita in 2013, with 113 per 100,000. Most violence related to organized crime in the city resulted from the collapse of the Beltran Leyva Organization in 2010, which spawned a set of competing organizations. In addition to conflicts between the Beltran Leyva Organization's remnant groups, such as the Independent Cartel of Acapulco and Cartel Pacifico Sur, other rival organizations such as the Sinaloa Federation, Gulf cartel and Los Zetas have competed for control of the city.
The frequent conflicts among Mexican cartels, including conflicts with authorities, have taxed authorities' ability to protect against more localized crime. Additionally, criminal actors actively seek to recruit or collude with law enforcement members. During October 2013, authorities arrested 13 federal police officers in Acapulco for working with a kidnapping gang.
Cancun
Cancun's port remains an important transshipment point for maritime drug trafficking routes from the Caribbean basin. The high volume of tourism in Cancun makes the area a lucrative draw for localized crime such as drug dealing and theft. Until 2013, Los Zetas maintained the greatest presence in the area, occasionally fighting a local street gang, Los Pelones, for control of retail drug sales throughout Cancun, including popular resorts.
When Ivan "El Taliban" Velazquez Caballero, who oversaw Los Zetas operations in Cancun among other areas, split with Los Zetas and then rebranded his own criminal network as a faction of the Gulf cartel, he triggered more frequent organized crime-related violence in the city. This included executions, dismemberments and the targeting of law enforcement officers. After a number of arrests of the Velazquez faction of the Gulf cartel in Quintana Roo, Los Pelones in 2014 have thus far managed to take control over retail drug sales in Cancun, including the resort areas along Kukulcan Boulevard. The Gulf cartel, or even Los Zetas, could once again vie for control, which would further elevate the levels of violence in Cancun.
Recent examples of violence in the city include the killing of Gumersindo Martinez Gomez, the night operations coordinator for the Cancun police, by two gunmen early Aug. 14, 2013, outside his home on the western edge of the city. And on April 12, 2013, authorities discovered a dismembered body in three black plastic bags in the Cancun suburb of Puerto Juarez, Quintana Roo. Such incidents emphasize that cartel-related violence is not absent just because a town draws substantial tourism.
Puerto Vallarta
Several of Mexico's largest and most powerful cartels maintain a trafficking presence in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco state. Though violence related to organized crime is much less frequent than in other areas beset by criminal turf wars, it is still present in Puerto Vallarta and thus presents risks to bystanders.
Gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying three passengers, killing two and critically wounding the third, early Oct. 17, 2013, in the Romantic Zone in Puerto Vallarta. Gunmen in two trucks cut off the victims' vehicle at the intersection of Emiliano Zapata and Venustiano Carranza streets before opening fire. At least 35 rounds struck the victims' vehicle, killing two occupants, who were brothers. The tactics and the number of rounds fired suggest the killing was a targeted hit by an unidentified organized criminal group.
As stated, unrelated crime tends to appear wherever criminal organizations compete for turf, and Puerto Vallarta is no exception. Thus, in August 2013 burglars killed a U.S. citizen living in Puerto Vallarta. His body was discovered after his maid, who was tied up during the robbery, managed to escape and alert authorities.
Threats from kidnapping gangs or other criminal groups also are said to be lower in this resort city than in the rest of the country. Still, a February 2012 incident illustrated why caution and situational awareness should always be exercised: A group of 22 tourists ventured off their cruise ship to tour El Nogalito, an area near Puerto Vallarta, where they were held at gunpoint and robbed.
Cabo San Lucas
Located on the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, Cabo San Lucas and the Greater Los Cabos region have remained relatively insulated from the country's drug-related violence, and so are considered among the safer places in Mexico for foreign tourists. Although historically a stop on drug trafficking routes, Cabo San Lucas' strategic importance has not spawned violent competition among drug traffickers. Over the past five years, organized crime-related violence in the area has accordingly been limited.
Mazatlan
Mazatlan, located about 450 kilometers (280 miles) north of Puerto Vallarta, had been perhaps the most consistently violent of Mexico's resort cities during the past year, although 2012 and 2013 saw a substantial drop in violence. It is located in Sinaloa state, home of the country's largest cartel, the Sinaloa Federation, as well as of the rival crime group Los Mazatlecos.
Even with decreasing violence in Mazatlan, the surrounding areas have experienced notable levels of violence as a result of incursions by Los Zetas and Los Mazatlecos into southern Sinaloa state. Such violence may increase in frequency as rivals of the Sinaloa Federation attempt to capitalize on perceived Sinaloa weaknesses after the Feb. 22 arrest of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera in a condominium in Mazatlan.
Matamoros
Though Matamoros is no longer a common spring break destination, we address it because of its proximity to South Padre Island, Texas. Adventurous vacationers to South Padre Island often cross the nearby border, mainly to Matamoros and the surrounding towns clustered along the south side of the Rio Grande.
The area sees constant drug- and human-smuggling activities vital to Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel, which are ruthlessly carried out. Since the Zetas' offensive against the Gulf cartel of Matamoros in 2011, Matamoros has experienced significant violence among competing organizations and between such organizations and the military. In addition to cartel-related violence, Matamoros has experienced a surge in local crimes such as robberies and kidnappings. The U.S. Consulate in Matamoros posted a travel advisory regarding escalated kidnapping threats on Dec. 14, 2012, and on Feb. 21, 2013. For these reasons, visitors are strongly advised not to venture south into Mexico from South Padre Island.
Read more: Understanding the Risks of Travel To Mexico | Stratfor
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Why Thailand Is Looking Like The Next Ukraine
February 26, 2014 2:53 pm
Why Thailand is looking like the next Ukraine
By David Pilling
The battle lines are drawn in a conflict that is testing the unity of the nation
Something potentially nasty is brewing in Thailand. In recent weeks the world’s attention has understandably been on Ukraine. But the political stand-off in southeast Asia’s second-largest economy is just as intractable. The chances of more serious violence spilling on to the streets is real. For the first time in decades, there have even been murmurings about the possibility of the country splitting into two, with the poorer northeast ceding from a generally richer and more urban south centred on Bangkok.
Of course, it need not come to that. Thailand’s political crisis has, after all, been simmering for years. Somehow the country has managed to carry on – and even to attract bucketloads of foreign investment and large numbers of tourists – in spite of military coups, annulled elections and occasional bloodshed.
ON THIS STORY
- Thailand’s rice mountain offers grain of hope to neighbours
- Thailand vows to ‘deal with’ protesters
- Video Rice at the centre of Thai crisis
- Nissan sales hurt by Thailand troubles
- Thailand rushes to sell rice stockpile
ON THIS TOPIC
- Thai protesters surround PM’s office
- The Macro Sweep Japan growth gloom but boost for Thailand
- Thailand to end rice subsidy scheme
- Thitinan Pongsudhirak Thai free-fall
DAVID PILLING
Yet the two main sides in the dispute are now more entrenched than ever. If violence is not to boil over with truly frightening consequences, one or both will have to back down. For months, there have been protests on the streets against the government of Yingluck Shinawatra, sister ofThaksin Shinawatra, the self-exiled former prime minister. Protesters say the government is a mere front for Mr Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup and subsequently sentenced for abuse of state power for corruption. (Mr Thaksin’s lawyers say the trial was politically motivated.) Protests were triggered by a cynical attempt to pass a bill that would have given Mr Thaksin an amnesty.
Ms Yingluck sought to head off the crisis by holding snap elections in February. It did not work. The opposition, which has not mustered an electoral victory in 20 years, boycotted the poll and blockaded polling centres. Turnout was patchy. Although Ms Yingluck’s party won, it was a pyrrhic victory. She must wait for by-elections in uncontested constituencies before she can form a legal government. In the meantime, she heads a caretaker administration devoid of power. Her ministers meet furtively or communicate by email.
Protesters are literally walling off Ms Yingluck’s office. A judicial noose is tightening around her neck. She faces possible impeachment after an anti-corruption body said it would charge her for mismanagement of a rice subsidy scheme.
Ms Yingluck’s days as prime minister are surely numbered. Yet the opposition’s proposals for what comes next are barely credible. It is proposing a non-elected council of the great and the good to bring in unspecified “reforms” and to manage the transition to new elections. So long as universal suffrage is maintained, however, it seems likely that some proxy of Mr Thaksin will win again – as it has in every contested poll since 2001. There is little middle ground. Suthep Thaugsuban, former deputy prime minister and protest leader, has said his movement will win or lose but never compromise.
Lack of faith in national institutions is crippling. The army has mounted 11 successful coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932. The government it installed after 2006 was a farce. Mercifully, this time it has stayed on the sidelines. “Judicial coups” have been almost as rife. The courts have dissolved several of Mr Thaksin’s proxy governments. Thais are left with no one to trust.
The monarchy is the one institution that still commands some respect. But King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 86 and in frail health, has withdrawn from the scene, residing outside the capital. When he dies, there is every prospect of a succession crisis. Some even argue that recent street battles are a kind of proxy monarchical struggle with supporters of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess lining up on opposite sides.
The truth is more complex. It is plausible, however, that when the restraining figure of the king is gone, long-suppressed antagonisms will burst to the surface with unpredictable results.
Even if the king were at the height of his powers, it is not clear how he could resolve what is essentially a struggle for power. Broadly, this pits Thailand’s establishment against the previously disenfranchised masses. The establishment thinks the masses have been duped by Mr Thaksin. It does not believe the majority has what it takes to choose wisely. Therein lies the impasse.
The struggle has recently turned more violent. Several people have been killed, including a five-year-old girl. Cities have echoed to the sound of grenade attacks and firefights. The public is revolted by the turn of events.
That could, says Chris Baker, an expert on Thailand, persuade the two sides to pull back from the brink. If both Mr Suthep and Ms Yingluck withdrew, it is just possible, he says, that some kind of compromise could be hammered out. More political autonomy for the northeast could be part of the solution.
Things, though, could just as easily go the other way. If Ms Yingluck is forced to stand down, her supporters may conclude that, no matter how they vote, the establishment will not accept the result. If that is their verdict, trouble lies ahead.
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Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Elena And I Have A Special Dinner With A Friend Of Almost 18 Years
Andy Narain has been my dear friend since I first came to the San Francisco Bay area some 17.5 years ago. Elena and I were blessed to have a wonderful dinner with him last night at the Best Western Hotel in Grosvenor square. He looks good and is doing well in life. His son just graduated from law school and passed the rigorous California bar exam that only 46% of the test takers pass. Andy has seen me in really hard times and really good times. He is always a very special friend! It was a wonderful evening.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Jack's South America: casa particular cuba .org - Casa Particular organi...
Jack's South America: casa particular cuba .org - Casa Particular organi...: casa particular cuba .org - Casa Particular organization for renting private rooms in Havana and all Cuba : 'via Blog this'
Jack's South America: Brasil-The World Cup And Loss of Faith
Jack's South America: Brasil-The World Cup And Loss of Faith: February 24, 2014 7:20 pm Brazil: Loss of faith By Joe Leahy Public unrest and economic worries threaten to spoil the Worl...
The Founder of SETI Leaves Us Much Too Soon
Thomas Pierson, 1950 – 2014
Tom Pierson, who founded the SETI Institute and went on to become its Chief Executive Officer for most of the organization’s first thirty years, died on February 20 of cancer. He had been on medical leave since 2012.
Under Pierson’s guidance, the Institute grew from a tiny, narrowly focused research center with a handful of employees to its current status: an internationally known organization that is home to more than 130 scientists, educators, and support staff. While founded to conduct SETI searches, the Institute soon broadened its mandate to encompass all aspects of understanding the nature and prevalence of life beyond Earth.
Growing up in Norman, Oklahoma, Pierson studied aerospace engineering at the University of Oklahoma. By the early 1980s, Pierson was working as a grants administrator at San Francisco State University where he helped adjunct Professor Charles Seeger obtain research funds for the new SETI project headquartered at NASA’s Ames Research Center, an hour’s drive to the south. Intrigued, he made a proposal to project participants Barney Oliver, John Billingham and Jill Tarter, suggesting a more efficient way to organize the NASA efforts. Pierson laid out the benefits – both organizational and financial – of setting up a non-profit entity, dedicated to the research. In this way, the administrative and other costs associated with the project could be kept low, and more of the budgeted monies could go to the science.
Finding broad agreement with his idea, Pierson completed the paper work in the Fall of 1984, at which point the SETI Institute became a reality.
A decade later, the existence of this non-profit organization became crucially important in saving the nation’s largest SETI program. In 1993, a Senate amendment cancelled funding for NASA SETI, and the Institute stepped into the breach to keep the research going with private funding. Over the course of the last two decades, these efforts raised approximately $90 million in private monies from donors such as Barney Oliver, Paul Allen, Gordon Moore, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, making possible the construction of the Allen Telescope Array, now used for the Institute’s SETI searches. Today, monies won by its scientists in competitive solicitations generate approximately $17 million annually for astrobiology research.
For his extensive contributions to furthering the field of astrobiology, Pierson was recently recognized with NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest honor given by the agency to non-government employees. The citation reads: For distinguished service to NASA and the scientific community through leadership of the SETI Institute, supporting basic research and education dealing with life in the universe.
Tom Pierson was not a scientist, but he was as fervent about the Institute’s varied research agenda as any of its investigators. He would exuberantly convey the excitement of SETI and astrobiology at any gathering, professional or amateur, formal or casual. His management style was characterized by a fierce loyalty to the Institute’s employees, and an easy willingness to let them try new ideas.
The persona and personality of Tom Pierson continues to define the organization that he founded. He was the touchstone for everyone who works at the SETI Institute: his enthusiasm, upbeat attitude, sense of humor, and humility are the organization’s DNA. He was always pleased to let his employees take the credit for any of the Institute’s many accomplishments. And yet those who had the great fortune to work here during the nearly three decades of his tenure know that their work and their rewards were made possible by Tom Pierson. The SETI Institute remains a burnished legacy of the man who conjured its existence.
Tom Pierson is survived by his wife, Elyse, his daughter Elizabeth and son Thomas, and Justin, his son by a previous marriage.
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Ukraine Aftermath: Hunt for Yanukovich, Russia Denounces Interim Leaders, Documents Reveal Plans to Use Army on Civilians
Monday, February 24, 2014
Jack's Africa: Con Court has final say in 3M Future Africa, Stand...
Jack's Africa: Con Court has final say in 3M Future Africa, Stand...: Con Court has final say in 3M Future Africa, Standard Bank, MTN patent case : 'via Blog this'
A Wonderful Man Now Doing Well In Life!!!
When I worked at Telewave I had a wonderful engineer assigned to me. He did a great job of making my projects work in the technical sense. He was also a wonderful friend who helped me through some hard times. I shall not mention his name but I will leave the clue that a major Argentina beer brand has his last name. I lost track of him after I left the company. I did a computer follow-up on him yesterday.(Many times such follow-ups end with sad news like someone has passed away.) In this case I got the marvelous good news that this man now lives in New Caanan, Conn in a 6,300 square foot house. I'm so happy to see a good and decent person in such good circumstances.Steve you deserve every good thing that you get in life!!!!
Beware Of A Russian Backlash In The Ukraine
February 23, 2014 3:38 pm
For Ukraine’s revolutionaries: Beware a Russian backlash
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine as Americans embarked on the War of Independence against their British masters. “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
As Ukrainian protesters mourn their dead, celebrating the collapse of Viktor Yanukovich’s kleptocracy but uncertain of Russia’s next step, they are experiencing the intense emotions expressed so eloquently by Paine in 1776.
ON THIS STORY
- Bloody 72 hours ended rule of Yanukovich
- Slideshow Open house at Yanukovich’s fabled palace
- Ukraine timeline countdown to revolution
- Lviv lays its dead to rest
- Crimeans watch regime change warily
ON THIS TOPIC
- Fyodor Lukyanov End rivalry over Ukraine
- West scrambles to find Ukraine rescue plan
- Editorial The hour of Kiev and Europe
- Zbigniew Brzezinski Ukraine’s future
IN WORLD
Many Ukrainians yearn for their revolution to be a re-enactment of 1989 in Poland or 1991 in the Baltic states: a decisive turn in the direction of freedom, civic dignity, national independence and economic prosperity underpinned by close ties with the European Union.
But Ukraine’s internal divisions and strategic importance to Russia mean that there is a real danger that the revolution will produce no such clear-cut outcome. Yugoslavia, after the end of communism, descended into civil war. The 2011 Arab Spring, especially in Egypt and Libya, has not delivered on its promises of democracy, political stability and economic growth.
Here are five points to consider as Ukraine maps its future.
1. Now that Ukrainians have had the chance to see the offensive opulence of Mr Yanukovich’s estate outside Kiev, with its ostriches and fake Greek statues, it is impossible to see a political future for the deposed president. Even in his Russian-speaking stronghold of eastern Ukraine, where he appeared this weekend to be plotting resistance, he must now be seen as utterly corrupt. The fury of President Vladimir Putin of Russia and his “political technologists” at Mr Yanukovich can only be guessed at.
2. The discrediting of Mr Yanukovich will not remove the need, however, for a different politician or group of politicians to represent the interests, at national level, of eastern and southern Ukraine. These ethnic Russian or Russophone regions will not permit a reconstructed state dominated by the outlook of western Ukrainian nationalists.
3. If presidential elections are held in the next three months, they will probably result in a victory for either Yulia Tymoshenko, the western-leaning former prime minister, or Vitali Klitschko, the former boxing champion. Ms Tymoshenko has a poor record in power, and it was an ominous sign that the crowds in Kiev’s Independence Square whom she addressed on Saturday did not receive her with unqualified enthusiasm. Mr Klitschko is wholly inexperienced in government and is regarded with suspicion by the radical nationalists who have played an increasingly important role in the revolution.
4. Mr Putin cannot and will not give up on Ukraine because, without it, his trumpeted Eurasian Union is a hollow shell. More than that, a Russia without Ukraine in its orbit resembles an Asian power more than a European power. A repeat of the 2008 invasion of Georgia, which resulted in that state’s de facto dismemberment and Russian annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, is unlikely – if only because, as in Poland in 1981, the Russians would prefer the dirty work of suppressing a national revolution to be carried out by pro-Moscow forces in Ukraine itself.
5. Make no mistake, though: a Russian backlash is inevitable. A successful Ukrainian switch to democracy, independence and corruption-free public life will stir demands among Russians, as in the popular protests of December 2011, for freedom at home as well. That, from Mr Putin’s point of view, is the most unacceptable outcome of all.
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Sunday, February 23, 2014
Jack's South America: The tragedy of Argentina: A century of decline | T...
Jack's South America: The tragedy of Argentina: A century of decline | T...: The tragedy of Argentina: A century of decline | The Economist : 'via Blog this'
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Ukraine Parliament Impeaches Yanukovich Who Fled Kiev in 'Coup'; Opposition Leader Freed from Prison; Elections Called
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Jack's South America: More Details On Paul Alexander's Prison Escape In ...
Jack's South America: More Details On Paul Alexander's Prison Escape In ...: http://segurancapublicablog.blogspot.com/2011/02/paul-lir-alexander-o-super-homem-do.html?showComment=1393120705755#c5921957267820963747
A Buenos Aires Lady Gets Some Empanadas
Elena is a Buenos Aires lady who loves her empanadas. (For those of you not familiar with South American food these are pastries filled with meat, cheese, etc and baked) The best vendor of this delightful food in the Bay Area is El Porteno. Sadly one can only find them in the Ferry Building in San Francisco,at farmer's markets and sometimes at Whole Foods. It's always along car ride with traffic and parking hassles to find these.
I ordered three dozen and had them delivered to the house. Luah and Elena pointed out that nothing takes the pace of fresh food. I agree with them. But thanks to Costco we have a wonderful food packaging system that takes all of the air out of a package before it's frozen. Using this system food can last up to 2 years and taste relatively fresh.
Elena will be able to enjoy empanadas at lunch and we can all have them at night.
I ordered three dozen and had them delivered to the house. Luah and Elena pointed out that nothing takes the pace of fresh food. I agree with them. But thanks to Costco we have a wonderful food packaging system that takes all of the air out of a package before it's frozen. Using this system food can last up to 2 years and taste relatively fresh.
Elena will be able to enjoy empanadas at lunch and we can all have them at night.
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Ukraine's President Replaces Head of Armed Forces, Military Intervention Feared; Financial Crisis Threatens Russia; What's in Store for the Ruble?
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Ukraine's President Replaces Head of Armed Forces, Military Intervention Feared; Financial Crisis Threatens Russia; What's in Store for the Ruble?
Friday, February 21, 2014
Jack's Pearl of Wisdom For Friday 21 February, 2014
One of the best sayings that I've seen in years!
Thursday, February 20, 2014
The Life Riding A Bicycle
From 1996 to 1999 I was so poor that I could not afford a car that worked. I spent my life riding a bicycle all over the place. I was so poor that I lived most of the time in a homeless shelter.
Elena has a dear and valiant friend. She is a single mother raising two sons in poverty. She is too poor to afford a car and rides around on a bike.
Here is a letter of admiration that I wrote to her in Spanish:
Querida Patricia:
Veo que montas en bicicleta, todo el tiempo. De 1996 a 1999 yo estaba tan mal que yo monté una bicicleta todo el tiempo también. Para una gran parte de ese tiempo yo era tan pobre que no podÃa pagar el alquiler en esta zona. Yo dormÃa en las calles o vivido en centros de acogida para personas muy pobres.
Usted hace un trabajo increÃble con los limitados recursos que tiene. Usted está criando a dos hijos maravillosos. Usted tiene mucho de que estar orgulloso.
Con cordiales saludos
Elena has a dear and valiant friend. She is a single mother raising two sons in poverty. She is too poor to afford a car and rides around on a bike.
Here is a letter of admiration that I wrote to her in Spanish:
Querida Patricia:
Veo que montas en bicicleta, todo el tiempo. De 1996 a 1999 yo estaba tan mal que yo monté una bicicleta todo el tiempo también. Para una gran parte de ese tiempo yo era tan pobre que no podÃa pagar el alquiler en esta zona. Yo dormÃa en las calles o vivido en centros de acogida para personas muy pobres.
Usted hace un trabajo increÃble con los limitados recursos que tiene. Usted está criando a dos hijos maravillosos. Usted tiene mucho de que estar orgulloso.
Con cordiales saludos
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Spotlight on Ukraine: Riots in Kiev, EU Weighs Sanctions, Emergency Meetings; Fear of Default Contagion Spreads
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: US Household Debt Climbs by Most Since 2007, Mortgage Debt Leads the Way; Annually Student Debt and Autos Lead the Way
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Data Pioneers Are Watching Us Work
February 17, 2014 6:18 pm
Data pioneers watching us work
In a back street in San Francisco’s start-up dominated SoMa district, a rapidly growing business is busy studying how millions of employees behave each day. Its computers know in real time why a worker was hired, how productive they are and can even follow them as they move to a new job.
Evolv is a leader in the nascent Quantified Workplace movement, where big data analytics companies are springing up to measure how we work. “Every week we figure out more things to track,” says Max Simkoff, Evolv’s co-founder and chief executive, who claims it can help improve productivity by at least 5 per cent in two-thirds of jobs.
More than half of human resources departments around the world report an increase in the use of data analytics compared with three years ago, according to a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit. But many employees are still blissfully unaware of how information they may deem private is being analysed by their managers.
ON THIS STORY
- Google Glass - a new corporate tool?
- Michael Ignatieff Need to tame machines
- NSA removes three over Snowden leaks
- Philip Stephens The needle in Snowden’s haystack
ON THIS TOPIC
- John Kay Big data offers a better glimpse
- Interest in healthcare ‘big data’ grows
- Delivery Hero to expand data usage
- Fusionex profits show rise of big data
IN MANAGEMENT
For its part, Evolv analyses more than half a billion “employee data points” from across 13 countries, seeking to identify patterns across companies and industries. These data points range from how often employees interact with their supervisor to how long it takes a worker to get to the office.
Evolv’s clients use them to help guide their hiring decisions, as well as to evaluate an employee’s performance throughout his or her career.
The company has so far focused on customer-facing industries such as retailers and call centres. One client is Kelly, an employment agency. It says it has seen a 7 per cent improvement in employee efficiency across the board by incorporating Evolv’s insights into its hiring policy.
Novo1, a US company that runs customer call centres and has more than 2,000 employees, identified the characteristics of its most successful call operators and hired more people like them. This cut job interviews down to 12 minutes from an hour, reduced average call time by a minute and slashed attrition by 39 per cent.
Another pioneering outfit is Sociometric Solutions, which puts sensors in name badges to discover social dynamics at work. The badges monitor how employees move around the workplace, who they talk to and in what tone of voice.
One client, Bank of America, discovered that its more productive workers were those allowed to take their breaks together, in which they let off steam and shared tips about dealing with frustrated customers.
The bank took heed and switched to collective breaks, after which performance improved 23 per cent and the amount of stress in workers’ voices fell 19 per cent.
Ben Waber, Sociometric Solutions co-founder and chief executive, thinks the badges can be deployed far beyond sales and customer service. He sees big opportunities in pharmaceuticals, for instance, where productivity is hard to measure because new drugs might emerge only once in a decade: “The rest of the time, they have no idea.”
Another company, Steelcase, which puts sensors in office furniture and buildings to see how workers interact, thinks the real opportunity for workplace monitoring is far from the call-centre floor – in opaque creative departments and even boardrooms, where time is especially precious.
Sushi test for surgery
US hospitals are using a game called Wasabi Waiter to select surgeons in a leap forward for data analytics in recruitment.
Set in a cartoon sushi restaurant, the game promises to measure decision-making and communication skills, among other attributes.
Its maker, the Silicon Valley-based Knack, profiled what makes a successful surgeon above and beyond medical expertise and experience.
Professor Kenneth Egol, vice-chair of orthopaedic surgery at the NYU Medical Center Hospital, is using it to select resident surgeons.
Swamped by applicants who are top of their class at good universities, he wanted to identify those who were also hardworking team players. “Sometimes you have people who are super intelligent and it all came very easy, they didn’t have to work. It is hard to be a good resident if you don’t work.”
David Lathrop, its director of research and strategy, says the sensors are now so cheap they can be put “practically everywhere”, arguing that employees could benefit by tracking their own performance.
Improving the productivity of top executives “has a disproportionate effect on the company”, he adds.
Advocates say quantifying the workplace is especially useful in areas where there are often culture clashes: such as cross-border teams and acquisitions.
For example, clients of Polycom, a video conferencing company, can already replay their recorded meetings. Stuart Monks, its group vice-president for technology and architecture, wants to go further and let customers analyse that information.
Mr Monks says within Polycom, the HR department has been able to use the data to ascertain that a group in one continent was not understanding a team in another.
Not everyone is convinced that the growing use of technology to monitor workers’ productivity offers an unequivocal improvement, however.
Teresa Amabile, a professor and director of research at Harvard Business School, says it could be “very positive” or “very negative” depending on the existing workplace culture.
Monitoring can work if the teams, departments or whole offices using the software or devices have what she calls “a high degree of psychological safety”.
If people feel able to experiment, potentially fail and learn from those lessons, then they can be motivated by gaining a better understanding of how they spend their days.
But she warned that the technology was still in its early days and could be “too crude” an instrument to rely on. “There is definitely a danger of seeing technology as a silver bullet,” she says.
Lew Maltby, president of the US National Workrights Institute, says electronic monitoring could be a “very valuable tool” for employers, by providing evidence for sexual harassment suits or assessing productivity in data entry jobs, for example.
But he says most employees “haven’t got a clue” about the extent to which their emails are already monitored, or about the information their employer can access from their work computer and smartphone.
Employees may have little in the way of legal grounds for challenging an extension of this data gathering. He says there was a spate of legal cases in the US a few years ago about the monitoring of work computers and employees lost every one of them.
“No employee has ever won an invasion of privacy case based on an employer monitoring their computer,” he says.
Even those who are involved in the growing industry believe there needs to be more discussion about when and how the data are used. Professor Andrew Knight from Washington University in St Louis works with data from both Evolv and Sociometric Solutions to study workplace behaviour.
But he thinks constant monitoring is a “scary image for the future” that could “remove some of the authenticity of those [workplace] relationships”.
Steelcase’s Mr Lathrop may be busy thinking up innovative places in which to slip sensors, but he does consider the potential impact on employees. In the wake of the Edward Snowden affair, he says people may have been temporarily put off by what they see as an infringement of their privacy. But he thinks that will fade.
“It is easy to paint a creepy scenario about this,” he says. “But it is also possible to create quite a positive scenario – where people benefit directly.”
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