1 Thousands take up arms for Iraq (San Francisco
Chronicle) Thousands of Shiites from Baghdad and across southern Iraq have
answered an urgent call to arms, joining security forces to fight the Islamic
militants who have captured large swaths of territory north of the capital and
now imperil a city with a much-revered religious shrine.
The mobilization, urged by the nation's top Shiite
cleric, took on a sectarian dimension that threatened to intensify Sunni-Shiite
strife in a nation already ripped by religious fervor after the militants'
battlefield successes. In Baghdad, fallout from the stunning advance in the
north was beginning to affect daily life for the city's 7 million inhabitants.
Some food prices rose dramatically. Army troops went
house-to-house searching for militants and weapons in neighborhoods close to
vital government installations. Dozens of men climbed into the back of army
trucks at volunteer centers, chanting Shiite religious slogans, hoisting
assault rifles and pledging to join the nation's beleaguered security forces to
battle the Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or
ISIL.
The volunteers were first taken to an assembly
center in eastern Baghdad, where they were handed military uniforms, and later
went to Taji, home of Iraq's largest military base north of Baghdad, to undergo
basic training. State-run television aired footage of the volunteers being
drilled, still in their civilian clothes.
The mobilization unfolded against a backdrop of
religious and nationalist fervor. State-run television aired a constant flow of
nationalist songs, clips of soldiers marching or singing, as well as interviews
with troops vowing to crush the militants. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a
Shiite widely resented by Sunnis for his perceived sectarian policies, denied
that a call by the Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was directed
against Sunnis, saying it was in fact meant to protect the country and its holy
shrines. "Talk of Sunnis and Shiites must be dropped," he said,
calling for the unity of all Iraqis.
2 Like it or not, Uber & Airbnb show sharing
economy is on its way (Phillip Inman in The Guardian) There is something
predictable about the reaction of most British people to joining the sharing economy.
They're not interested. But across southern Europe, a sense of desperation has
turned millions of people to sharing, in a reversal of the proportion who say
yes in the UK. Yet the tide is turning, especially among young Britons, who a survey
found were much more likely to embrace the idea.
And why would they not be in favour of sharing when
low and stagnant wages combined with a rising cost of living and weekly
advances in mobile technology make it easier and potentially more profitable.
The strike last week by London black-cab drivers is likely to be the first of
many protests by groups of workers fearful of being made redundant by sharing
software. And is indicative of the pressure governments are under to rewrite
rules made for the old economy.
Uber is a mobile application that links
self-employed drivers to customers without the need to hail a cab or phone a
minicab. Its claim that it isn't a taxi firm, but a "ride sharing"
company, doing little more than connecting drivers with passengers, appears to
be in breach of London's rules protecting the metered black cab. A court ruling
is pending. San Francisco-based Airbnb has fallen foul of tough laws in London
that require landlords to apply for planning permission from the council to
rent out their homes for less than three months. In response ministers have
promised to sweep away the rule and allow homeowners a more flexible route to
renting a room or the whole place as and when they don't need it for
themselves.
In January, Lord Young welcomed many of these businesses
to No 10 and praised them for bravely confronting outmoded means of production.
He ditched the friendlier phrase "creative disruption" adopted by
many sharing firms in favour of "creative destruction". Young, a
former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, is the kind of free marketer who knows
that big business can ossify an economy. Among 18th-century lords of the manor,
he would have been the first to buy a threshing machine.
Job destruction obviously displaces labour, but the
sharing economy is absorbing some of them. Manpower, the recruitment agency,
said last week that the rise of internet shopping and sharing via apps on
mobile phones is triggering a shift in the transport industry. No longer are
clothes and books making their way from large distribution centres to
individual homes. Increasingly they are arriving at a local delivery hub to be
taken to their destination by a self-employed driver who uses an app to log in
and out of work.
Analysis by the Royal Society of Arts shows that for
every worker who loses out there are three who say they benefit. It is an
entrepreneurialism that the RSA argued is indicative of an unstoppable shift. Respondents
cited factors such as being able to live where they want and work around caring
for older relatives or children. Largely unspoken was the lack of pay, wage
rises and decent pensions on offer in mainstream jobs culture.
3 False sense of comfort in Aids control (Straits
Times) Three decades into the Aids pandemic, health officials say they have the
medicine and other tools to stop the spread of HIV, the Aids virus. It no
longer strikes a mortal fear like it once did. Since 2001, the global rate of
new HIV infections has fallen 33 per cent, from 3.4 million a year to 2.3
million a year in 2012. Consequently, the sense of crisis has waned. But the
reality is that people are still becoming infected and many are still dying
from the scourge.
What has set in is a sense of complacency. As editor
of The Lancet Richard Horton said recently: "Total donor funding has
stagnated at about the same level since 2008... The illusion that we have
finally subdued HIV is a dangerous one. Every single day there are still 6,000
new infections. About 40 per cent of these new infections are in young
people."
4 Five mango must-haves
(Rajyasree Sen in The Wall Street Journal) Some of my fondest childhood memories
are about mangoes. Every region in India is divided on which mango variety
trumps the other in taste and I am treading into dangerous territory but here’s
my list of the top five mango varieties that everyone must try. Langda: To me,
the Langda trounces the Alphonso in taste. It originates from the orchards near
the northern Indian city of Varanasi. The fruit is green on the outside, which
might give you the impression that it’s not yet ripe. But you couldn’t be more
wrong.
Himsagar: This is a
West Bengal speciality – although Odisha likes laying claim to it now and then.
It’s also green on the outside and has a very sweet aroma. The Himsagar is not
at all fibrous and oh-so-delicious. Kesar: Yellow with a tinge of green on the
outside, I have rarely tasted a mango as subtle as this. It comes from Gujarat
and is cheaper than the Alphonso.
Alphonso: What the
Alphonso does have going for itself is its looks—one of the most beautifully shaped,
uniformly yellow mangoes I’ve seen. They’re harvested in Ratangiri, Maharashtra.
It’s delicious and extremely expensive, and everyone should try it and soon
because its season usually ends in June.
Banganapalli: This
mango from Tamil Nadu is super sweet, supremely delicious way and nearly not as
inexpensive as the Alphonso. If you’re planning on gorging on mangoes and don’t
want to break the bank – I’d recommend a Banganapalli.
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