1 Forbes sold to Chinese investors (BBC) After 97
years of family ownership, Forbes Media has announced it has sold a majority
stake in the company to a Hong Kong-based group of international investors. Forbes
Media - which includes Forbes magazine - was sold to Integrated Whale Media
Investments for an undisclosed sum. The Forbes family said it would still have
a "significant" stake. Steve Forbes will remain as chairman and
editor-in-chief.
"While today marks a fundamental turning point
in this 97-year-old company founded by my grandfather, it should be seen as an
opportunity to continue and strengthen our mission," said Mr Forbes in a
blog post. Forbes - which says it reaches 75 million people worldwide every
month through its print, digital, TV, conferences and research ventures - began
looking for a buyer last November.
2 In some parts of India, immunity for soldiers who
kill and rape (Gardiner Harris in The New York Times) A colonial-era law in
effect in India’s periphery gives blanket immunity from prosecution in civilian
courts to Indian soldiers for all crimes, including rape. Human rights
advocates have for years called for the repeal of the law, known as the Armed
Forces Special Powers Act. Christof Heyns, the United Nations special
rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, wrote last year
in a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council that the powers granted
under the law “are in reality broader than that allowable under a state of
emergency as the right to life may effectively be suspended.”
Yet it endures. As the world’s largest democracy and
home of Mohandas K. Gandhi, a pioneer of nonviolent resistance, India has long
been counted among the world’s most progressive nations. The country now has
168 state and federal rights organizations, including the National Human Rights
Commission. But a darker reality has always lurked beneath this progressive
image, particularly in India’s hard to reach places. In Kashmir, there are
thousands of unmarked graves in secret cemeteries created by the army and the
police to hide their crimes.
“We have all these great human rights institutions,
but still nobody in India gets justice when the state murders one of their
family members,” said Henri Tiphagne, chairman of the Asian Forum for Human
Rights and Development based in Bangkok. “That’s true all over the country, not
just in Kashmir.”
The law is in place in large parts of India’s
northeast, a protrusion of land sometimes no more than 14 miles wide that loops
around the top and eastern side of Bangladesh and nestles in green mountains
along the border with Myanmar. Perhaps because of the limited attention given
this remote part of the world, soldiers and police officers do not even bother
to hide the evidence when they murder and rape innocents, said Babloo
Loitongbam, founder of Human Rights Alert in Imphal.
Efforts by victims’ groups as well as the Supreme
Court investigation have had an effect, Mr. Loitongbam said. The police and
soldiers once killed hundreds each year; this year has seen only a handful of
killings. Defense Minister Arun Jaitley said on June 15 that the immunity law
would remain in place until peace was secure.
3 Inside a ‘she cave’ (Heather Alexander in Houston
Chronicle/San Francisco Chronicle) If you were ever wondering how to throw the
perfect party in a closet, this Texas woman knows the secret: all it takes is a
wonderful caterer, lots of champagne, a DJ ... oh, and a gigantic, three story,
3,000 square foot "she cave."
Theresa Roemer's closet, recently added to her
Houston area home at a cost of about $500,000, is nothing short of amazing: a
spiral staircase leads up through boutique style shelving showing off handbag
upon handbag, jewels, perfume and shoes (OMG, shoes like nothing you have
seen!). The former Miss Texas United America's closet was featured in a new
blog post by department store Neiman Marcus ... which theoretically could
consider opening the giant closet as a new local retail department.
"It started years ago when I had a closet party
and all the girls came over and they said, 'I just wish it was bigger,'"
That's when the glamorous fundraiser realized size was key after all,
"Since then it's just been getting bigger and bigger and bigger, it's like
a 'she cave'." Roemer said.
In the normal universe the closet is much more akin
to Aladdin's Cave of Wonder than a foul-smelling basement man cave filled with
video games and questionable publications. "The third floor houses all my
furs and big hats, you come down the spiral staircase to the second floor which
is where I get my hair and make up done, it also houses all the shoes from
Louis Vuitton and Gucci,to my tennis and work out gear," Roemer revealed.
Tickets are auctioned off and wealthy women come
from all over the area to go, well, into the closet. Some simply deemed it the
"Holy Grail" of closets. For Theresa Roemer, though, the closet has
become life-defining. "We held a Saks Fifth Avenue fashion show over the
pool with a seated dinner for 200 in a tent on the basketball court and a vocal
performance from Yvonne Washington, and all people wanted to see was the
closet," Roemer laughed.
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