1 US in Iraq for the long haul (Martin Chulov, Mark
Townsend & Jon Swaine in The Guardian) Barack Obama has committed the US to
long-term involvement in Iraq, warning that the rapidly evolving crisis in the
north would not be solved quickly. Conceding that the advance of the Islamic
State (formerly Isis) forces had been swifter than anticipated the president
accepted there was no quick fix.
His warning came as the archbishop of Irbil's
Chaldean Catholics told the Observer fewer than 40 Christians remained in
north-western Iraq after a jihadist rampage that has forced thousands to flee
from Mosul and the Nineveh plains into Irbil in the Kurdish north.
Archbishop Bashar Warda said: "We did not
expect that one day Mosul would be without Christians and that the Nineveh
plains would be emptied of minorities," referring to the stretch of land
surrounding Mosul that had been hailed throughout the ages as a cradle of
civilisation. "Trust is broken between the communities. Especially with
the Arabs. For 2,000 years, all these minorities had lived together."
US aircraft targeted armoured vehicles and militant
positions in a second day of strikes against Islamic State forces. After taking
in up to 1.2 million refugees since mid-June, the Kurds of northern Iraq are
urging Obama not to let up in air strikes against Isis, which on Friday was
only 50km from Irbil and advancing east towards the Kurdish capital.
2 Wearable tech’s future looks bright (Carolyne
Zinko in San Francisco Chronicle) Listening to fashion technology entrepreneur
Sabine Seymour talk about clothing of the future is enough to make your head
spin, because she’s going way beyond shirts and pants with LED lights that
twinkle, or dresses that shoot smoke when bystanders get too close.
In her (startling) vision, she thinks new technology
will allow our garments to become a “second skin” that could act like human
skin, changing color or even pattern when sunlight hits it (like the epidermis
does when we tan). Clothing is already being made that creates music when you
wear it, like the orchestra scarf by Bless that makes up to five different
sounds by tugging and pulling on different parts of the scarf .
Fashion designers and tailors of today may be
obsolete in the world of tomorrow’s tech fashion, she indicated, because the
fashions of tomorrow are built with computer software modeling, not pins and
needles and bolts of fabric. Designs for clothing with embedded circuitry in
special, 3D-printable fabrics are being made with programs like Autodesk’s
Maya, which is 3D computer graphics software.
Seymour’s work takes aim not only at how to make new
clothing, but how to make futuristic clothing that people will be comfortable
wearing from a psychological standpoint, from how they feel about wearing tech
on their bodies and aesthetics to security implications. There are also
practical matters to take into consideration, too — like dry cleaning and
repairs by digital cobblers. Taking a gadget to get it fixed is one thing, she
said, “But if I have digitally enhanced pants on, I can’t just take them off in
the street and get them fixed.”
3 Where are India’s MPs? (Neeta Lal in Khaleej
Times) Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, a Rajya Sabha (upper house)
member of Parliament, evoked passions of a different kind recently. Rather than
public adulation that he’s used to, the master blaster, who retired last year
after an illustrious quarter-century international cricketing career,
encountered a nasty googly from critics in the form of complaints about his
poor attendance in the hallowed office.
According to Parliamentary records, Tendulkar had
only three per cent attendance in Rajya Sabha last year. This year, the
40-year-old has smashed a new record — he’s not shown up for even a single
Rajya Sabha session. Another high-profile MP — film actor Rekha — fares no
better. Poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar — another MP and otherwise a vocal judge on
megabuck reality shows — has been charged with remaining a ‘mute spectator’ at
House proceedings.
Article 80 of the Indian Constitution allows the
President to nominate 12 members to the upper house. These nominated members from
diverse field have a fixed six-year tenure. The idea is that the chosen lot
leverage their expertise to raise issues that benefit their professions and
society at large. However, the Citizens’ Report on Governance and Development
has repeatedly underscored these MPs’ lack of interest in Parliamentary
proceedings.
According to sociologist Shiv Visvanathan, the big
vacuum of ideology and identity in Indian politics has triggered the celebrity
culture. But times have changed and so have people’s expectations. The
Parliament stands for championing democracy, not making a mockery of it.
Absenteeism of MPs eats into the core of the House’s work. And this laziness is
something the world’s largest democracy — hosting one seventh of humanity — can
ill afford.
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