Obama okays Iraq air strikes; Writers battle Amazon; Khmer Rouge leaders sentenced for genocide; India cricketers duck

1 Obama okays Iraq air strikes (Dan Roberts, Martin Chulov & Julian Borger in The Guardian) Barack Obama has authorised targeted air strikes against Islamic militants in Iraq, as the US military began an airborne operation to bring relief to thousands of minority Iraqis driven to a grim, mountain-top refuge. Describing the threats against stranded Yezidi refugees as holding the potential for “genocide”, the president said he had authorised limited air strikes to help Iraqi forces, to assist in the fight to break the siege and protect the civilians trapped there.

The delivery of humanitarian relief, in the form of air drops by US jets, took place after a day of intense debate at the White House over how to respond to an Isis army that has caused mass civilian displacement as it moves closer to the previously stable Kurdistan region of Iraq.

The US military was already helping the Iraqi government co-ordinate air drops of vital supplies to at least 40,000 Iraqis, mostly from the Yazidi minority, trapped on top of Mount Sinjar in the northwest of Iraq after death threats from the Islamists who have overrun much of the region.

Qaraqosh, Iraq’s largest Christian city, was left all but abandoned as the jihadist group Islamic State (Isis) advanced through minority communities in the country’s north-west and towards the Kurdish stronghold of Irbil. Late on Thursday night the UN Security Council condemned the attacks and urged international support for the Iraqi government.

Obama said “targeted air strikes” could soon be used to protect American personnel in Irbil, and could also be used to protect Baghdad if it came under pressure. He claimed the steps were a necessary response to a deteriorating humanitarian situation, in which there were “chilling reports” of mass executions and the enslavement of Yezidi women.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/08/obama-authorises-iraq-air-strikes-against-isis

2 Writers battle Amazon (David Streitfeld in The New York Times) Out here in the woods, at the end of not one but two dirt roads, in a shack equipped with a picture of the Dalai Lama, a high-speed data line and a copy of Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” Amazon’s dream of dominating the publishing world has run into some trouble.

Douglas Preston, who summers in this coastal hamlet, is a best-selling writer — or was, until Amazon decided to discourage readers from buying books from his publisher, Hachette, as a way of pressuring it into giving Amazon a better deal on e-books. So he wrote an open letter to his readers asking them to contact Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, demanding that Amazon stop using writers as hostages in its negotiations.

The letter, composed in the shack, spread through the literary community. As of earlier this week 909 writers had signed on, including household names like John Grisham and Stephen King. Amazon, unsettled by the actions of a group that used to be among its biggest fans, is responding by attacking Mr. Preston, calling the 58-year-old thriller writer “entitled” and “an opportunist,” while simultaneously trying to woo him and his fellow dissenters into silence.

This latest uproar in Amazon’s three-month public battle with Hachette comes at a vulnerable moment for the Internet giant, which is rapidly transforming itself into an empire that not only sells culture but creates it, too. Amazon does not want to be seen as hostile to content creators, one of the four groups it says on its investor relations web page it is expressly set up to serve. But it also has to price their creations cheaply enough to draw hordes of consumers, while at the same time making enough of a profit to satisfy investors.

It is a complicated balancing act. Some argue it is impossible. Amazon just surprised Wall Street by saying it may lose more than $800 million this quarter, potentially wiping out its profits for the last three years, partly because creating video content is expensive. The prospect of this unexpected loss has raised questions about whether Amazon’s money-losing ways are finally catching up with it — and whether that is the real reason it is making new demands on publishers like Hachette.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/business/media/plot-thickens-as-900-writers-battle-amazon.html?ref=business&_r=0

3 Khmer Rouge leaders sentenced for genocide (Todd Pitman & Sopheng Cheang in San Francisco Chronicle) They were leaders of Cambodia's infamous Khmer Rouge, the fanatical communist movement behind a 1970s reign of terror that transformed this entire Southeast Asian nation into a ruthless slave state — a place where cities were emptied of their inhabitants, religion and schools were banned, and anyone deemed a threat was executed.

When the nightmare ended, in 1979, close to 2 million people were dead — a quarter of Cambodia's population at the time. On Thursday, a UN-backed tribunal convicted two of the once all-powerful men who ruled during that era of crimes against humanity in the first and possibly the last verdicts to be issued against the group's aging, top members.

Although survivors welcomed the decision to impose life sentences against Khieu Samphan, an 83-year-old former head of state, and Nuon Chea, the movement's 88-year-old chief ideologue, they also say justice has come far too late and is simply not adequate. There was no visible reaction from either of the accused when the decisions were announced. Nuon Chea, wearing dark sunglasses, was too weak even to stand from his wheelchair. Defense lawyers insisted the case was not over and vowed to appeal within 30 days.

Top Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot had reset the clock to "Year Zero." Society was to be "purified." Money was abolished. Communal kitchens were introduced nationwide. The failed aim: to create an agrarian "utopia." Most of those who died succumbed to starvation, medical neglect and overwork. Marked for death were the educated, religious or ethnic minorities, Buddhist monks, and anyone suspected of ties with the former government or who questioned the new rulers.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Verdicts-due-against-Cambodian-Khmer-Rouge-leaders-5671606.php?cmpid=hp-hc-nationworld

4 India cricketers duck (Will Davies in The Wall Street Journal) India’s test cricket team equaled a world record on Thursday for the most ducks in an innings. For the cricket novice, a batsman gets a duck if he is dismissed without scoring any runs. There are 11 people in a cricket team. On Thursday, six of India’s players – more than half the team – were out for ducks. Three of the victims were top-four batsmen. It was a cricketing disaster.

Fortunately for India, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and, to a lesser degree, Ajinkya Rahane and R. Ashwin, hung around long enough to score a few runs and drag India out of the Old Trafford gutter and to a total of 152 all out. That was a gutsy recovery given that India was 8 for 4 at one stage – an astonishing situation to be in after winning the toss.

Dhoni scored 71, Ashwin got 40 and Rahane scored 24, bringing the trio’s total to 135. Extras given away by England amounted to 12. The other eight Indian batsmen scored five runs. Gautam Gambhir got four of those.

At the close of play, England was 39 runs behind India’s total with seven wickets in hand. The top three batsmen had all been dismissed, but not in the same cheap fashion as their Indian counterparts. Alastair Cook was out for 17, Sam Robson got six and Gary Balance scored 37. Ian Bell, who scored 167 in the third test, was 45 not out at the close of play and poised to take England into a commanding position. Thursday was a bad day for India. But, as is often the case in rainy Manchester, it was a good day for ducks.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/08/08/hey-india-cricketers-duck/

Obama hails 'emerging Africa'; Protesters trapped in the past; The scourge of hazardous food; Where have the entry-level jobs gone?

1 Obama hails ‘emerging Africa’ (BBC) US President Barack Obama has hailed a new emerging Africa, on the last day of a summit in Washington DC with 40 African leaders. Wednesday's talks covered security concerns and corruption - two areas the US administration says are holding back growth and investment in Africa. US firms pledged $37bn in investment during the summit.

The White House announced new aid to support African peacekeeping forces and new security co-operation. And Mr Obama said the nations had agreed to convene "experts" to discuss transparency and good governance on the continent. During the three-day summit, Mr Obama discussed how the US was shifting its support for African away from humanitarian aid and towards equal economic partnerships.

The president's 2013 Power Africa has pledged aims to double electricity in Sub-Saharan African, and US run programmes aim to lift 50 million people out of poverty and double the number of children infected with HIV who are taking anti-retroviral drugs. The presidents of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone cancelled their plans to attend amid an Ebola outbreak, and sent delegates instead.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-28678769

2 Protesters trapped in the past (SThembiso Msomi in Johannesburg Times) Twenty years into representative democracy and freedom, there is still a substantial number of South Africans who believe that their voices will not be heard unless they engage in the illegal and violent forms of protest that were preferred during the last days of apartheid.

Given the fact that the vast majority of South Africans had no representation in parliament and other institutions of power during apartheid, it was understandable that people embarked on those kinds of protest. But why do apartheid protests survive in a post-apartheid country?

Kuruman residents decided to shut down their schools in a bid to be heard barely a month after the last general election. What stopped them from using their votes? What about other forms of passive resistance that would not put the future of their children at risk? Surely a march or a peaceful sit-in at the provincial government offices in Kimberley would have driven the point home loud and clear.

But, be it in Kuruman or in the Johannesburg CBD - where toyi-toying school children went on a rampage, looting stock from poor street vendors - it is clear that many have not moved beyond the apartheid-era forms of protest. They behave as if the current political dispensation is both unrepresentative and illegal. If our democracy is to prosper, this culture must die.

Protest will always be an integral part of democratic expression but it must be conducted in a way that does not interfere with the freedom of others. More than the tarred roads, Kuruman residents should be insisting that their children get the best education possible in order to lift themselves and their families permanently out of poverty.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2014/08/07/the-big-read-protesters-trapped-in-the-past

3 The scourge of hazardous food (Straits Times) Tough action taken against high-profile food safety violations in China was spurred by public fury. But piecemeal enforcement, however vigorous, will not put an end to cases of exploding watermelons, glow-in-the-dark pork and such. Bizarre abuses still crop up with alarming frequency. China has seen nine major scandals in a mere six years, the latest one being the supply of expired meat that has affected global brands such as McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and Burger King.

Public distrust is not misplaced in the light of systemic challenges facing food security in China. Unethical acts often go beyond rogue individuals, and even the management of big operations have been implicated. In the case of expired meat, six executives from Shanghai Husi Food, owned by an American group, were detained by investigators. In many instances, it is hard to ascribe blame as supply chains are hydra-headed.

Modernisation is not always a panacea. The industrialisation of food production has led to cheaper food but it also exacts a heavy cost, as the West has seen. For example, an over-dependence on antibiotics to fatten farm animals quickly and control disease in overcrowded pens poses a public health hazard, as it promotes the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/opinion/more-opinion-stories/story/fighting-scourge-hazardous-food-20140807

4 Where have the entry-level jobs gone? (Lauren Weber & Melissa Korn in The Wall Street Journal) Companies bruised by the recession have stayed lean by automating and outsourcing core functions while slashing training budgets and payrolls. But in an effort to cut costs, some companies also have cut entry-level jobs that serve as a crucial first step on the path to a professional career. And others have made the responsibilities for first-timers more sophisticated, raising the bar for new graduates, who are expected to arrive job-ready from day one.

These developments may be making it more difficult for some young adults to gain a foothold in the labor market, economists say. The unemployment rate for people 20- to 24-years-old is falling as the economy recovers, but remained at a historically high 11.3% in July. Young adults lacking college degrees are having an especially hard time finding entry-level jobs.

The number of recruiters requesting two or more years of work experience for some middle-skill occupations rose as much as 30% from 2007 to 2010, according to a paper by economists at Harvard University and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The slack labor market during that time offered a natural experiment, said one of the authors, Alicia Sasser Modestino. "Employers had carte blanche" to choose the most skilled applicants from a pool stocked with candidates, she said.

Entry-level workers are now being assigned thinking roles, as opposed to "just following a checklist," said David Vogel, who manages the undergraduate career-development office at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. "It raises the bar on the types of work that can be done by the entry-level hire, as opposed to eliminating the need."

http://online.wsj.com/articles/want-an-entry-level-job-youll-need-lots-of-experience-1407267498?mod=trending_now_4

Wealth gap seen to slow US economic growth; Britain's banking sector outlook rated negative; Sony gives up on e-readers; India versus the world

1 Wealth gap seen to slow US economic growth (San Francisco Chronicle) Economists have long argued that a rising wealth gap has complicated the US rebound from the recession. Now, an analysis by the rating agency Standard & Poor's lends its weight to the argument: The widening gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else has made the economy more prone to boom-bust cycles and slowed the 5-year-old recovery from the recession.

Economic disparities appear to be reaching extremes that "need to be watched because they're damaging to growth," said Beth Ann Bovino, chief US economist at S&P. The rising concentration of income among the top 1 percent of earners has contributed to S&P's cutting its growth estimates. In part because of the disparity, it estimates that the economy will grow at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the next decade, down from a forecast five years ago of 2.8 percent.

The S&P report advises against using the tax code to try to narrow the gap. Instead, it suggests that greater access to education would help ease wealth disparities. S&P estimates that the US economy would grow annually by an additional half a percentage point over the next five years, if the average the American worker had completed just one more year of school.

Yet not all economists agree on how much, or even whether, the wealth gap slows growth. Harvard University economist Greg Mankiw wrote in a 2013 paper that "the evidence is that most of the very wealthy get that way by making substantial economic contributions, not by gaming the system."

http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Wealth-gap-is-slowing-U-S-economic-growth-5670675.php?cmpid=hp-hc-nationworld

2 Britain’s banking sector outlook rated negative (Jill Treanor in The Guardian) Britain's big banks are exposed to multimillion pound fines and lawsuits that could dent their profits, the rating agency Moody's has warned, as it downgraded its outlook for the sector because of new rules intended to prevent another taxpayer bailout.

The agency reduced its outlook from stable to negative, because of the uncertainty faced by lenders to banks as a result of new rules on ringfencing high street arms from "casino" investment banking businesses. The new rules will mean taxpayers are less likely to bail out banks in the future.

The ring fences, born out of the independent commission on banking chaired by Sir John Vickers in 2011, need to be in place by 2019, but the HSBC chairman, Douglas Flint, has called on the government to give banks more time to make the changes, which the bank has argued will cost hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Flint said that there was a "growing fatigue" in some of the bank's operations, where staff were having to work at weekends to implement systems changes, in part caused by the ringfencing rules.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/05/moodys-downgrades-outlook-uk-banking-sector-negative

3 Sony gives up on e-readers (BBC) Sony has given up selling its line of Reader devices for e-books after failing to find a big enough market. "We do not have plans to develop a successor Reader model at this time," the Japanese firm said. The PRS-T3 was the last version made and will exist as long as supplies remain in Europe.

Earlier this year, Sony pulled out of selling e-books and directed its users in the US and Europe to the e-bookstore of rival Kobo. The dominance of Amazon's range of Kindles and the growing smartphone, tablet and so-called phablet market have made it hard for Sony's suite of e-readers and rivals like Nook to carve out a niche for themselves. According to The Bookseller, Amazon has around 90% of the dedicated e-reader market in the UK.

Canadian firm Kobo was bought by Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten, which is looking to grow its business globally in a bid to challenge Amazon. The global market in dedicated e-readers peaked in 2011 with 23 million devices sold, but is expected to fall to 10 million by 2017 as phones and tablets eat into the overall market, according to the research consultancy Gartner. Still, the sale of printed books will be outstripped by e-books by 2018, a report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers suggested.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28663878

4 India versus the world (Sadanand Dhume in The Wall Street Journal) If a country is known by the company it keeps, then India could scarcely have chosen worse during its showdown last week with the World Trade Organization in Geneva. The new Narendra Modi government’s attempt to reopen negotiations on a global deal to simplify customs procedures agreed to by its predecessor last year found backing only from an axis of economic laggards: Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela. Most others blamed New Delhi for failing to live up to its commitment to honor an agreement crafted largely at its behest to begin with.

At issue is a so-called trade facilitation agreement concurred to by the WTO’s then 159 members in Bali last December. Under its terms, countries agreed to streamline and standardize customs procedures and improve infrastructure, which some economists say could add $1 trillion to the global economy and create 21 million jobs.

By refusing to sign the deal by the agreed-upon deadline of July 31, India may well have scuppered it for good, and raised questions over the future of the WTO itself. If Narendra Modi deliberately set out to destroy global goodwill for his government among trade negotiators and free-trade supporters, he could scarcely have been more effective.

In the run-up to Bali, India led the charge to link trade facilitation with its concerns about preserving an extensive system of food grain stockpiling. In the end, it settled for a so-called “peace clause,” which kicked the can on an agricultural deal to 2017 while allowing progress on trade facilitation, which had support from rich and poor countries alike. This meant that India and other developing countries would face no challenges for their food stockpiling and farmer subsidies while they negotiated a more permanent solution over four years.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/08/05/india-vs-the-world/?mod=WSJBlog&mod=irt

HSBC chief warns against banking reforms; Iraq and the march of the militants; Doodling and you

1 HSBC chief warns against banking reforms (Jill Treanor in The Guardian) The chairman of HSBC has warned that fear of hefty fines was forcing banks to become risk averse as they grapple with unprecedented regulatory reforms in the wake of the financial crisis. As Britain's biggest bank revealed it was putting aside $367m to cover compensation for mistakes in loan statements to UK customers, Douglas Flint said there was an "observable and growing danger of disproportionate risk aversion".

He warned of "growing fatigue" in some of the bank's operations, where staff were having to work at weekends to implement systems changes. One concern was that "there are only 52 weekends in a year". He made his remarks as the bank, which makes two-thirds of its profits in Asia, reported a 12% fall in first-half profits to $12.3bn.

It also published 10 pages of warnings about the litigation and regulatory fines it could face on an array of matters ranging from the collapse of the Madoff empire to the fixing of prices in currencies and gold and silver. Some of these fines could be "significant", the bank added.

The bank employs 256,000 people around the world, down from the 300,000 employed three years ago when Stuart Gulliver, - whose motto is "courageous integrity " - took over as chief executive. Two years ago the bank was fined £1.2bn by the US for breaching US sanctions and allowing Mexican drug lords to launder money through the financial system, making it subject to tougher scrutiny from US authorities.

Flint said the increased focus on conduct and financial crisis was the right response to problems in the past. "There is, however, an observable and growing danger of disproportionate risk aversion creeping into decision-making in our businesses as individuals, facing uncertainty as to what may be criticised with hindsight and perceiving a zero-tolerance of error, seek to protect themselves and the firm from future censure."

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/04/hsbc-chairman-warns-against-ringfence-banks

2 Iraq and the march of the militants (Khaleej Times) The militants of the so-called ‘Islamic State’, who have established a self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq, are registering new tales of horror and bloodbath. The United Nations now says more than 200,000 people are on the move as the insurgents comb down with vengeance.

The militants’ offensive since June has led to the killing of thousands of people, as the United States-trained Iraqi army melted away. The Kurdish regions are also under the ‘Islamic State’ onslaught, which has opened a Pandora’s box of its own. The Iraqi Kurds are now busy canvassing for a separate homeland, whereas the central government in Baghdad finds itself handicapped to deal with the mushrooming internal threat factor.

The Gaza offensive, inadvertently, had pushed the crisis in Iraq on the backburner, and now is the time to address the fissures in the Middle East in a holistic manner. Iraq needs international attention on two counts: One, to buoy the government in Baghdad to fight the intruding militants and help it secure its geopolitical sovereignty.

Second, the war-weary country should be insulated from external interferences by rebuilding its national army on a war-footing basis. Last but not the least is the unfinished agenda of reforming the apparatus of governance in Iraq by doing away with its sectarian clout.

http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=/data/editorial/2014/August/editorial_August10.xml&section=editorial

3 Doodling and you (Sue Shellenbarger in The Wall Street Journal) Long dismissed as a waste of time, doodling is getting new respect. Recent research in neuroscience, psychology and design shows that doodling can help people stay focused, grasp new concepts and retain information. A blank page also can serve as an extended playing field for the brain, allowing people to revise and improve on creative thoughts and ideas.

Doodles are spontaneous marks that can take many forms, from abstract patterns or designs to images of objects, landscapes, people or faces. Some people doodle by retracing words or letters, but doodling doesn’t include note-taking.

Doodling in meetings and lectures helps ease tension for Samantha Wilson, a high-school teacher from Southborough, Mass. Drawing squiggly patterns that are “very vegetal, scrolling and organic,” with shaded blocks and spirals in red and blue pen on paper, also allays boredom, she says. Scientists in the past thought doodles provided a window into the doodler’s psyche, but the idea isn’t supported by research, says a 2011 study in The Lancet, a medical journal.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/08/04/the-power-of-the-doodle-improve-your-focus-and-memory/?mod=WSJ_hp_India_EditorsPicks

China services sector growth at six-month low; How Google search trends can predict the next market crash; Discarded tyres turn sandals

1 China service sector growth at six-month low (The Guardian) Growth in China's services sector slipped to a six-month low in July as new orders rose at their weakest rate in at least a year, data indicated, taking some of the shine off an industry that has been a bright spot in the Chinese economy this year.

The slight retreat in the services sector came at a time when China's factories have started to recover, having earlier this year been one of the drags on growth in the world's second largest economy due to faltering demand at home and abroad.

The official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for the non-manufacturing sector slowed to 54.2 in July from June's 55. That is the weakest reading since January. A reading above 50 indicates an expansion in activity while one below the threshold points to a contraction.

China's once-heated housing market has slowed this year as sales and prices turned south in their biggest pull-back in two years, driven in part by a cooling economy, and after the government tried for almost five years to calm the market. But the extent and breadth of the downturn have surprised analysts, with many worrying that it is the biggest threat to the health of China's economy this year.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/03/growth-china-services-sector-six-month-low

2 How Google search trends can predict the next market crash (Eryk Bagshaw in Sydney Morning Herald) The next financial crisis could be preceded by a spike in people searching for politics or business topics on Google, a new study has revealed. The study by Warwick Business School suggests that an increase in search volume for these topics tends to precede stock market falls.

"By mining these datasets, we were able to identify a historic link between rises in searches for terms for both business and politics and a subsequent fall in stock market prices," said Professor Suzy Moat from the school, which is part of Warwick University. It’s the latest development in Google’s evolution from search engine to crystal ball, which now predicts everything from the success of an album or film - to the rate of flu infections in the coming winter.

The research found that searches linked to business or politics correlated to an increased concern about the state of the economy. “This may lead to decreased confidence in the value of stocks, resulting in transactions at lower prices.” There are precedents for the real-world effects of Google searches. The popularity of a film or album has been preceded by a spike in Google searches before its release. In 2013, Google claimed that it could predict with 94 per cent accuracy, whether a film would be a box office success before it hit a single movie screen.

Google has also turned its hand to health predictions. Google flu trends aims to correlate instances of searching for flu symptoms with a rise in flu infections. Once hailed as the poster boy of big data - it’s come under attack recently from researchers at Harvard and North Eastern University for wildly overestimating the rate of flu infection in the United States. They called it the “big hubris of big data”. The co-inventor of Google Flu Trends, Matt Hobebbi agreed with the researchers criticism.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-google-search-trends-could-predict-the-next-stock-market-crash-20140804-zyl3u.html

3 Discarded tyres turn sandals (Ken Wysocky on BBC) It may seem incongruous to think of discarded rubber car tires as the source of fetching but functional footwear or fashion-forward furniture. But from Kenya to India to Detroit to Sweden, clever and eco-minded niche entrepreneurs are turning one of industrialized society’s most ubiquitous and difficult-to-dispose-of waste products (an estimated 1.5 billion tires are discarded each year worldwide) into weirdly appealing – and super-tough – items with a little bit of, um, soul.

Enterprising locals in Kenya have made a cottage industry out of hand-crafting so-called akala sandals from the “pelts” of old car tires. They sell on the streets of Nairobi for anywhere from $2 to $5 a pair – considerably less than retail footwear sold nearby, and boasting 10 times the longevity.

In Mumbai, India, ground-floor entrepreneur Anu Tandon Vieira established The Retyrement Plan, where workers morph old tires and other recycled waste materials into weatherproof outdoor furniture that will inflate the ambience of any patio or three-season room.

On a whole other plane, a Swedish company, Apokalyps Labotek, is making durable and stylish flooring out of the 4m tires discarded nationally there each year. The company grinds the tires into a powder and through some sort of modern alchemy, mixes it with recycled plastic and – voilà! – creates parquet flooring as tough as a thousand-miler sandal. Tread lightly? No way.

Rest easy – there’s no need to rush out and stock up on akalas. It’s estimated that billions of old car tires remain stockpiled around the world, so this is one recyclable resource that’s not disappearing any time soon.

http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20140802-discarded-tires-tread-again 

Why Israel is winning yet losing; $475m funding for Airbnb; Tackling the violent male

1 Why Israel is winning yet losing (Munir Akram in Dawn) This fourth Israeli incursion into Gaza in 10 years has once again demonstrated Israel’s considerable military prowess. Hamas’ asymmetric resistance is heroic but militarily puny. Yet, Israel’s military success is unlikely to yield sustainable security. There are four broad trends which portend more difficult times for the Jewish state.

First, Israeli extremism. Over the past decade, Jewish religious parties and the 250,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank have emerged ascendant in Israeli politics. They believe the occupied territories are part of historical Israel — Judea and Samaria — and cannot be returned to the Palestinians. No Israeli leader is bold enough to advocate the removal of the West Bank settlements. As a consequence, there are diminishing prospects for the two-state solution that all have agreed is the only basis for a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Second, demography. Israel will have to rule over a Palestinian population which is growing rapidly; while Jewish immigration to Israel has petered out after the post-Cold War inflow of Russian and East European Jews. Controlling a growing, hostile and increasingly radicalised Palestinian population will become, literally, a bloody business.

Third, Palestinian and Arab radicalisation. The plight of the Palestinian people is often, and rightly, cited as the core cause for the initial rise of religious radicalism in the Arab and Muslim world. Over the past 70 years, Israel has faced ever more ideologically ‘difficult’ adversaries: initially its neighbouring Arab states; then the PLO and Fatah, now Hamas. Today, ISIS is not only at the gates of Baghdad but also on Israel’s border with Syria.

Fourth, eroding Western support. Israel has been justifiably condemned for its disproportionate response to the largely ineffective rockets fired by Hamas from Gaza. Israel’s leaders should look into the future. Do they want to consign their people, the Palestinians and the region to never-ending violence and war? There is a narrow window of opportunity to reverse their disastrous course and agree to the concessions required to achieve a two-state solution. Fatah will obviously accept such a solution.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1122889/israel-winning-yet-losing

2 $475m funding for Airbnb (Carolyn Said in San Francisco Chronicle) “When I first heard about Airbnb, I thought it was the stupidest idea I’d ever heard of,” Andreessen Horowitz partner Jeff Jordan said in January. He soon changed his mind, leading his venture capital firm to invest in the San Francisco hospitality marketplace and becoming a board member.

On Friday, Airbnb publicly confirmed that Jordan, as well as previous investor Alfred Lin of Sequoia Capital, participated in its latest megaround of funding, a cool $475 million raised in April, according to an SEC filing. The funding reportedly values the 6-year-old San Francisco hospitality marketplace at $10 billion, ranking it among the world’s most valuable startups, worth more than many long-established hotel chains.

Airbnb’s business model of turning homes into hotels is under attack in cities including San Francisco, New York and Barcelona. Its wild popularity — and the antagonism it sometimes faces — has spurred its hometown, where short-term residential rentals are currently illegal, to tackle how to legalize and regulate people offering rooms and homes to travelers. The practice is controversial, with housing activists saying it diverts much-needed supply, and landlords saying it threatens security and violates leases.

http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2014/08/01/airbnb-confirms-475-million-megafunding-round/?cmpid=hp-hc-bustech

3 Tackling the violent male (Jonathan Jansen in Johannesburg Times) I told a group of young women academics the other day that the greatest danger to their scholarly careers would be the man they marry, for those who make that choice. Why? Because a man's understanding of what it means to be a man depends on how he saw his father behave towards his mother. A typical South African man expects to come home to warmed-up slippers, an ironed newspaper, a fresh-looking spouse, dinner ready, and the children washed and prepared for bed.

The fact that the wife also works does not bother this man-man in the least; that is the order of things. Dad did it, and so this is normative behaviour. Most of the women I have supervised to obtain advanced degrees, especially doctorates, have divorced. Their men simply could not handle the fact that the woman had a much higher status than they did. Not only did the wife start earning more money than he - a trigger for violence - she gained a voice. Her confidence meant she had learnt to reason through complex problems rather than simply accept the 19th-century notion of "Hubby knows best".

Of course, not all men are like this and those who were fortunate to have had fathers who were kind and gentle and gracious under pressure would have learnt a different model of being a man - a man who respects his partner and responds to a crisis with calm and reason. But that kind of man is in a minority in a culture in which men take on multiple wives, not to honour culture, but to demonstrate power and show off privilege.

Fathers, teach your boys how to cry. Show them how to love; be especially aware of how you respond in a crisis for they are watching you. Teach them that hands are for hugging not hurting. Condemn bad male behaviour loudly and cut out those sexist jokes with your male friends at the braai. And if a taxi swerves in front of you on the main road where you live, climb out and politely ask the driver whether his brakes failed.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2014/08/01/the-big-read-tackling-the-violent-male

Deal collapse threatens future of WTO; How South Africa farms are dying; India's Roy attempts property deal from prison; Seven hiring mistakes to avoid

1 Deal collapse threatens WTO future (Katie Allen & Angela Monaghan in The Guardian) The future of the World Trade Organisation has been thrown into doubt after eleventh-hour attempts to salvage a global trade deal collapsed. Talks broke down after India's refusal to back a deal unless it included concessions allowing developing countries freedom to subsidise and stockpile food.

An agreement on the deal, centred on loosening global customs rules, had been reached in Bali in December, with a deadline of midnight on Thursday to ratify it. But it was scuppered after the WTO's 160 members failed to reach agreement over India's demands. It would have been the first global trade deal reached by the Geneva-based institution since it was founded almost two decades ago.

The last-minute failure to reach agreement prompted questions over the very existence of the WTO and how it will survive the deadlock. Admitting defeat, Roberto Azevêdo, the director general, said: "What this means for the WTO will be in the hands of the members. I think we should take the time to reflect and come back in September."

Created in 1995, the WTO was set up to help trade flow smoothly and freely around the world. It describes its main tasks as facilitating trade negotiations and handling trade disputes. But experts say failure on this key agreement risks consigning it to the status of a referee for disputes and could see it ceasing to exist as a forum for serious trade liberalisation talks.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/wto-future-doubt-india-blocks-deal

2 How South Africa farms are dying (Graeme Hosken in Johannesburg Times) Rural areas in South Africa are in a "death spiral", with thousands of farmers abandoning their land. Of the 276, 000 farming units in Gauteng, including large-scale and small intensive farming units, 70% lie unused as farms - most standing idle or being used as scrapyards and second-hand car dealerships.

Emerging farmers are among the most squeezed, with hundreds quitting, and claiming that the government has "abandoned" them, with no skills and little access to markets. The revelations come at a time when Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti has published controversial proposals requiring commercial farmers to hand over half their land to farmworkers.

Agri-Gauteng CEO Derrick Hanekom said Gauteng was in big trouble with abandoned land. "Land carryover from old to new owners was done haphazardly... land was given to communities who are not farmers and who, because of a lack of skills, are unable to farm. President of the African Farmers Association of SA Mike Mlengana slammed the government. "Farms were and are viewed as weekend party destinations. The consequence is that farms that have the potential to produce vitally needed food are neglected. "The prevalence of abandonment is unbelievable, with some areas recording 100% abandonment.

Professor Johan Willemse of the University of the Free State agricultural economics department said the government's agricultural policies needed urgent revising. "They are plunging the country's rural towns into a death spiral with farms collapsing.” He said the implication of farm expansion and mechanisation was the collapse of rural towns, whose residents were heavily reliant on farms for jobs. Already South Africa imports half of its wheat requirement.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2014/08/01/farms-are-dying

3 India’s Roy attempts a property deal from prison (Aditi Malhotra & Saurabh Chaturvedi in The Wall Street Journal) How tough is it to do a billion-dollar deal from prison? India’s Sahara Group’s caged chairman, Subrata Roy, is about to find out. Indian courts have thrown Mr. Roy –one of India’s richest and most controversial businessmen – into New Delhi’s notorious Tihar Jail until he finds a way to pay the billions of dollars the group owes to bond holders.

An Indian court, which denied him temporary bail to do any deals, now says it will let him negotiate from prison. India’s Supreme Court asked Tihar Jail to facilitate online negotiations. Mr. Roy will be given a computer with a web camera and an Internet connection in a big conference room near the office of the director general of the prison.

Mr. Roy will be allowed to wear what he likes for the negotiations. It is unclear whether he will choose one of his signature black vests as he sits down with potential buyers and lenders. The Sahara group has said in court that it has been looking at various options, including a sale and mortgage of Grosvenor House hotel in London and the Plaza and Dream Downtown hotel in New York.

Mr. Roy and two directors of Sahara, which has business interests in sectors from financial services to media to retail, were sent to jail in March after the group failed to comply with a court order on repaying 174 billion rupees to bondholders. The Securities and Exchange Board of India says Sahara’s bond offerings didn’t follow rules. Sahara denies the charge.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/08/01/can-subrata-roy-do-a-deal-in-prison-without-getting-shanked/

4 Seven hiring mistakes to avoid (Jacquelyn Smith in San Francisco Chronicle) Hiring mistakes can be extremely costly. There are easy ways to avoid the seven most common hiring mistakes, says  Mike Del Ponte, cofounder and "chief hydration officer" of Soma, an eco-friendly water filtration system.

Mistake 1: Over-valuing cultural fit. "Remember that the goal is to hire the most competent employee, not the most likeable," he says. Mistake 2: Rushing the hiring process. "Typically, you need at least six weeks to attract and vet enough high-quality candidates." Mistake 3: Not asking for enough references. It’s helpful to get references for peers and people who worked for the candidate, Del Ponte says.

Mistake 4: Not having a formal process. Lack of process can allow the hunt for candidates to go far too long or let bad candidates slip through the cracks. Mistake 5: Hiring generalists. Sometimes you need to hire generalists — especially if your company is young — "but you should quickly grow out of this phase and focus on only hiring specialists," Del Ponte says.

Mistake 6: Not having clarity on the role that is being filled. If you do not have the fine details of the role, responsibilities, and milestones you desire, you're not ready to start recruiting. Mistake 7: Relying on job posts. The best candidates are rarely looking for a job. "You need to work your network to get introductions to people who can accomplish your goals, even if they don't yet know they want to work for you," says Del Ponte. "Make a list of advocates who can help you grow your candidate pool."

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Here-s-How-To-Avoid-The-7-Worst-Hiring-Mistakes-5662686.php?cmpid=hp-hc-bustech