Eurozone growth grinds to a halt; Berkshire Hathaway shares hit record price; Independence Day and the great pity of India and Pakistan

1 Eurozone growth grinds to a halt (Larry Elliott in The Guardian) France piled pressure on the European Central Bank to do more to boost growth on Thursday after news that economic activity across the 18-nation single currency area came to a halt in the second quarter. With France registering zero growth for a second successive quarter, Michel Sapin, the country's finance minister, halved his growth forecast for this year, abandoned the deficit reduction target and said it was up to the Frankfurt-based ECB to respond to an "exceptional situation of weak growth and weak inflation across the eurozone".

Sapin's demand came as the latest figures from Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency, showed that problems in the single currency's Big Three economies – Germany, France and Italy – resulted in no increase in eurozone gross domestic product in the three months to June. That compares with an increase of 0.2% in the first quarter.

France made it clear it blamed foot-dragging on the part of the ECB for the failure of the eurozone's second-biggest economy as it reduced its growth forecast for 2014 from 1% to 0.5% and ditched the 1.7% forecast for 2015, saying it would not expand by much more than 1%.

Some of the smaller economies on the periphery of the eurozone – including Spain and Portugal – recorded solid growth in the second quarter, and the Netherlands bounced back from a weak first quarter to expand by 0.5%. But Germany, France and Italy between them account for two-thirds of eurozone GDP and dragged down the overall growth figure. The annual rate of growth fell from 0.9% in the first quarter to 0.7% in the second quarter.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/14/eurozone-growth-economy-germany-fall-france-stagnation-italy

2 Berkshire Hathaway shares hit record (BBC) Shares in Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway have surpassed $200,000 for the first time. That values the firm - which has added over 70 companies since Mr Buffett took it over in the 1960s - at an estimated $326bn. The company's shares have long been the most expensive stock in the US. Mr Buffett has never split the company's class A shares, although there are cheaper class B shares that are priced at $134 per share.

On Thursday, shares in Mr Buffett's company rose $3,241, or 2%, to end at $202,850. The price of Berkshire Hathaway's class A shares are more than 60 times the next most expensive stock listed on US exchanges - that of Seabord Corporation, a transportation and agriculture firm.

Berkshire has a large number of majority and minority investments in dozens of companies, ranging from small jewellery and furniture retailers to insurance giants Geico and General Re, chemicals group Lubrizol, Coca-Cola, IBM, American Express, Wells Fargo Bank and dozens of others. Berkshire's long-term gains have made Mr Buffett the world's third wealthiest man, with a fortune of $65.9bn, according to Forbes magazine.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28795260

3 India, Pakistan and independence days (Rahul Singh in Khaleej Times) Today, India completes 67 years as an independent nation (Pakistan did so yesterday). On August 15, 1947, as the British formally relinquished their two centuries-hold over the Indian subcontinent, the Indian tri-colour flag was proudly unfurled on the ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, while the British Union Jack was lowered.

India and Pakistan achieved their freedom almost entirely by peaceful means (the violent group was a fringe element), unlike most other colonies ruled by the imperial powers. The British had left behind an extensive industrial and social infrastructure, which provided the two countries a springboard for development. Many other colonies, like Indonesia and much of Africa, were not so fortunate and had to start virtually from scratch.

Though a Hindu fanatic assassinated Gandhi soon after India got its independence, Nehru was there to carry the torch of democracy and representative government. Pakistan was not so fortunate. It lost two of its most charismatic leaders very early, Jinnah from tuberculosis, and Liaquat Ali Khan, from an assassin’s bullet. As a result, democracy stuttered in Pakistan and the army took over, each successive military dictator being worse than his predecessor.

If Islamabad blundered in East Pakistan, New Delhi badly mishandled the Sikhs and the Kashmiris. The tragedy is that while India and Pakistan have been trying their best to destablise each other, they have neglected their own development and progress. Meanwhile, there has been a sea-change in the Indian political scene, with the recent stunning election victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Narendra Modi.

The great pity is that over a third of Indians and Pakistanis live below the poverty line and a quarter of them cannot read or write. Instead of tackling these challenges, in the 67 years of their independence, both countries have been fighting and destabilising each other. Isn’t it time some sense was dinned into the heads of their leaders, to put their differences aside and cooperate for the betterment of their people? Other neighbouring countries have done exactly that. Why not India and Pakistan?

http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2014/August/opinion_August18.xml&section=opinion

As Spain slumps, eurozone woes grow; Global oil prices at nine-month low; Power of the executive assistant; Spare me the atrocity porn

1 As Spain slumps, Eurozone woes grow (Phillip Inman in The Guardian) Hopes for a recovery in the eurozone have suffered another blow with figures showing industrial output fell for a second successive month. Production declined across the 18 eurozone members by an average 0.3%, with a return to growth in France and Italy offset by falls in Ireland and the Netherlands and slow progress in Germany, which struggled to 0.2% growth.

Spain was the worst hit of the currency bloc's major economies with a 0.8% drop in industrial production. It also suffered the sharpest drop in shop prices for five years, undermining Madrid's claim that a rebound in employment last month was a clear indication of the country's return to sustained growth. Spanish consumers have proved reluctant to spend on the high street while unemployment remains at around 25%, forcing shops to offer bigger discounts in July than June.

Weakness across the manufacturing, energy and mining sectors will pose a problem for Brussels and the European Central Bank (ECB), ahead of second-quarter GDP figures on Thursday. The €9.6tn economy is struggling to gain momentum with its recovery a year after exiting recession. High unemployment, sluggish reforms and the fallout from conflict in Ukraine, Gaza and Iraq are holding it back.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/13/eurozone-woes-spanish-industry

2 Global oil prices at nine-month low (BBC) Global oil prices have fallen to their lowest level in nine months, despite fears that conflicts in Ukraine and Iraq would inflate prices. Brent crude oil has fallen to $103.70 a barrel, its lowest rate since November 2013. In July, oil hit its highest level in nine months, valued at $115.71 per barrel. Violence in Iraq was cited as the reason for the rise.

The current dip in price has led to an increase in demand from wealthy states. Iraq has scheduled to export about 2.4 million barrels per day of Basra Light crude in September, up from 2.2 million in the previous month. In a report on Tuesday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said: "Oil prices seem almost eerily calm in the face of mounting geopolitical risks spanning an unusually large swathe of the oil-producing world."

The agency said that while tensions in Iraq and fighting in Ukraine continued, other oil resources were available, such as those of the US, Libya and Saudi Arabia. According to the IEA: "The Atlantic market is currently so well supplied that incremental Libyan barrels are reportedly having a hard time finding buyers."

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28768624

3 Power of the executive assistant (Thomas Lee in San Francisco Chronicle) If you define power as simply who makes the most money, then the most powerful person at a corporation or startup is the CEO or founder. But if you define power as access and influence, then executive assistants are downright formidable. People might dismiss executive assistants as glorified gofers. But these employees are often well-educated individuals with a broad range of responsibilities like event planning, scheduling, research and IT support.

"When I was looking for an assistant, what people didn't understand is what I was not looking for was a senior secretary, I was looking for a true business partner," Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers once said, "someone who makes it a point to know the business, what my priorities are, and who could represent me, as well as the organization, in the absolute best professional light."

As it turns out, the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas boast some of the country's highest concentration of executive assistants. Nearly 11 jobs per 1,000 in San Francisco are executive assistants, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For San Jose, the number is 8.36 per 1,000.

Executive assistants in these areas are also among the best paid, with employees in San Francisco earning an annual mean salary of $68,850. Women, by far, dominate this profession. About 95 percent of the nation's 4.1 million executive and personal assistants are female, according to the Executive Assistants Organization.  In these jobs, women have the numbers, access to leadership and in many cases influence.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Executive-assistants-are-powers-behind-the-throne-5684501.php?cmpid=hp-hc-bustech

4 Spare me the atrocity porn (Dan Hodges in Johannesburg Times/The Telegraph) Social media has a new craze. Atrocity porn. "Craze" probably isn't the right word. It carries connotations of pleasure. In fairness, most of those taking to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to post graphic images of the recent bout of barbarity taking place around the globe find little pleasure in what they are circulating.

I am not talking about the jihadists who post footage of their own atrocities to galvanise their warped fellow travellers. I am talking about the campaigners, protesters and ordinary observers who have, over the last couple of months, started sending out these images to unsuspecting friends and followers.

If you are one of the people who has taken to distributing these images, (images that appear entirely unfiltered), I have news for you. You are not informing people. Or shocking them into action. You are sickening them. And engaging in a practice that, however well-meaning, is dehumanising. For you.

Of course, there are some people who genuinely are seeking to engage. And persuade. "I'm sorry. I really am," they say, "But if we don't circulate these images, then people will simply walk on by." Okay. But you have to understand this. People will walk by, not because they are shocked by the image, but because they are shocked by the person sending them.

Allow me a moment of self-indulgence. I earn my living through words. Words can matter. Words do have the power to move. The point I'm making is this: if you want to persuade me of your cause, persuade me. But do not try to shame me, or shock me, or bully me onto your side. If you do try to persuade me, do it with your arguments. Do not do it with the broken, lifeless body of someone else's child.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2014/08/14/the-big-read-spare-me-the-atrocity-porn

Japan economy shrinks 6.8%; Russia-West tensions hit German economic confidence; When resumes lie; A pianist in Syria's Yarmuk camp

1 Japan economy shrinks 6.8% (BBC) Japan's economy contracted by an annualised 6.8% in the second quarter of the year, the biggest fall since 2011 when it was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami. The official gross domestic product figure though was smaller than the 7.1% drop economists expected. The shrinkage was largely in response to a government sales tax, which held back consumer spending.

On a quarterly basis, the economy contracted 1.7% in the second quarter after a 1.5% rise in the first three months. Private consumption, which makes up 60% of economic activity, was 5% down on the previous quarter. The economy grew at an annualised rate of 6.1% in the first quarter of this year.

Recent retail sales and factory output figures both indicated a negative impact from the sales tax rise. Marcel Thieliant, Japan economist at Capital Economics, said a rebound was expected in the coming months: "The collapse in economic activity last quarter was largely a result of the higher sales tax, and we still believe that the recovery will resume in the second half of the year. "Consumers had brought forward spending ahead of April's increase in the consumption tax."

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28767708

2 Russia-West tensions hit German economic confidence (Angela Monaghan in The Guardian) Confidence among German investors nosedived in August amid tensions between Russia and the west which are expected to bring Europe's largest economy to a standstill. The ZEW indicator of economic sentiment plunged more sharply than expected to a 20-month low of 8.6 points from 27.1 points in July. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a far smaller fall, to 18.2 points.

The index has fallen for eight consecutive months. Heightened geopolitical tensions are raising fears that the eurozone's weak recovery will be snuffed out altogether, and that Germany's economy will flatline. As Russia's biggest trading partner in the EU, Germany is expected to be one of the economies hardest hit by Vladimir Putin's dispute with the west over his treatment of Ukraine, which has triggered sanctions and countersanctions.

The authors of the report said the decline in economic sentiment was the result of the geopolitical tensions that have begun to weigh on Germany's growth. The extent of Germany's woes will be laid bare on Thursday, when the first official estimate of second-quarter GDP is expected to show zero growth, following 0.8% growth in the first quarter. Growth in the eurozone is also expected to slow to 0.1% between April and June, from 0.2% in the first three months of the year.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/12/germany-economy-investor-confidence-nosedive-russia-west-tension

3 Resumes that lie (Julie Balise in San Francisco Chronicle) An impressive resume can open new doors for job-seekers. An inaccurate one can close them. It looks like some applicants are testing their luck, with 58 percent of hiring managers in a recent CareerBuilder survey saying they have caught a resume lie. One-third of respondents say they saw an increase in resume lies after the recession.

The most common resume lie is embellishing the skill set, followed by embellishing responsibilities, dates of employment, job title, academic degree, companies worked for, and accolades and awards. Fifty-one percent of respondents said they would automatically throw out a resume containing a lie, 41 percent would base their decision on the type of lie, and 7 percent would overlook a lie if they liked the job candidate.

CareerBuilder also looked at the industries where the most hiring managers report catching resume lies. Financial services came out on top, with 73 percent of managers catching a lie. It was followed by leisure and hospitality, at 71 percent; information technology, at 63 percent; health care (more than 50 employees), at 63 percent; and retail, at 59 percent.

http://blog.sfgate.com/gettowork/2014/08/12/most-memorable-resume-lies/#25719101=0

4 A pianist in Syria’s Yarmuk camp (Rana Moussaoui in Dawn) In the Yarmuk camp in southern Damascus, the notes escape a piano set in a scene of destruction and the children in Ayham al-Ahmed’s little group sing of hunger and suffering. The music in the Syrian camp, under siege for a year and wracked by violence, seems at odd with the brutality that is all around.

In photos posted on Facebook, the 26-year-old plays the piano in streets littered with debris, his face growing thinner with each passing month. Once a thriving neighbourhood home to 150,000 Palestinian refugees and Syrians, Yarmuk has been reduced to a shell of its former self in the conflict that began in March 2011.

Caught in fighting between rebels and the regime, just 18,000 residents remain, suffering under a government siege that has caused the deaths of some 200 people in a year, including 128 of hunger. “I weighed 70 kilos between the siege, today I weigh 45,” says Ahmed. The privations in the camp were so serious that Ahmed, who loves to play Haydn and eastern jazz, evacuated his wife and two-year-old son, both suffering severe anaemia.

Under the circumstances, Ahmed’s creation of the “Youth Troupe of Yarmuk “in 2013 was a rare ray of light. “It was important to emerge from the despair we were living in,” he says. When he plays, he says, he feels that “there is once again something good in this life”. Ayham’s father, 62-year-old Ahmed al-Ahmed, is a blind violinist who played with the troupe until rheumatism exacerbated by malnutrition forced him to quit.

“I want to put a smile on the faces of children,” says Ayhem al-Ahmed, who named his children’s choir “Buds of Yarmuk”. One song about those in exile from the camp, called “Brother, we miss you in Yarmuk”, spread like wildfire on social networks. It describes the story of Syrians who have been displaced from their homes or become refugees — some nine million citizens in all.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1124986/in-syrias-starving-yarmuk-camp-a-pianist-conjures-up-hope

Iraq PM Maliki forced out over jihadi crisis; Brazilians bid $611m for Chiquita; Singapore home resale prices at 21-month low; Actor-comedian Robin Williams found dead

1 Iraq PM Maliki forced out over jihadi crisis (Martin Chulov, Luke Harding & Dan Roberts in The Guardian) Iraq's embattled prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, appeared to have lost his job on Monday, after the country's president appointed a rival Shia candidate to form a new government in a bid to end the deadlock that has paralysed the Baghdad government while jihadists have swept through the country's north.

Maliki had appeared to be clinging to his post, but he was abandoned by party allies and sidelined by religious and regional backers who no longer believe he can save the crumbling state. His defiance sets the scene for yet another volatile period in Iraqi politics at a time when the Islamic State (Isis) jihadist group continues to rampage through the country, fast diminishing the authority of the central government.

The US warned military officials not to get involved in the political process. The move to effectively remove Maliki came after the White House launched a fresh volley of phone calls to politicians in Baghdad on Monday. In his fourth diplomatic intervention in as many days, the US vice-president, Joe Biden, called both the Iraqi president, Fouad Massoum, and the man he has selected to try to replace Maliki, Haider al-Abadi, indicating that further US military support could follow swiftly if they succeed in their efforts to form a new government.

The international community has repeatedly put pressure on Maliki to step down ever since the start of the jihadist insurrection in June that saw Mosul, Tikrit, and much of western Iraq fall to Isis and Kirkuk fall to the Kurds. Iraq's army abandoned its posts in the north in one of the more spectacular routs in modern military history. And, as commander in chief, Maliki had been unable to reverse the losses.

The US and Britain, along with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states claim that overtly sectarian policies adopted by Maliki since the onset of the civil war in Syria have disenfranchised the country's Sunnis, in part making them prey for the jihadists who now control much of Sunni Iraq.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/11/nouri-al-maliki-iraq-forced-out-prime-minister

2 Brazilians bid $611m for Chiquita (BBC) Two Brazilian companies have made a $611m bid for US banana group Chiquita. Juice maker Cutrale and conglomerate Safra have offered $13 a share, a 29% premium to Chiquita's closing share price on Friday. Chiquita shares jumped 31% in New York after the bid was announced.

The offer rivals the proposed merger between Chiquita and Irish fruit firm Fyffes, announced in March. Shares in Fyffes fell 15% in London. The merger would create the world's largest banana company worth $1bn.

But the two Brazilian companies said their offer "is clearly more favourable to the Chiquita shareholders than the proposed merger with Fyffes". The global banana market is currently controlled by four firms, Chiquita, Dole Food Company, Fresh Del Monte and Fyffes, according to the United Nations.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28748092

3 Singapore home resale prices at 21-month low (Melissa Tan in Straits Times) Resale prices for private homes continued their slide in July to reach their lowest level in 21 months, according to Singapore Real Estate Exchange (SRX) flash estimates. Rents also fell to a 38-month low amidst greater competition for tenants.

Prices of resale private homes fell 1.3 per cent from June to July to their lowest point since October 2012, after dropping 1.4 per cent from May to June. The islandwide fall in prices was led by the city centre, where values tumbled 4 per cent from the previous month.

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/business/property/story/singapore-private-home-resale-prices-plumb-21-month-low-july-20140811

4 Actor-comedian Robin Williams found dead (Michale Lallo in Sydney Morning Herald) Veteran actor and comedian Robin Williams has been found dead in his California home. He was 63.  It appears the popular performer – loved for both his comedic and dramatic roles – took his own life. His publicist, Mara Buxbaum, said Williams had been battling depression recently. Williams' wife, Susan Schneider, said she is "utterly heartbroken".

In his final tweet, posted almost a fortnight ago, the actor wished a happy birthday to his eldest daughter and "baby girl" Zelda Rae, posting a black and white photo of him cuddling her when she was a toddler. US president Barack Obama is one of many who paid tribute to Williams.

Obama said: "Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit."

Williams rose to fame in the late 1970s through his role as the alien Mork in the popular TV series Mork & Mindy. He most recently starred in the CBS comedy The Crazy Ones, which was cancelled after one season. "You look at the world and see how scary it can be sometimes and still try to deal with the fear," he told the Associated Press in 1989.

"Comedy can deal with the fear and still not paralyse you or tell you that it’s going away. You say, OK, you got certain choices here, you can laugh at them and then once you’ve laughed at them and you have expunged the demon, now you can deal with them. That’s what I do when I do my act."

His most popular films include Good Morning Vietnam (1987), in which he played an army radio DJ; Dead Poets Society (1989); Mrs Doubtfire (1993); The Birdcage (1996), in which he played a gay nightclub owner; and Patch Adams (1998), a biographical comedy about a doctor who uses humour as medicine. Earlier this year, he checked into a renewal facility to "focus on his ongoing sobriety", according to the Hollywood Reporter.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/actor-robin-williams-dead-aged-63-20140812-102zzn.html

Erdogan sees new era for Turkey; No end yet to pain in Spain; Pakistan in disarray

1 Erdogan sees new era for Turkey (BBC) Outgoing PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hailed his victory in Turkey's first direct presidential election as a new era for the country. He told thousands of supporters from the balcony of his AK Party's HQ in Ankara his victory was for all Turks, not just those who had voted for him. Mr Erdogan secured about 52% of the vote, to avoid any run-off.

Mr Erdogan wants to secure more power for the presidency but his opponents fear increasingly authoritarian rule. Until now the presidency has been largely ceremonial. Mr Erdogan has been prime minister since 2003 and was barred from standing for another term. He will be inaugurated on 28 August. The AK Party must now appoint a party leader and prime minister-designate. Analysts say it is likely to be one Mr Erdogan can control.

Striking a note of conciliation largely absent from the campaigning with his two rivals, he said: "I want to build a new future, with an understanding of a societal reconciliation, by regarding our differences as richness, and by pointing out not our differences but our common values." The veteran leader is revered by supporters for boosting the economy and giving a voice to conservatives. But his critics lament his authoritarian approach and Islamist leanings in a secular state.

Turkey - wedged between the turmoil of Iraq, Syria and Ukraine - is an important ally for the West and the head of state will hold a key geopolitical position.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28735915

2 No end yet to the pain in Spain (Ashifa Kassam in The Guardian) Spain had created more than 190,000 jobs over the previous 12 months, its first annual increase in employment in six years, and the biggest drop in jobless numbers since 2006. The sky-high unemployment rate was beginning to ease, from 26% to 24.5%. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy could barely contain his excitement. "I have been waiting a long time – since I took office, to be precise – to give you news like this," he said. "The labour market has made a 180-degree turn."

The Spanish government accordingly raised its forecast for this year's economic growth from 0.7% to 1.2%. For 2015, it was forecasting 1.8%. But just as Spain was becoming more confident in its recovery, official data from Italy showed that the Italian economy had contracted in the second quarter of 2014, putting it officially back in recession for a third time. As analysts noted, the news undermined the note of optimism in Spain's recovery.

The Spanish economy is being buoyed by increased exports, rising domestic demand and a record year for tourism, says Professor Robert Tornabell of Barcelona's Esade business school. He warns against reading too much into the data. While large companies are reaping the benefits of this growth, he points out, it hasn't been sufficient to provide jobs for the country's more than 5.6 million unemployed.

The real recovery, he says, will be when the economy begins to create jobs for young people and the 3.5 million Spaniards who have been out of work for more than a year. Until then, economic growth will be no more than empty words, particularly for the more than 740,000 families in which every working-age member is unemployed. The IMF expects unemployment to remain above 20% for another four years.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/10/spain-economy-growth-unemployment-recovery

3 Pakistan in disarray (Khaleej Times) As Pakistanis gear up for a long week of political showdown, the stakes are getting higher and higher. The pandemonium that is being witnessed across the province of Punjab is too unnerving. Surprisingly enough, the two major contenders vying for street agitations against the government — vowing to bring it down by hook or crook — do not have a foolproof alternate governance strategy at hand.

This is unbecoming for any anti-government movement. This doesn’t mean that the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif — and especially the Punjab administration under his zealous brother — hasn’t committed blunders. The government’s biggest fallacy is that it tried to deal with a political discord in an administrative manner and have almost ended up with eggs on its face.

Now with cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and the Canadian macho-cum-religious scholar Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri calling upon their supporters to march on to Islamabad on the eve of Independence Day (August 14), the state apparatus and 180 million people are in a fix. One thing is certain: Pakistan is heading towards a new episode of instability. Irrespective of the fact that the Nawaz government has not kept its promises of ushering in economic dividends and address the pestering lawlessness issues, showing it the door by breeding chaos and anarchy is uncalled for.

There are no two opinions that the electoral system and the governance process drastically need reforms, but there has to be a civil and lawful way to do that. Torpedoing the civil order is no solution to the problems of accountability and corruption that Pakistan faces. Maximalist positions are unlikely to yield desired results.

http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=/data/editorial/2014/August/editorial_August20.xml&section=editorial

US in Iraq for the long haul; Wearable tech's future looks bright; Where are India's MPs?

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.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/09/obama-isis-northern-iraq-kurds-long-term-airdrops

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.”

http://blog.sfgate.com/chronstyle/2014/08/08/wearable-techs-future-looks-bright-says-sabine-seymour-at-autodesk-fashion-show/?cmpid=hp-hc-bustech#25767101=0

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.

http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2014/August/opinion_August12.xml&section=opinion

Default is not the answer; When robots disrupt the labour market; How Lego lost its innocence

1 Default is not the answer (Omaira Gill in Khaleej Times) At the height of Greece’s financial troubles, the cry we heard again and again was that Greece should default on its debt. The explanation given was simple. Argentina had defaulted, and look how well they were doing now? Default was painted in a much more favourable light than austerity and all that comes with it.

Let’s not kid ourselves. The economic crisis in Greece has been terrible. The crisis has broken up families, imposed poverty on thousands if not millions and even caused deaths. Yet the alternative, defaulting and returning to the drachma, was always a much worse alternative. No matter how bad things got, right in the middle of the crisis, public opinion polls kept reporting that despite all the agony, the majority of Greeks still supported their inclusion in the Euro.

So-called experts predicted that by the end of the year (nearly every year since 2010) Greece would have defaulted and exited the Euro. Some were foreboding about this. Why not default? Why not start afresh with a newly valued drachma? Greece after default had potential. It could only go up. It worked for Argentina, it would work for Greece too!

They forgot some tiny details in the “Default and start over” argument. First, Argentina is a much larger economy than Greece, with a much larger export sector. Greece is not. Greece, in real terms, doesn’t produce much. In Argentina, manufacturing is the greatest source of value added to the nation’s GDP at 16%, followed by tourism at 14% and retail at 13%. The economy grew 4.3% in 2013. In Greece, the economy shrank 4% in 2013.

Which brings us now to Argentina. It all seemed to be going so well, so what happened? Like a bad smell, a debt default will follow you around. In technical terms, Argentina didn’t default off its debt, it was forced to do so by a judge in New York who wouldn’t let it pay its bondholders until they also paid the hedge funds that had positions on the previous default. Argentina’s experience should be a cautionary tale to anyone who is so quick to whip out the default card in the future.

http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2014/August/opinion_August14.xml&section=opinion

2 When robots disrupt the labour market (Dawn) Robots and artificially intelligent devices will take over many jobs now done by people, and experts are divided as to whether their spread will do human society more good than harm. The Pew Research Centre said experts see a growing role for self-driving cars, delivery drones, robotic workers, smartphone-based assistants and even algorithmic journalism by 2025.

But they are divided on whether these technological advances will be helpful, with 48 per cent of respondents to Pew’s survey saying they will destroy jobs and increase income inequality. Nevertheless, a slim majority said the technology will take over undesirable tasks and generate new kinds of human employment.

Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Internet Project, saidexperts see “the accelerating displacement of work that can be done more efficiently and cost-effectively” by robots. This means “a transformation of labour, especially in the fields of transportation, fast food and medicine; freedom from day-to-day drudgery that allows people to define work in a more positive and socially beneficial way”. But Rainie said many see this as leading to “a shrinking of the middle class and expansion of the ranks of the unemployed”.

Stowe Boyd, lead researcher at GigaOM Research, said the growing use of autonomous vehicles will take away important jobs for men such as truck and taxi drivers. “The central question of 2025 will be: What are people for in a world that does not need their labour, and where only a minority are needed to guide the ‘bot-based economy?’ “

Justin Reich at Harvard University’s Berkman Centre for Internet & Society, said, robots and artificial intelligence “will increasingly replace routine kinds of work — even the complex routines performed by artisans, factory workers, lawyers, and accountants. “Others were optimistic such as JP Rangaswami, chief scientist for Salesforce.com.

“Vint Cerf, chief Internet evangelist for Google, said: “Historically, technology has created more jobs than it destroys and there is no reason to think otherwise in this case. Someone has to make and service all these advanced devices.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1123774/robots-to-take-over-many-jobs-done-by-people-for-good-and-bad

3 How Lego lost its innocence (Sue Palmer in The Guardian) I‘ve been watching with interest as Lego struggles under the spotlight of Greenpeace’s latest campaign. Alongside three-quarters of a million petition signatories, the environmental campaign group is calling on Lego to drop its line of Shell-branded cars and quit endorsing Shell for good. A co-promotion with Lego is a lucrative PR stunt for Shell. But as Greenpeace is keen to point out, Shell is an appalling choice of partner, not least because of its controversial plans to extract oil from under the melting Arctic region.

Lego was formed in the 1930s by philanthropist Ole Kirk Kristiansen. His vision was to make it a stalwart cultivator of creative play and contribute to healthy child development. This idea was enshrined within the company. Even Lego’s name translated from Danish means “play well”.

But over the last few decades child’s play has been turned into big business. Marketers have learned how to exploit children’s emotional vulnerabilities in the name of profit. Instead of toys that benefit children, the industry has focused on creating quick-fix fun that makes money for shareholders. As a result, research tells us, modern children find it harder to maintain concentration, self-regulate behaviour and develop appropriate levels of empathy.

As a specialist in child development, I’ve had growing concerns that now even Lego has lost its way. Increasingly Lego churns out lucrative but unimaginative lines of “must-have” sets to promote new movies, games and videos. These little boxes, unlike the traditional Lego bricks, do not result in child-directed, open-ended “real play”. They do not promote imagination; they stifle it. They do not allow children to be creative and learn to think for themselves; they tell children what to think, instilling consumerist values that risk increasing rates of stress for parents and children alike.

Lego is trusted by parents because most will have played with it themselves as children. But it is now abusing this trust by putting profit above the core values of real play from which it originated. If Lego wishes to retain its reputation as a bastion of children’s interests and “playing well”, then it must be faithful to its roots. It must return to putting child development at the core of its toys; not just the core of its corporate communications.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/08/lego-child-play-big-business-marketing-toys-shell