Defending champion Andy Murray maintained his hold over Roger Federer to charge into the final of the Qatar Open with a 6-7 6-2 6-2 win on Friday.
The British third seed frustrated Federer with his tactical nous from the baseline to chalk up his fifth win in six matches against the 13-times grand slam champion.
Murray will be hoping to retain his title when he takes on American Andy Roddick in the final.
The world number four earned the sole break point of the opening set but could only watch from the baseline as Federer conjured up a screeching forehand winner to avert the danger.
The Swiss, who will be seeking to win a record-equalling 14th grand slam crown at the Australian Open later this month, let slip a 4-1 lead in the tiebreak and had to save a set point at 5-6 with a delicate backhand volley.
An ace moved him 7-6 ahead and he kept his focus to caress a backhand crosscourt winner and take the set on the hour mark.
From then on, Federer appeared to fade away as Murray produced winners from all angles. He hit back to win the second set with two breaks, often giving a frustrated Federer the runaround.
Leading 2-1 in the deciding set, Murray called in the trainer to get his back massaged. The interruption failed to distract him and he relentlessly attacked the Federer backhand to immediately gain a 3-1 lead.
Winning only two games from 2-2 in the second set, Federer compounded his own misery by producing a string of unforced errors.
Barely able to produce the form that has arguably made him the greatest player to pick up a tennis racket, Federer surrendered the match by slamming an easy overhead into the net.
Jan 10, 2009
Business - Boeing cuts 4,500 jobs, adds to U.S. employment woe
Boeing Co became the latest U.S. industrial giant to cut jobs on Friday, shedding 4,500 workers from its commercial plane operations, or about 7 percent of the unit total, as it looks to trim costs in the face of a global recession.
The world's No. 2 plane maker joins Alcoa Inc, Caterpillar Inc, Chrysler LLC, 3M Co and others in shedding jobs to counter a drop in demand.
The U.S. economy lost more than 500,000 non-farm jobs in December alone, according to the government's latest figures, and unemployment is now at a nearly 16-year high.
Boeing, which lost the race for orders against EADS unit Airbus last year, said normal attrition and a reduction in contract labor would account for some of the job losses, but layoffs would also be necessary.
Most of the jobs are overhead functions and not directly associated with plane manufacturing, Boeing said. The jobs will chiefly be cut from Boeing's massive Seattle-area plants, between April and June.
"This is another painful reminder that the recession is hitting home for Washington state families," said Washington Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, in a statement. "Boeing is part of the lifeblood of our region and when Boeing hurts, Washington state hurts."
The commercial plane unit will employ about 63,500 workers after the reductions, it said, about the same level as at the beginning of 2008. It employed 67,659 people at the end of last year.
Boeing, which also is the U.S. No. 2 defense contractor, had just over 162,000 employees overall at the end of last year.
Its shares, which are down 46 percent over the past 12 months, dipped 5 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $44.74 on the New York Stock Exchange.
ORDERS DIPPING
Boeing is looking to slim down as it begins to tackle a downturn in plane orders after an unprecedented three-year boom.
It booked 662 jetliner orders last year, a 53 percent drop from its industry record of 1,413 orders the year before, with airlines holding off on buying new planes as they witnessed a sharp drop-off in demand for flights.
Boeing has a record 3,714 planes in its backlog to deliver to customers -- more than six years of work at full production levels -- but industry analysts agree that many orders will be deferred and the company faces a drastic decline in new orders.
"We are taking prudent actions to make sure Boeing remains well positioned in today's difficult economic environment," said Scott Carson, chief executive of Boeing's commercial plane unit, in a statement.
The job cuts come shortly after Boeing suffered a bitter strike by its 27,000 production workers, which closed its plants for almost two months. Part of the disagreement between management and its machinists' union revolved around job security and the company's right to outsource work.
The world's No. 2 plane maker joins Alcoa Inc, Caterpillar Inc, Chrysler LLC, 3M Co and others in shedding jobs to counter a drop in demand.
The U.S. economy lost more than 500,000 non-farm jobs in December alone, according to the government's latest figures, and unemployment is now at a nearly 16-year high.
Boeing, which lost the race for orders against EADS unit Airbus last year, said normal attrition and a reduction in contract labor would account for some of the job losses, but layoffs would also be necessary.
Most of the jobs are overhead functions and not directly associated with plane manufacturing, Boeing said. The jobs will chiefly be cut from Boeing's massive Seattle-area plants, between April and June.
"This is another painful reminder that the recession is hitting home for Washington state families," said Washington Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, in a statement. "Boeing is part of the lifeblood of our region and when Boeing hurts, Washington state hurts."
The commercial plane unit will employ about 63,500 workers after the reductions, it said, about the same level as at the beginning of 2008. It employed 67,659 people at the end of last year.
Boeing, which also is the U.S. No. 2 defense contractor, had just over 162,000 employees overall at the end of last year.
Its shares, which are down 46 percent over the past 12 months, dipped 5 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $44.74 on the New York Stock Exchange.
ORDERS DIPPING
Boeing is looking to slim down as it begins to tackle a downturn in plane orders after an unprecedented three-year boom.
It booked 662 jetliner orders last year, a 53 percent drop from its industry record of 1,413 orders the year before, with airlines holding off on buying new planes as they witnessed a sharp drop-off in demand for flights.
Boeing has a record 3,714 planes in its backlog to deliver to customers -- more than six years of work at full production levels -- but industry analysts agree that many orders will be deferred and the company faces a drastic decline in new orders.
"We are taking prudent actions to make sure Boeing remains well positioned in today's difficult economic environment," said Scott Carson, chief executive of Boeing's commercial plane unit, in a statement.
The job cuts come shortly after Boeing suffered a bitter strike by its 27,000 production workers, which closed its plants for almost two months. Part of the disagreement between management and its machinists' union revolved around job security and the company's right to outsource work.
Tech - Windows 7 download demand overwhelms MS servers
Microsoft's mighty servers were overwhelmed as computer users worldwide rushed to download a free test version of a Windows 7 operating system being groomed to succeed Vista.
A virtual queue formed on the Internet in the hours on Friday before the planned release of Windows 7 "beta" software at noon local time in Microsoft's headquarters in Washington State.
"There was a line of people waiting online, so the noon release became an about-noon release," said a Microsoft spokesman showing off Microsoft's latest innovations at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
A flood of requests slowed Microsoft industrial-strength computers, causing delays and disappointments.
The window for downloading the test-version of Windows 7 closes the last day of January, Microsoft said. Microsoft wants feedback from users to refine the new operating system, but doesn't plan to change or add features.
"We got ourselves in a little trouble with Windows Vista; it became a bag of mixed things and didn't really figure out what it was about," said Mike Ybarra, general manager of Windows products at Microsoft.
"There was a lot of feature creep. You had people saying 'Let's change this and that.' Windows 7 has been very disciplined."
Windows 7 will streamline everyday tasks, cut boot-up times, extend battery life and make it simple to weave "smart" devices into home networks, according to Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.
Ballmer said that the Windows software at the heart of Microsoft's empire is being "transformed" into a program that connects networks of computers, mobile telephones and applications hosted as online services.
A virtual queue formed on the Internet in the hours on Friday before the planned release of Windows 7 "beta" software at noon local time in Microsoft's headquarters in Washington State.
"There was a line of people waiting online, so the noon release became an about-noon release," said a Microsoft spokesman showing off Microsoft's latest innovations at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
A flood of requests slowed Microsoft industrial-strength computers, causing delays and disappointments.
The window for downloading the test-version of Windows 7 closes the last day of January, Microsoft said. Microsoft wants feedback from users to refine the new operating system, but doesn't plan to change or add features.
"We got ourselves in a little trouble with Windows Vista; it became a bag of mixed things and didn't really figure out what it was about," said Mike Ybarra, general manager of Windows products at Microsoft.
"There was a lot of feature creep. You had people saying 'Let's change this and that.' Windows 7 has been very disciplined."
Windows 7 will streamline everyday tasks, cut boot-up times, extend battery life and make it simple to weave "smart" devices into home networks, according to Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.
Ballmer said that the Windows software at the heart of Microsoft's empire is being "transformed" into a program that connects networks of computers, mobile telephones and applications hosted as online services.
Sport - Cricket;Warne warns opponents to be wary of dangerous backlash from wounded Pietersen
Melbourne, Jan 9 (ANI): Kevin Pietersen's good friend and former Hampshire teammate Shane Warne has warned that Pietersen would be an even more dangerous and committed player now that he has relinquished the England captaincy.
Pietersen resigned from his leadership duties on Wednesday after a bitter feud with coach Peter Moores, who was sacked soon after Pietersen quit.
As Pietersen prepares to head to the West Indies as a rank-and-file player under new skipper Andrew Strauss, Warne said his controversial mate would become an even more threatening cricket animal.
"Kevin is a guy who likes the limelight, he likes to be the man. He's obviously got a pretty big ego as well, so that will be dented a bit. But he's also got the ability, no matter what's going on, to perform," Warne said.
"One thing is for sure. England needs Kevin Pietersen. He's their best player and one of the best players in the world and England needs him to perform.
"This situation will stir his emotions. He'll be bitterly disappointed at the lack of support from the England Cricket Board and I'm sure this will drive him to become an even stronger player. Come the Ashes, beware of Kevin Pietersen because he could lift his game to another level," he said.
Warne said that on a personal note he wished the situation had never occurred.
"As a friend of Kevin, I'm disappointed he's no longer captain of England. The thing with him he was only going to improve as he went, like every captain does." (ANI)
Pietersen resigned from his leadership duties on Wednesday after a bitter feud with coach Peter Moores, who was sacked soon after Pietersen quit.
As Pietersen prepares to head to the West Indies as a rank-and-file player under new skipper Andrew Strauss, Warne said his controversial mate would become an even more threatening cricket animal.
"Kevin is a guy who likes the limelight, he likes to be the man. He's obviously got a pretty big ego as well, so that will be dented a bit. But he's also got the ability, no matter what's going on, to perform," Warne said.
"One thing is for sure. England needs Kevin Pietersen. He's their best player and one of the best players in the world and England needs him to perform.
"This situation will stir his emotions. He'll be bitterly disappointed at the lack of support from the England Cricket Board and I'm sure this will drive him to become an even stronger player. Come the Ashes, beware of Kevin Pietersen because he could lift his game to another level," he said.
Warne said that on a personal note he wished the situation had never occurred.
"As a friend of Kevin, I'm disappointed he's no longer captain of England. The thing with him he was only going to improve as he went, like every captain does." (ANI)
Tech - World's most expensive sewing machine with a price tag of $9k to come to UK
London, Jan 10 (ANI): The world's most expensive and high-tech sewing machine with an in-built video camera is set to hit the British market.
After taking the consumers by storm in America, Brother, the technology company, is set to launch the 9,000 dollars Quattro machine in British market.
The high-tech sewing machine has a tiny camera just above the needle and zooms in while sewing. It then displays the live picture on a screen on the main body of the machine.
According to the company, the camera helps to sew more accurately. It can sense the edge of the fabric more accurately than the naked eye, and can even programme the machine to sew a seam automatically.
"It's like your mother's Singer on steroids," the Telegraph quoted Michelle Gilmartin at the company as saying.
Brother insists that despite the economic downturn, there are plenty of people who wanted to invest in the machine.
"We were nervous when we introduced it, but we were shocked by how many orders we received," said Jane Mellinger, director of education at Brother.
"This is not for first-time sewers. But some people have realised they can use the machine to make some extra money by creating their own gifts or clothes," she added. (ANI)
After taking the consumers by storm in America, Brother, the technology company, is set to launch the 9,000 dollars Quattro machine in British market.
The high-tech sewing machine has a tiny camera just above the needle and zooms in while sewing. It then displays the live picture on a screen on the main body of the machine.
According to the company, the camera helps to sew more accurately. It can sense the edge of the fabric more accurately than the naked eye, and can even programme the machine to sew a seam automatically.
"It's like your mother's Singer on steroids," the Telegraph quoted Michelle Gilmartin at the company as saying.
Brother insists that despite the economic downturn, there are plenty of people who wanted to invest in the machine.
"We were nervous when we introduced it, but we were shocked by how many orders we received," said Jane Mellinger, director of education at Brother.
"This is not for first-time sewers. But some people have realised they can use the machine to make some extra money by creating their own gifts or clothes," she added. (ANI)
Business - YouTube has helped people earn six-figure salaries
Washington, Jan 9 (ANI): Video sharing website YouTube has always been seen as a recreational site, but now it has been revealed that it has helped some people earn a six-figure salary off it.
Michael Buckley, 33, is one such person who says that he has been able to earn his six-figure through the site.
"Uh, I do well," CBS News quoted him as saying.
"I make over six figures a year," he said.
His high-energy, two-minute show "What the Buck," a play on his last name, is the product of a 2,000 dollars camera, a pair of work-lights and a 6 dollars backdrop. The show averages 200,000 hits an episode.
"I just wanted to create my own vehicle and I did," he stated.
Last year, YouTube invited its most popular, most-watched contributors to partner with them by adding banner ads to the bottom of video clips.
For every one thousand hits, advertisers pay 15 to 20 dollars. It's a fraction the cost of TV commercials, and they reach a more targeted audience.
Buckley's show ranks number eight on the Web site, and he believes that the Internet is the only way he could have made it big.
"I do believe so," Buckley said.
"I do believe that ... the Internet was my route to any sort of success," he added. (ANI)
Michael Buckley, 33, is one such person who says that he has been able to earn his six-figure through the site.
"Uh, I do well," CBS News quoted him as saying.
"I make over six figures a year," he said.
His high-energy, two-minute show "What the Buck," a play on his last name, is the product of a 2,000 dollars camera, a pair of work-lights and a 6 dollars backdrop. The show averages 200,000 hits an episode.
"I just wanted to create my own vehicle and I did," he stated.
Last year, YouTube invited its most popular, most-watched contributors to partner with them by adding banner ads to the bottom of video clips.
For every one thousand hits, advertisers pay 15 to 20 dollars. It's a fraction the cost of TV commercials, and they reach a more targeted audience.
Buckley's show ranks number eight on the Web site, and he believes that the Internet is the only way he could have made it big.
"I do believe so," Buckley said.
"I do believe that ... the Internet was my route to any sort of success," he added. (ANI)
Entertainment - 'Ghajini' outstrips DDLJ to become biggest domestic earner
New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS) Aamir Khan starrer 'Ghajini', which released to packed houses Dec 25, is on its way to create history by taking over the mantle of the biggest domestic earner so far, leaving behind 'Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge'.
'Ghajini', a romantic action thriller that explores the life of a rich businessman who suffers from short-term memory loss following a violent incident, has earned Rs.2 billion ($41 million) in less than two weeks from its release.
The film has grossed Rs.1.62 billion in domestic markets and Rs.390 million have come from overseas markets till end of second week. The film is still running to packed houses and may cross more milestones.
'Ghajini', a film that introduced Asin to Hindi cinema opposite superstar Aamir, was released with 1,200 prints in the domestic market and in a lot of small towns where films are not often released in the first week.
In the overseas market, it is now second only to Karan Johar's hit film 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham' which collected Rs.440 million.
'Ghajini', a romantic action thriller that explores the life of a rich businessman who suffers from short-term memory loss following a violent incident, has earned Rs.2 billion ($41 million) in less than two weeks from its release.
The film has grossed Rs.1.62 billion in domestic markets and Rs.390 million have come from overseas markets till end of second week. The film is still running to packed houses and may cross more milestones.
'Ghajini', a film that introduced Asin to Hindi cinema opposite superstar Aamir, was released with 1,200 prints in the domestic market and in a lot of small towns where films are not often released in the first week.
In the overseas market, it is now second only to Karan Johar's hit film 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham' which collected Rs.440 million.
Health - Is There A Brain Tumor Virus?
Jeneen Interlandi
In 2002, UCSF neurosurgeon Charles Cobbs published a novel finding in a prominent cancer journal: nearly all of the two-dozen brain tumors he had analyzed were teeming with a common herpes virus called cytomegalovirus, or CMV. Normally, CMV is harmless—it lies dormant in roughly 80 percent of the population—but in Cobbs's tumor samples, the virus appeared to be actively replicating, even as it remained dormant in nearby healthy tissue. "When I first saw the data, I couldn't sleep for a week," says Cobbs. "I kept asking myself, 'can this be?'" If his findings were correct, they might shed light on the causes of brain cancer, or better yet, provide a new target for battling—maybe even preventing—the disease.
But by 2004, at least two labs had tried and failed to replicate Cobbs's results. That might have been the end of the story, were it not for the young neurosurgeon's audacity. Convinced that his methodology was better than his colleagues, he offered to show both research teams his technique. One group, led by Duke University neuro-oncologist Duane Mitchell, accepted. Last year they published the first peer-reviewed confirmation of Cobbs's work. "We have enough evidence now to say that this merits serious attention," says Mitchell. As the journal Science wrote last week, a flurry of papers exploring a possible link between CMV and brain cancer have caught the attention of at least some experts, spurring the first conference on the subject last October and touching off a handful of clinical trials.
The findings have opened a new avenue of inquiry for one of the most intractable cancers—Glioblastoma Multiforme, an aggressive brain tumor, diagnosed in 10,000 new patients every year and fatal in virtually all cases. (Sen. Ted Kennedy was stricken with the disease last year). The alleged link between CMV and brain cancer may also represent the latest reversal of a decades-old consensus that generally speaking, viruses don't cause cancer. While some scientists are urging caution in interpreting this growing body of evidence, others say that a bias against "cancer-virus" research highlights a major flaw in the way science works. Ideas that challenge the conventional wisdom are often shunned in favor of "safer" hypotheses that stand a better chance of gaining acceptance and securing research dollars. "The powers that be are really opposed to funding this kind of research," says Cobbs who is now at California Pacific Medical Center. "They would rather put their money on more discreet projects where the outcomes are clear."
To be fair, the history of cancer-virus research is littered with false starts and embarrassing missteps. In 1926, a Danish scientist scored a Nobel Prize for showing that parasitic worms cause stomach cancer; it was later discovered that the "tumors" were actually lesions, triggered by vitamin deficiency. In the early 1970s scientists still believed that many if not most human cancers were triggered by some sort of infection. Famed HIV scientist Robert Gallo spent years at the National Cancer Institute trolling for the viral culprit, but most of his studies were never replicated and by the end of the decade, the hypothesis had been abandoned. "You have to tread carefully with findings like these," says Robert Weinberg, a biology professor and cancer researcher at MIT. "The majority of these claims tend to go up in smoke."
Today we know that at least three cancers are virus-induced: cervical cancer (Human Papiloma Virus, or HPV), liver cancer (Hepatitis B), and lymphoma (Epstein-Barr virus). But many questions still need answers before scientists can add brain cancer and CMV to that list. Chief among them is whether the virus actually triggers tumor growth. Cobbs thinks this may be the case, but he says the virus's influence is probably indirect. "It's not like a typical virus—disease relationship," he says. "The cancer may stem from chronic inflammation that is triggered by the virus and persists for years and years." If he's right, scientists may one day be able to develop a vaccine that prevents brain cancer by targeting CMV, much like Merck's Gardasil protects against cervical cancer by inoculating against certain strains of HPV.
Other researchers hypothesize that rather than induce tumor formation, CMV might simply abet their growth. Studies have shown that the virus promotes angiogenesis—the creation of an extra blood supply that tumors need to survive and grow.
Even if CMV doesn't cause brain tumors, the virus promises to be a useful target for future glioblastoma therapies. Mitchell's team is testing a vaccine made from immune cells that have been trained to attack CMV proteins. While the trial is too small to be conclusive, the vaccine, which enhanced immune responses against CMV, did extend patients' median survival time from 15 to more than 20 months. Meanwhile, Swedish researchers have just completed a clinical trial of the anti-CMV medication Valcyte to see if it can prevent the recurrence of brain tumors that have been surgically removed. The data is being tabulated now; if it looks good, Roche may eventually launch a large-scale study.
To make real progress, however, scientists will need funding. Cobbs says that he has had a dozen or so grant proposals on CMV-glioblastoma research rejected by the National Cancer Institute and other funding agencies. "People from NCI have said that we need to prove CMV causes brain cancer before they fund us," says Cobbs. "It's putting the cart before the horse."
In 2002, UCSF neurosurgeon Charles Cobbs published a novel finding in a prominent cancer journal: nearly all of the two-dozen brain tumors he had analyzed were teeming with a common herpes virus called cytomegalovirus, or CMV. Normally, CMV is harmless—it lies dormant in roughly 80 percent of the population—but in Cobbs's tumor samples, the virus appeared to be actively replicating, even as it remained dormant in nearby healthy tissue. "When I first saw the data, I couldn't sleep for a week," says Cobbs. "I kept asking myself, 'can this be?'" If his findings were correct, they might shed light on the causes of brain cancer, or better yet, provide a new target for battling—maybe even preventing—the disease.
But by 2004, at least two labs had tried and failed to replicate Cobbs's results. That might have been the end of the story, were it not for the young neurosurgeon's audacity. Convinced that his methodology was better than his colleagues, he offered to show both research teams his technique. One group, led by Duke University neuro-oncologist Duane Mitchell, accepted. Last year they published the first peer-reviewed confirmation of Cobbs's work. "We have enough evidence now to say that this merits serious attention," says Mitchell. As the journal Science wrote last week, a flurry of papers exploring a possible link between CMV and brain cancer have caught the attention of at least some experts, spurring the first conference on the subject last October and touching off a handful of clinical trials.
The findings have opened a new avenue of inquiry for one of the most intractable cancers—Glioblastoma Multiforme, an aggressive brain tumor, diagnosed in 10,000 new patients every year and fatal in virtually all cases. (Sen. Ted Kennedy was stricken with the disease last year). The alleged link between CMV and brain cancer may also represent the latest reversal of a decades-old consensus that generally speaking, viruses don't cause cancer. While some scientists are urging caution in interpreting this growing body of evidence, others say that a bias against "cancer-virus" research highlights a major flaw in the way science works. Ideas that challenge the conventional wisdom are often shunned in favor of "safer" hypotheses that stand a better chance of gaining acceptance and securing research dollars. "The powers that be are really opposed to funding this kind of research," says Cobbs who is now at California Pacific Medical Center. "They would rather put their money on more discreet projects where the outcomes are clear."
To be fair, the history of cancer-virus research is littered with false starts and embarrassing missteps. In 1926, a Danish scientist scored a Nobel Prize for showing that parasitic worms cause stomach cancer; it was later discovered that the "tumors" were actually lesions, triggered by vitamin deficiency. In the early 1970s scientists still believed that many if not most human cancers were triggered by some sort of infection. Famed HIV scientist Robert Gallo spent years at the National Cancer Institute trolling for the viral culprit, but most of his studies were never replicated and by the end of the decade, the hypothesis had been abandoned. "You have to tread carefully with findings like these," says Robert Weinberg, a biology professor and cancer researcher at MIT. "The majority of these claims tend to go up in smoke."
Today we know that at least three cancers are virus-induced: cervical cancer (Human Papiloma Virus, or HPV), liver cancer (Hepatitis B), and lymphoma (Epstein-Barr virus). But many questions still need answers before scientists can add brain cancer and CMV to that list. Chief among them is whether the virus actually triggers tumor growth. Cobbs thinks this may be the case, but he says the virus's influence is probably indirect. "It's not like a typical virus—disease relationship," he says. "The cancer may stem from chronic inflammation that is triggered by the virus and persists for years and years." If he's right, scientists may one day be able to develop a vaccine that prevents brain cancer by targeting CMV, much like Merck's Gardasil protects against cervical cancer by inoculating against certain strains of HPV.
Other researchers hypothesize that rather than induce tumor formation, CMV might simply abet their growth. Studies have shown that the virus promotes angiogenesis—the creation of an extra blood supply that tumors need to survive and grow.
Even if CMV doesn't cause brain tumors, the virus promises to be a useful target for future glioblastoma therapies. Mitchell's team is testing a vaccine made from immune cells that have been trained to attack CMV proteins. While the trial is too small to be conclusive, the vaccine, which enhanced immune responses against CMV, did extend patients' median survival time from 15 to more than 20 months. Meanwhile, Swedish researchers have just completed a clinical trial of the anti-CMV medication Valcyte to see if it can prevent the recurrence of brain tumors that have been surgically removed. The data is being tabulated now; if it looks good, Roche may eventually launch a large-scale study.
To make real progress, however, scientists will need funding. Cobbs says that he has had a dozen or so grant proposals on CMV-glioblastoma research rejected by the National Cancer Institute and other funding agencies. "People from NCI have said that we need to prove CMV causes brain cancer before they fund us," says Cobbs. "It's putting the cart before the horse."
World - As Hamas fights,Fatah mulls its next move
Kevin Peraino
As Hamas fighters dig in against advancing Israeli troops in Gaza, the Islamists' security services are quietly working to prevent any uprising by forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Tens of thousands of security personnel belonging to Abbas's Fatah party still operate in the Gaza Strip, even after Hamas seized control of the strip in June 2007. The Fatah men collect their salaries, gather intelligence and occasionally organize protests in order tomaintain pressure onthe Islamists. While Abbas has condemned the Israeli assault as a "massacre," he has also accused Hamas of breaking its ceasefire with Israel by firing rockets across the Gaza border.
Several sources close to the Fatah-loyal Palestinian intelligence services, who asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters, told NEWSWEEK that shortly after the Israeli bombing began last week, Hamas operatives fanned out across Gaza and delivered notices to key figures loyal to Abbas. The Fatah men were ordered to report within days to the Hamas security headquarters, register with the Islamists, and in some cases turn in their guns. In one instance, according to a source in Gaza, a Fatah operative was warned that he would be executed if he set foot anywhere near Hamas forces during the Israeli siege. According to Tawfiq Tirawi, a former Palestinian intel chief and current adviser to Abbas, some 1,000 Fatah operatives were put under house arrest last week by Hamas forces.
The Hamas men have good reason for concern. For the time being, most secular Palestinians have expressed their solidarity with the Islamists. Yet at least some key Fatah figures see the Israeli attack as an opportunity. As the ground war has intensified, many Palestinians have begun to wonder whether Israel's ultimate aim is to topple Hamas, not simply weaken the group. Even if the Israeli military doesn't manage to crush Hamas, any power vacuum could tempt Fatah men to renew the internecine fighting that has killed dozens of Gazans over the past three years. Still, few Palestinian figureswould risk looking like Israeli collaborators while the bombs are still falling. "I can't just take my men and go," says one Fatah security chief, who requested anonymity in order to speak frankly. "No Palestinian security agency would go into Gaza on an Israeli tank."
Even if they wanted to, it's far from clear that Abbas's forces could wrest control of the strip. The Fatah boss says his counterparts in Gaza are demoralized and ineffective: "Our men are running for their lives." After the fighting started, Fatah men in Ramallah set up an ad hoc"operations room" where Palestinian Authority officers closely monitored the situation in Gaza, trying to make sense of the conflicting reports. With cell-phone networks constantly crashing, it was nearly impossible. The Fatah menreached out to their Americanallies looking for better information, butthe Americans seemed equally clueless. At the end of the day, "Nobody knew anything," says the Fatahsecurity chief.
American officials have invested considerable time and effort helping to train Abbas's security services. Still, only a small minority of those troops are native Gazans; most are from the West Bank. And any new internecine fighting in Gaza could undermine American ambitions for delivering a two-state solution. Many sensible observers believe no such deal is possible unless the feuding Palestinian factions find some way to reconcile first.
For now, most Fatah figures are hoping that some sort of international peacekeeping force will move into Gaza after Israel pulls out. Such a move could pave the way for Fatah security forces to return to power some months down the road, the thinking goes, when they would look less like Israeli stooges. Col. Akram Rajoub, the head of Abbas's Preventive Security force in Ramallah, says pacifying Gaza would require "thousands" of international troops—"Europeans, Turks, Arabs—even NATO forces." Yet those ambitious plans are almost certainly wishful thinking on the part of Abbas's men. Some of the ceasefire proposals being floated do call for outsidepeacekeepers, but the plans seem to be limited in scope, confining the role of international forces to border crossings and other sensitive locations.
Finally, all the speculation among Fatah figures makes one critical—and perhaps mistaken—assumption: that the fighting with Israel is actually weakening Hamas. Hizbullah, after all, came out much stronger after its 2006 war with Israel; it won simply by not losing. Some Palestinians feel that Hamas is already winning a similar battle for Palestinian public opinion. "Hamas is not going to be eradicated," says Mohammad al-Masri, a former director of intelligence in Gaza who is loyal to Abbas. "I don't think one decent Palestinian wants to see Hamas finished off. This operation might weaken the military power of Hamas. But I'm convinced that these battles will ultimately empower them. Hamas will come out stronger on the ground than before."
As Hamas fighters dig in against advancing Israeli troops in Gaza, the Islamists' security services are quietly working to prevent any uprising by forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Tens of thousands of security personnel belonging to Abbas's Fatah party still operate in the Gaza Strip, even after Hamas seized control of the strip in June 2007. The Fatah men collect their salaries, gather intelligence and occasionally organize protests in order tomaintain pressure onthe Islamists. While Abbas has condemned the Israeli assault as a "massacre," he has also accused Hamas of breaking its ceasefire with Israel by firing rockets across the Gaza border.
Several sources close to the Fatah-loyal Palestinian intelligence services, who asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters, told NEWSWEEK that shortly after the Israeli bombing began last week, Hamas operatives fanned out across Gaza and delivered notices to key figures loyal to Abbas. The Fatah men were ordered to report within days to the Hamas security headquarters, register with the Islamists, and in some cases turn in their guns. In one instance, according to a source in Gaza, a Fatah operative was warned that he would be executed if he set foot anywhere near Hamas forces during the Israeli siege. According to Tawfiq Tirawi, a former Palestinian intel chief and current adviser to Abbas, some 1,000 Fatah operatives were put under house arrest last week by Hamas forces.
The Hamas men have good reason for concern. For the time being, most secular Palestinians have expressed their solidarity with the Islamists. Yet at least some key Fatah figures see the Israeli attack as an opportunity. As the ground war has intensified, many Palestinians have begun to wonder whether Israel's ultimate aim is to topple Hamas, not simply weaken the group. Even if the Israeli military doesn't manage to crush Hamas, any power vacuum could tempt Fatah men to renew the internecine fighting that has killed dozens of Gazans over the past three years. Still, few Palestinian figureswould risk looking like Israeli collaborators while the bombs are still falling. "I can't just take my men and go," says one Fatah security chief, who requested anonymity in order to speak frankly. "No Palestinian security agency would go into Gaza on an Israeli tank."
Even if they wanted to, it's far from clear that Abbas's forces could wrest control of the strip. The Fatah boss says his counterparts in Gaza are demoralized and ineffective: "Our men are running for their lives." After the fighting started, Fatah men in Ramallah set up an ad hoc"operations room" where Palestinian Authority officers closely monitored the situation in Gaza, trying to make sense of the conflicting reports. With cell-phone networks constantly crashing, it was nearly impossible. The Fatah menreached out to their Americanallies looking for better information, butthe Americans seemed equally clueless. At the end of the day, "Nobody knew anything," says the Fatahsecurity chief.
American officials have invested considerable time and effort helping to train Abbas's security services. Still, only a small minority of those troops are native Gazans; most are from the West Bank. And any new internecine fighting in Gaza could undermine American ambitions for delivering a two-state solution. Many sensible observers believe no such deal is possible unless the feuding Palestinian factions find some way to reconcile first.
For now, most Fatah figures are hoping that some sort of international peacekeeping force will move into Gaza after Israel pulls out. Such a move could pave the way for Fatah security forces to return to power some months down the road, the thinking goes, when they would look less like Israeli stooges. Col. Akram Rajoub, the head of Abbas's Preventive Security force in Ramallah, says pacifying Gaza would require "thousands" of international troops—"Europeans, Turks, Arabs—even NATO forces." Yet those ambitious plans are almost certainly wishful thinking on the part of Abbas's men. Some of the ceasefire proposals being floated do call for outsidepeacekeepers, but the plans seem to be limited in scope, confining the role of international forces to border crossings and other sensitive locations.
Finally, all the speculation among Fatah figures makes one critical—and perhaps mistaken—assumption: that the fighting with Israel is actually weakening Hamas. Hizbullah, after all, came out much stronger after its 2006 war with Israel; it won simply by not losing. Some Palestinians feel that Hamas is already winning a similar battle for Palestinian public opinion. "Hamas is not going to be eradicated," says Mohammad al-Masri, a former director of intelligence in Gaza who is loyal to Abbas. "I don't think one decent Palestinian wants to see Hamas finished off. This operation might weaken the military power of Hamas. But I'm convinced that these battles will ultimately empower them. Hamas will come out stronger on the ground than before."
World - Israel's Arabs are the answer
Daniel Gavron
Last week's massive Israeli reprisals against Hamas in Gaza, which followed the breakdown of a five-month truce, have made peace between Israel and the Palestinians seem more remote than ever. Yet the fighting also dramatized just how important it is to resolve the conflict once and for all. And the opportunity is running out: in a month, Israel will hold an election, and unless the Gaza fighting changes things dramatically, the winner will likely be a right-wing government led by the Likud's Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu. Such a government will be unwilling to ever make the compromises necessary to achieve a two-state settlement. That means that the prospect of peace will recede still further. The only way to prevent this outcome is to quickly change the rules of Israel's political game. And the way to do that is by ending the exclusion of Israel's own Arab population from government.
Consider: for almost four decades, Israel's political establishment has been deadlocked over peace with the Palestinians. The country's Jewish voters are basically split in half on the question. Yet Israel could break this stalemate by fully enfranchising its Arabs, who make up about 14 percent of voters. These citizens have full rights under Israeli law but have long felt like second-class citizens, and their political parties, though allowed in the Knesset, have been barred by tradition from joining coalition governments.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, set the precedent for this exclusion when he declared that his and successive administrations should be formed "without Herut or the communists." Herut was the right-wing party then led by his conservative rival, Menachem Begin, and that prohibition was abandoned by 1967.
But the ban on communists has lasted, for one main reason: because most party members also happen to be Arabs. Over the years, other Arab parties have managed to find their way into the Knesset, but they have never been invited to join an Israeli government. Arabs have served in the cabinet, but only if they were members of Zionist (Jewish) parties. On a few occasions, Arab parties have formed temporary blocking coalitions with Zionists, but the Arabs were never allowed close to the center of power.
Israel's Declaration of Independence guarantees all citizens equality, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Yet in many fields this principle has never been honored. The 2007 Equality Index published by Sikkuy, an NGO that works for equality between Israel's Arabs and Jews, shows that the life expectancy of Arabs is four years shorter than that of Jews, and that while the state invests about $130 per person per month for basic welfare for Jewish citizens, the figure is just $85 for Arab citizens. Such discrimination must end and the promise of Israel's founding document must be fulfilled—if not for moral reasons, then for a practical one. Israel will never find peace otherwise.
In February the pro-peace, centrist Kadima Party led by Tzipi Livni will face off with, and probably be defeated by, a combination of hawkish and religious parties led by Netanyahu. Should he become prime minister once more, there will be no meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians. Construction of the security fence and the expansion of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories will continue, as will the extension of a massive infrastructure of roads, water pipes, power lines and military installations that will make the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state physically impossible.
Bibi's coalition is likely to win 60 seats in the Knesset, versus Livni's 50. But Israel's Arabs could shift the balance decisively. In recent years they've tended to avoid national elections out of a sense of impotence. Were they convinced that their votes mattered, however, they could—like young Obama supporters in America—turn out in record numbers and win as many as 17 seats in Parliament, turning the tide for the center-left.
For that to happen, the Israeli peace camp must declare in advance its willingness to ally with Arab parties. Such an Arab-Jewish coalition would also have a galvanizing effect on Israel's population and help address years of discrimination. Israeli Arabs are feeling bitter about the Gaza attacks, but one of their own was the second victim of Hamas rocket fire in the first days of the fighting, which should make it easier to emphasize that they are an integral part of Israeli society.
Some Israelis fear that partnering with Arabs would somehow put the Zionist enterprise at risk. That notion is absurd. The state of Israel is powerful and dynamic. Gaza has reminded everyone how powerful Israel's military still is. Meanwhile, the economy is solid, thanks to an extraordinary high-tech sector. Israeli society is robust, with an enormously vital religious life and a flourishing arts culture. The state, in other words, is a going concern.
Yet as Gaza has once more reminded us, we Israeli Jews will not be able to reach peace with our neighbors on our own. We need the help of our fellow Arab citizens. Inviting them into a full and equal partnership would be the ultimate triumph of Zionism. In the age of Obama, the time has come to repudiate our old phobias and prejudices and move forward to a better future for our children and grandchildren.
Gavron is the author, most recently, of "Holy Land Mosaic."
Last week's massive Israeli reprisals against Hamas in Gaza, which followed the breakdown of a five-month truce, have made peace between Israel and the Palestinians seem more remote than ever. Yet the fighting also dramatized just how important it is to resolve the conflict once and for all. And the opportunity is running out: in a month, Israel will hold an election, and unless the Gaza fighting changes things dramatically, the winner will likely be a right-wing government led by the Likud's Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu. Such a government will be unwilling to ever make the compromises necessary to achieve a two-state settlement. That means that the prospect of peace will recede still further. The only way to prevent this outcome is to quickly change the rules of Israel's political game. And the way to do that is by ending the exclusion of Israel's own Arab population from government.
Consider: for almost four decades, Israel's political establishment has been deadlocked over peace with the Palestinians. The country's Jewish voters are basically split in half on the question. Yet Israel could break this stalemate by fully enfranchising its Arabs, who make up about 14 percent of voters. These citizens have full rights under Israeli law but have long felt like second-class citizens, and their political parties, though allowed in the Knesset, have been barred by tradition from joining coalition governments.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, set the precedent for this exclusion when he declared that his and successive administrations should be formed "without Herut or the communists." Herut was the right-wing party then led by his conservative rival, Menachem Begin, and that prohibition was abandoned by 1967.
But the ban on communists has lasted, for one main reason: because most party members also happen to be Arabs. Over the years, other Arab parties have managed to find their way into the Knesset, but they have never been invited to join an Israeli government. Arabs have served in the cabinet, but only if they were members of Zionist (Jewish) parties. On a few occasions, Arab parties have formed temporary blocking coalitions with Zionists, but the Arabs were never allowed close to the center of power.
Israel's Declaration of Independence guarantees all citizens equality, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Yet in many fields this principle has never been honored. The 2007 Equality Index published by Sikkuy, an NGO that works for equality between Israel's Arabs and Jews, shows that the life expectancy of Arabs is four years shorter than that of Jews, and that while the state invests about $130 per person per month for basic welfare for Jewish citizens, the figure is just $85 for Arab citizens. Such discrimination must end and the promise of Israel's founding document must be fulfilled—if not for moral reasons, then for a practical one. Israel will never find peace otherwise.
In February the pro-peace, centrist Kadima Party led by Tzipi Livni will face off with, and probably be defeated by, a combination of hawkish and religious parties led by Netanyahu. Should he become prime minister once more, there will be no meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians. Construction of the security fence and the expansion of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories will continue, as will the extension of a massive infrastructure of roads, water pipes, power lines and military installations that will make the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state physically impossible.
Bibi's coalition is likely to win 60 seats in the Knesset, versus Livni's 50. But Israel's Arabs could shift the balance decisively. In recent years they've tended to avoid national elections out of a sense of impotence. Were they convinced that their votes mattered, however, they could—like young Obama supporters in America—turn out in record numbers and win as many as 17 seats in Parliament, turning the tide for the center-left.
For that to happen, the Israeli peace camp must declare in advance its willingness to ally with Arab parties. Such an Arab-Jewish coalition would also have a galvanizing effect on Israel's population and help address years of discrimination. Israeli Arabs are feeling bitter about the Gaza attacks, but one of their own was the second victim of Hamas rocket fire in the first days of the fighting, which should make it easier to emphasize that they are an integral part of Israeli society.
Some Israelis fear that partnering with Arabs would somehow put the Zionist enterprise at risk. That notion is absurd. The state of Israel is powerful and dynamic. Gaza has reminded everyone how powerful Israel's military still is. Meanwhile, the economy is solid, thanks to an extraordinary high-tech sector. Israeli society is robust, with an enormously vital religious life and a flourishing arts culture. The state, in other words, is a going concern.
Yet as Gaza has once more reminded us, we Israeli Jews will not be able to reach peace with our neighbors on our own. We need the help of our fellow Arab citizens. Inviting them into a full and equal partnership would be the ultimate triumph of Zionism. In the age of Obama, the time has come to repudiate our old phobias and prejudices and move forward to a better future for our children and grandchildren.
Gavron is the author, most recently, of "Holy Land Mosaic."
Business - Rise of Chinese Banks
Dan Weil
The global economic contagion has spread to China, sending shudders around the world. Chinese leaders are worried about domestic social unrest, while U.S. leaders are worried about whether China will continue loading up on Treasury securities as our budget deficit explodes.
Yet one of the few bright spots is the surprising strength of China's banking system. Remember when that system seemed on the verge of collapse? That's where the banks stood until the reforms of the past 10 years.
But now the picture is completely different. As former World Bank official Pieter Bottelier, now a professor at Johns Hopkins, notes, "The irony is that 10 years ago, China's banks were among the weakest in the world and today they are among the strongest, however primitive their system."
How did they turn things around?
The short answer is that the Chinese government imposed many of the same market-based principles used in the West. (We'll get to why they seem to work better in China in a minute.) Officials improved regulations and supervision, introducing risk capital requirements and tightening nonperforming loan criteria and provision standards.
The government allowed banks to be listed on stock exchanges, which meant they had to report their earnings according to Western accounting standards. Now two of the world's three biggest banks by market capitalization are Chinese: Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, which is the biggest, and China Construction Bank, No. 3.
Beginning in 1998, the government recapitalized them. Several years later, the government used approximately $60 billion of its massive foreign currency reserves to help finish the job. And banks were able to dump their bad loans onto state entities created for the purpose of holding the waste, while the banks received safe Finance Ministry bonds in exchange. Income from these restructured assets accounted for 60 percent of ICBC's profit in 2006
Under China's old risk-weighting system, the banks were able to declare that loans to state-owned companies carried zero risk. That allowed the banks to have huge balance sheets with virtually no capital. No more. As of Sept. 30, the average capital adequacy ratio for all of China's publicly traded banks totaled about 13 percent, well above the government's required standard of 8 percent.
The treatment of nonperforming loans has changed drastically as well. In the old days, such bad loans were simply rolled over, with skipped payments being capitalized into the loans. Then the government decreed that interest payments on a loan had to be received within 90 days for it to avoid being classified as nonperforming. Initially, the amount of nonperforming loans rose, but as of Sept. 30, 2008, nonperforming loans totaled only 2 percent of the loan total for the country's listed banks. That compares with 2.3 percent for FDIC-insured banks in the United States.
The provision system, which is how banks account for loans that may go bad, has changed, too. Before the reforms of the past decade, banks didn't have to create provisions for bad loans, regardless of the quality of their loan portfolios. Now provisions are substantial. As of Sept. 30, provisions for loan losses among the listed banks amounted to an impressive 123 percent of their nonperforming loans.
In 2003, Chinese regulators let foreign investors increase their stakes in Chinese banks from 15 percent to 20 percent. That ruling gave the banks more capital and credibility, paving the way for their initial public offerings beginning in 2005.
It also gave the Chinese institutions access to Western management expertise, though fortunately for the Chinese, they didn't match their Western brethren's excessive risk-taking.
And that's still paying off: China's publicly traded banks registered a 53 percent increase in net income in the third quarter of 2008 from the same period in 2007.
And perhaps most importantly, Chinese banks skipped the subprime party. They will, at most, have to write off 0.1 percent of their assets as a result of owning toxic U.S. securities, estimates Nicholas Lardy, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
But the global recession puts some of that progress at risk. China's explosive double-digit economic growth in recent years, powered by its potent export machine, made it easy for banks to glitter. The rapid slowdown of China's economy represents the biggest problem. China's economy expanded at an explosive 11.4 percent rate last year. Experts estimate that pace will soon slip to 5 percent to 8 percent. While such a figure would represent nirvana for the United States now, the three- to six-percentage-point decline is similar in magnitude to what the U.S. is going through. Double-digit growth in China sent corporate profits soaring. Pretax profits totaled 11 percent of GDP last year, up from 4 percent in 2001.
"You have to be a pretty bad lending officer to find someone who's not credit-worthy in that scenario," Lardy says. "Now the economy has slowed, and profits will go negative very soon. Then we will learn more about the quality of loans."
As for the financial crisis that began in the West, it hasn't hurt China directly. But the resulting global recession has crimped demand for Chinese exports. And exports constitute a key component of China's economy. In addition, the government has protected banks by capping deposit rates and cutting bank taxes. That allows banks to cover up some deficiencies.
So Chinese banks are vulnerable. Nonperforming loans will surely increase. Still, a crisis is unlikely. The government has many weapons to fight the economy's deceleration—witness the recent announcement of a $585 billion fiscal stimulus plan. And the banks are much better equipped to handle loan losses now than they were years ago.
The global economic contagion has spread to China, sending shudders around the world. Chinese leaders are worried about domestic social unrest, while U.S. leaders are worried about whether China will continue loading up on Treasury securities as our budget deficit explodes.
Yet one of the few bright spots is the surprising strength of China's banking system. Remember when that system seemed on the verge of collapse? That's where the banks stood until the reforms of the past 10 years.
But now the picture is completely different. As former World Bank official Pieter Bottelier, now a professor at Johns Hopkins, notes, "The irony is that 10 years ago, China's banks were among the weakest in the world and today they are among the strongest, however primitive their system."
How did they turn things around?
The short answer is that the Chinese government imposed many of the same market-based principles used in the West. (We'll get to why they seem to work better in China in a minute.) Officials improved regulations and supervision, introducing risk capital requirements and tightening nonperforming loan criteria and provision standards.
The government allowed banks to be listed on stock exchanges, which meant they had to report their earnings according to Western accounting standards. Now two of the world's three biggest banks by market capitalization are Chinese: Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, which is the biggest, and China Construction Bank, No. 3.
Beginning in 1998, the government recapitalized them. Several years later, the government used approximately $60 billion of its massive foreign currency reserves to help finish the job. And banks were able to dump their bad loans onto state entities created for the purpose of holding the waste, while the banks received safe Finance Ministry bonds in exchange. Income from these restructured assets accounted for 60 percent of ICBC's profit in 2006
Under China's old risk-weighting system, the banks were able to declare that loans to state-owned companies carried zero risk. That allowed the banks to have huge balance sheets with virtually no capital. No more. As of Sept. 30, the average capital adequacy ratio for all of China's publicly traded banks totaled about 13 percent, well above the government's required standard of 8 percent.
The treatment of nonperforming loans has changed drastically as well. In the old days, such bad loans were simply rolled over, with skipped payments being capitalized into the loans. Then the government decreed that interest payments on a loan had to be received within 90 days for it to avoid being classified as nonperforming. Initially, the amount of nonperforming loans rose, but as of Sept. 30, 2008, nonperforming loans totaled only 2 percent of the loan total for the country's listed banks. That compares with 2.3 percent for FDIC-insured banks in the United States.
The provision system, which is how banks account for loans that may go bad, has changed, too. Before the reforms of the past decade, banks didn't have to create provisions for bad loans, regardless of the quality of their loan portfolios. Now provisions are substantial. As of Sept. 30, provisions for loan losses among the listed banks amounted to an impressive 123 percent of their nonperforming loans.
In 2003, Chinese regulators let foreign investors increase their stakes in Chinese banks from 15 percent to 20 percent. That ruling gave the banks more capital and credibility, paving the way for their initial public offerings beginning in 2005.
It also gave the Chinese institutions access to Western management expertise, though fortunately for the Chinese, they didn't match their Western brethren's excessive risk-taking.
And that's still paying off: China's publicly traded banks registered a 53 percent increase in net income in the third quarter of 2008 from the same period in 2007.
And perhaps most importantly, Chinese banks skipped the subprime party. They will, at most, have to write off 0.1 percent of their assets as a result of owning toxic U.S. securities, estimates Nicholas Lardy, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
But the global recession puts some of that progress at risk. China's explosive double-digit economic growth in recent years, powered by its potent export machine, made it easy for banks to glitter. The rapid slowdown of China's economy represents the biggest problem. China's economy expanded at an explosive 11.4 percent rate last year. Experts estimate that pace will soon slip to 5 percent to 8 percent. While such a figure would represent nirvana for the United States now, the three- to six-percentage-point decline is similar in magnitude to what the U.S. is going through. Double-digit growth in China sent corporate profits soaring. Pretax profits totaled 11 percent of GDP last year, up from 4 percent in 2001.
"You have to be a pretty bad lending officer to find someone who's not credit-worthy in that scenario," Lardy says. "Now the economy has slowed, and profits will go negative very soon. Then we will learn more about the quality of loans."
As for the financial crisis that began in the West, it hasn't hurt China directly. But the resulting global recession has crimped demand for Chinese exports. And exports constitute a key component of China's economy. In addition, the government has protected banks by capping deposit rates and cutting bank taxes. That allows banks to cover up some deficiencies.
So Chinese banks are vulnerable. Nonperforming loans will surely increase. Still, a crisis is unlikely. The government has many weapons to fight the economy's deceleration—witness the recent announcement of a $585 billion fiscal stimulus plan. And the banks are much better equipped to handle loan losses now than they were years ago.
Business - Time Warner's Red Ink
Gabriel Sherman
When Time Warner's veteran publishing unit began laying off employees in large numbers in 2005, it allowed the company to clear out several floors of space at the storied Time-Life headquarters on Manhattan's Sixth Avenue. Prudent managers came up with a great solution: lease the space out to a no-brainer, blue-chip tenant with its own overflowing headquarters nearby.
This morning, Time Warner announced that it will need to take a charge against earnings of between $50 million and $60 million for the "restructuring of a lease for space in the Time & Life building held by a lessee who recently declared bankruptcy." That unnamed tenant? Lehman Bros.
You can almost hear Time Warner management saying, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
The trouble is, that's what Time Warner management has been saying about too many things for too long. The aborted Lehman lease is the least of the company's problems; it is also taking an "impairment charge" of some $25 billion, essentially arguing that its cable, publishing, and AOL businesses are not worth what the company was claiming they were worth as recently as November. The company also disclosed that lower advertising revenues at its publishing and AOL divisions would contribute to a 2008 loss and that it would be increasing its reserves by $40 million to protect itself against cash-strapped cable customers who fail to make their payments.
What is so shocking about Time Warner's fourth-quarter loss is that it's being presented to the market as a shock. It's been eight years since the failed marriage of AOL and Time Warner, and despite repeated efforts at therapy, the union is still broken. None of these problems are new. In fact, the current crisis at Time Warner was set in motion years ago.
When Dick Parsons handed the reins to current Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes last January, there was wide speculation in Manhattan media circles that the detail-focused Bewkes would (finally!) wrangle Time Warner into a media company that makes sense and perhaps deliver the vaunted "synergies" promised so many times in the past by management. The first step for Bewkes was to spin off the cable unit to get Wall Street to look at the company as something other than a utility. Granted, cable stocks had something of a renaissance in the 2006-07 time frame as broadband expanded and triple-play came into its own. But, again, having made the decision to spin off the cable business, why did Time Warner leave themselves holding 83 percent of the bag while Time Warner Cable's stock lost a huge chunk of its value?
Still, by spinning off the cable unit, the thinking went, Bewkes would fashion Time Warner into a pure-play content provider comprised of its Time Inc. publishing arm, AOL, and its movie and television studios. The streamlined revenue model would be a mix of subscription and advertising that Wall Street could understand. But going the content route still didn't address the fact that the media business remains deeply troubled as digital forces continue to erode consumers' willingness to pay for magazines, movies, and generally all forms of entertainment. It's becoming increasingly harder and harder to make a business out of producing and selling content. And yet that's the business Time Warner has now doubled down on.
Take Time Inc., the publisher of Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and People, among other titles. The division continues to be battered by the decline of print advertising and the unimpeded migration of readers to the Web. The cratering of the U.S. auto industry has been particularly painful to Time Inc., as automakers have slashed ad spending in unison. But despite the recent economic meltdown, these forces were set in motion years ago. Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore was a late convert to the Web. In 2005, the company finally adopted a strategy to focus on its core magazine brands and build robust Web sites around them. But with revenue of $5 billion, it's unclear if Time Inc. could ever scale a Web business to the point where it could sustain a well-staffed enterprise of writers and editors producing professional content.
And how can anyone be surprised that AOL is worth less than the company was saying? Google's investment in it implies a $20 billion valuation, which is obviously absurd. But, more importantly, AOL has been an obvious, stinking albatross for years. They even took AOL out of the company's name a couple of years back. Why were Parsons and company so reluctant to pull the trigger on this?
There have been some bright spots in the past year. Warner Bros.' The Dark Knight earned more than $500 million at the domestic box office, and the epic presidential election pushed CNN ratings to new records. But amid the deepest economic recession in 70 years, Time Warner can't delay confronting the reckoning that faces the media business. It is a company where it's very easy to see where the blood is flowing. But for whatever reason, it can't find the bandages or the scalpel. For an unpleasant reminder of one possible future outcome, Time Warner executives need only to look at the empty space in the Time-Life building.
When Time Warner's veteran publishing unit began laying off employees in large numbers in 2005, it allowed the company to clear out several floors of space at the storied Time-Life headquarters on Manhattan's Sixth Avenue. Prudent managers came up with a great solution: lease the space out to a no-brainer, blue-chip tenant with its own overflowing headquarters nearby.
This morning, Time Warner announced that it will need to take a charge against earnings of between $50 million and $60 million for the "restructuring of a lease for space in the Time & Life building held by a lessee who recently declared bankruptcy." That unnamed tenant? Lehman Bros.
You can almost hear Time Warner management saying, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
The trouble is, that's what Time Warner management has been saying about too many things for too long. The aborted Lehman lease is the least of the company's problems; it is also taking an "impairment charge" of some $25 billion, essentially arguing that its cable, publishing, and AOL businesses are not worth what the company was claiming they were worth as recently as November. The company also disclosed that lower advertising revenues at its publishing and AOL divisions would contribute to a 2008 loss and that it would be increasing its reserves by $40 million to protect itself against cash-strapped cable customers who fail to make their payments.
What is so shocking about Time Warner's fourth-quarter loss is that it's being presented to the market as a shock. It's been eight years since the failed marriage of AOL and Time Warner, and despite repeated efforts at therapy, the union is still broken. None of these problems are new. In fact, the current crisis at Time Warner was set in motion years ago.
When Dick Parsons handed the reins to current Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes last January, there was wide speculation in Manhattan media circles that the detail-focused Bewkes would (finally!) wrangle Time Warner into a media company that makes sense and perhaps deliver the vaunted "synergies" promised so many times in the past by management. The first step for Bewkes was to spin off the cable unit to get Wall Street to look at the company as something other than a utility. Granted, cable stocks had something of a renaissance in the 2006-07 time frame as broadband expanded and triple-play came into its own. But, again, having made the decision to spin off the cable business, why did Time Warner leave themselves holding 83 percent of the bag while Time Warner Cable's stock lost a huge chunk of its value?
Still, by spinning off the cable unit, the thinking went, Bewkes would fashion Time Warner into a pure-play content provider comprised of its Time Inc. publishing arm, AOL, and its movie and television studios. The streamlined revenue model would be a mix of subscription and advertising that Wall Street could understand. But going the content route still didn't address the fact that the media business remains deeply troubled as digital forces continue to erode consumers' willingness to pay for magazines, movies, and generally all forms of entertainment. It's becoming increasingly harder and harder to make a business out of producing and selling content. And yet that's the business Time Warner has now doubled down on.
Take Time Inc., the publisher of Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and People, among other titles. The division continues to be battered by the decline of print advertising and the unimpeded migration of readers to the Web. The cratering of the U.S. auto industry has been particularly painful to Time Inc., as automakers have slashed ad spending in unison. But despite the recent economic meltdown, these forces were set in motion years ago. Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore was a late convert to the Web. In 2005, the company finally adopted a strategy to focus on its core magazine brands and build robust Web sites around them. But with revenue of $5 billion, it's unclear if Time Inc. could ever scale a Web business to the point where it could sustain a well-staffed enterprise of writers and editors producing professional content.
And how can anyone be surprised that AOL is worth less than the company was saying? Google's investment in it implies a $20 billion valuation, which is obviously absurd. But, more importantly, AOL has been an obvious, stinking albatross for years. They even took AOL out of the company's name a couple of years back. Why were Parsons and company so reluctant to pull the trigger on this?
There have been some bright spots in the past year. Warner Bros.' The Dark Knight earned more than $500 million at the domestic box office, and the epic presidential election pushed CNN ratings to new records. But amid the deepest economic recession in 70 years, Time Warner can't delay confronting the reckoning that faces the media business. It is a company where it's very easy to see where the blood is flowing. But for whatever reason, it can't find the bandages or the scalpel. For an unpleasant reminder of one possible future outcome, Time Warner executives need only to look at the empty space in the Time-Life building.
Health - What we lie to Doctors about and why it matters
Joan Raymond
There are big lies. And little lies. And somewhere in between there are the lies we tell our doctors. Even back in the day, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, knew that those pesky Greek patients might tell a fib or two. To find out if they were stretching the truth, Hippocrates measured their pulse rates.
Janie Hoffman's doctor didn't have to do that. During a routine visit, Hoffman's doctor asked her if she was still smoking. Hoffman said, "No, I quit." Her doctor then looked at her and said: "I guess that pack sticking out of your purse is for a friend." Still looking for an out, Hoffman replied: "How did that get there?" It would have been smarter for Hoffman to suffer the embarrassment and 'fess up. It may be painful, but telling your doctor about your questionable health habits like eating vats of junk food, or talking about socially risky behaviors like overindulging in alcohol, illegal drugs or unprotected sex, could save your life.
That's not always obvious to patients who sometimes feel that telling a fib, or omitting information, can be less angst-inducing than listening to a diatribe about the dangers of certain lifestyle choices. "I'm not stupid and everyone knows that smoking is bad, but who wants to hear a lecture?" says Hoffman, a Los Angeles marketing executive who kicked the habit (honestly) not long after that visit and has been tobacco-free for more than five years. Apparently, not too many of us. According to survey done by WebMD, Hoffman is among the 13 percent of 1,500 respondents who actually admitted they lied to their docs. Thirty-two percent only admitted they "stretched the truth," which is a lie by any other name.Our lies cover the gamut. Nearly 40 percent of folks lied about following a doctor's treatment plan, and more than 30 percent lied about their diet and exercise regimens. Folks were also not truthful about smoking, risky sex, alcohol intake, recreational drug use, taking medications as prescribed, second opinions, and the use of alternative therapies and supplements, among other things.
Not telling your doctor about all the health products you're taking, even if they seem innocuous, can be particularly risky. A study that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association in December shows that about one in 25 adults between the ages of 57-85 are putting themselves at risk for major drug interactions when mixing prescription drugs, such as a commonly prescribed blood thinner, with over-the-counters like aspirin, vitamins and supplements, such as the popular ginkgo biloba. "Patients have to come clean about the various things they put in their bodies," says Dr. David C. Thomas, associate professor of medicine, at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "We ask questions for a reason."
Doctors believe that most patients don't walk into their offices intending to lie. But they know that fear of judgment, the desire to appear to be a good patient, a lack of understanding about why certain questions may be asked, and even insurance worries, often lead them down the path of duplicity.
And when it comes to fibs, doctors have heard it all. "The classic is that a lot of patients will underestimate the number of sexual partners they've had," says Dr. Deborah Lindner, an OB/GYN at Northwestern Memorial's Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago. She concedes that "after a certain number" that particular lie doesn't "really matter that much," but women who deceive themselves and don't practice safe sex, for example, run the risk of sexually transmitted diseases not to mention problems with fertility. "No one wants to admit to risky sex, or having multiple partners, or smoking, or drinking too much," says Lindner. "But people must understand we ask these questions not because we are judging someone, but to keep them healthy."
These little lies can have consequences from not giving your physician the tools to work with you in preventing disease to sometimes unnecessary testing or changes in medications. If, for example, you tell you doctor you are taking your medications as prescribed, but you aren't, and your blood pressure is still off the charts, that can lead to increased dosing or changes in medications. Or if you continue to gain weight, despite swearing that you are dieting and exercising, doctors "are going to have to look for a cause," says Mount Sinai's Thomas. "That means increased costs and a lot of wasted time. All you have to do is tell us what is going on."Don Martelli of Revere, Mass. hopes he keeps his blood pressure in check and his weight under control. Martelli is a self-described "big guy on a diet." "I like to say I'm on the see food diet; I see food and I eat it," says Martelli, 35, who is 6 feet 2 inches tall and at one time tipped the scales at about 280 pounds. Martelli had borderline high blood pressure and was told to diet and exercise. He admits to telling the little white lies about his lifestyle when he wasn't losing weight. But he was always uneasy. "I thought that maybe my doctor would think I had some weird thyroid thing going on and I would have to get tests," he says. "But I was too embarrassed to say I was face first in a pasta bowl when everyone on the planet is exercising and sipping bottled water."Fortunately, Martelli got a reprieve. At his last check-up, he did drop some pounds and his blood pressure was normal. "I think my doctor knew I was fibbing about some stuff," Martelli says. "But at least he worked with me."
And now technology may make it easier for them to learn the truth. The Cleveland Clinic, along with Microsoft HealthVault, started a pilot program in November with some 400 patients who had heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes that may keep folks from fibbing—and allow doctors to intervene earlier when blood pressure, blood glucose or weight get out of control. Rather than keeping a log with pad and paper, patients use computer-aided home monitoring equipment to take daily blood pressure, glucose and weight readings that are then transmitted right to their doctor, making it a little harder to fudge the numbers.
Even without computer monitoring, most doctors probably do know when patients are fibbing about common vices. After all, there is that old medical saw that doctors multiply things by two or three. So if you say you have a drink a day, there's a good chance your doctor is already upping the count. But as savvy as a physician might be, a wink and a nod isn't the best way to go about getting good care. "It's really not about [the doctor] building in multipliers or stigmatizing issues, rather you should be able to trust your doctor enough to tell him anything," says Dr. Robert Arnold, director of the Institute for Doctor-Patient Communication at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
All that honesty takes motivation by the doctor and the patient. For cardiologist Dr. Kim Eagle, motivating his patients to stay on the straight and narrow certainly includes those honest chats about lifestyle and good health. But if good health isn't enough of a reward there's always money. "I'll give my patients a nickel, a buck, if they lose weight," says Eagle, who then tells patients to tape the money to the refrigerator. "People love it. It's a game and it gets conversations going about how we can work together." And Eagle says, those conversations can reveal a lot more about a patient's health than a simple yes or no answer. "If you actually take the time to talk you might find out the reason a patient isn't exercising is because his back hurts, or the reason a patient isn't eating fruits is because she can't afford them," says Eagle, a professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System.Finding time to talk can be tough. It's no secret that the economics of medicine has chipped away at the art of medicine as doctors struggle with the realities of a reimbursement system that demands they see more patients."There's good data that doctors don't do a good job of listening, sometimes cutting off patients within 20 seconds of their opening line," says pulmonologist Dr. Jeff Rabatin of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Maine. Rabatin, who has codirected communication skills workshops and has written about the subject, says that doctors can learn how to effectively talk to their patients. But patients have to get with the program, too. "Try to tell your doctor the whole story," Rabatin suggests. And remember, it could be "tough for a doctor to lose weight, too."
The first step in trying to be a more honest patient is finding a doctor that you are comfortable with. And remember that nothing will surprise your doc, including tales about cosmo-bingeing, pot-smoking weekends. "We aren't here to render moral judgments," says cardiologist Dr. Amy Tucker, associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Virginia Health System. "So the half-truths really aren't necessary."Terry Buchen, a golf agronomist from Williamsburg, Va., doesn't lie to his doctor. He plies him with golf balls and golf instructional videos. Buchen is on the road about 200 days a year, flying across the globe to help with turf issues at some of the world's most famous golf courses. He has a tough time with diet and exercise when he's on the road. But he and his primary-care physician, whom he has been seeing for more than 10 years, have developed a good relationship. "When my doctor asks me how he can help me reach my goals, that means a lot," Buchen says. "It makes me feel that I can admit when I fall off the food-and-exercise wagon."But Buchen isn't a saint. He has a told a few whoppers in the dental chair. "I really don't floss as much as I say," he admits. Trust me, Mr. Buchen, your dentist has already figured that out.
There are big lies. And little lies. And somewhere in between there are the lies we tell our doctors. Even back in the day, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, knew that those pesky Greek patients might tell a fib or two. To find out if they were stretching the truth, Hippocrates measured their pulse rates.
Janie Hoffman's doctor didn't have to do that. During a routine visit, Hoffman's doctor asked her if she was still smoking. Hoffman said, "No, I quit." Her doctor then looked at her and said: "I guess that pack sticking out of your purse is for a friend." Still looking for an out, Hoffman replied: "How did that get there?" It would have been smarter for Hoffman to suffer the embarrassment and 'fess up. It may be painful, but telling your doctor about your questionable health habits like eating vats of junk food, or talking about socially risky behaviors like overindulging in alcohol, illegal drugs or unprotected sex, could save your life.
That's not always obvious to patients who sometimes feel that telling a fib, or omitting information, can be less angst-inducing than listening to a diatribe about the dangers of certain lifestyle choices. "I'm not stupid and everyone knows that smoking is bad, but who wants to hear a lecture?" says Hoffman, a Los Angeles marketing executive who kicked the habit (honestly) not long after that visit and has been tobacco-free for more than five years. Apparently, not too many of us. According to survey done by WebMD, Hoffman is among the 13 percent of 1,500 respondents who actually admitted they lied to their docs. Thirty-two percent only admitted they "stretched the truth," which is a lie by any other name.Our lies cover the gamut. Nearly 40 percent of folks lied about following a doctor's treatment plan, and more than 30 percent lied about their diet and exercise regimens. Folks were also not truthful about smoking, risky sex, alcohol intake, recreational drug use, taking medications as prescribed, second opinions, and the use of alternative therapies and supplements, among other things.
Not telling your doctor about all the health products you're taking, even if they seem innocuous, can be particularly risky. A study that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association in December shows that about one in 25 adults between the ages of 57-85 are putting themselves at risk for major drug interactions when mixing prescription drugs, such as a commonly prescribed blood thinner, with over-the-counters like aspirin, vitamins and supplements, such as the popular ginkgo biloba. "Patients have to come clean about the various things they put in their bodies," says Dr. David C. Thomas, associate professor of medicine, at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "We ask questions for a reason."
Doctors believe that most patients don't walk into their offices intending to lie. But they know that fear of judgment, the desire to appear to be a good patient, a lack of understanding about why certain questions may be asked, and even insurance worries, often lead them down the path of duplicity.
And when it comes to fibs, doctors have heard it all. "The classic is that a lot of patients will underestimate the number of sexual partners they've had," says Dr. Deborah Lindner, an OB/GYN at Northwestern Memorial's Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago. She concedes that "after a certain number" that particular lie doesn't "really matter that much," but women who deceive themselves and don't practice safe sex, for example, run the risk of sexually transmitted diseases not to mention problems with fertility. "No one wants to admit to risky sex, or having multiple partners, or smoking, or drinking too much," says Lindner. "But people must understand we ask these questions not because we are judging someone, but to keep them healthy."
These little lies can have consequences from not giving your physician the tools to work with you in preventing disease to sometimes unnecessary testing or changes in medications. If, for example, you tell you doctor you are taking your medications as prescribed, but you aren't, and your blood pressure is still off the charts, that can lead to increased dosing or changes in medications. Or if you continue to gain weight, despite swearing that you are dieting and exercising, doctors "are going to have to look for a cause," says Mount Sinai's Thomas. "That means increased costs and a lot of wasted time. All you have to do is tell us what is going on."Don Martelli of Revere, Mass. hopes he keeps his blood pressure in check and his weight under control. Martelli is a self-described "big guy on a diet." "I like to say I'm on the see food diet; I see food and I eat it," says Martelli, 35, who is 6 feet 2 inches tall and at one time tipped the scales at about 280 pounds. Martelli had borderline high blood pressure and was told to diet and exercise. He admits to telling the little white lies about his lifestyle when he wasn't losing weight. But he was always uneasy. "I thought that maybe my doctor would think I had some weird thyroid thing going on and I would have to get tests," he says. "But I was too embarrassed to say I was face first in a pasta bowl when everyone on the planet is exercising and sipping bottled water."Fortunately, Martelli got a reprieve. At his last check-up, he did drop some pounds and his blood pressure was normal. "I think my doctor knew I was fibbing about some stuff," Martelli says. "But at least he worked with me."
And now technology may make it easier for them to learn the truth. The Cleveland Clinic, along with Microsoft HealthVault, started a pilot program in November with some 400 patients who had heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes that may keep folks from fibbing—and allow doctors to intervene earlier when blood pressure, blood glucose or weight get out of control. Rather than keeping a log with pad and paper, patients use computer-aided home monitoring equipment to take daily blood pressure, glucose and weight readings that are then transmitted right to their doctor, making it a little harder to fudge the numbers.
Even without computer monitoring, most doctors probably do know when patients are fibbing about common vices. After all, there is that old medical saw that doctors multiply things by two or three. So if you say you have a drink a day, there's a good chance your doctor is already upping the count. But as savvy as a physician might be, a wink and a nod isn't the best way to go about getting good care. "It's really not about [the doctor] building in multipliers or stigmatizing issues, rather you should be able to trust your doctor enough to tell him anything," says Dr. Robert Arnold, director of the Institute for Doctor-Patient Communication at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
All that honesty takes motivation by the doctor and the patient. For cardiologist Dr. Kim Eagle, motivating his patients to stay on the straight and narrow certainly includes those honest chats about lifestyle and good health. But if good health isn't enough of a reward there's always money. "I'll give my patients a nickel, a buck, if they lose weight," says Eagle, who then tells patients to tape the money to the refrigerator. "People love it. It's a game and it gets conversations going about how we can work together." And Eagle says, those conversations can reveal a lot more about a patient's health than a simple yes or no answer. "If you actually take the time to talk you might find out the reason a patient isn't exercising is because his back hurts, or the reason a patient isn't eating fruits is because she can't afford them," says Eagle, a professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System.Finding time to talk can be tough. It's no secret that the economics of medicine has chipped away at the art of medicine as doctors struggle with the realities of a reimbursement system that demands they see more patients."There's good data that doctors don't do a good job of listening, sometimes cutting off patients within 20 seconds of their opening line," says pulmonologist Dr. Jeff Rabatin of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Maine. Rabatin, who has codirected communication skills workshops and has written about the subject, says that doctors can learn how to effectively talk to their patients. But patients have to get with the program, too. "Try to tell your doctor the whole story," Rabatin suggests. And remember, it could be "tough for a doctor to lose weight, too."
The first step in trying to be a more honest patient is finding a doctor that you are comfortable with. And remember that nothing will surprise your doc, including tales about cosmo-bingeing, pot-smoking weekends. "We aren't here to render moral judgments," says cardiologist Dr. Amy Tucker, associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Virginia Health System. "So the half-truths really aren't necessary."Terry Buchen, a golf agronomist from Williamsburg, Va., doesn't lie to his doctor. He plies him with golf balls and golf instructional videos. Buchen is on the road about 200 days a year, flying across the globe to help with turf issues at some of the world's most famous golf courses. He has a tough time with diet and exercise when he's on the road. But he and his primary-care physician, whom he has been seeing for more than 10 years, have developed a good relationship. "When my doctor asks me how he can help me reach my goals, that means a lot," Buchen says. "It makes me feel that I can admit when I fall off the food-and-exercise wagon."But Buchen isn't a saint. He has a told a few whoppers in the dental chair. "I really don't floss as much as I say," he admits. Trust me, Mr. Buchen, your dentist has already figured that out.
Business - Murdoch revitalizes the WSJ
Johnnie L Roberts
Andrew Leckey, an inveterate reader of newspapers, recently grabbed a copy of The New York Times as he dashed from his office at Arizona State. As director of the university's Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, his mission is to improve the quality of financial reporting. So you'd think he'd recognize his publications on sight. But he soon discovered, when he opened the paper, that he didn't have his Times with him. "I had walked out with The Wall Street Journal," he says. Just a year ago, that would've been unthinkable: the austere Journal with small headlines and no photos; the Times with a variety of display type and color images. "The Journal has been pushed to look like The New York Times," Leckey says. "There's this willingness to focus on banner headlines, and even the use of color photos." And nearly gone from the 119-year-old Journal are the iconic dot portraits of newsmakers.
That's not all that has changed since Rupert Murdoch took over a year ago. After his News Corp.'s $5 billion acquisition of the Journal's parent, Dow Jones, Murdoch has jettisoned longstanding traditions of the paper. Operating through his editor in chief, Robert Thomson—a worldly, unsentimental Aussie—Murdoch has transformed one of the world's most specialized publications into a more general, fuller account of the news beyond the business world, especially in politics and international affairs. By expanding the Journal's bull's-eye, Murdoch is fulfilling a pledge to compete head-to-head with The New York Times—for readers and for advertisers. It's an evolution that's been showcased by the Journal's coverage of the confluence of a historic presidential election and a national economic meltdown.
Murdoch's new regime has accelerated other changes, relaunching the Journal's Web site and implementing a possibly historic restructuring of Dow Jones's entire news-gathering operation, including its news wires and WSJ.com. At a time when other print media (including the Times) are cutting back—reducing staff, eliminating sections and warning there's more to come—Murdoch's commitment to growth and investment are a dramatic counterpoint. Whatever else one may think of the 77-year-old's splashy journalistic sensibilities—and there are plenty of traditionalists who don't love the new Journal—few in the media business aren't impressed that Murdoch is at least trying to revitalize and extend an old-media brand. "The New York Times has been regarded as the best newspaper in the world," says Dow Jones CEO Leslie Hinton, a veteran Murdoch executive. "That's a reputation we don't believe is deserved. We're now a real alternative."
So far, the results are mixed, susceptible to different interpretations and haven't immunized parent News Corp. from the pounding that all media stocks are absorbing this year. The Journal is drawing more readers and advertisers, including coveted luxury brands. Newsstand sales have soared by more than 20 percent since the economic crisis. Dow Jones is looking to add color capacity, according to a company publishing executive who isn't authorized to discuss the subject. WSJ.com now draws more than 20 million unique visitors per month, and enjoys the enviable distinction of a dual stream of revenues from subscribers and advertisers. But it's unclear whether the growing print and online audiences are directly linked to Murdoch's overhaul. Maybe it's just inherent reader interest in two galvanizing news stories. In any case, the Journal's popularity has yet to boost overall profitability at Dow Jones. In its latest fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, News Corp. blamed Dow Jones for a $4 million reduction in pretax profits of its global newspaper and information segment.
Still, as a result of the Journal's industry-defying growth and News Corp.'s investments, Murdoch finds himself basking in changing sentiment. The Journal newsroom has embraced him as a savior. That was unimaginable in 2007 during the tumultuous eight months between Murdoch's initial offer and the final acquisition—a corporate drama that dominated the financial press. The takeover battle pitted the world's most powerful media mogul and the Bancroft family, a dysfunctional clan that controlled Dow Jones for more than a century.
Fearing the worst from the individual long regarded by the media establishment as a barbarian within its midst, some Journal reporters desperately, and fruitlessly, sought a white knight. But they now see "he's not burning, pillaging and firing" like the industry's other top publishers, including the Times, says a former top editor. "Everything Rupert said he wanted to do, he's trying to do." Nor is there any evidence he's interfered editorially based on any political predilections or business agendas, as many journalists feared when he approached the Bancrofts.
Even so, converts remain nervous. Murdoch may have assured the Journal's survival—but to what end? Journal veterans, for example, had feared all along the loss of the newspaper's distinctiveness, given Murdoch's goal to go beyond business coverage. Those worries will be buttressed by reactions like Leckey's. Those in the newsroom bemoan the slow disappearance of perhaps the newspaper's most revered contribution to journalism—the page-one "leder," the long explanatory pieces on either the left or right side of the pre-Murdoch Journal.
The Australian-born Thomson, 47, personifies the new Journal. He previously edited Murdoch's Times of London and the U.S. edition of the Financial Times. Thomson took over the Journal in May after the resignation of Marcus Brauchli, a Journal veteran whom Murdoch inherited with the transaction (and who is now editor of The Washington Post, whose parent company owns NEWSWEEK). Despite being a talented editor by all accounts, as well as an agent of change, Thomson remains an aloof presence to many in his anxious newsroom. The Murdoch regime "didn't come in with the view of winning approval," he says, "but one of clearly needing to change things."
Thomson's latest change, the appointment of a deputy editor, does little to assuage any unease. Bypassing Journal veterans and American journalists, he reached outside the publication last month to tap Gerard Baker, the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. editor of The Times of London. Officially, Baker, a Brit, will "spearhead" the Journal's "development as a national paper of influence and as an unrivaled international business-news franchise," Thomson said at the announcement. But the newsroom is buzzing about another of Thomson's alleged rationales. He supposedly told underlings that Baker will help infuse "fun" into the workplace, a capacity he apparently believes Journal editors lack. Baker, too, did Thomson a good turn during the Democratic convention in Denver in August. Thomson was stuck at a boring gathering of Journal staffers at a suburban pancake restaurant. Baker, at a party of top Obama operatives in downtown Denver, called his would-be boss and told him the operatives wanted to meet Thomson, who promptly fled the pancake affair. Thomson is unapologetic about his hires or his style. "I put pressure on people," he says. "That is my job—not to create a culture of complacency." But he hastens to add that there's been "a genuine enthusiasm and willingness to take a different direction into the future."
The personality drama aside, the evolving Journal—including its Web counterpart—is exhibit A of Murdoch's zeal for the viability of mass publications. In a recent lecture in Australia titled "The Future of Newspapers: Moving Beyond Dead Trees," he cited the transformed Journal in rebutting journalists who "seem to take a perverse pleasure in ruminating on their pending demise." He added, "The newspaper, or a very close electronic cousin, will always be around. It may not be thrown on your front doorstep the way it is today."
The Journal is larger than it was a year ago, having added four pages to accommodate expanded nonbusiness—primarily international—news. On top of that, there are two more pages of opinion and arts and cultural coverage. The Journal has relaunched its once renowned "Heard on the Street" column, and increased the staff of its Washington bureau. Average paid circulation totals slightly more than 2 million, with an additional 1 million electronic subscriptions. There's wide notice of the Journal's greater sense of urgency to break news, which has been essential during the economic crisis. Despite the concerns about the vanishing page-one feature stories, Murdoch hasn't abandoned lengthy investigative journalism.
Soft news has also become more prevalent. In a high-profile move, the Journal launched a glossy magazine, WSJ, in October. It hardly arrived smoothly. According to Journal insiders, a major feature on model Kate Moss and her business partner was pre-empted by a similar story in Vogue. Many subscribers—including the magazine's editor—never received the magazine in their weekend edition of the Journal. Many readers criticized WSJ as falling short of Journal standards. Thomson dismisses the objections. "The content is necessarily different [from] but not lesser than that of the main paper, and all of the copy went through the hands of senior Journal editors," he says. Madison Avenue embraced the magazine. The inaugural issue had more than 50 advertisers, including 19 who had never used the Journal.
Advertisers, of course, determine a publication's financial success. But they aren't a substitute for journalistic quality or distinctiveness. For generations, the Journal's stock in trade was business coverage, the characteristic Murdoch is now trying to submerge. In that audacious effort, admirably backed by capital and staffing, he runs the risk of making his creation indistinguishable from its rivals. The New York Times is one thing, but with flashy headlines, skinny models and color on the front page, does Murdoch really want Andrew Leckey mistaking the Journal for USA Today as he grabs a paper on the run?
Andrew Leckey, an inveterate reader of newspapers, recently grabbed a copy of The New York Times as he dashed from his office at Arizona State. As director of the university's Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, his mission is to improve the quality of financial reporting. So you'd think he'd recognize his publications on sight. But he soon discovered, when he opened the paper, that he didn't have his Times with him. "I had walked out with The Wall Street Journal," he says. Just a year ago, that would've been unthinkable: the austere Journal with small headlines and no photos; the Times with a variety of display type and color images. "The Journal has been pushed to look like The New York Times," Leckey says. "There's this willingness to focus on banner headlines, and even the use of color photos." And nearly gone from the 119-year-old Journal are the iconic dot portraits of newsmakers.
That's not all that has changed since Rupert Murdoch took over a year ago. After his News Corp.'s $5 billion acquisition of the Journal's parent, Dow Jones, Murdoch has jettisoned longstanding traditions of the paper. Operating through his editor in chief, Robert Thomson—a worldly, unsentimental Aussie—Murdoch has transformed one of the world's most specialized publications into a more general, fuller account of the news beyond the business world, especially in politics and international affairs. By expanding the Journal's bull's-eye, Murdoch is fulfilling a pledge to compete head-to-head with The New York Times—for readers and for advertisers. It's an evolution that's been showcased by the Journal's coverage of the confluence of a historic presidential election and a national economic meltdown.
Murdoch's new regime has accelerated other changes, relaunching the Journal's Web site and implementing a possibly historic restructuring of Dow Jones's entire news-gathering operation, including its news wires and WSJ.com. At a time when other print media (including the Times) are cutting back—reducing staff, eliminating sections and warning there's more to come—Murdoch's commitment to growth and investment are a dramatic counterpoint. Whatever else one may think of the 77-year-old's splashy journalistic sensibilities—and there are plenty of traditionalists who don't love the new Journal—few in the media business aren't impressed that Murdoch is at least trying to revitalize and extend an old-media brand. "The New York Times has been regarded as the best newspaper in the world," says Dow Jones CEO Leslie Hinton, a veteran Murdoch executive. "That's a reputation we don't believe is deserved. We're now a real alternative."
So far, the results are mixed, susceptible to different interpretations and haven't immunized parent News Corp. from the pounding that all media stocks are absorbing this year. The Journal is drawing more readers and advertisers, including coveted luxury brands. Newsstand sales have soared by more than 20 percent since the economic crisis. Dow Jones is looking to add color capacity, according to a company publishing executive who isn't authorized to discuss the subject. WSJ.com now draws more than 20 million unique visitors per month, and enjoys the enviable distinction of a dual stream of revenues from subscribers and advertisers. But it's unclear whether the growing print and online audiences are directly linked to Murdoch's overhaul. Maybe it's just inherent reader interest in two galvanizing news stories. In any case, the Journal's popularity has yet to boost overall profitability at Dow Jones. In its latest fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, News Corp. blamed Dow Jones for a $4 million reduction in pretax profits of its global newspaper and information segment.
Still, as a result of the Journal's industry-defying growth and News Corp.'s investments, Murdoch finds himself basking in changing sentiment. The Journal newsroom has embraced him as a savior. That was unimaginable in 2007 during the tumultuous eight months between Murdoch's initial offer and the final acquisition—a corporate drama that dominated the financial press. The takeover battle pitted the world's most powerful media mogul and the Bancroft family, a dysfunctional clan that controlled Dow Jones for more than a century.
Fearing the worst from the individual long regarded by the media establishment as a barbarian within its midst, some Journal reporters desperately, and fruitlessly, sought a white knight. But they now see "he's not burning, pillaging and firing" like the industry's other top publishers, including the Times, says a former top editor. "Everything Rupert said he wanted to do, he's trying to do." Nor is there any evidence he's interfered editorially based on any political predilections or business agendas, as many journalists feared when he approached the Bancrofts.
Even so, converts remain nervous. Murdoch may have assured the Journal's survival—but to what end? Journal veterans, for example, had feared all along the loss of the newspaper's distinctiveness, given Murdoch's goal to go beyond business coverage. Those worries will be buttressed by reactions like Leckey's. Those in the newsroom bemoan the slow disappearance of perhaps the newspaper's most revered contribution to journalism—the page-one "leder," the long explanatory pieces on either the left or right side of the pre-Murdoch Journal.
The Australian-born Thomson, 47, personifies the new Journal. He previously edited Murdoch's Times of London and the U.S. edition of the Financial Times. Thomson took over the Journal in May after the resignation of Marcus Brauchli, a Journal veteran whom Murdoch inherited with the transaction (and who is now editor of The Washington Post, whose parent company owns NEWSWEEK). Despite being a talented editor by all accounts, as well as an agent of change, Thomson remains an aloof presence to many in his anxious newsroom. The Murdoch regime "didn't come in with the view of winning approval," he says, "but one of clearly needing to change things."
Thomson's latest change, the appointment of a deputy editor, does little to assuage any unease. Bypassing Journal veterans and American journalists, he reached outside the publication last month to tap Gerard Baker, the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. editor of The Times of London. Officially, Baker, a Brit, will "spearhead" the Journal's "development as a national paper of influence and as an unrivaled international business-news franchise," Thomson said at the announcement. But the newsroom is buzzing about another of Thomson's alleged rationales. He supposedly told underlings that Baker will help infuse "fun" into the workplace, a capacity he apparently believes Journal editors lack. Baker, too, did Thomson a good turn during the Democratic convention in Denver in August. Thomson was stuck at a boring gathering of Journal staffers at a suburban pancake restaurant. Baker, at a party of top Obama operatives in downtown Denver, called his would-be boss and told him the operatives wanted to meet Thomson, who promptly fled the pancake affair. Thomson is unapologetic about his hires or his style. "I put pressure on people," he says. "That is my job—not to create a culture of complacency." But he hastens to add that there's been "a genuine enthusiasm and willingness to take a different direction into the future."
The personality drama aside, the evolving Journal—including its Web counterpart—is exhibit A of Murdoch's zeal for the viability of mass publications. In a recent lecture in Australia titled "The Future of Newspapers: Moving Beyond Dead Trees," he cited the transformed Journal in rebutting journalists who "seem to take a perverse pleasure in ruminating on their pending demise." He added, "The newspaper, or a very close electronic cousin, will always be around. It may not be thrown on your front doorstep the way it is today."
The Journal is larger than it was a year ago, having added four pages to accommodate expanded nonbusiness—primarily international—news. On top of that, there are two more pages of opinion and arts and cultural coverage. The Journal has relaunched its once renowned "Heard on the Street" column, and increased the staff of its Washington bureau. Average paid circulation totals slightly more than 2 million, with an additional 1 million electronic subscriptions. There's wide notice of the Journal's greater sense of urgency to break news, which has been essential during the economic crisis. Despite the concerns about the vanishing page-one feature stories, Murdoch hasn't abandoned lengthy investigative journalism.
Soft news has also become more prevalent. In a high-profile move, the Journal launched a glossy magazine, WSJ, in October. It hardly arrived smoothly. According to Journal insiders, a major feature on model Kate Moss and her business partner was pre-empted by a similar story in Vogue. Many subscribers—including the magazine's editor—never received the magazine in their weekend edition of the Journal. Many readers criticized WSJ as falling short of Journal standards. Thomson dismisses the objections. "The content is necessarily different [from] but not lesser than that of the main paper, and all of the copy went through the hands of senior Journal editors," he says. Madison Avenue embraced the magazine. The inaugural issue had more than 50 advertisers, including 19 who had never used the Journal.
Advertisers, of course, determine a publication's financial success. But they aren't a substitute for journalistic quality or distinctiveness. For generations, the Journal's stock in trade was business coverage, the characteristic Murdoch is now trying to submerge. In that audacious effort, admirably backed by capital and staffing, he runs the risk of making his creation indistinguishable from its rivals. The New York Times is one thing, but with flashy headlines, skinny models and color on the front page, does Murdoch really want Andrew Leckey mistaking the Journal for USA Today as he grabs a paper on the run?
Entertainment - Bad Guys on TV
Joshua Alston
In a recent episode of "The Office," clueless boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell) decides to dispatch his workplace nemesis by planting marijuana in the man's desk for the police to find. "Does seem awfully mean," Michael says in a fleeting moment of doubt. "But sometimes, the ends justify the mean." Michael's plan ultimately fails, mostly because the marijuana he thinks he's buying is a baggie filled with basil-heavy caprese salad. But as funny as the plot is, what's funnier is how much it resembles storylines on dramas such as "Dexter," "The Shield" and an upcoming episode of "Damages." By now, we've seen plenty of TV characters wield illegal substances to accomplish their objectives. For the trope to trickle down to a screwball comedy just goes to show that in television, there has never been a better time to be bad.
A year and a half ago, audiences were debating whether Tony lived or died during the coy blackout in the finale of "The Sopranos." It's pretty clear now that Tony —or at least the antihero archetype he created—lives just about everywhere on TV: Jack Bauer, the torture-happy federal agent of "24"; Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), the pinup-boy serial killer of "Dexter"; Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the two-faced ad exec of "Mad Men." What would Emmy voters do without them? These kinds of fully rendered characters—dark canvases streaked with some light—have changed the television landscape to the point where what we see on the small screen is, pound for pound, superior to what we see at the movies. But here's a really dark thought: has this so-called golden age gone too gray? In the quest to avoid the old black-and-white archetypes, has the pendulum swung too far toward morally ambiguous characters? Remember how shocked—and thrilled—we were when Tony strangled a mob turncoat in the middle of touring colleges with his daughter? Now no self-respecting TV protagonist would flinch at the prospect of shedding a little blood in the name of a greater good. What once seemed daring now feels predictable.
You could argue that the political climate of the past eight years primed audiences for antihero worship, that in the midst of a war started with faulty intelligence, suspected terrorists sent to black sites and a domestic eavesdropping program, it's no wonder we would be interested in delving deeply into the true motives underlying the actions of powerful people. People like Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) of FX's "Damages," an attorney who exacts litigious revenge on unethical corporations that hurt innocent people, no matter how unethically she has to behave or how many innocent people (or animals) she has to hurt to do it. Or people like Charles Barker (Patrick Swayze) of A&E's "The Beast," a shady FBI agent, unaware that his new partner is actually investigating his actions. And how about Nathan Ford (Timothy Hutton) of TNT's "Leverage," the leader of a group of criminals who help little guys settle scores with greedy corporations—the Robin Hoods of Wall Street? Ford says that "sometimes bad guys make the best good guys," but considering that all three of these shows premiere new episodes this month, it's starting to seem as if bad guys are the only good guys.
This is not the first case of Hollywood's "if it sells, make more" mentality, as dozens of flourishing "Survivor" knockoffs prove. But antihero shows are different in that they are inherently self-limiting. As any fan of "24," "Weeds" or "Dexter" can attest, at the end of each stake-raising season the viewer thinks, "That was interesting, but where can they possibly go from here?" During the last season of "24," after years of thrilling audiences by keeping the world on the precipice of terrorist horror, the writers chose to have a nuclear weapon actually detonate in a populated area. Narratively, the show has yet to recover. On the other hand, in the finale of "The Shield," Vic Mackey, once a hard-charging renegade detective, isn't dealt the violent death many thought he deserved and had coming. Instead, he's sentenced to what amounts to life imprisonment as a paper pusher, disconnected from his family, his friends or any connection to a real life. It was a pitch-perfect ending, accomplished by ratcheting down the extreme plotting rather than turning it up. "I think that was the key to the longevity of the show—not trying to say, 'Boy, we did all this outrageous stuff, what can we do that's more outrageous?' " said Shawn Ryan, the show's creator, at a screening of the finale. "I think the show became less outrageous over the years. I think if we had gone the other direction, I think we would have flamed out quicker." But as Jack Bauer can attest, not everyone shares Ryan's restraint.
The other narrative problem with antiheroes is not that they are flawed but that they are flawless. At least, they are infallible. Jack makes unconscionable decisions at every turn, but he's never, ever wrong. In the season-seven premiere, he faces off against Sen. Blaine Meyer (Kurtwood Smith) during a hearing by a committee examining his actions. "For a combat soldier, the difference between success and failure is the ability to adapt to your enemy," Jack tells the senator. "The people I deal with, they don't care about your rules. All they care about is results." Jack, of course, gets them every single time. The misanthropic doctor of "House" might offend you, but he'll succeed in coming up with some obscure diagnosis that has eluded everyone else. Dexter kills only criminals who have escaped justice, and he does meticulous research to make sure the person is guilty before he does the deed. Traditional hero characters are usually right, too, especially on episodic, self contained shows, but their infallibility isn't a crucial component of the character's success. If the detectives on "Law & Order" arrest the wrong guy initially, as they so often do, at least their cause was noble. Dexter doesn't get to accidentally kill an innocent, nor does Jack get to torture someone to flesh out a faulty hunch. Antiheroes don't get the luxury of being wrong, and audiences are robbed of the opportunity to watch these characters deal with the consequences of their mistakes.
First the dotcom bubble, then the housing bubble and soon the antihero bubble. As these characters are transformed from innovative to imitative, viewers will inevitably tire of them, if they haven't already. For all the hype around "Mad Men" and "Damages," they are still watched by a fraction of the audience that turned out for "The Sopranos." But that doesn't mean that this chapter of great television is coming to a close. What TV needs now, in these uncertain times, is dramatic characters like those of Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick ("Once and Again," "thirtysomething") or on "Brothers and Sisters"—characters who aren't trying to save the world or plunder it, but are just trying to subsist in it. After all, aren't the times we're living in dramatic enough?
In a recent episode of "The Office," clueless boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell) decides to dispatch his workplace nemesis by planting marijuana in the man's desk for the police to find. "Does seem awfully mean," Michael says in a fleeting moment of doubt. "But sometimes, the ends justify the mean." Michael's plan ultimately fails, mostly because the marijuana he thinks he's buying is a baggie filled with basil-heavy caprese salad. But as funny as the plot is, what's funnier is how much it resembles storylines on dramas such as "Dexter," "The Shield" and an upcoming episode of "Damages." By now, we've seen plenty of TV characters wield illegal substances to accomplish their objectives. For the trope to trickle down to a screwball comedy just goes to show that in television, there has never been a better time to be bad.
A year and a half ago, audiences were debating whether Tony lived or died during the coy blackout in the finale of "The Sopranos." It's pretty clear now that Tony —or at least the antihero archetype he created—lives just about everywhere on TV: Jack Bauer, the torture-happy federal agent of "24"; Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), the pinup-boy serial killer of "Dexter"; Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the two-faced ad exec of "Mad Men." What would Emmy voters do without them? These kinds of fully rendered characters—dark canvases streaked with some light—have changed the television landscape to the point where what we see on the small screen is, pound for pound, superior to what we see at the movies. But here's a really dark thought: has this so-called golden age gone too gray? In the quest to avoid the old black-and-white archetypes, has the pendulum swung too far toward morally ambiguous characters? Remember how shocked—and thrilled—we were when Tony strangled a mob turncoat in the middle of touring colleges with his daughter? Now no self-respecting TV protagonist would flinch at the prospect of shedding a little blood in the name of a greater good. What once seemed daring now feels predictable.
You could argue that the political climate of the past eight years primed audiences for antihero worship, that in the midst of a war started with faulty intelligence, suspected terrorists sent to black sites and a domestic eavesdropping program, it's no wonder we would be interested in delving deeply into the true motives underlying the actions of powerful people. People like Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) of FX's "Damages," an attorney who exacts litigious revenge on unethical corporations that hurt innocent people, no matter how unethically she has to behave or how many innocent people (or animals) she has to hurt to do it. Or people like Charles Barker (Patrick Swayze) of A&E's "The Beast," a shady FBI agent, unaware that his new partner is actually investigating his actions. And how about Nathan Ford (Timothy Hutton) of TNT's "Leverage," the leader of a group of criminals who help little guys settle scores with greedy corporations—the Robin Hoods of Wall Street? Ford says that "sometimes bad guys make the best good guys," but considering that all three of these shows premiere new episodes this month, it's starting to seem as if bad guys are the only good guys.
This is not the first case of Hollywood's "if it sells, make more" mentality, as dozens of flourishing "Survivor" knockoffs prove. But antihero shows are different in that they are inherently self-limiting. As any fan of "24," "Weeds" or "Dexter" can attest, at the end of each stake-raising season the viewer thinks, "That was interesting, but where can they possibly go from here?" During the last season of "24," after years of thrilling audiences by keeping the world on the precipice of terrorist horror, the writers chose to have a nuclear weapon actually detonate in a populated area. Narratively, the show has yet to recover. On the other hand, in the finale of "The Shield," Vic Mackey, once a hard-charging renegade detective, isn't dealt the violent death many thought he deserved and had coming. Instead, he's sentenced to what amounts to life imprisonment as a paper pusher, disconnected from his family, his friends or any connection to a real life. It was a pitch-perfect ending, accomplished by ratcheting down the extreme plotting rather than turning it up. "I think that was the key to the longevity of the show—not trying to say, 'Boy, we did all this outrageous stuff, what can we do that's more outrageous?' " said Shawn Ryan, the show's creator, at a screening of the finale. "I think the show became less outrageous over the years. I think if we had gone the other direction, I think we would have flamed out quicker." But as Jack Bauer can attest, not everyone shares Ryan's restraint.
The other narrative problem with antiheroes is not that they are flawed but that they are flawless. At least, they are infallible. Jack makes unconscionable decisions at every turn, but he's never, ever wrong. In the season-seven premiere, he faces off against Sen. Blaine Meyer (Kurtwood Smith) during a hearing by a committee examining his actions. "For a combat soldier, the difference between success and failure is the ability to adapt to your enemy," Jack tells the senator. "The people I deal with, they don't care about your rules. All they care about is results." Jack, of course, gets them every single time. The misanthropic doctor of "House" might offend you, but he'll succeed in coming up with some obscure diagnosis that has eluded everyone else. Dexter kills only criminals who have escaped justice, and he does meticulous research to make sure the person is guilty before he does the deed. Traditional hero characters are usually right, too, especially on episodic, self contained shows, but their infallibility isn't a crucial component of the character's success. If the detectives on "Law & Order" arrest the wrong guy initially, as they so often do, at least their cause was noble. Dexter doesn't get to accidentally kill an innocent, nor does Jack get to torture someone to flesh out a faulty hunch. Antiheroes don't get the luxury of being wrong, and audiences are robbed of the opportunity to watch these characters deal with the consequences of their mistakes.
First the dotcom bubble, then the housing bubble and soon the antihero bubble. As these characters are transformed from innovative to imitative, viewers will inevitably tire of them, if they haven't already. For all the hype around "Mad Men" and "Damages," they are still watched by a fraction of the audience that turned out for "The Sopranos." But that doesn't mean that this chapter of great television is coming to a close. What TV needs now, in these uncertain times, is dramatic characters like those of Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick ("Once and Again," "thirtysomething") or on "Brothers and Sisters"—characters who aren't trying to save the world or plunder it, but are just trying to subsist in it. After all, aren't the times we're living in dramatic enough?
Columnists - Fareed Zakaria;Writing the Rules for a New World
If you want to know what the post-American world will look like, just reread the coverage of the November G20 summit in Washington, D.C. First, there was the event itself. Every prior financial crisis had been handled by the IMF, the World Bank or the G7 (and, later, the G8). But this time, the big boys realized they couldn't tackle the problems alone and had to bring in world's top emerging markets too. For an effective response in a highly connected global economy, all the world's major players needed to participate. To supply cash, countries like China and Saudi Arabia were crucial. As for legitimacy, the old Western clubs were archaic, relics of a bygone world and could no longer provide it on their own.
Of course, not everything has changed. The meeting was still held in Washington, and President George W. Bush got to play the major role in setting the agenda. America has vital relations with key countries like China, Japan and Saudi Arabia, as well as good ties to old allies like Britain, France and Germany. And it seemed entirely possible that this larger and more representative group of nations could actually do some of the policy coordination needed to begin to solve the crisis. So it's a new world, but not necessarily one from which America has been ousted, nor one where common actions are impossible.
Historians will probably look back on the meltdown and see it as one largely caused by success. I realize it seems odd to say that of events characterized by panic, a credit crunch, slowing growth and falling stock markets. But consider the conditions that created this state of affairs. Over the past two decades, the world had enjoyed political stability, low inflation and a massive expansion of the global economy by almost 3 billion people. Countries around the planet grew at unheard-of levels—124 of them expanded at 4 percent or more in 2006 and 2007. Wars, civil conflicts and terrorism caused less political turmoil than they had in decades—or, by some measures, in centuries.
All this produced a new set of problems. As some countries grew in strength and resources they became more assertive and nationalistic. The emergence of Iran, Venezuela and a revived Russia is in good measure a product of the price of petroleum. So is Islamic jihad. Fueled by vast amounts of money, Wahhabi ideas found their way into almost all Muslim countries, shifting the tone of Islam everywhere and giving resources to radicalized young men.
In the world of economics, prosperity and low inflation unleashed two massive forces. The first was cheap credit, and the second, vast new pools of capital. Surplus savings piled up in the emerging economies of Asia (and then in the oil-producing countries of the Middle East) on a scale never before seen in history. Add to these two new forces two old ones—greed and stupidity—and you begin to understand how it all came apart.
At one level, the problem is that the United States and some other Western economies consumed too much—much more than they produced—and made up the difference by borrowing. But if America overspent, Asia oversaved. All those savings—some $10 trillion—had to go somewhere, and for two decades most of it was funneled back into the United States, which was seen, with some justification, as the safest and best place to invest. This led to easy credit and multiple bubbles in the United States—in technology stocks, bonds, real estate.
As bad as it looks, the current financial crisis will end. I don't know when or how, but the combination of government interventions will eventually work. Why do I say this? Because governments are more powerful than markets. They can close markets down, nationalize firms and write new rules. And Washington has one other, unique power: it can print money.
Government intervention has stabilized capitalism before. No modern society could accept the downswings that were routine in the 19th century, an era of much less intervention. The average length of a recession between 1854 and 1919 was 22 months. In the past two decades, by contrast, recessions have averaged eight months. Between 1854 and 1999, the U.S. economy went into a contraction every 49 months. In the past two decades, it has been 100 months between contractions. Many factors have contributed to these changes, but the chief explanation has been Washington's monetary and fiscal policies. Of course, the financial industry—the center of the current crisis—is unusual if not unique, since it is the lifeblood of the economy. As a result, it should be monitored especially carefully. In almost all the financial crises of the past 30 years (and there have been dozens of them) the government has had to intervene to restore trust and confidence. And it's succeeded.
Does this round of intervention mark a return to socialism, or even the old mixed economy? Well, 35 years ago governments in most countries controlled the value of their national currencies. They owned steel companies, car manufacturers, the telephone company and banks. They set the price of airline tickets, phone calls, stock commissions and cement. Tariffs in the industrialized world were several times higher than they are today. Does anyone really think we're returning to this era? Does anyone believe that governments would be any better at owning and running economies than they were in the past? There will be a return of regulation. But regulation is not socialism.
Capitalism is now a global phenomenon. It is being powered by the actions of companies and governments and individuals all over the world. And in the search for growth and higher standards of living, countries will continue to use free markets and free trade to power their rise. Governments have not liberalized their markets because Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson or his predecessor Robert Rubin ordered them to; they did so because they could see the benefits of moving in that direction (and the costs of not moving). This process will continue to be halting and episodic, depending on political pressures. But I suspect that over the next 20 years, most countries will try to free up their markets (in a controlled fashion) to get more growth rather than nationalize bits of their economies. Certainly the history of past economic crises shows that in their wake countries have conducted more-aggressive economic reforms to bring greater credibility to their systems, attract new capital and jump-start growth.
As all this suggests, the current debate about government and markets is sterile. Every serious thinker understands we need both. The question is how to balance the two to achieve growth, innovation, stability and social equity. The crucial need is not for big government or small government but smart government. How can we make government work for the vast majority of people, for future generations, for the broad welfare of society?
The real problem we face today is not a crisis of capitalism. It is a crisis of globalization. The new world coming into being is not going to go away. We will not return to a system dominated by a handful of countries around the North Atlantic. The factors powering the rise of the global economy, and thus the rise of the rest, are broad structural forces that have been at work for decades. They are not ephemeral and will not vanish in the face of one financial crisis or recession. They will endure, and in the process shift power away from established centers in the West.
But will this lead to a more stable world?
There is, of course, the age-old worry: that in times of transition, the world will get messy. Ever since Thucydides observed that the shift in power from Sparta to Athens was the fundamental cause of the Peloponnesian War, scholars have watched such moments with apprehension. But this time, if properly managed, the rise of the rest needs to be destabilizing. America is not sinking fast, about to be replaced by a single country. The Chinese economy remains one fifth the size of America's, and its military is even smaller. Most major powers share some basic interests and ideals with the United States. The real danger remains that Washington will overplay its hand, leading other countries to seek to balance it. The management of U.S. political and military power remains the single most important task for global stability. The United States must provide rules, institutions and services that help solve major global problems.
But common action—to create public goods—has become much more difficult today. Economic and social activity is global, but political power is local. Economic, social and political problems often spill over borders, yet the solutions tend to lie with national governments that jealously guard their sovereignty. Unless we solve this basic problem, we should expect more crises of various kinds. And we should expect responses that are ad hoc and ineffective. Eventually such clumsy responses may make countries approach things narrowly and nationalistically, creating more global instability and less peace and prosperity.
To illustrate this point, consider almost any serious problem; chances are it implicates more than one country. Terrorism, financial contagion, infectious diseases, energy, security—all these challenges require coordinated responses, and in some cases institutions that can implement them. Take a simple example like infectious disease. An outbreak today is almost guaranteed to quickly spread far and wide. That means we all have an incentive to determine the nature of the pathogen as quickly as possible, isolate the victims and work toward a cure. Ideally, the World Health Organization would be able to step in, require samples of the virus to be sent to it, make a definitive determination and set protocols to be followed. Unfortunately, it is underfunded, undermanned and lacks the authority to make rules that everyone must follow.
This mismatch between problem and solution has been remarked on by me and others for a while now. Somehow it has yet to move up the international agenda. Yet that may finally be changing.
Sometimes a crisis provides an opportunity. This past fall, several Western governments initially responded to the financial meltdown by trying to handle it on their own. They seemed to forget about globalization—and nothing is more globalized than capital. Money flows around the world with no barriers, demanding international policy coordination. Belatedly recognizing this, leaders held the G20 meeting in Washington, a good first step. But to seriously address the crisis, we must move beyond this one event to a systemic fix. The IMF, for example, needs to be revamped and funded far more generously to handle such panics in the future.
It has become conventional wisdom, even a sport of sorts, to blame the United States for a lack of leadership on these issues. There is some truth to this, and I certainly hope that President Obama will be far more engaged than his predecessor in tackling this agenda. But the problem is not limited to Washington. The problem also lies with Paris and Moscow and Beijing and New Delhi. European governments have been reluctant to cede power to the IMF and other forums. The United Nations is becoming increasingly irrelevant and antiquated, unable to adapt its structure to accommodate rising powers. Many emerging-market countries guard their sovereignty as jealously as does the United States, often even more so. Yet what alternative is there?
The point is that unless we find ways to expand and enhance the rules and institutions of global cooperation, the world will experience more and more crises and the government responses will be hasty and ad hoc, too little, too late. If, on the other hand, we come together and work together on the common problems of humanity, imagine the extraordinary opportunities it could create for everyone. Imagine if we created new rules of the road that allowed this extraordinary process of globalization and growth to persist and spread to every section of society, raising standards of living and health for the poorest of the poor, allowing more and more people to develop their potential.
Citizens and governments the world over have worked wonders during the past few decades. Now it's time for their governments to match this ingenuity with new forms of cooperation. The great project of the 21st century should be a new architecture—one that helps to ensure growth and peace for the world
Of course, not everything has changed. The meeting was still held in Washington, and President George W. Bush got to play the major role in setting the agenda. America has vital relations with key countries like China, Japan and Saudi Arabia, as well as good ties to old allies like Britain, France and Germany. And it seemed entirely possible that this larger and more representative group of nations could actually do some of the policy coordination needed to begin to solve the crisis. So it's a new world, but not necessarily one from which America has been ousted, nor one where common actions are impossible.
Historians will probably look back on the meltdown and see it as one largely caused by success. I realize it seems odd to say that of events characterized by panic, a credit crunch, slowing growth and falling stock markets. But consider the conditions that created this state of affairs. Over the past two decades, the world had enjoyed political stability, low inflation and a massive expansion of the global economy by almost 3 billion people. Countries around the planet grew at unheard-of levels—124 of them expanded at 4 percent or more in 2006 and 2007. Wars, civil conflicts and terrorism caused less political turmoil than they had in decades—or, by some measures, in centuries.
All this produced a new set of problems. As some countries grew in strength and resources they became more assertive and nationalistic. The emergence of Iran, Venezuela and a revived Russia is in good measure a product of the price of petroleum. So is Islamic jihad. Fueled by vast amounts of money, Wahhabi ideas found their way into almost all Muslim countries, shifting the tone of Islam everywhere and giving resources to radicalized young men.
In the world of economics, prosperity and low inflation unleashed two massive forces. The first was cheap credit, and the second, vast new pools of capital. Surplus savings piled up in the emerging economies of Asia (and then in the oil-producing countries of the Middle East) on a scale never before seen in history. Add to these two new forces two old ones—greed and stupidity—and you begin to understand how it all came apart.
At one level, the problem is that the United States and some other Western economies consumed too much—much more than they produced—and made up the difference by borrowing. But if America overspent, Asia oversaved. All those savings—some $10 trillion—had to go somewhere, and for two decades most of it was funneled back into the United States, which was seen, with some justification, as the safest and best place to invest. This led to easy credit and multiple bubbles in the United States—in technology stocks, bonds, real estate.
As bad as it looks, the current financial crisis will end. I don't know when or how, but the combination of government interventions will eventually work. Why do I say this? Because governments are more powerful than markets. They can close markets down, nationalize firms and write new rules. And Washington has one other, unique power: it can print money.
Government intervention has stabilized capitalism before. No modern society could accept the downswings that were routine in the 19th century, an era of much less intervention. The average length of a recession between 1854 and 1919 was 22 months. In the past two decades, by contrast, recessions have averaged eight months. Between 1854 and 1999, the U.S. economy went into a contraction every 49 months. In the past two decades, it has been 100 months between contractions. Many factors have contributed to these changes, but the chief explanation has been Washington's monetary and fiscal policies. Of course, the financial industry—the center of the current crisis—is unusual if not unique, since it is the lifeblood of the economy. As a result, it should be monitored especially carefully. In almost all the financial crises of the past 30 years (and there have been dozens of them) the government has had to intervene to restore trust and confidence. And it's succeeded.
Does this round of intervention mark a return to socialism, or even the old mixed economy? Well, 35 years ago governments in most countries controlled the value of their national currencies. They owned steel companies, car manufacturers, the telephone company and banks. They set the price of airline tickets, phone calls, stock commissions and cement. Tariffs in the industrialized world were several times higher than they are today. Does anyone really think we're returning to this era? Does anyone believe that governments would be any better at owning and running economies than they were in the past? There will be a return of regulation. But regulation is not socialism.
Capitalism is now a global phenomenon. It is being powered by the actions of companies and governments and individuals all over the world. And in the search for growth and higher standards of living, countries will continue to use free markets and free trade to power their rise. Governments have not liberalized their markets because Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson or his predecessor Robert Rubin ordered them to; they did so because they could see the benefits of moving in that direction (and the costs of not moving). This process will continue to be halting and episodic, depending on political pressures. But I suspect that over the next 20 years, most countries will try to free up their markets (in a controlled fashion) to get more growth rather than nationalize bits of their economies. Certainly the history of past economic crises shows that in their wake countries have conducted more-aggressive economic reforms to bring greater credibility to their systems, attract new capital and jump-start growth.
As all this suggests, the current debate about government and markets is sterile. Every serious thinker understands we need both. The question is how to balance the two to achieve growth, innovation, stability and social equity. The crucial need is not for big government or small government but smart government. How can we make government work for the vast majority of people, for future generations, for the broad welfare of society?
The real problem we face today is not a crisis of capitalism. It is a crisis of globalization. The new world coming into being is not going to go away. We will not return to a system dominated by a handful of countries around the North Atlantic. The factors powering the rise of the global economy, and thus the rise of the rest, are broad structural forces that have been at work for decades. They are not ephemeral and will not vanish in the face of one financial crisis or recession. They will endure, and in the process shift power away from established centers in the West.
But will this lead to a more stable world?
There is, of course, the age-old worry: that in times of transition, the world will get messy. Ever since Thucydides observed that the shift in power from Sparta to Athens was the fundamental cause of the Peloponnesian War, scholars have watched such moments with apprehension. But this time, if properly managed, the rise of the rest needs to be destabilizing. America is not sinking fast, about to be replaced by a single country. The Chinese economy remains one fifth the size of America's, and its military is even smaller. Most major powers share some basic interests and ideals with the United States. The real danger remains that Washington will overplay its hand, leading other countries to seek to balance it. The management of U.S. political and military power remains the single most important task for global stability. The United States must provide rules, institutions and services that help solve major global problems.
But common action—to create public goods—has become much more difficult today. Economic and social activity is global, but political power is local. Economic, social and political problems often spill over borders, yet the solutions tend to lie with national governments that jealously guard their sovereignty. Unless we solve this basic problem, we should expect more crises of various kinds. And we should expect responses that are ad hoc and ineffective. Eventually such clumsy responses may make countries approach things narrowly and nationalistically, creating more global instability and less peace and prosperity.
To illustrate this point, consider almost any serious problem; chances are it implicates more than one country. Terrorism, financial contagion, infectious diseases, energy, security—all these challenges require coordinated responses, and in some cases institutions that can implement them. Take a simple example like infectious disease. An outbreak today is almost guaranteed to quickly spread far and wide. That means we all have an incentive to determine the nature of the pathogen as quickly as possible, isolate the victims and work toward a cure. Ideally, the World Health Organization would be able to step in, require samples of the virus to be sent to it, make a definitive determination and set protocols to be followed. Unfortunately, it is underfunded, undermanned and lacks the authority to make rules that everyone must follow.
This mismatch between problem and solution has been remarked on by me and others for a while now. Somehow it has yet to move up the international agenda. Yet that may finally be changing.
Sometimes a crisis provides an opportunity. This past fall, several Western governments initially responded to the financial meltdown by trying to handle it on their own. They seemed to forget about globalization—and nothing is more globalized than capital. Money flows around the world with no barriers, demanding international policy coordination. Belatedly recognizing this, leaders held the G20 meeting in Washington, a good first step. But to seriously address the crisis, we must move beyond this one event to a systemic fix. The IMF, for example, needs to be revamped and funded far more generously to handle such panics in the future.
It has become conventional wisdom, even a sport of sorts, to blame the United States for a lack of leadership on these issues. There is some truth to this, and I certainly hope that President Obama will be far more engaged than his predecessor in tackling this agenda. But the problem is not limited to Washington. The problem also lies with Paris and Moscow and Beijing and New Delhi. European governments have been reluctant to cede power to the IMF and other forums. The United Nations is becoming increasingly irrelevant and antiquated, unable to adapt its structure to accommodate rising powers. Many emerging-market countries guard their sovereignty as jealously as does the United States, often even more so. Yet what alternative is there?
The point is that unless we find ways to expand and enhance the rules and institutions of global cooperation, the world will experience more and more crises and the government responses will be hasty and ad hoc, too little, too late. If, on the other hand, we come together and work together on the common problems of humanity, imagine the extraordinary opportunities it could create for everyone. Imagine if we created new rules of the road that allowed this extraordinary process of globalization and growth to persist and spread to every section of society, raising standards of living and health for the poorest of the poor, allowing more and more people to develop their potential.
Citizens and governments the world over have worked wonders during the past few decades. Now it's time for their governments to match this ingenuity with new forms of cooperation. The great project of the 21st century should be a new architecture—one that helps to ensure growth and peace for the world
Fashion - US;Putting the Chich back in Dressing
Sameer Reddy
If you ask citizens of other countries to paint a portrait of the average American tourist, it would look something like this: a loud, chubby sight-seer wearing a fanny pack, baseball cap, printed T shirt, jean shorts and sneakers. It may seem like a funny, if harmless, image, but combined with the imprint of the outgoing president, the fashion-challenged cowboy in chief, the stereotype of the ugly American has become intractable. The United States has a serious public-relations problem, but the election of President Obama—with his youthful, clean-cut good looks—offers a valuable opportunity for a national top-to-toe makeover.
Yanks haven't always dressed so badly. Consider as evidence the remarkable cable-TV series "Mad Men," with its coterie of early-'60s-era wasp-waisted women, and Don Draper and his advertising-agency colleagues cutting dashing figures in their sober suits. That kind of formality is dead, of course, and with good reason. "Casual is comfortable," says Nicole Phelps, the executive editor of Style.com. "Those girdles and the [silhouette] they created look incredibly chic, but I don't think most contemporary women would put up with the discomfort of wearing one. Nor are they likely willing to put in the time it took to get dressed like that. People are busy. Dress codes have been relaxed. Hats and gloves look like costumes now. Simplicity rules."
It may come as news to the rest of the world, but simplicity—as opposed to sloppiness—is America's true stylistic heritage. The girdles that defined the sartorial shape of the '50s were holdovers of a European influence, the constraints of which American designers energetically threw off as the decades passed. Claire McCardell, Bonnie Cashin, Anne Klein, Perry Ellis, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan—their generous, democratic sportswear freed men and women to live their lives without worrying inordinately about how they looked. Somewhere along the way, however, Americans lost the chic part of casual chic.
They need to get it back. Not just to restore the country's sartorial reputation in the eyes of the world, but because it represents the values Americans hold most dear. The United States was built on the efforts of plain-spoken people who took pride in an honest day's work and who would give their neighbors the plaid shirts off their backs. Those with the means made a virtue of exuding relaxed elegance; they didn't try to overdo anything, but they saw no shame in appearing put together. It was an extension of what they believed in, a polished pragmatism that, today, has given way to self-indulgence.
Comfort has its place, of course, but if that becomes the guiding value in getting dressed—or anything else—then we've got a problem. This misplaced priority has arguably contributed to our current troubles with credit, education and productivity. Compared with our parents and grandparents, we've had it relatively easy. We've got cable TV, microwave popcorn and GPS. The world is at our command and we are at ease, but this kind of comfort breeds complacency—not to mention Velcro straps and elasticized waistbands. We'd be better off showcasing some of the original values that brought us so far.
Contemporary retail offerings don't make it easy. The mass market is defined by a Juicy Couture, pajamas-as-daywear mentality, while the next generation of American design talent is largely caught up in approximating European fashionability, or harking back to "Mad Men"-like looks.
Thankfully, there are some exceptions. For women, Bruce, sold at Kirna Zabete in New York and Ron Herman in Los Angeles, is one label that stands out for its unsentimental and down-to-earth approach to high-end chic. The clothing—subtly tailored suits, soft blouses and delicate dresses—speaks of a quiet confidence. And nothing represents the classic Platonic ideal of American fashion than the wrap dress invented by Diane von Furstenberg in 1973, and relaunched to major success in 1997. Functional yet feminine, it's ingeniously simple—and doesn't wrinkle.
The suit remains the staple item for well-dressed men. But outside the boardroom or the ballroom, it's an unpopular choice. Rather than break out the cargo shorts and Hooters T shirts, men might opt for a well-tailored sport jacket and pair of dark-wash jeans by John Varvatos—an urban-cowboy look of which even President Bush would approve. Companies like Club Monaco, owned by Ralph Lauren, have further refined the category of elegant casual, with pima-cotton sweatshirts and thin-wale corduroys guaranteeing comfort without the taste trade-off of athletic shorts.
When Obama takes office Jan. 20, Americans will, with luck, create their own new New Look, modeled after his elegantly simple and straightforward wardrobe and manner. And women everywhere will be watching carefully as the new First Lady, Michelle, tries to find the elusive balance not only between work and family but between practical and stylish dressing. It will take time to erase the unfortunate image of armies of tourists roaming world capitals clad in gym shorts and Boston Red Sox T shirts. But if we're smart, we'll take advantage of this new beginning to define ourselves on our own best terms. The first step? Lose the fanny pack.
Reddy is a fine artist and freelance writer based in Berlin who covers lifestyle, fashion, travel and culture.
If you ask citizens of other countries to paint a portrait of the average American tourist, it would look something like this: a loud, chubby sight-seer wearing a fanny pack, baseball cap, printed T shirt, jean shorts and sneakers. It may seem like a funny, if harmless, image, but combined with the imprint of the outgoing president, the fashion-challenged cowboy in chief, the stereotype of the ugly American has become intractable. The United States has a serious public-relations problem, but the election of President Obama—with his youthful, clean-cut good looks—offers a valuable opportunity for a national top-to-toe makeover.
Yanks haven't always dressed so badly. Consider as evidence the remarkable cable-TV series "Mad Men," with its coterie of early-'60s-era wasp-waisted women, and Don Draper and his advertising-agency colleagues cutting dashing figures in their sober suits. That kind of formality is dead, of course, and with good reason. "Casual is comfortable," says Nicole Phelps, the executive editor of Style.com. "Those girdles and the [silhouette] they created look incredibly chic, but I don't think most contemporary women would put up with the discomfort of wearing one. Nor are they likely willing to put in the time it took to get dressed like that. People are busy. Dress codes have been relaxed. Hats and gloves look like costumes now. Simplicity rules."
It may come as news to the rest of the world, but simplicity—as opposed to sloppiness—is America's true stylistic heritage. The girdles that defined the sartorial shape of the '50s were holdovers of a European influence, the constraints of which American designers energetically threw off as the decades passed. Claire McCardell, Bonnie Cashin, Anne Klein, Perry Ellis, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan—their generous, democratic sportswear freed men and women to live their lives without worrying inordinately about how they looked. Somewhere along the way, however, Americans lost the chic part of casual chic.
They need to get it back. Not just to restore the country's sartorial reputation in the eyes of the world, but because it represents the values Americans hold most dear. The United States was built on the efforts of plain-spoken people who took pride in an honest day's work and who would give their neighbors the plaid shirts off their backs. Those with the means made a virtue of exuding relaxed elegance; they didn't try to overdo anything, but they saw no shame in appearing put together. It was an extension of what they believed in, a polished pragmatism that, today, has given way to self-indulgence.
Comfort has its place, of course, but if that becomes the guiding value in getting dressed—or anything else—then we've got a problem. This misplaced priority has arguably contributed to our current troubles with credit, education and productivity. Compared with our parents and grandparents, we've had it relatively easy. We've got cable TV, microwave popcorn and GPS. The world is at our command and we are at ease, but this kind of comfort breeds complacency—not to mention Velcro straps and elasticized waistbands. We'd be better off showcasing some of the original values that brought us so far.
Contemporary retail offerings don't make it easy. The mass market is defined by a Juicy Couture, pajamas-as-daywear mentality, while the next generation of American design talent is largely caught up in approximating European fashionability, or harking back to "Mad Men"-like looks.
Thankfully, there are some exceptions. For women, Bruce, sold at Kirna Zabete in New York and Ron Herman in Los Angeles, is one label that stands out for its unsentimental and down-to-earth approach to high-end chic. The clothing—subtly tailored suits, soft blouses and delicate dresses—speaks of a quiet confidence. And nothing represents the classic Platonic ideal of American fashion than the wrap dress invented by Diane von Furstenberg in 1973, and relaunched to major success in 1997. Functional yet feminine, it's ingeniously simple—and doesn't wrinkle.
The suit remains the staple item for well-dressed men. But outside the boardroom or the ballroom, it's an unpopular choice. Rather than break out the cargo shorts and Hooters T shirts, men might opt for a well-tailored sport jacket and pair of dark-wash jeans by John Varvatos—an urban-cowboy look of which even President Bush would approve. Companies like Club Monaco, owned by Ralph Lauren, have further refined the category of elegant casual, with pima-cotton sweatshirts and thin-wale corduroys guaranteeing comfort without the taste trade-off of athletic shorts.
When Obama takes office Jan. 20, Americans will, with luck, create their own new New Look, modeled after his elegantly simple and straightforward wardrobe and manner. And women everywhere will be watching carefully as the new First Lady, Michelle, tries to find the elusive balance not only between work and family but between practical and stylish dressing. It will take time to erase the unfortunate image of armies of tourists roaming world capitals clad in gym shorts and Boston Red Sox T shirts. But if we're smart, we'll take advantage of this new beginning to define ourselves on our own best terms. The first step? Lose the fanny pack.
Reddy is a fine artist and freelance writer based in Berlin who covers lifestyle, fashion, travel and culture.
World - US;Remains of 9/11 Hijackers
Eve Conant
In the grim, sleepless months of excavation after the September 11 attacks, forensic pathologists in New York City worked day and night to identify the dead. They didn't have much to go on. The collapsed World Trade Center towers had burned at temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees, incinerating those trapped inside. Many of the bodies of the passengers aboard the two airplanes that struck the buildings were consumed by burning jet fuel, leaving only traces of DNA, much of it so damaged that it was impossible to read. Few bodies were found intact. Most of the human remains culled from the vast wreckage at Ground Zero were little more than tiny fragments of charred tissue and bone. The volume was overwhelming. Robert Shaler, who headed the city's Department of Forensic Biology and was a leader of the identification effort, worried his lab would be paralyzed if it tried to identify every piece. At first, they decided they would only attempt to test samples that were "the size of a thumb or larger," he says. But when they saw how small many of the fragments were, they changed their minds. "If we were really going to make an honest effort," Shaler says, "we had to do everything that came along."
Shaler and his colleagues at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner gave weekly updates to family members of the victims, reporting how many of the dead had been identified and reassuring them that the city was doing everything to identify their loved ones. But the families weren't only concerned with their own dead. In meeting after meeting, Shaler says, relatives would ask about the hijackers. Had the scientists identified any of their remains?
"They did not want the terrorists mixed in with their loved ones," says Shaler. The families said, "These people were criminals and did not deserve to be with them." The families asked for the remains of the hijackers to be separated out and kept someplace else. Shaler shared their frustration. Now 66, his hair and beard a grandfatherly white, Shaler says he could not always separate his duties a scientist from his own emotions: a little more than a year into the investigation, he suffered a heart attack. At the early meetings, he told the families he didn't think it would be possible to sort out the remains; by the spring of 2002, Shaler and his staff of 105 scientists had yet to identify any of the New York hijackers. "I thought we'd never find remains from anyone on the planes," he says. But he promised to try.
The blunt reality is that no matter how fastidious their efforts, the scientists will never fully sort the victims from the hijackers. The fragments are too small, too ruined and too scattered for bodies to be restored in their entirety. Some were lost to fire or during the excavation of the wreckage. Today, 1,126 of the 2,751 victims from the World Trade Center and five individuals from the Pentagon have yet to be identified at all—none of their remains and no traces of their DNA have been found.
Scientists are still trying. More than seven years later, the effort continues to identify the missing victims—and hijackers. Shaler and his successors have fulfilled at least part of their promise to the families. Through a combination of innovative DNA-mapping techniques, help from the FBI's crime lab and dumb luck, the scientists have now ID'd four of the 10 New York hijackers. The remains of the nine hijackers from the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crash sites have also been confirmed; six other hijackers have yet to be identified.
What's left of the terrorists—which, all told, likely amounts to less than 24 pounds of flesh and bone fragments—are sequestered at undisclosed locations in New York and Virginia. They are "stored as evidence in a refrigerated locker in sealed containers and test tubes," says Richard Kolko, a spokesman for the FBI.
None of the families of the hijackers, and no foreign governments, have come forward to request that the remains be handed over, and it is not clear what the official response would be if they did. The U.S. government has not said what, if anything, it plans to do with them. "No determination has yet been made," says FBI spokesman Kolko. For now, they are being held as evidence in the still-open 9/11 investigation. Yet at some point, the investigation will be closed. The remains of the identified victims have been returned to their families; but what is to be done with the remnants of their killers?
In the late fall of 2001, as Shaler and his colleagues were engaged in the slow work of conducting DNA tests on the thousands of fragments from Ground Zero, pathologists at the Pennsylvania and Pentagon sites were moving much more quickly. Many of the remains were burned and badly damaged, but identifiable. In Pennsylvania, Somerset County coroner Wallace E. Miller and his team scoured the "halo"—the field and woods surrounding the crater left when United Airlines Flight 93 plunged into the ground. The debris was everywhere. Trees were draped with scraps of luggage, clothing, bits of the fuselage and human remains. Walking through the crash site in the days after the attacks, Miller's eye caught a flash of light 20 feet up in the branches of a hemlock tree. "I only noticed it because the sun happened to hit it at just the right angle," he says. A tree climber brought it down. It was a single tooth with a silver filling. Eventually it was matched to one of the passengers.
In the first two weeks after 9/11, Miller and his team identified 16 of the 44 passengers and crew aboard Flight 93 through fingerprint and dental records. For others, he turned to DNA testing. Hairbrushes and razors collected from the families of the victims provided DNA to match up with human fragments pulled from the wrecked plane.
Like Shaler in New York, Miller met with families of the victims, and they, too, wanted to know if the remains of the hijackers were being sifted out. Miller explained to them that it wasn't as simple as that. There were still some 300 pounds of unidentified remains. Much of it had been damaged beyond recognition by exposure to air and 11,000 gallons of jet fuel. "I told them there would likely be terrorist remains interspersed with them," says Miller. "There were varying degrees of angst and anger about that."
Still, he did what he could to honor the request. Miller and his team sent fragments from the Pennsylvania crash site for testing at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Md. "Our priority was not the hijackers, it was getting the victims back to their families," says Brion Smith, the lab's director. But the remains of the terrorists stood out. Four of the DNA profiles from the Pennsylvania crash site didn't match material provided by the families of passengers and crew. By simple process of elimination, Smith knew these were the hijackers. He sent the samples back to Miller along with the genetic codes.
It was just what Miller was hoping for. With those four profiles in hand, he could weed out the terrorists' remains. He went to the freezers, which were filled with thousands of painstakingly bagged and tagged human fragments retrieved from the crash. Miller scanned the icy plastic bags, looking for genetic profiles that matched Smith's data. He pulled out four bags and laid them on a large table. "All that remained of the four men was less than 10 pounds" of fragments, Miller says. "I had about 48 samples that were associated with the terrorists, mostly bony tissue and I think maybe some scalp with hair on it." He also couldn't tell which set of remains belonged to which terrorist. "Obviously none of the terrorists' families came forward with any information—they were like four John Does," says Miller. "So I just referred to them as Terrorist A, B, C and D."
In New York, efforts to identify the terrorists were more difficult. There were still too many victims who had not been identified by their DNA, making it impossible to flag the terrorists by a process of elimination. The scientists needed the DNA profiles from the hijackers. Shaler's office turned to the FBI for help. The request made its way to the desk of Alan Giusti, the lab's forensic examiner in charge of the September 11 investigation. As it turned out, Giusti had worked for Shaler at a private DNA lab in the '80s, when the technology was in its infancy. Now Giusti was spending his days using genetic clues to nail bank robbers and murderers.
Working with a team of specialists on the third floor of the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, D.C., Giusti was in fact already creating DNA profiles of the New York terrorists from scraps of evidence left behind in hotel rooms and rental cars in the days before the attacks. A large basement room in the FBI building was filled with boxes of evidence, each piece stored in a brown paper bag. "It looks low tech," says Giusti, but the bags keep out humidity or dryness—"the two demons of DNA analysis." For DNA sleuths used to working with tiny scraps of genetic material, it was the mother lode: "fingernail clippings, chewing gum, hairbrushes, anything we could get dead skin off of," he says. When they swabbed the "friction areas" along the inside collars of shirts, the DNA came back mixed, an indication that the hijackers may have shared clothes. A few pieces of used tissue, tossed into a hotel room wastebasket, yielded clues, as did saliva from cigarette butts. Giusti mixed them with enzymes to release DNA—"like cracking the nut of a shell to get the meat out," he says. The "amplified" product—a few drops of clear, viscous liquid—was then put into a large machine that spits out lists of numbers, a genetic map unique to each individual.
It took more than a year for Giusti's lab to get back to New York with the results—a single page with 10 genetic codes. It was February 2003, and Shaler and his crew got to work on the numbers immediately. They were anxious to see if they could make a match to any of the unidentified remains they had retrieved. Shaler's deputy, Howard Baum, thought it would never work. How could they be sure that the clothing and tissues and cigarette butts were really those of the hijackers? "We had no idea where the profiles came from or how they were developed," says Baum. "I was skeptical." A scientist entered the codes into the lab's Mass Fatality Identification System. They told the computer to display any matches to the hijacker profiles in red. Immediately, there were two matches. Shaler and Baum were elated—they would be able to weed out at least some of the terrorists' remains after all. "Finding the first match was the big deal," says Baum. "It was proof of the concept—that we could identify the hijackers. Our job was not for the dead, it was for the living."
The red-flagged fragments "have been removed from the general population" of remains, says Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the New York medical examiner's office. "We will not discuss where they are."
Shaler and the other New York pathologists sent some of the most damaged human fragments to private forensics labs that specialize in advanced DNA-retrieval techniques. One was the Bode lab in Lorton, Va., which is known for extracting genetic material from bones. The New York team gave the lab a seemingly impossible challenge: to identify 12,000 burnt bone fragments. The bones "had been burning in the rubble at extreme temperatures," says Mike Cariola, the lab's director, "and we were only getting DNA samples on half the ones we tested." Cariola recalls that "some pieces of bone were so charred that if you held it with two fingers it would disintegrate." But using a new technique they developed that releases genetic material by removing calcium from bones, Cariola and his colleagues were able to get DNA profiles out of 2,000 samples that were previously unreadable. Cariola says the work resulted in at least 18 new identifications.
In September 2007 the medical examiner's office in New York announced it had identified a fourth set of terrorist remains —the 13th identified to date.
Some of the 9/11 families have been particularly vocal about singling out terrorist remains. "OK, you found these bastards, now take them out from the same place where our loved ones are," says John Cartier, whose younger brother James was on the 105th floor of the South Tower when it collapsed.
Cartier says he is just as certain about what should be done with those remains once the investigation is put to rest. He suggests "stomping on them." It isn't difficult to find others who share Cartier's visceral rage, undiminished with the years. New York Gov. David Paterson has his own idea: "finish burning them."
Yet some relatives of the dead take no comfort in doing imaginary harm to the bones of the terrorists. Diane Horning's 26-year-old son, Matthew, was on the 95th floor of Tower One. She says if the hijackers' families come forward, "I think they have a right to the remains, I really do. We are all entitled to burial according to our religion or conviction."
Islamic tradition prohibits cremation and calls for quick burial. Yet Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who leads a mosque 12 blocks from Ground Zero, says the hijackers themselves made that an impossibility: "It's hard to believe they expected their bodies would be whole and given a proper burial."
So far none of the hijackers' families have come forward to request the remains. Khaled Abou El Fadl, a law professor at UCLA and an authority on Islamic law, says he would be surprised if they did: "I've heard many times in the Muslim community that to claim and bury a body of one of the hijackers is to admit or accept that it was indeed those hijackers who committed 9/11."
Reached by NEWSWEEK, one relative of Ziad Jarrah, the hijacker believed to have piloted Flight 93 into a Pennsylvania field, expressed just this kind of ambivalence. "Of course we want to get back his remains, but we are not planning to make any contact before things get clarified," said the relative, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. He couldn't bring himself to admit that Jarrah had carried out the atrocities. "Maybe he participated," he says. "Maybe there is something we don't know." But then he paused. Perhaps, he conceded, his relative was indeed involved and he himself was just "engaging in wishful thinking." Admitting it outright, Professor El Fadl says, would run counter to the prevalent belief in countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt that the attacks were actually an anti-Arab conspiracy perpetrated by the Bush administration. If he were related to one of the hijackers, he says, "I'd be scared for the harm that might befall the rest of my family by the Saudi or Egyptian government if I showed an interest," he says. "There is an environment of fear in countries like Saudi Arabia; it's hard to describe. The culture of terror is suffocating."
In June 2002, Miller, the Pennsylvania coroner, received a 4 a.m. phone call from a man in Lebanon who claimed he was the uncle of one of the hijackers. The man wanted to know why his nephew's remains hadn't been returned. "And I said, 'Well, we're not sure which one's which'," Miller recalls. "If he had any DNA material he could send me, I could cross-match like we did for the passengers and crew. Then I pointed out the FBI had custody of the remains—and that was the end of it." Would Miller have made the effort? He says the FBI has the final say, but as for him: "Absolutely," he says. "They are human beings that have passed away in the commonwealth just like my great granddad. I can't arbitrarily say who I will apply the law to … The Good Lord will sort out their deeds."
As a religious matter, says Rauf, what happens to the remnants of the hijackers is not of great consequence. Muslims believe that "all souls will be judged" by God, he says. "What determines the state of your soul is your actions while you were alive." The problem of what to do with the hijackers, Rauf says, "is not so different from Mumbai, where the Indian Muslim community rejected the terrorists because they did not regard them as Muslim and would not give them a Muslim burial. My conviction is that the American Muslim community would reject the 9/11 hijackers." Even so, he believes that the remains should be returned. It would be, he says, an example of "the highest morals. This is what makes America great."
The FBI and the New York Medical Examiner's office, which holds them in secret and in silence, has no policy that dictates what will become of them. "They didn't want to bury them, and they certainly won't put them in the same memorial as the victims," says Baum, who now heads the New Jersey State Police crime lab. "Everyone is waiting because no one quite knows what to do." In the end, inertia and indecision may provide the most fitting final resting place for the remnants of the terrorists, lost to time and memory in some forgotten government vault, unnamed, unburied and unwanted.
With Rana Fil in Lebanon
In the grim, sleepless months of excavation after the September 11 attacks, forensic pathologists in New York City worked day and night to identify the dead. They didn't have much to go on. The collapsed World Trade Center towers had burned at temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees, incinerating those trapped inside. Many of the bodies of the passengers aboard the two airplanes that struck the buildings were consumed by burning jet fuel, leaving only traces of DNA, much of it so damaged that it was impossible to read. Few bodies were found intact. Most of the human remains culled from the vast wreckage at Ground Zero were little more than tiny fragments of charred tissue and bone. The volume was overwhelming. Robert Shaler, who headed the city's Department of Forensic Biology and was a leader of the identification effort, worried his lab would be paralyzed if it tried to identify every piece. At first, they decided they would only attempt to test samples that were "the size of a thumb or larger," he says. But when they saw how small many of the fragments were, they changed their minds. "If we were really going to make an honest effort," Shaler says, "we had to do everything that came along."
Shaler and his colleagues at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner gave weekly updates to family members of the victims, reporting how many of the dead had been identified and reassuring them that the city was doing everything to identify their loved ones. But the families weren't only concerned with their own dead. In meeting after meeting, Shaler says, relatives would ask about the hijackers. Had the scientists identified any of their remains?
"They did not want the terrorists mixed in with their loved ones," says Shaler. The families said, "These people were criminals and did not deserve to be with them." The families asked for the remains of the hijackers to be separated out and kept someplace else. Shaler shared their frustration. Now 66, his hair and beard a grandfatherly white, Shaler says he could not always separate his duties a scientist from his own emotions: a little more than a year into the investigation, he suffered a heart attack. At the early meetings, he told the families he didn't think it would be possible to sort out the remains; by the spring of 2002, Shaler and his staff of 105 scientists had yet to identify any of the New York hijackers. "I thought we'd never find remains from anyone on the planes," he says. But he promised to try.
The blunt reality is that no matter how fastidious their efforts, the scientists will never fully sort the victims from the hijackers. The fragments are too small, too ruined and too scattered for bodies to be restored in their entirety. Some were lost to fire or during the excavation of the wreckage. Today, 1,126 of the 2,751 victims from the World Trade Center and five individuals from the Pentagon have yet to be identified at all—none of their remains and no traces of their DNA have been found.
Scientists are still trying. More than seven years later, the effort continues to identify the missing victims—and hijackers. Shaler and his successors have fulfilled at least part of their promise to the families. Through a combination of innovative DNA-mapping techniques, help from the FBI's crime lab and dumb luck, the scientists have now ID'd four of the 10 New York hijackers. The remains of the nine hijackers from the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crash sites have also been confirmed; six other hijackers have yet to be identified.
What's left of the terrorists—which, all told, likely amounts to less than 24 pounds of flesh and bone fragments—are sequestered at undisclosed locations in New York and Virginia. They are "stored as evidence in a refrigerated locker in sealed containers and test tubes," says Richard Kolko, a spokesman for the FBI.
None of the families of the hijackers, and no foreign governments, have come forward to request that the remains be handed over, and it is not clear what the official response would be if they did. The U.S. government has not said what, if anything, it plans to do with them. "No determination has yet been made," says FBI spokesman Kolko. For now, they are being held as evidence in the still-open 9/11 investigation. Yet at some point, the investigation will be closed. The remains of the identified victims have been returned to their families; but what is to be done with the remnants of their killers?
In the late fall of 2001, as Shaler and his colleagues were engaged in the slow work of conducting DNA tests on the thousands of fragments from Ground Zero, pathologists at the Pennsylvania and Pentagon sites were moving much more quickly. Many of the remains were burned and badly damaged, but identifiable. In Pennsylvania, Somerset County coroner Wallace E. Miller and his team scoured the "halo"—the field and woods surrounding the crater left when United Airlines Flight 93 plunged into the ground. The debris was everywhere. Trees were draped with scraps of luggage, clothing, bits of the fuselage and human remains. Walking through the crash site in the days after the attacks, Miller's eye caught a flash of light 20 feet up in the branches of a hemlock tree. "I only noticed it because the sun happened to hit it at just the right angle," he says. A tree climber brought it down. It was a single tooth with a silver filling. Eventually it was matched to one of the passengers.
In the first two weeks after 9/11, Miller and his team identified 16 of the 44 passengers and crew aboard Flight 93 through fingerprint and dental records. For others, he turned to DNA testing. Hairbrushes and razors collected from the families of the victims provided DNA to match up with human fragments pulled from the wrecked plane.
Like Shaler in New York, Miller met with families of the victims, and they, too, wanted to know if the remains of the hijackers were being sifted out. Miller explained to them that it wasn't as simple as that. There were still some 300 pounds of unidentified remains. Much of it had been damaged beyond recognition by exposure to air and 11,000 gallons of jet fuel. "I told them there would likely be terrorist remains interspersed with them," says Miller. "There were varying degrees of angst and anger about that."
Still, he did what he could to honor the request. Miller and his team sent fragments from the Pennsylvania crash site for testing at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Md. "Our priority was not the hijackers, it was getting the victims back to their families," says Brion Smith, the lab's director. But the remains of the terrorists stood out. Four of the DNA profiles from the Pennsylvania crash site didn't match material provided by the families of passengers and crew. By simple process of elimination, Smith knew these were the hijackers. He sent the samples back to Miller along with the genetic codes.
It was just what Miller was hoping for. With those four profiles in hand, he could weed out the terrorists' remains. He went to the freezers, which were filled with thousands of painstakingly bagged and tagged human fragments retrieved from the crash. Miller scanned the icy plastic bags, looking for genetic profiles that matched Smith's data. He pulled out four bags and laid them on a large table. "All that remained of the four men was less than 10 pounds" of fragments, Miller says. "I had about 48 samples that were associated with the terrorists, mostly bony tissue and I think maybe some scalp with hair on it." He also couldn't tell which set of remains belonged to which terrorist. "Obviously none of the terrorists' families came forward with any information—they were like four John Does," says Miller. "So I just referred to them as Terrorist A, B, C and D."
In New York, efforts to identify the terrorists were more difficult. There were still too many victims who had not been identified by their DNA, making it impossible to flag the terrorists by a process of elimination. The scientists needed the DNA profiles from the hijackers. Shaler's office turned to the FBI for help. The request made its way to the desk of Alan Giusti, the lab's forensic examiner in charge of the September 11 investigation. As it turned out, Giusti had worked for Shaler at a private DNA lab in the '80s, when the technology was in its infancy. Now Giusti was spending his days using genetic clues to nail bank robbers and murderers.
Working with a team of specialists on the third floor of the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, D.C., Giusti was in fact already creating DNA profiles of the New York terrorists from scraps of evidence left behind in hotel rooms and rental cars in the days before the attacks. A large basement room in the FBI building was filled with boxes of evidence, each piece stored in a brown paper bag. "It looks low tech," says Giusti, but the bags keep out humidity or dryness—"the two demons of DNA analysis." For DNA sleuths used to working with tiny scraps of genetic material, it was the mother lode: "fingernail clippings, chewing gum, hairbrushes, anything we could get dead skin off of," he says. When they swabbed the "friction areas" along the inside collars of shirts, the DNA came back mixed, an indication that the hijackers may have shared clothes. A few pieces of used tissue, tossed into a hotel room wastebasket, yielded clues, as did saliva from cigarette butts. Giusti mixed them with enzymes to release DNA—"like cracking the nut of a shell to get the meat out," he says. The "amplified" product—a few drops of clear, viscous liquid—was then put into a large machine that spits out lists of numbers, a genetic map unique to each individual.
It took more than a year for Giusti's lab to get back to New York with the results—a single page with 10 genetic codes. It was February 2003, and Shaler and his crew got to work on the numbers immediately. They were anxious to see if they could make a match to any of the unidentified remains they had retrieved. Shaler's deputy, Howard Baum, thought it would never work. How could they be sure that the clothing and tissues and cigarette butts were really those of the hijackers? "We had no idea where the profiles came from or how they were developed," says Baum. "I was skeptical." A scientist entered the codes into the lab's Mass Fatality Identification System. They told the computer to display any matches to the hijacker profiles in red. Immediately, there were two matches. Shaler and Baum were elated—they would be able to weed out at least some of the terrorists' remains after all. "Finding the first match was the big deal," says Baum. "It was proof of the concept—that we could identify the hijackers. Our job was not for the dead, it was for the living."
The red-flagged fragments "have been removed from the general population" of remains, says Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the New York medical examiner's office. "We will not discuss where they are."
Shaler and the other New York pathologists sent some of the most damaged human fragments to private forensics labs that specialize in advanced DNA-retrieval techniques. One was the Bode lab in Lorton, Va., which is known for extracting genetic material from bones. The New York team gave the lab a seemingly impossible challenge: to identify 12,000 burnt bone fragments. The bones "had been burning in the rubble at extreme temperatures," says Mike Cariola, the lab's director, "and we were only getting DNA samples on half the ones we tested." Cariola recalls that "some pieces of bone were so charred that if you held it with two fingers it would disintegrate." But using a new technique they developed that releases genetic material by removing calcium from bones, Cariola and his colleagues were able to get DNA profiles out of 2,000 samples that were previously unreadable. Cariola says the work resulted in at least 18 new identifications.
In September 2007 the medical examiner's office in New York announced it had identified a fourth set of terrorist remains —the 13th identified to date.
Some of the 9/11 families have been particularly vocal about singling out terrorist remains. "OK, you found these bastards, now take them out from the same place where our loved ones are," says John Cartier, whose younger brother James was on the 105th floor of the South Tower when it collapsed.
Cartier says he is just as certain about what should be done with those remains once the investigation is put to rest. He suggests "stomping on them." It isn't difficult to find others who share Cartier's visceral rage, undiminished with the years. New York Gov. David Paterson has his own idea: "finish burning them."
Yet some relatives of the dead take no comfort in doing imaginary harm to the bones of the terrorists. Diane Horning's 26-year-old son, Matthew, was on the 95th floor of Tower One. She says if the hijackers' families come forward, "I think they have a right to the remains, I really do. We are all entitled to burial according to our religion or conviction."
Islamic tradition prohibits cremation and calls for quick burial. Yet Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who leads a mosque 12 blocks from Ground Zero, says the hijackers themselves made that an impossibility: "It's hard to believe they expected their bodies would be whole and given a proper burial."
So far none of the hijackers' families have come forward to request the remains. Khaled Abou El Fadl, a law professor at UCLA and an authority on Islamic law, says he would be surprised if they did: "I've heard many times in the Muslim community that to claim and bury a body of one of the hijackers is to admit or accept that it was indeed those hijackers who committed 9/11."
Reached by NEWSWEEK, one relative of Ziad Jarrah, the hijacker believed to have piloted Flight 93 into a Pennsylvania field, expressed just this kind of ambivalence. "Of course we want to get back his remains, but we are not planning to make any contact before things get clarified," said the relative, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. He couldn't bring himself to admit that Jarrah had carried out the atrocities. "Maybe he participated," he says. "Maybe there is something we don't know." But then he paused. Perhaps, he conceded, his relative was indeed involved and he himself was just "engaging in wishful thinking." Admitting it outright, Professor El Fadl says, would run counter to the prevalent belief in countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt that the attacks were actually an anti-Arab conspiracy perpetrated by the Bush administration. If he were related to one of the hijackers, he says, "I'd be scared for the harm that might befall the rest of my family by the Saudi or Egyptian government if I showed an interest," he says. "There is an environment of fear in countries like Saudi Arabia; it's hard to describe. The culture of terror is suffocating."
In June 2002, Miller, the Pennsylvania coroner, received a 4 a.m. phone call from a man in Lebanon who claimed he was the uncle of one of the hijackers. The man wanted to know why his nephew's remains hadn't been returned. "And I said, 'Well, we're not sure which one's which'," Miller recalls. "If he had any DNA material he could send me, I could cross-match like we did for the passengers and crew. Then I pointed out the FBI had custody of the remains—and that was the end of it." Would Miller have made the effort? He says the FBI has the final say, but as for him: "Absolutely," he says. "They are human beings that have passed away in the commonwealth just like my great granddad. I can't arbitrarily say who I will apply the law to … The Good Lord will sort out their deeds."
As a religious matter, says Rauf, what happens to the remnants of the hijackers is not of great consequence. Muslims believe that "all souls will be judged" by God, he says. "What determines the state of your soul is your actions while you were alive." The problem of what to do with the hijackers, Rauf says, "is not so different from Mumbai, where the Indian Muslim community rejected the terrorists because they did not regard them as Muslim and would not give them a Muslim burial. My conviction is that the American Muslim community would reject the 9/11 hijackers." Even so, he believes that the remains should be returned. It would be, he says, an example of "the highest morals. This is what makes America great."
The FBI and the New York Medical Examiner's office, which holds them in secret and in silence, has no policy that dictates what will become of them. "They didn't want to bury them, and they certainly won't put them in the same memorial as the victims," says Baum, who now heads the New Jersey State Police crime lab. "Everyone is waiting because no one quite knows what to do." In the end, inertia and indecision may provide the most fitting final resting place for the remnants of the terrorists, lost to time and memory in some forgotten government vault, unnamed, unburied and unwanted.
With Rana Fil in Lebanon
Science - Hunting driving Evolution in Reverse
Lily Huang
Some of the most iconic photographs of Teddy Roosevelt, one of the first conservationists in American politics, show the president posing companionably with the prizes of his trophy hunts. An elephant felled in Africa in 1909 points its tusks skyward; a Cape buffalo, crowned with horns in the shape of a handlebar mustache, slumps in a Kenyan swamp. In North America, he stalked deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and elk, which he called "lordly game" for their majestic antlers. What's remarkable about these photographs is not that they depict a hunter who was also naturalist John Muir's staunchest political ally. It's that just 100 years after his expeditions, many of the kind of magnificent trophies he routinely captured are becoming rare.
Elk still range across parts of North America, but every hunting season brings a greater challenge to find the sought-after bull with a towering spread of antlers. Africa and Asia still have elephants, but Roosevelt would have regarded most of them as freaks, because they don't have tusks. Researchers describe what's happening as none other than the selection process that Darwin made famous: the fittest of a species survive to reproduce and pass along their traits to succeeding generations, while the traits of the unfit gradually disappear. Selective hunting—picking out individuals with the best horns or antlers, or the largest piece of hide—works in reverse: the evolutionary loser is not the small and defenseless, but the biggest and best-equipped to win mates or fend off attackers.
When hunting is severe enough to outstrip other threats to survival, the unsought, middling individuals make out better than the alpha animals, and the species changes. "Survival of the fittest" is still the rule, but the "fit" begin to look unlike what you might expect. And looks aren't the only things changing: behavior adapts too, from how hunted animals act to how they reproduce. There's nothing wrong with a species getting molded over time by new kinds of risk. But some experts believe problems arise when these changes make no evolutionary sense.
Ram Mountain in Alberta, Canada, is home to a population of bighorn sheep, whose most vulnerable individuals are males with thick, curving horns that give them a regal, Princess Leia look. In the course of 30 years of study, biologist Marco Festa-Bianchet of the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec found a roughly 25 percent decline in the size of these horns, and both male and female sheep getting smaller. There's no mystery on Ram Mountain: male sheep with big horns tend to be larger and produce larger offspring. During the fall rut, or breeding season, these alpha rams mate more than any other males, by winning fights or thwarting other males' access to their ewes. Their success, however, is contingent upon their surviving the two-month hunting season just before the rut, and in a strange way, they're competing against their horns. Around the age of 4, their horn size makes them legal game—several years before their reproductive peak. That means smaller-horned males get far more opportunity to mate.
Other species are shrinking, too. Australia's red kangaroo has become noticeably smaller as poachers target the largest animals for leather. The phenomenon has been most apparent in harvested fish: since fishing nets began capturing only fish of sufficient size in the 1980s, the Atlantic cod and salmon, several flounders and the northern pike have all propagated in miniature.
So what if fish or kangaroos are smaller? If being smaller is safer, this might be a successful adaptation for a hunted species. After all, " 'fitness' is relative and transitory," says Columbia University biologist Don Melnick, meaning that Darwinian natural selection has nothing to do with what's good or bad, or the way things should be. Tusks used to make elephants fitter, as a weapon or a tool in foraging—until ivory became a precious commodity and having tusks got you killed. Then tuskless elephants, products of a genetic fluke, became the more consistent breeders and grew from around 2 percent among African elephants to more than 38 percent in one Zambian population, and 98 percent in a South African one. In Asia, where female elephants don't have tusks to begin with, the proportion of tuskless elephants has more than doubled, to more than 90 percent in Sri Lanka. But there's a cost to not having tusks. Tusked elephants, like the old dominant males on Ram Mountain, were "genetically 'better' individuals," says Festa-Bianchet. "When you take them systematically out of the population for several years, you end up leaving essentially a bunch of losers doing the breeding."
"Losers" tend not to be very good breeders, meaning that this demographic shift ultimately threatens the viability of a species. Researchers also worry that the surviving animals are left with a narrower gene pool. In highly controlled environments, a species with frighteningly little genetic diversity can persist—think of the extremes of domesticated animals like thoroughbred horses or commercial chickens—but in real ecosystems changes are unpredictable. Artificially selecting animals in the wild—in effect, breeding them—is "a very risky game," says Columbia's Melnick. "It's highly likely to result in the end of a species."
At present, researchers' alarm about these trends are based on theories that are hard to prove. To make scientific claims about the effects of hunting on the evolution of a species, researchers like Melnick would need thorough data from animal populations that lived at least several decades ago, which rarely exist. Evolution, it turns out, is a difficult beast to study in real time because it is the product of so many factors—changes in climate, habitat and food supply, as well as gene frequencies—and because it occurs so slowly. Researchers began tracking sheep on Ram Mountain in the early 1970s, corralling the entire population every year to make measurements and trace genealogies. "You cannot really just go out and take data and look for a trend," says Festa-Bianchet. "Even if you find a trend it can be due to environmental changes, to changes in density. You're really trying to tease out the genetic part of the change."
The time scale is one reason that most wildlife departments managing hunting harvests simply count the heads each year and decide how many to let hunters bag without thinking about genes. The most popular method of regulating hunting—restricting legal game to males with a minimum antler size—results in populations overrun with females and inferior males, which is ultimately no service to hunters. "The hunters wish for animals with large antlers and large horns, and yet their actions are making that harder to achieve," says Richard Harris, a conservation biologist in Montana. As a hunter, Harris knows that the outcome of this trend will satisfy no one, the Teddy Roosevelts of the next generation least of all.
Some of the most iconic photographs of Teddy Roosevelt, one of the first conservationists in American politics, show the president posing companionably with the prizes of his trophy hunts. An elephant felled in Africa in 1909 points its tusks skyward; a Cape buffalo, crowned with horns in the shape of a handlebar mustache, slumps in a Kenyan swamp. In North America, he stalked deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and elk, which he called "lordly game" for their majestic antlers. What's remarkable about these photographs is not that they depict a hunter who was also naturalist John Muir's staunchest political ally. It's that just 100 years after his expeditions, many of the kind of magnificent trophies he routinely captured are becoming rare.
Elk still range across parts of North America, but every hunting season brings a greater challenge to find the sought-after bull with a towering spread of antlers. Africa and Asia still have elephants, but Roosevelt would have regarded most of them as freaks, because they don't have tusks. Researchers describe what's happening as none other than the selection process that Darwin made famous: the fittest of a species survive to reproduce and pass along their traits to succeeding generations, while the traits of the unfit gradually disappear. Selective hunting—picking out individuals with the best horns or antlers, or the largest piece of hide—works in reverse: the evolutionary loser is not the small and defenseless, but the biggest and best-equipped to win mates or fend off attackers.
When hunting is severe enough to outstrip other threats to survival, the unsought, middling individuals make out better than the alpha animals, and the species changes. "Survival of the fittest" is still the rule, but the "fit" begin to look unlike what you might expect. And looks aren't the only things changing: behavior adapts too, from how hunted animals act to how they reproduce. There's nothing wrong with a species getting molded over time by new kinds of risk. But some experts believe problems arise when these changes make no evolutionary sense.
Ram Mountain in Alberta, Canada, is home to a population of bighorn sheep, whose most vulnerable individuals are males with thick, curving horns that give them a regal, Princess Leia look. In the course of 30 years of study, biologist Marco Festa-Bianchet of the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec found a roughly 25 percent decline in the size of these horns, and both male and female sheep getting smaller. There's no mystery on Ram Mountain: male sheep with big horns tend to be larger and produce larger offspring. During the fall rut, or breeding season, these alpha rams mate more than any other males, by winning fights or thwarting other males' access to their ewes. Their success, however, is contingent upon their surviving the two-month hunting season just before the rut, and in a strange way, they're competing against their horns. Around the age of 4, their horn size makes them legal game—several years before their reproductive peak. That means smaller-horned males get far more opportunity to mate.
Other species are shrinking, too. Australia's red kangaroo has become noticeably smaller as poachers target the largest animals for leather. The phenomenon has been most apparent in harvested fish: since fishing nets began capturing only fish of sufficient size in the 1980s, the Atlantic cod and salmon, several flounders and the northern pike have all propagated in miniature.
So what if fish or kangaroos are smaller? If being smaller is safer, this might be a successful adaptation for a hunted species. After all, " 'fitness' is relative and transitory," says Columbia University biologist Don Melnick, meaning that Darwinian natural selection has nothing to do with what's good or bad, or the way things should be. Tusks used to make elephants fitter, as a weapon or a tool in foraging—until ivory became a precious commodity and having tusks got you killed. Then tuskless elephants, products of a genetic fluke, became the more consistent breeders and grew from around 2 percent among African elephants to more than 38 percent in one Zambian population, and 98 percent in a South African one. In Asia, where female elephants don't have tusks to begin with, the proportion of tuskless elephants has more than doubled, to more than 90 percent in Sri Lanka. But there's a cost to not having tusks. Tusked elephants, like the old dominant males on Ram Mountain, were "genetically 'better' individuals," says Festa-Bianchet. "When you take them systematically out of the population for several years, you end up leaving essentially a bunch of losers doing the breeding."
"Losers" tend not to be very good breeders, meaning that this demographic shift ultimately threatens the viability of a species. Researchers also worry that the surviving animals are left with a narrower gene pool. In highly controlled environments, a species with frighteningly little genetic diversity can persist—think of the extremes of domesticated animals like thoroughbred horses or commercial chickens—but in real ecosystems changes are unpredictable. Artificially selecting animals in the wild—in effect, breeding them—is "a very risky game," says Columbia's Melnick. "It's highly likely to result in the end of a species."
At present, researchers' alarm about these trends are based on theories that are hard to prove. To make scientific claims about the effects of hunting on the evolution of a species, researchers like Melnick would need thorough data from animal populations that lived at least several decades ago, which rarely exist. Evolution, it turns out, is a difficult beast to study in real time because it is the product of so many factors—changes in climate, habitat and food supply, as well as gene frequencies—and because it occurs so slowly. Researchers began tracking sheep on Ram Mountain in the early 1970s, corralling the entire population every year to make measurements and trace genealogies. "You cannot really just go out and take data and look for a trend," says Festa-Bianchet. "Even if you find a trend it can be due to environmental changes, to changes in density. You're really trying to tease out the genetic part of the change."
The time scale is one reason that most wildlife departments managing hunting harvests simply count the heads each year and decide how many to let hunters bag without thinking about genes. The most popular method of regulating hunting—restricting legal game to males with a minimum antler size—results in populations overrun with females and inferior males, which is ultimately no service to hunters. "The hunters wish for animals with large antlers and large horns, and yet their actions are making that harder to achieve," says Richard Harris, a conservation biologist in Montana. As a hunter, Harris knows that the outcome of this trend will satisfy no one, the Teddy Roosevelts of the next generation least of all.
World - London;An experiment in Leadership
Stryker McGuire
In Whitehall and Westminster, new thinking seems to have slowed to a trickle, with both big national political parties transfixed by the global financial crisis and defaulting to their timeworn left-right positions. Last month's Queen's Speech, in which the monarch traditionally outlines the government's entire legislative program for the coming year, amounted to a meager 683 words. Yet downriver from Britain's ancient centers of power, a very different picture is emerging. Under the leadership of one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, city hall has become something of an idea factory, humming with all kinds of innovation.
Untethered by political pressure to solve Britain's economic problems, and unrestrained by the strict left-right divide of national politics, Boris Johnson, 44, has been left free to experiment with his trademark reckless abandon. Since taking office as mayor eight months ago, he has displayed a deft populist touch by banning alcohol consumption on public transport and increasing the London "living wage" to $11.17 per hour (nearly 35 percent higher than the national figure). More than that, though, his office is brimming with ideas that could win him popularity in London and widen his appeal nationwide. Aside from pushing projects like cycling "superhighways" and community gardens, his administration is studying, for instance, a U.S.-style amnesty program for the estimated 350,000 illegal immigrants living in London; a $7.25 billion plan to build 50,000 affordable homes and get middle-income families on the property ladder; putting 440 "safety" officers on London buses; running the tube later into the evening on weekends; instituting bike- rental programs like the kind already successful in other European cities; and investing $87 million to renovate empty properties.
He has also rather deliberately staked out positions that do not toe the line drawn by his fellow Tory, opposition leader David Cameron. For instance, Johnson, like Cameron, is opposed to proposed plans for construction of a third runway at Heathrow, the world's busiest international airport. But while environmentally conscious Conservatives favor improving Britain's railway network to reduce domestic air traffic, Johnson favors construction of a vast new airport in the Thames estuary, far from central London.
But it is still very much an open question whether Johnson can win this particular battle—or, indeed, follow through on any of his ideas. Though he has modeled himself in part after Michael Bloomberg, New York's politically independent mayor, as a pragmatist who rises above partisan politics, his powers are not those of a classic "big city" mayor. His revenue-raising powers are limited. He has planning authority over London's vast public-transportation system, for instance, but while he can raise fares and impose special fees, he has no authority to impose or raise taxes. As a consequence, the sole connective tissue providing coherence to Johnson's ideas sometimes seems to be that they happen to be Johnson's ideas.
While he may succeed in capturing the public's imagination and attention, he remains a moderate Tory at heart. He will have to make tangible changes and real progress in London in order to be seen, like Bloomberg, as a political figure of substance. He is counting on the fact that the mayor's office can become a bully pulpit for new ideas and the very public face for one of the world's most important and diverse cities. "Insofar as we're able to do new things and good things in city hall," says Johnson, "it's because we have a huge popular mandate."
Not even a decade old, the mayor's office is still appealingly adolescent in its enthusiasm for new, even bold ideas. In 2000 Ken Livingstone became the first directly elected mayor of London in its 1,000-year history. Outspoken and controversial—he cozied up to Venezuela's leftist, anti-American president, Hugo Chávez, with whom he negotiated a favorable oil-price deal for London buses (a deal that Johnson has canned)—he also worked tirelessly, and used his global connections, to help bring the 2012 Olympics to London. Against widespread criticism, he tackled the capital's chronic traffic snarls with an expensive but innovative and ultimately successful congestion-charging plan for motorists. Johnson, his successor, is also an iconoclast with a knack for controversy. Educated in Brussels, at Eton College and then at Oxford, where he studied classics, he gravitated to journalism after a brief stint as a management consultant. In the sort of two-steps-forward, one-step-backward progression that has typified his life, Johnson went to work for The Times of London and was promptly sacked for making up a quote from his own godfather.
Undaunted, he climbed the journalism ladder and in 1999 became editor of The Spectator, burnishing his Tory credentials, widening his circle of influence and eventually winning a seat in Parliament, in 2001, to represent the posh London suburb of Henley. He rose to become shadow minister for the arts, but was forced out of the job for allegedly lying about an extramarital affair (the accusations were "an inverted pyramid of piffle," he said). But he bounced back again and ran for mayor of London, promising to make it a greener city and to clean up the corruption and cronyism that he said had insinuated themselves into Livingstone's government. Defying the predictions of most pundits and pollsters, he won, by a margin of 8 percent.
A city hall inhabited by someone like Johnson was never going to be boring, and indeed it crackles with the same spirit of wackiness-cum-unpredictability that has blessed, and cursed, Johnson's earlier incarnations. What's endearing to some—showing up at the Olympic handover ceremony in Beijing last summer looking disheveled, hands in pockets, jacket unbuttoned—is irksome to others, such as his Chinese hosts. He publicly endorsed Barack Obama for president—something no leading Tory or Labour pol in Britain could do for fear of breaching diplomatic protocol. Johnson, after all, is a man who doesn't do low-key; he not only speaks but thinks in italics, exclamation marks and capital letters, and he combines the omnivorous curiosity of a natural journalist with the erudition of a scholar who in December presented a BBC television documentary, "After Rome," on the impact of Islam on the world. No surprise, then, that Johnson's early months in office have been marked by no small amount of chaos, including the resignations of four of his senior advisers.
Johnson is as cunning politically as he is colorful personally. Much more than Livingstone, he wants to turn city hall into an alternate base of national political power. At the national level, British political leaders are creatures of their parties: elected in small constituencies by mere thousands of voters, they attain real power—like becoming party leader—by being chosen by their fellow M.P.s. Thus, the directly elected mayor of London automatically has the biggest mandate of any British political figure. Prime Minister Gordon Brown was re-elected as M.P. in 2005 because 24,000 Scots in Kirkcaldy voted for him; 1.2 million Londoners voted for Johnson. A four-year term at city hall, therefore, is a perfectly plausible launchpad to much higher office.
While it will take several years for Londoners, much less the public outside London, to come to a firm judgment about Johnson's tenure, the timing could work in his favor. His next move, if his political stars were in proper alignment, would be to succeed the 42-year-old Cameron as Tory leader, putting himself on track to be prime minister someday.
Sometime between now and June 2010 there will be a general election. Johnson will be watching from the relatively safe confines of city hall. If the Tories win, Cameron will presumably become prime minister; if they lose, Cameron could well be forced out as leader. Either way, Johnson will be seen as a rival to Cameron's presumed successor, George Osborne, 37. Osborne, Cameron's friend, ally and de facto deputy, is now shadow chancellor, and has been faulted for his lackluster performance during the financial crisis. Though there are no camps of supporters massing in public at this point, Johnson, along with former party leader William Hague, 47, tops the list of likely contenders to the leadership.
A busy mayor, of course, has no time for such crass thoughts. Asked if after one or two four-years terms in city hall he might stand again for Parliament, as he would have to do to position himself for the party leadership, Johnson arches his eyebrows and says he recognizes a "trap" question. "If I feel I've got something to say and something to offer and there were things that I could really, plausibly do, then of course I'd give it a thought," he says. "But at the moment, I have to tell you, this particular job is so all-engrossing, so demanding, it gluts the appetite for power. My cup runneth over." Of course it does. Or is that just another one of those inverted pyramids of piffle?
With Saleha Mohsin
In Whitehall and Westminster, new thinking seems to have slowed to a trickle, with both big national political parties transfixed by the global financial crisis and defaulting to their timeworn left-right positions. Last month's Queen's Speech, in which the monarch traditionally outlines the government's entire legislative program for the coming year, amounted to a meager 683 words. Yet downriver from Britain's ancient centers of power, a very different picture is emerging. Under the leadership of one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, city hall has become something of an idea factory, humming with all kinds of innovation.
Untethered by political pressure to solve Britain's economic problems, and unrestrained by the strict left-right divide of national politics, Boris Johnson, 44, has been left free to experiment with his trademark reckless abandon. Since taking office as mayor eight months ago, he has displayed a deft populist touch by banning alcohol consumption on public transport and increasing the London "living wage" to $11.17 per hour (nearly 35 percent higher than the national figure). More than that, though, his office is brimming with ideas that could win him popularity in London and widen his appeal nationwide. Aside from pushing projects like cycling "superhighways" and community gardens, his administration is studying, for instance, a U.S.-style amnesty program for the estimated 350,000 illegal immigrants living in London; a $7.25 billion plan to build 50,000 affordable homes and get middle-income families on the property ladder; putting 440 "safety" officers on London buses; running the tube later into the evening on weekends; instituting bike- rental programs like the kind already successful in other European cities; and investing $87 million to renovate empty properties.
He has also rather deliberately staked out positions that do not toe the line drawn by his fellow Tory, opposition leader David Cameron. For instance, Johnson, like Cameron, is opposed to proposed plans for construction of a third runway at Heathrow, the world's busiest international airport. But while environmentally conscious Conservatives favor improving Britain's railway network to reduce domestic air traffic, Johnson favors construction of a vast new airport in the Thames estuary, far from central London.
But it is still very much an open question whether Johnson can win this particular battle—or, indeed, follow through on any of his ideas. Though he has modeled himself in part after Michael Bloomberg, New York's politically independent mayor, as a pragmatist who rises above partisan politics, his powers are not those of a classic "big city" mayor. His revenue-raising powers are limited. He has planning authority over London's vast public-transportation system, for instance, but while he can raise fares and impose special fees, he has no authority to impose or raise taxes. As a consequence, the sole connective tissue providing coherence to Johnson's ideas sometimes seems to be that they happen to be Johnson's ideas.
While he may succeed in capturing the public's imagination and attention, he remains a moderate Tory at heart. He will have to make tangible changes and real progress in London in order to be seen, like Bloomberg, as a political figure of substance. He is counting on the fact that the mayor's office can become a bully pulpit for new ideas and the very public face for one of the world's most important and diverse cities. "Insofar as we're able to do new things and good things in city hall," says Johnson, "it's because we have a huge popular mandate."
Not even a decade old, the mayor's office is still appealingly adolescent in its enthusiasm for new, even bold ideas. In 2000 Ken Livingstone became the first directly elected mayor of London in its 1,000-year history. Outspoken and controversial—he cozied up to Venezuela's leftist, anti-American president, Hugo Chávez, with whom he negotiated a favorable oil-price deal for London buses (a deal that Johnson has canned)—he also worked tirelessly, and used his global connections, to help bring the 2012 Olympics to London. Against widespread criticism, he tackled the capital's chronic traffic snarls with an expensive but innovative and ultimately successful congestion-charging plan for motorists. Johnson, his successor, is also an iconoclast with a knack for controversy. Educated in Brussels, at Eton College and then at Oxford, where he studied classics, he gravitated to journalism after a brief stint as a management consultant. In the sort of two-steps-forward, one-step-backward progression that has typified his life, Johnson went to work for The Times of London and was promptly sacked for making up a quote from his own godfather.
Undaunted, he climbed the journalism ladder and in 1999 became editor of The Spectator, burnishing his Tory credentials, widening his circle of influence and eventually winning a seat in Parliament, in 2001, to represent the posh London suburb of Henley. He rose to become shadow minister for the arts, but was forced out of the job for allegedly lying about an extramarital affair (the accusations were "an inverted pyramid of piffle," he said). But he bounced back again and ran for mayor of London, promising to make it a greener city and to clean up the corruption and cronyism that he said had insinuated themselves into Livingstone's government. Defying the predictions of most pundits and pollsters, he won, by a margin of 8 percent.
A city hall inhabited by someone like Johnson was never going to be boring, and indeed it crackles with the same spirit of wackiness-cum-unpredictability that has blessed, and cursed, Johnson's earlier incarnations. What's endearing to some—showing up at the Olympic handover ceremony in Beijing last summer looking disheveled, hands in pockets, jacket unbuttoned—is irksome to others, such as his Chinese hosts. He publicly endorsed Barack Obama for president—something no leading Tory or Labour pol in Britain could do for fear of breaching diplomatic protocol. Johnson, after all, is a man who doesn't do low-key; he not only speaks but thinks in italics, exclamation marks and capital letters, and he combines the omnivorous curiosity of a natural journalist with the erudition of a scholar who in December presented a BBC television documentary, "After Rome," on the impact of Islam on the world. No surprise, then, that Johnson's early months in office have been marked by no small amount of chaos, including the resignations of four of his senior advisers.
Johnson is as cunning politically as he is colorful personally. Much more than Livingstone, he wants to turn city hall into an alternate base of national political power. At the national level, British political leaders are creatures of their parties: elected in small constituencies by mere thousands of voters, they attain real power—like becoming party leader—by being chosen by their fellow M.P.s. Thus, the directly elected mayor of London automatically has the biggest mandate of any British political figure. Prime Minister Gordon Brown was re-elected as M.P. in 2005 because 24,000 Scots in Kirkcaldy voted for him; 1.2 million Londoners voted for Johnson. A four-year term at city hall, therefore, is a perfectly plausible launchpad to much higher office.
While it will take several years for Londoners, much less the public outside London, to come to a firm judgment about Johnson's tenure, the timing could work in his favor. His next move, if his political stars were in proper alignment, would be to succeed the 42-year-old Cameron as Tory leader, putting himself on track to be prime minister someday.
Sometime between now and June 2010 there will be a general election. Johnson will be watching from the relatively safe confines of city hall. If the Tories win, Cameron will presumably become prime minister; if they lose, Cameron could well be forced out as leader. Either way, Johnson will be seen as a rival to Cameron's presumed successor, George Osborne, 37. Osborne, Cameron's friend, ally and de facto deputy, is now shadow chancellor, and has been faulted for his lackluster performance during the financial crisis. Though there are no camps of supporters massing in public at this point, Johnson, along with former party leader William Hague, 47, tops the list of likely contenders to the leadership.
A busy mayor, of course, has no time for such crass thoughts. Asked if after one or two four-years terms in city hall he might stand again for Parliament, as he would have to do to position himself for the party leadership, Johnson arches his eyebrows and says he recognizes a "trap" question. "If I feel I've got something to say and something to offer and there were things that I could really, plausibly do, then of course I'd give it a thought," he says. "But at the moment, I have to tell you, this particular job is so all-engrossing, so demanding, it gluts the appetite for power. My cup runneth over." Of course it does. Or is that just another one of those inverted pyramids of piffle?
With Saleha Mohsin
Lifestyle - Mexico;The Audacity Of Dope
Malcolm Beith
Nearly everything about it was journalistic catnip: Laura Elena Zúñiga Huizar, a 23-year-old beauty queen, arrested just outside of the Mexican city of Guadalajara with seven alleged drug traffickers, two assault rifles, handguns, ammunition, 16 cell phones and $53,000 in U.S. currency, just before Christmas Eve. They were going shopping in Bolivia and Colombia, Miss Sinaloa 2008 told the authorities. But beneath the surface lay a tragic reality: few are immune from Mexico's drug war these days.
In Mexican states like Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Baja California and Michoacán, where their trade is most prominent, drug traffickers have long been considered upstanding members of the community. They attend political gatherings and support their candidates of choice, help fund schools and churches, sponsor local events and spur regional economies. They also date, go out to nightclubs and get married. "They have money, they're the businessmen," says Judith Sánchez García, a 24-year-old student from Morelia, Michoacán, a hotbed of drug activity in central Mexico. "I don't go for those guys, but sure, I've partied with some."
It's unclear why Zúñiga Huizar, a former preschool teacher from the drug hotspot of Culiacán, would choose to associate with the men with whom she was arrested—one is an alleged leader of the powerful Juárez cartel—or whether she even had a choice. "If a woman turns down a proposal [from a drug trafficker], her punishment could be death," says Magdalena García Hernández, head of a women's activist group known as Milenio Feminista.
Women's rights have always been a contentious issue in Mexico, known rightly or wrongly for its machismo and, in recent years, notorious for the lack of investigations into the murders of hundreds of women in the border city of Ciudad Juárez. Several thousand women have been locked up in the war on organized crime launched by President Felipe Calderón just over two years ago, and some feminists say that many of them were just guilty by association. "Unfortunately, there are many young women who we've seen implicated in crimes ranging from simple robbery to organized crime," says federal lawmaker Marta Tagle Martínez. Too many of these women, she says, "find themselves in prisons linked to crimes which in reality were committed by their boyfriends or spouses. This is a reality."
Some Mexican columnists have already issued their verdict: she was a good girl out to have a great time with the bad boys. The lie she had told her father—she said she was going to a Christmas party in Guadalajara, he recalled to reporters—is proof she was in search of a "wild time," wrote one pundit a few days after the arrest. The woman who, after winning the Sinaloa contest in the summer issued an impassioned plea for Mexican society to value women, has been stripped of her crown, and federal lawmakers have called for an investigation into drug trafficking links to the nation's beauty pageants.
Fathers like José María Hernández, from Morelia, shudder when they think about the fate that could befall their own daughters. During a conversation at a Morelia restaurant last weekend, he and his 19-year-old daughter Luisa rolled their eyes at each other, as he opened up about his fears while she tried to assert her independence. "As a father, I'm worried anyway," he said. "[But] the narcos are a serious concern—with these guys, you never know." Luisa quickly butted in, saying she was "not interested" in drug dealers. These days, she and her friends take extra precautions when they go out: they go in groups, they always bring male friends with them, they stick together the whole time and they follow a strict rule of not dancing with strangers.
Across the country, more young women are taking such precautions as the drug war infiltrates every corner of society. Reports of drug traffickers taking their pick of local girls at clubs in the southeastern city of Villahermosa in the fall prompted many young women there to forgo the nightlife altogether and resulted in the closure of several clubs, residents say.
Erendira Álvarez, a 25-year-old from Guadalajara who studies law in Mexico City, works as a stripper to raise extra cash. She travels all over Mexico during her vacations, from working-class Tuxtla Gutiérrez in the south to wealthy Monterrey in the north, often hanging out and working in unsavory circles. She knows the risks, and so do her parents. "They don't mind what I do, and I keep in touch regularly," she says. "But they won't let me go to Tijuana, or Ciudad Juárez. It's a real problem we have here."
Álvarez says she has been approached by lower-level drug traffickers in cities like Monterrey and Culiacán. She dreads to think what might have happened if they'd taken a serious liking to her, as some foreign customers have done in the past. "[The foreigners] wanted to buy me, but even though I work as a stripper, I have rights," she says. "I don't know if a narco would have walked away so easily, or respected those rights."
At a bar in Morelia on a recent busy Saturday night, surrounded by three girlfriends and one male friend, Sánchez García downplayed the outrage and shock over Miss Sinaloa's arrest. Drug traffickers have simply become a fact of life, she said, and so has lying in order to enjoy oneself. "We lie to our parents all the time—we say we're going to a friends' house, going shopping," she said. "The beauty queen lie wasn't surprising. What, you're going to tell your parents that you're hanging out at a hotel in Guadalajara with tons of cocaine, alcohol and these chavos [guys]?"
Her friend, 21-year-old Martha Hernández, agreed. "Look, everywhere, in any city, there's the good crowd and bad crowd. Sometimes they mix—politicians, lawyers, drug traffickers, beauty queens … it's a melting pot," she said. Their male friend, Hernán García, wasn't quite so flippant. Normally, going out with the girls and looking out for them is fine, he said—he does his best to stave off any undesirable characters. But he knows that some things are out of his control. "If a narco comes up and says, 'You're hot,' you know you're f--ked."
Malcolm Beith is the Mexico editor at The News in Mexico City
Nearly everything about it was journalistic catnip: Laura Elena Zúñiga Huizar, a 23-year-old beauty queen, arrested just outside of the Mexican city of Guadalajara with seven alleged drug traffickers, two assault rifles, handguns, ammunition, 16 cell phones and $53,000 in U.S. currency, just before Christmas Eve. They were going shopping in Bolivia and Colombia, Miss Sinaloa 2008 told the authorities. But beneath the surface lay a tragic reality: few are immune from Mexico's drug war these days.
In Mexican states like Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Baja California and Michoacán, where their trade is most prominent, drug traffickers have long been considered upstanding members of the community. They attend political gatherings and support their candidates of choice, help fund schools and churches, sponsor local events and spur regional economies. They also date, go out to nightclubs and get married. "They have money, they're the businessmen," says Judith Sánchez García, a 24-year-old student from Morelia, Michoacán, a hotbed of drug activity in central Mexico. "I don't go for those guys, but sure, I've partied with some."
It's unclear why Zúñiga Huizar, a former preschool teacher from the drug hotspot of Culiacán, would choose to associate with the men with whom she was arrested—one is an alleged leader of the powerful Juárez cartel—or whether she even had a choice. "If a woman turns down a proposal [from a drug trafficker], her punishment could be death," says Magdalena García Hernández, head of a women's activist group known as Milenio Feminista.
Women's rights have always been a contentious issue in Mexico, known rightly or wrongly for its machismo and, in recent years, notorious for the lack of investigations into the murders of hundreds of women in the border city of Ciudad Juárez. Several thousand women have been locked up in the war on organized crime launched by President Felipe Calderón just over two years ago, and some feminists say that many of them were just guilty by association. "Unfortunately, there are many young women who we've seen implicated in crimes ranging from simple robbery to organized crime," says federal lawmaker Marta Tagle Martínez. Too many of these women, she says, "find themselves in prisons linked to crimes which in reality were committed by their boyfriends or spouses. This is a reality."
Some Mexican columnists have already issued their verdict: she was a good girl out to have a great time with the bad boys. The lie she had told her father—she said she was going to a Christmas party in Guadalajara, he recalled to reporters—is proof she was in search of a "wild time," wrote one pundit a few days after the arrest. The woman who, after winning the Sinaloa contest in the summer issued an impassioned plea for Mexican society to value women, has been stripped of her crown, and federal lawmakers have called for an investigation into drug trafficking links to the nation's beauty pageants.
Fathers like José María Hernández, from Morelia, shudder when they think about the fate that could befall their own daughters. During a conversation at a Morelia restaurant last weekend, he and his 19-year-old daughter Luisa rolled their eyes at each other, as he opened up about his fears while she tried to assert her independence. "As a father, I'm worried anyway," he said. "[But] the narcos are a serious concern—with these guys, you never know." Luisa quickly butted in, saying she was "not interested" in drug dealers. These days, she and her friends take extra precautions when they go out: they go in groups, they always bring male friends with them, they stick together the whole time and they follow a strict rule of not dancing with strangers.
Across the country, more young women are taking such precautions as the drug war infiltrates every corner of society. Reports of drug traffickers taking their pick of local girls at clubs in the southeastern city of Villahermosa in the fall prompted many young women there to forgo the nightlife altogether and resulted in the closure of several clubs, residents say.
Erendira Álvarez, a 25-year-old from Guadalajara who studies law in Mexico City, works as a stripper to raise extra cash. She travels all over Mexico during her vacations, from working-class Tuxtla Gutiérrez in the south to wealthy Monterrey in the north, often hanging out and working in unsavory circles. She knows the risks, and so do her parents. "They don't mind what I do, and I keep in touch regularly," she says. "But they won't let me go to Tijuana, or Ciudad Juárez. It's a real problem we have here."
Álvarez says she has been approached by lower-level drug traffickers in cities like Monterrey and Culiacán. She dreads to think what might have happened if they'd taken a serious liking to her, as some foreign customers have done in the past. "[The foreigners] wanted to buy me, but even though I work as a stripper, I have rights," she says. "I don't know if a narco would have walked away so easily, or respected those rights."
At a bar in Morelia on a recent busy Saturday night, surrounded by three girlfriends and one male friend, Sánchez García downplayed the outrage and shock over Miss Sinaloa's arrest. Drug traffickers have simply become a fact of life, she said, and so has lying in order to enjoy oneself. "We lie to our parents all the time—we say we're going to a friends' house, going shopping," she said. "The beauty queen lie wasn't surprising. What, you're going to tell your parents that you're hanging out at a hotel in Guadalajara with tons of cocaine, alcohol and these chavos [guys]?"
Her friend, 21-year-old Martha Hernández, agreed. "Look, everywhere, in any city, there's the good crowd and bad crowd. Sometimes they mix—politicians, lawyers, drug traffickers, beauty queens … it's a melting pot," she said. Their male friend, Hernán García, wasn't quite so flippant. Normally, going out with the girls and looking out for them is fine, he said—he does his best to stave off any undesirable characters. But he knows that some things are out of his control. "If a narco comes up and says, 'You're hot,' you know you're f--ked."
Malcolm Beith is the Mexico editor at The News in Mexico City
Health - Pro-Anorexia Groups;Out of the Shadows
Tina Peng
A Web page labeled "Ana Boot Camp" recently offered its members a seemingly irresistible proposition: a 30-day regimen designed to help them drop some serious pounds, no exercise needed. The catch was that the group's members were to vary their daily caloric intake from 500 (less than half the daily minimum requirement for women recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine) to zero. They were supposed to track their progress, fast to make up for the days they accidentally "overate" and support each other as they worked toward their common goal of radical weight loss.
Pro-anorexia, or "pro-ana," Web sites (with more than one using the "Ana Boot Camp" name) have for years been a controversial Internet fixture, with users sharing extreme diet tips and posting pictures of emaciated girls under headlines such as "thinspiration." But what was unusual about the site mentioned above (which is no longer available) was where it was hosted: the ubiquitous social networking site Facebook.com. The (largely female) users who frequent pro-ana sites have typically done so anonymously, posting under pseudonyms and using pictures of fashion models to represent themselves. Now, as the groups increasingly launch pages on Facebook, linking users' real-life profiles to their eating disorders, the heated conversation around anorexia has become more public. Many pro-ana Facebookers say the groups provide an invaluable support system to help them cope with their disease, but psychologists worry that the growth of such groups could encourage eating disorders in others.
Rose, 17, a Maryland high-school senior who, like several other women interviewed for this story, asked to be identified only by her first name, was active in pro-ana Facebook groups for two years. There, she found a community of people like her—people who had a disease with which few of their friends could identify. "These sites provided a setting where I could talk about the illness without people trying to fix me or tell me that what I'm doing is horrible, disgusting, maladaptive," she says. "For me, part of the illness was just about getting attention. You feel so lonely and you want someone to notice you, and I guess that's kind of the way to do it, even with other sick people."
Many members of the Facebook groups have migrated over from other social networking sites, like MySpace and Xanga. "Facebook's the most personable," Rose says. "If you're on something like MySpace, that's famous for creepy old men. Facebook seems the safest." Kate, a 20-year-old Utah college student, says being able to see people's faces, friends and interests on their Facebook sites makes for a more intimate community. "It's a lot more of a support group for pro-ana," she says. "MySpace was more focused on tips and tricks and when to exercise. [On Facebook], there's a lot of really close networking, so you add those people as friends and exchange phone numbers, and when you're having a hard day, you talk on the phone."
Dr. Steven Crawford, associate director of the Center for Eating Disorders at Sheppard Pratt in Baltimore, sees the openness of the Facebook site as part of its appeal. Increasing numbers of teenage patients at the center are joining Facebook groups that proclaim their disorders to the world, which Crawford believes is a means of adolescent rebellion: "It's almost like putting it in your face: I have an eating disorder. I am anorexic."
Pro-ana group creators insist that they aren't recruiting anorexics and are just supporting each other. In fact, there are some groups that are legitimately focused on recovery. Still, the effects of even such makeshift support groups are likely not as benign as some fans claim. "The more types of these sites that you use, the higher your risk for disordered eating is," says Stanford professor Rebecka Peebles, M.D., acknowledging that that correlation doesn't prove that the sites necessarily contribute to the disorder. A 2006 study that she coauthored found that 96 percent of teens diagnosed with eating disorders who visited pro-eating disorder Web sites learned new dieting and purging techniques, and almost 50 percent of teens who visited sites ostensibly devoted to eating disorder recovery also learned new weight-loss tips.
The openness of Facebook isn't universally appealing—some girls still create fake profiles with names like Skinny Minny and Ana Thin or worry that their friends will notice the groups they've joined—but many users fit the defiant profile Crawford describes. Stef, 19, says her friends have asked why she's joined so many pro-ana groups, but she doesn't care if they're worried; having access to thinspiration, weight-loss tips and fasting partners is more important. "I basically say it's helping me deal with my eating disorder, either for good or for bad, but I know that I'm taking care of it in the best way possible," the Pennsylvania college student says.
Unsurprisingly, opponents of groups that glorify eating disorders haven't stood by idly—anti-anorexia groups by far outnumber pro-ana groups on Facebook. Some have members who number in the thousands and actively hunt down pro-ana groups, and then lobby Facebook authorities to delete them. Recently, they managed to shut down one notorious site as well as the Facebook account of its creator, a girl who would encourage others to post their pictures online and then harshly detail their "problem areas."
Facebook doesn't track how often it deletes pro-ana pages, but the groups violate the site's terms of use by promoting self-harm or harm to others. A team of Facebook employees actively searches for and deletes pro-ana groups along with groups promoting everything from bigotry to self-mutilation, according to company spokesman Barry Schnitt. In response to increased scrutiny and criticism, many pro-ana groups are now private and can't be found in a search, and still others omit the term "pro-ana" from their titles.
Most of the anti-pro-ana groups try to warn people away from pages that promote anorexia and educate them about alternatives, says Angela Ross, 19, who has recovered from an eating disorder and created the 1,400-member Stop Pro-Ana page. Ross says she discovered pro-ana sites one day while feeling depressed about her weight and surfing the Web. The sites, she says, fueled her fledgling eating disorder. Similarly, a 15-year-old high school student in Philadelphia happened upon the pro-ana community while flipping through Facebook. "I was looking through groups and I found [a pro-ana group]," she says. "I was like, 'Wow, these girls kind of know what I'm saying.'" Now, using a different account, she's joined dozens of the groups and downloaded Facebook applications that allow her to share thinspiration pictures with friends. She spends about 45 minutes on her pro-ana account every day, although some of her friends will stay online for as much as five hours daily, posting in groups and chatting with other pro-ana Facebookers, she says.
Marcia Herrin, a Dartmouth professor who has written several books on eating disorders, finds the public nature of the discussions of anorexia on Facebook encouraging, because it shows that teens are less afraid of confronting eating disorders. "To me, that illustrates or indicates that teens these days are so wise," she says. "They've seen so much, they know so much, compared to when I was a teenager in the '60s, that not all of them are wrapped up in eating disorders. Girls are concerned about other girls in their social group who they see toying with an eating disorder. They may talk to them directly, they may talk to a school counselor, they may talk to the girls' parents."
Rose actually hoped some of her friends would see the groups she was joining and talk to her about them. "I wanted one of my close friends to see it and rescue me," she says. But unfortunately, no one did. At one point, she was so involved in the Facebook pro-ana community that she started her own group in defense of it; eventually she deleted that group and stopped posting in others. She couldn't get over her guilt at "helping someone kill themselves" by supporting them in their fasting, and she realized that the groups weren't truly helping her. "Even though the pro-ana sites provided a way for me to communicate with people, it wasn't real-life connections and it wasn't real friendships," she says. "It was us telling people, 'Oh, stay strong.' I was not getting better. I was venting the frustrations. I just wanted to talk to people with similar experiences; they really didn't help at all."
Rose says she has since recovered from anorexia and she rarely visits pro-ana Facebook groups. When she does, she says, she's mostly relieved to no longer be part of that world.
A Web page labeled "Ana Boot Camp" recently offered its members a seemingly irresistible proposition: a 30-day regimen designed to help them drop some serious pounds, no exercise needed. The catch was that the group's members were to vary their daily caloric intake from 500 (less than half the daily minimum requirement for women recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine) to zero. They were supposed to track their progress, fast to make up for the days they accidentally "overate" and support each other as they worked toward their common goal of radical weight loss.
Pro-anorexia, or "pro-ana," Web sites (with more than one using the "Ana Boot Camp" name) have for years been a controversial Internet fixture, with users sharing extreme diet tips and posting pictures of emaciated girls under headlines such as "thinspiration." But what was unusual about the site mentioned above (which is no longer available) was where it was hosted: the ubiquitous social networking site Facebook.com. The (largely female) users who frequent pro-ana sites have typically done so anonymously, posting under pseudonyms and using pictures of fashion models to represent themselves. Now, as the groups increasingly launch pages on Facebook, linking users' real-life profiles to their eating disorders, the heated conversation around anorexia has become more public. Many pro-ana Facebookers say the groups provide an invaluable support system to help them cope with their disease, but psychologists worry that the growth of such groups could encourage eating disorders in others.
Rose, 17, a Maryland high-school senior who, like several other women interviewed for this story, asked to be identified only by her first name, was active in pro-ana Facebook groups for two years. There, she found a community of people like her—people who had a disease with which few of their friends could identify. "These sites provided a setting where I could talk about the illness without people trying to fix me or tell me that what I'm doing is horrible, disgusting, maladaptive," she says. "For me, part of the illness was just about getting attention. You feel so lonely and you want someone to notice you, and I guess that's kind of the way to do it, even with other sick people."
Many members of the Facebook groups have migrated over from other social networking sites, like MySpace and Xanga. "Facebook's the most personable," Rose says. "If you're on something like MySpace, that's famous for creepy old men. Facebook seems the safest." Kate, a 20-year-old Utah college student, says being able to see people's faces, friends and interests on their Facebook sites makes for a more intimate community. "It's a lot more of a support group for pro-ana," she says. "MySpace was more focused on tips and tricks and when to exercise. [On Facebook], there's a lot of really close networking, so you add those people as friends and exchange phone numbers, and when you're having a hard day, you talk on the phone."
Dr. Steven Crawford, associate director of the Center for Eating Disorders at Sheppard Pratt in Baltimore, sees the openness of the Facebook site as part of its appeal. Increasing numbers of teenage patients at the center are joining Facebook groups that proclaim their disorders to the world, which Crawford believes is a means of adolescent rebellion: "It's almost like putting it in your face: I have an eating disorder. I am anorexic."
Pro-ana group creators insist that they aren't recruiting anorexics and are just supporting each other. In fact, there are some groups that are legitimately focused on recovery. Still, the effects of even such makeshift support groups are likely not as benign as some fans claim. "The more types of these sites that you use, the higher your risk for disordered eating is," says Stanford professor Rebecka Peebles, M.D., acknowledging that that correlation doesn't prove that the sites necessarily contribute to the disorder. A 2006 study that she coauthored found that 96 percent of teens diagnosed with eating disorders who visited pro-eating disorder Web sites learned new dieting and purging techniques, and almost 50 percent of teens who visited sites ostensibly devoted to eating disorder recovery also learned new weight-loss tips.
The openness of Facebook isn't universally appealing—some girls still create fake profiles with names like Skinny Minny and Ana Thin or worry that their friends will notice the groups they've joined—but many users fit the defiant profile Crawford describes. Stef, 19, says her friends have asked why she's joined so many pro-ana groups, but she doesn't care if they're worried; having access to thinspiration, weight-loss tips and fasting partners is more important. "I basically say it's helping me deal with my eating disorder, either for good or for bad, but I know that I'm taking care of it in the best way possible," the Pennsylvania college student says.
Unsurprisingly, opponents of groups that glorify eating disorders haven't stood by idly—anti-anorexia groups by far outnumber pro-ana groups on Facebook. Some have members who number in the thousands and actively hunt down pro-ana groups, and then lobby Facebook authorities to delete them. Recently, they managed to shut down one notorious site as well as the Facebook account of its creator, a girl who would encourage others to post their pictures online and then harshly detail their "problem areas."
Facebook doesn't track how often it deletes pro-ana pages, but the groups violate the site's terms of use by promoting self-harm or harm to others. A team of Facebook employees actively searches for and deletes pro-ana groups along with groups promoting everything from bigotry to self-mutilation, according to company spokesman Barry Schnitt. In response to increased scrutiny and criticism, many pro-ana groups are now private and can't be found in a search, and still others omit the term "pro-ana" from their titles.
Most of the anti-pro-ana groups try to warn people away from pages that promote anorexia and educate them about alternatives, says Angela Ross, 19, who has recovered from an eating disorder and created the 1,400-member Stop Pro-Ana page. Ross says she discovered pro-ana sites one day while feeling depressed about her weight and surfing the Web. The sites, she says, fueled her fledgling eating disorder. Similarly, a 15-year-old high school student in Philadelphia happened upon the pro-ana community while flipping through Facebook. "I was looking through groups and I found [a pro-ana group]," she says. "I was like, 'Wow, these girls kind of know what I'm saying.'" Now, using a different account, she's joined dozens of the groups and downloaded Facebook applications that allow her to share thinspiration pictures with friends. She spends about 45 minutes on her pro-ana account every day, although some of her friends will stay online for as much as five hours daily, posting in groups and chatting with other pro-ana Facebookers, she says.
Marcia Herrin, a Dartmouth professor who has written several books on eating disorders, finds the public nature of the discussions of anorexia on Facebook encouraging, because it shows that teens are less afraid of confronting eating disorders. "To me, that illustrates or indicates that teens these days are so wise," she says. "They've seen so much, they know so much, compared to when I was a teenager in the '60s, that not all of them are wrapped up in eating disorders. Girls are concerned about other girls in their social group who they see toying with an eating disorder. They may talk to them directly, they may talk to a school counselor, they may talk to the girls' parents."
Rose actually hoped some of her friends would see the groups she was joining and talk to her about them. "I wanted one of my close friends to see it and rescue me," she says. But unfortunately, no one did. At one point, she was so involved in the Facebook pro-ana community that she started her own group in defense of it; eventually she deleted that group and stopped posting in others. She couldn't get over her guilt at "helping someone kill themselves" by supporting them in their fasting, and she realized that the groups weren't truly helping her. "Even though the pro-ana sites provided a way for me to communicate with people, it wasn't real-life connections and it wasn't real friendships," she says. "It was us telling people, 'Oh, stay strong.' I was not getting better. I was venting the frustrations. I just wanted to talk to people with similar experiences; they really didn't help at all."
Rose says she has since recovered from anorexia and she rarely visits pro-ana Facebook groups. When she does, she says, she's mostly relieved to no longer be part of that world.
Tech - Palm’s New Reach
Daniel Lyons
You've probably never heard of Jon Rubinstein, but in computer-engineering circles, the 52-year-old former Apple engineer is a legend. He helped create two of the most iconic products of the past decade: the original brightly colored egg-shaped iMac, which saved Apple from going out of business, and the iPod, which turned that once-ailing computer maker into the hottest brand in consumer electronics. So in the summer of 2007, when Rubinstein (nickname: Ruby) joined Palm, the beleaguered consumer-electronics company, to develop a new smartphone, people in the industry began paying attention once again to an outfit that most had written off as dead. They also began wondering whether Palm could do what every other phonemaker has tried to do and failed: create a device that could outshine Apple’s iPhone. The result is the Palm Pre which debuts today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and will go on sale by the middle of 2009. It embodies Palm's best shot at reclaiming both market- and mind-share.
Rubinstein, Palm's executive chairman, was quick to downplay comparisons when NEWSWEEK met with him at Palm's Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters in December for a sneak peak at his latest creation. "We're not trying to build an iPhone clone," he said. And though Apple CEO Steve Jobs was furious about Rubinstein's move to Palm, and grew even angrier when he started poaching some of Apple's top talent, Rubinstein insists he's not driven by a desire to upstage his former boss and longtime colleague. "I worked with Steve for 16 years. Now supposedly I'm a traitor. But this has nothing to do with Apple," he says.
Still, over the course of two days, Rubinstein and others at Palm couldn't help pointing out that the Pre outperforms the iPhone. Palm's advantages include faster Web browsing, a better camera, and the ability to run many applications at the same time. Egos being what they are in the Valley, it's easy to believe that despite all the talk about not competing with Apple, these guys do, in fact, secretly harbor the desire to knock Apple firmly on its backside—and that while the marketing guys may have decided, correctly, that it's best not to pick a fight with a bigger, wealthier opponent, the engineers simply can't help talking smack.
At the very least they are praying that Rubinstein can breathe new life into Palm, and that the company can stop its steep decline and hang on long enough for the Pre to make a difference. The stakes could not be higher for a 16-year-old company that boomed in the 1990s thanks to its Palm Pilot personal digital assistant and then boomed again by morphing the Pilot into a smartphone called the Palm Treo. At one time these gizmos were the cutting edge of cool; today, they seem like relics from some dark, distant age, eclipsed by the Research in MotionBlackBerry and the iPhone. Hampered by an aging software platform, Palm has limped along by selling devices that run Microsoft's Windows Mobile software. But revenue is plunging, losses are mounting, and Palm is burning cash. In December Palm had to take a $100 million investment from its private-equity sugar daddy, Elevation Partners, in order to remain afloat.
Nevertheless the mood is upbeat at Palm; though the company has announced layoffs, it is also bringing aboard new talent. Equally upbeat are the people at Elevation Partners, which invested $325 million in Palm in June 2007. Back then Palm was starting to look like high-tech roadkill. But Roger McNamee, the veteran Valley investor who runs Elevation Partners, saw in Palm a company with a well-known brand and well-established carrier relations in a market that he was convinced was about to explode. McNamee came to the deal with a simple thesis: More than a billion cell phones are sold each year, but only about 5 percent are smartphones.
Over the next few years, smartphones will start to make up an ever-bigger slice of the pie, perhaps growing to 50 percent of the market within a decade and becoming the most popular way of accessing the Internet. The mobile-computing space today looks a lot like the early days of the PC market, when it was obvious that PCs were going to be huge but nobody knew who the winners would be and there was loads of growth yet to come. Right now a half-dozen smartphone platforms are competing in the market, but none has gained dominant market share. As McNamee sees it, the market opportunity is so big that Palm can succeed even if Apple and RIM and all the others continue to grow. "Our success is totally independent of what the others do. We would not have invested based on the premise that RIM and Apple would fail. If we get even 1 percent of global market share," he says, "we'll be huge compared to where we are now."
McNamee's partners at Elevation include U2 frontman Bono and, more notably, former Apple finance chief Fred Anderson, who, alongside Rubinstein, helped engineer the turnaround at that company a decade ago. Anderson is the one who brought Rubinstein to Palm. He insisted that Elevation had only agreed to put money into Palm if they could convince Rubinstein to come aboard. At that time, in the summer of 2007, Rubinstein had left Apple and was living in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, building a vacation house. Palm flew a team of execs down to meet with him over a three-day weekend. They showed Rubinstein the projects they were working on, including a new operating system that was code-named Nova. Palm's aging operating system, Palm OS, was originally created for a relatively simple personal organizer; it was then added to and patched up to do things like power a cell phone—a task it was never intended to perform. It was a bit like using a lawn-mower engine to build a go-kart, then adding a bigger chassis and turning the go-kart into a real car, then turning that into a plane, and then trying to make the plane fly to the moon. Palm needed a fresh start.
Rubinstein loved the new operating system and signed on. He immediately decided on a radical course—killing off almost all of Palm's products and projects except for a couple of "transitional" devices that could keep sales coming in while engineers toiled away on Nova. Rubinstein brought in a slew of new executives, replacing all of the executives in engineering and much of the engineering staff. This crash course of paring the company back to its core is exactly what Apple did a decade ago. Jobs and his team killed off dozens of products, leaving Apple with only four things to sell: two laptops and two desktop PCs. Then they put a huge amount of effort into developing a new operating system, called OS X, which would become Apple's key product in the decade to come. Now, at Palm, "we're using the exact same playbook," Rubinstein says.
Rubinstein's idea is to leap ahead of everyone else in the mobile space by creating a new software platform to power the Pre and a string of as yet unannounced mobile devices. If the plan works, Palm will bounce back and become cool—and profitable—once again. If not, "we turn into just another Windows Mobile phonemaker," Rubinstein says—which is another way of saying they roll over and die. Operating systems are tricky things to create, but Rubinstein believes that without this piece of the puzzle a tech company cannot control its destiny. Palm's Nova system, which will bear the official name Palm Web OS when it ships, is based on the open-source Linux operating system and has been created from the ground up to run only on mobile devices. In contrast, Apple's OS X was originally created for personal computers and then got squeezed down into the iPhone.
While the iPhone has demonstrated the power of putting a real computer operating system on a mobile device, the iPhone itself is far from perfect. For one thing, the battery life on the new 3G model is abysmal. And while it is cool to be able to browse the Web from a handheld device, the iPhone's Internet experience is nowhere near as good as the experience you get on a laptop or desktop computer. It's much slower; Rubinstein and his team say that's because the OS X code is not lean enough to run swiftly on a mobile device's relatively tiny processor and small memory footprint. And you can only do one thing at a time. To change applications—to go from checking e-mail to making a phone call to putting an appointment in your calendar—you have to keep climbing back to the home page and then down to the other application. Apple introduced OS X for its personal computers in 2001, but pieces of the system trace their roots back to the 1980s, when they were used in the operating software of computers made by Jobs's other computer company, NeXT. Palm sees an opportunity to come out with something newer, better and—perhaps most impressive to gadget geeks—faster. A lot faster. "We're already four times faster than the iPhone, and we're still optimizing," McNamee boasts.
So how good is the Pre? The design of the hardware is wonderful. The phone is smooth and sleek, with rounded edges and a 3.1-inch (diagonal) multitouch screen that lets you pinch and slide objects the way you do on an iPhone. (The iPhone's screen is slightly bigger, at 3.5 inches, diagonal.) There's also a QWERTY keyboard that slides out from underneath. You can make phone calls without ever opening the slider, and in that closed position the phone is 2.3 inches wide, 4 inches long and two thirds of an inch thick. It feels small in your hand, and it's easy to carry in a pocket, weighing just under 5 ounces. Palm hopes the small footprint (and nice touches like a thin leather carrying case) will be appealing to people who have been intimidated by smartphones like the iPhone and the BlackBerry.
Under the hood is a speedy new microprocessor from Texas Instruments that runs videos quickly and smoothly, with less of the herky-jerkiness that mobile devices are known for. The phone has 8 gigabytes of storage, which is decent but not great; it can run Adobe Flash, and can cut, copy and paste, which iPhone can't; it supports multimedia messaging service (MMS) so you can send text messages with photos attached, which iPhone can't do; it has a 3 megapixel camera and a flash, which iPhone lacks. There's a button that lets you buy music from Amazon's download store. Then there's the multitasking. Want to talk on the speakerphone while browsing the Web and entering stuff in your calendar? No problem. Palm expects people will keep 15 to 20 applications open at the same time.
Palm's engineers have done some really slick things with applications themselves, especially contacts and calendars. You can pull together multiple calendars and view them all at once—say, your work calendar, your home calendar, even calendars from other people, like your spouse's Google calendar (your spouse needs to give you the log-on info). The contact manager pulls contact information from multiple sources—Yahoo contacts, Google contacts, Facebook contacts. A listing in your address book can contain every way of reaching that person—via work mail, Gmail, or Facebook mail, for example—and lets you send a message to a friend using any one of these. Also, the applications talk to one another. When the calendar application prompts you for a reminder about a meeting, it also pulls up a list of the people who will be attending, with their contact info. So if you're running late, you can let everyone know.
So: is it an iPhone killer? McNamee wishes people wouldn't ask that question. "Everyone in the cell-phone business has missed the point. They're all trying to make an iPhone killer. I don't want to compete with Apple. Why the hell would you want to get in the way of that machine? I look at the guys who are trying to compete with Apple and I think, Are you guys crazy? I just want to learn from Apple's experience." Nonetheless, the "Will this kill the iPhone?" question is the first one everyone asks about any new high-end mobile phone today. And the answer is, well, probably not. Not because the Pre isn't terrific—it is—but because Apple's brand is so powerful, and because Apple has sold 13 million iPhones, and because there are 10,000 applications already written for the iPhone. Nonetheless the Pre has moved the ball forward in some very significant ways. The experience it delivers is much closer to what we get on a laptop or desktop computer, which is essential if mobile devices are to become the hub of our Internet lives rather than mere peripherals that attach to a personal computer.
Most important, the Pre represents only a first shot. Rubinstein and his engineers are already preparing a family of devices that will run on the Palm Web OS. Could it be that Apple has staked out an early lead with a breakthrough product only to be passed by others? It's happened before. In 1984 Apple introduced its first Macintosh. The machine featured a graphical user interface and was way ahead of its time. But several years later Microsoft copied the idea and created Windows, which gained 90-plus percent of the market while Apple's share lingered in the low single digits. That bit of history may be why Rubinstein seems to be feeling so good these days. "Apple wants everyone to believe that it's game over, and they won," he says. "But I don't think so. I think this is just the beginning."
You've probably never heard of Jon Rubinstein, but in computer-engineering circles, the 52-year-old former Apple engineer is a legend. He helped create two of the most iconic products of the past decade: the original brightly colored egg-shaped iMac, which saved Apple from going out of business, and the iPod, which turned that once-ailing computer maker into the hottest brand in consumer electronics. So in the summer of 2007, when Rubinstein (nickname: Ruby) joined Palm, the beleaguered consumer-electronics company, to develop a new smartphone, people in the industry began paying attention once again to an outfit that most had written off as dead. They also began wondering whether Palm could do what every other phonemaker has tried to do and failed: create a device that could outshine Apple’s iPhone. The result is the Palm Pre which debuts today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and will go on sale by the middle of 2009. It embodies Palm's best shot at reclaiming both market- and mind-share.
Rubinstein, Palm's executive chairman, was quick to downplay comparisons when NEWSWEEK met with him at Palm's Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters in December for a sneak peak at his latest creation. "We're not trying to build an iPhone clone," he said. And though Apple CEO Steve Jobs was furious about Rubinstein's move to Palm, and grew even angrier when he started poaching some of Apple's top talent, Rubinstein insists he's not driven by a desire to upstage his former boss and longtime colleague. "I worked with Steve for 16 years. Now supposedly I'm a traitor. But this has nothing to do with Apple," he says.
Still, over the course of two days, Rubinstein and others at Palm couldn't help pointing out that the Pre outperforms the iPhone. Palm's advantages include faster Web browsing, a better camera, and the ability to run many applications at the same time. Egos being what they are in the Valley, it's easy to believe that despite all the talk about not competing with Apple, these guys do, in fact, secretly harbor the desire to knock Apple firmly on its backside—and that while the marketing guys may have decided, correctly, that it's best not to pick a fight with a bigger, wealthier opponent, the engineers simply can't help talking smack.
At the very least they are praying that Rubinstein can breathe new life into Palm, and that the company can stop its steep decline and hang on long enough for the Pre to make a difference. The stakes could not be higher for a 16-year-old company that boomed in the 1990s thanks to its Palm Pilot personal digital assistant and then boomed again by morphing the Pilot into a smartphone called the Palm Treo. At one time these gizmos were the cutting edge of cool; today, they seem like relics from some dark, distant age, eclipsed by the Research in MotionBlackBerry and the iPhone. Hampered by an aging software platform, Palm has limped along by selling devices that run Microsoft's Windows Mobile software. But revenue is plunging, losses are mounting, and Palm is burning cash. In December Palm had to take a $100 million investment from its private-equity sugar daddy, Elevation Partners, in order to remain afloat.
Nevertheless the mood is upbeat at Palm; though the company has announced layoffs, it is also bringing aboard new talent. Equally upbeat are the people at Elevation Partners, which invested $325 million in Palm in June 2007. Back then Palm was starting to look like high-tech roadkill. But Roger McNamee, the veteran Valley investor who runs Elevation Partners, saw in Palm a company with a well-known brand and well-established carrier relations in a market that he was convinced was about to explode. McNamee came to the deal with a simple thesis: More than a billion cell phones are sold each year, but only about 5 percent are smartphones.
Over the next few years, smartphones will start to make up an ever-bigger slice of the pie, perhaps growing to 50 percent of the market within a decade and becoming the most popular way of accessing the Internet. The mobile-computing space today looks a lot like the early days of the PC market, when it was obvious that PCs were going to be huge but nobody knew who the winners would be and there was loads of growth yet to come. Right now a half-dozen smartphone platforms are competing in the market, but none has gained dominant market share. As McNamee sees it, the market opportunity is so big that Palm can succeed even if Apple and RIM and all the others continue to grow. "Our success is totally independent of what the others do. We would not have invested based on the premise that RIM and Apple would fail. If we get even 1 percent of global market share," he says, "we'll be huge compared to where we are now."
McNamee's partners at Elevation include U2 frontman Bono and, more notably, former Apple finance chief Fred Anderson, who, alongside Rubinstein, helped engineer the turnaround at that company a decade ago. Anderson is the one who brought Rubinstein to Palm. He insisted that Elevation had only agreed to put money into Palm if they could convince Rubinstein to come aboard. At that time, in the summer of 2007, Rubinstein had left Apple and was living in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, building a vacation house. Palm flew a team of execs down to meet with him over a three-day weekend. They showed Rubinstein the projects they were working on, including a new operating system that was code-named Nova. Palm's aging operating system, Palm OS, was originally created for a relatively simple personal organizer; it was then added to and patched up to do things like power a cell phone—a task it was never intended to perform. It was a bit like using a lawn-mower engine to build a go-kart, then adding a bigger chassis and turning the go-kart into a real car, then turning that into a plane, and then trying to make the plane fly to the moon. Palm needed a fresh start.
Rubinstein loved the new operating system and signed on. He immediately decided on a radical course—killing off almost all of Palm's products and projects except for a couple of "transitional" devices that could keep sales coming in while engineers toiled away on Nova. Rubinstein brought in a slew of new executives, replacing all of the executives in engineering and much of the engineering staff. This crash course of paring the company back to its core is exactly what Apple did a decade ago. Jobs and his team killed off dozens of products, leaving Apple with only four things to sell: two laptops and two desktop PCs. Then they put a huge amount of effort into developing a new operating system, called OS X, which would become Apple's key product in the decade to come. Now, at Palm, "we're using the exact same playbook," Rubinstein says.
Rubinstein's idea is to leap ahead of everyone else in the mobile space by creating a new software platform to power the Pre and a string of as yet unannounced mobile devices. If the plan works, Palm will bounce back and become cool—and profitable—once again. If not, "we turn into just another Windows Mobile phonemaker," Rubinstein says—which is another way of saying they roll over and die. Operating systems are tricky things to create, but Rubinstein believes that without this piece of the puzzle a tech company cannot control its destiny. Palm's Nova system, which will bear the official name Palm Web OS when it ships, is based on the open-source Linux operating system and has been created from the ground up to run only on mobile devices. In contrast, Apple's OS X was originally created for personal computers and then got squeezed down into the iPhone.
While the iPhone has demonstrated the power of putting a real computer operating system on a mobile device, the iPhone itself is far from perfect. For one thing, the battery life on the new 3G model is abysmal. And while it is cool to be able to browse the Web from a handheld device, the iPhone's Internet experience is nowhere near as good as the experience you get on a laptop or desktop computer. It's much slower; Rubinstein and his team say that's because the OS X code is not lean enough to run swiftly on a mobile device's relatively tiny processor and small memory footprint. And you can only do one thing at a time. To change applications—to go from checking e-mail to making a phone call to putting an appointment in your calendar—you have to keep climbing back to the home page and then down to the other application. Apple introduced OS X for its personal computers in 2001, but pieces of the system trace their roots back to the 1980s, when they were used in the operating software of computers made by Jobs's other computer company, NeXT. Palm sees an opportunity to come out with something newer, better and—perhaps most impressive to gadget geeks—faster. A lot faster. "We're already four times faster than the iPhone, and we're still optimizing," McNamee boasts.
So how good is the Pre? The design of the hardware is wonderful. The phone is smooth and sleek, with rounded edges and a 3.1-inch (diagonal) multitouch screen that lets you pinch and slide objects the way you do on an iPhone. (The iPhone's screen is slightly bigger, at 3.5 inches, diagonal.) There's also a QWERTY keyboard that slides out from underneath. You can make phone calls without ever opening the slider, and in that closed position the phone is 2.3 inches wide, 4 inches long and two thirds of an inch thick. It feels small in your hand, and it's easy to carry in a pocket, weighing just under 5 ounces. Palm hopes the small footprint (and nice touches like a thin leather carrying case) will be appealing to people who have been intimidated by smartphones like the iPhone and the BlackBerry.
Under the hood is a speedy new microprocessor from Texas Instruments that runs videos quickly and smoothly, with less of the herky-jerkiness that mobile devices are known for. The phone has 8 gigabytes of storage, which is decent but not great; it can run Adobe Flash, and can cut, copy and paste, which iPhone can't; it supports multimedia messaging service (MMS) so you can send text messages with photos attached, which iPhone can't do; it has a 3 megapixel camera and a flash, which iPhone lacks. There's a button that lets you buy music from Amazon's download store. Then there's the multitasking. Want to talk on the speakerphone while browsing the Web and entering stuff in your calendar? No problem. Palm expects people will keep 15 to 20 applications open at the same time.
Palm's engineers have done some really slick things with applications themselves, especially contacts and calendars. You can pull together multiple calendars and view them all at once—say, your work calendar, your home calendar, even calendars from other people, like your spouse's Google calendar (your spouse needs to give you the log-on info). The contact manager pulls contact information from multiple sources—Yahoo contacts, Google contacts, Facebook contacts. A listing in your address book can contain every way of reaching that person—via work mail, Gmail, or Facebook mail, for example—and lets you send a message to a friend using any one of these. Also, the applications talk to one another. When the calendar application prompts you for a reminder about a meeting, it also pulls up a list of the people who will be attending, with their contact info. So if you're running late, you can let everyone know.
So: is it an iPhone killer? McNamee wishes people wouldn't ask that question. "Everyone in the cell-phone business has missed the point. They're all trying to make an iPhone killer. I don't want to compete with Apple. Why the hell would you want to get in the way of that machine? I look at the guys who are trying to compete with Apple and I think, Are you guys crazy? I just want to learn from Apple's experience." Nonetheless, the "Will this kill the iPhone?" question is the first one everyone asks about any new high-end mobile phone today. And the answer is, well, probably not. Not because the Pre isn't terrific—it is—but because Apple's brand is so powerful, and because Apple has sold 13 million iPhones, and because there are 10,000 applications already written for the iPhone. Nonetheless the Pre has moved the ball forward in some very significant ways. The experience it delivers is much closer to what we get on a laptop or desktop computer, which is essential if mobile devices are to become the hub of our Internet lives rather than mere peripherals that attach to a personal computer.
Most important, the Pre represents only a first shot. Rubinstein and his engineers are already preparing a family of devices that will run on the Palm Web OS. Could it be that Apple has staked out an early lead with a breakthrough product only to be passed by others? It's happened before. In 1984 Apple introduced its first Macintosh. The machine featured a graphical user interface and was way ahead of its time. But several years later Microsoft copied the idea and created Windows, which gained 90-plus percent of the market while Apple's share lingered in the low single digits. That bit of history may be why Rubinstein seems to be feeling so good these days. "Apple wants everyone to believe that it's game over, and they won," he says. "But I don't think so. I think this is just the beginning."
Health - Fat, Carbs and the Science of Conception
Jorge E. Chavarro, M.D., Walter C. Willett, M.D., and Patrick J. Skerrett
Every new life starts with two seemingly simple events. First, an active sperm burrows into a perfectly mature egg. Then the resulting fertilized egg nestles into the specially prepared lining of the uterus and begins to grow. The key phrase in that description is "seemingly simple." Dozens of steps influenced by a cascade of carefully timed hormones are needed to make and mature eggs and sperm. Their union is both a mad dash and a complex dance, choreographed by hormones, physiology and environmental cues.
A constellation of other factors can come into play. Many couples delay having a baby until they are financially ready or have established themselves in their professions. Waiting, though, decreases the odds of conceiving and increases the chances of having a miscarriage. Fewer than 10 percent of women in their early 20s have issues with infertility, compared with nearly 30 percent of those in their early 40s. Sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia and gonorrhea, which are on the upswing, can cause or contribute to infertility. The linked epidemics of obesity and diabetes sweeping the country have reproductive repercussions. Environmental contaminants known as endocrine disruptors, such as some pesticides and emissions from burning plastics, appear to affect fertility in women and men. Stress and anxiety, both in general and about fertility, can also interfere with getting pregnant. Add all these to the complexity of conception and it's no wonder that infertility is a common problem, besetting an estimated 6 million American couples.
It's almost become a cliché that diet, exercise and lifestyle choices affect how long you'll live, the health of your heart, the odds you'll develop cancer and a host of other health-related issues. Is fertility on this list? The answer to that question has long been a qualified "maybe," based on old wives' tales, conventional wisdom—and almost no science. Farmers, ranchers and animal scientists know more about how nutrition affects fertility in cows, pigs and other commercially important animals than fertility experts know about how it affects reproduction in humans. There are small hints scattered across medical journals, but few systematic studies of this crucial connection in people.
We set out to change this critical information gap with the help of more than 18,000 women taking part in the Nurses' Health Study, a long-term research project looking at the effects of diet and other factors on the development of chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer and other diseases. Each of these women said she was trying to have a baby. Over eight years of follow-up, most of them did. About one in six women, though, had some trouble getting pregnant, including hundreds who experienced ovulatory infertility—a problem related to the maturation or release of a mature egg each month. When we compared their diets, exercise habits and other lifestyle choices with those of women who readily got pregnant, several key differences emerged. We have translated these differences into fertility-boosting strategies.
At least for now, these recommendations are aimed at preventing and reversing ovulatory infertility, which accounts for one quarter or more of all cases of infertility. They won't work for infertility due to physical impediments like blocked fallopian tubes. They may work for other types of infertility, but we don't yet have enough data to explore connections between nutrition and infertility due to other causes. And since the Nurses' Health Study doesn't include information on the participants' partners, we weren't able to explore how nutrition affects male infertility. From what we have gleaned from the limited research in this area, some of our strategies might improve fertility in men, too. The plan described in The Fertility Diet doesn't guarantee a pregnancy any more than do in vitro fertilization or other forms of assisted reproduction. But it's virtually free, available to everyone, has no side effects, sets the stage for a healthy pregnancy, and forms the foundation of a healthy eating strategy for motherhood and beyond. That's a winning combination no matter how you look at it.
Slow Carbs, Not No Carbs
Once upon a time, and not that long ago, carbohydrates were the go-to gang for taste, comfort, convenience and energy. Bread, pasta, rice, potatoes—these were the highly recommended, base-of-the-food-pyramid foods that supplied us with half or more of our calories. Then in rumbled the Atkins and South Beach diets. In a scene out of George Orwell's "1984," good became bad almost overnight as the two weight-loss juggernauts turned carbohydrates into dietary demons, vilifying them as the source of big bellies and jiggling thighs. Following the no-carb gospel, millions of Americans spurned carbohydrates in hopes of shedding pounds. Then, like all diet fads great and small, the no-carb craze lost its luster and faded from prominence.
It had a silver lining, though, and not just for those selling low-carb advice and products. All the attention made scientists and the rest of us more aware of carbohydrates and their role in a healthy diet. It spurred several solid head-to-head comparisons of low-carb and low-fat diets that have given us a better understanding of how carbohydrates affect weight and weight loss. The new work supports the growing realization that carbohydrate choices have a major impact—for better and for worse—on the risk for heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and digestive health.
New research from the Nurses' Health Study shows that carbohydrate choices also influence fertility. Eating lots of easily digested carbohydrates (fast carbs), such as white bread, potatoes and sugared sodas, increases the odds that you'll find yourself struggling with ovulatory infertility. Choosing slowly digested carbohydrates that are rich in fiber can improve fertility. This lines up nicely with work showing that a diet rich in these slow carbs and fiber before pregnancy helps prevent gestational diabetes, a common and worrisome problem for pregnant women and their babies. What do carbohydrates have to do with ovulation and pregnancy?
More than any other nutrient, carbohydrates determine your blood-sugar and insulin levels. When these rise too high, as they do in millions of individuals with insulin resistance, they disrupt the finely tuned balance of hormones needed for reproduction. The ensuing hormonal changes throw ovulation off-kilter.
Knowing that diet can strongly influence blood sugar and insulin, we wondered if carbohydrate choices could influence fertility in average, relatively healthy women. The answer from the Nurses' Health Study was yes. We started by grouping the study participants from low daily carbohydrate intake to high. One of the first things we noticed was a connection between high carbohydrate intake and healthy lifestyles.
Women in the high-carb group, who got nearly 60 percent of their calories from carbs, ate less fat and animal protein, drank less alcohol and coffee, and consumed more plant protein and fiber than those in the low-carb group, who got 42 percent of calories from carbohydrates. Women in the top group also weighed less, weren't as likely to smoke and were more physically active. This is a good sign that carbohydrates can be just fine for health, especially if you choose good ones.
The total amount of carbohydrate in the diet wasn't connected with ovulatory infertility. Women in the low-carb and high-carb groups were equally likely to have had fertility problems. That wasn't a complete surprise. As we described earlier, different carbohydrate sources can have different effects on blood sugar, insulin and long-term health.
Evaluating total carbohydrate intake can hide some important differences. So we looked at something called the glycemic load. This relatively new measure conveys information about both the amount of carbohydrate in the diet and how quickly it is turned to blood sugar. The more fast carbs in the diet, the higher the glycemic load. (For more on glycemic load, go to health.harvard.edu/newsweek.) Women in the highest glycemic-load category were 92 percent more likely to have had ovulatory infertility than women in the lowest category, after accounting for age, smoking, how much animal and vegetable protein they ate, and other factors that can also influence fertility. In other words, eating a lot of easily digested carbohydrates increases the odds of ovulatory infertility, while eating more slow carbs decreases the odds.
Because the participants of the Nurses' Health Study complete reports every few years detailing their average daily diets, we were able to see if certain foods contributed to ovulatory infertility more than others. In general, cold breakfast cereals, white rice and potatoes were linked with a higher risk of ovulatory infertility. Slow carbs, such as brown rice, pasta and dark bread, were linked with greater success getting pregnant.
Computer models of the nurses' diets were also revealing. We electronically replaced different nutrients with carbohydrates. Most of these substitutions didn't make a difference. One, though, did. Adding more carbohydrates at the expense of naturally occurring fats predicted a decrease in fertility. This could very well mean that natural fats, especially unsaturated fats, improve ovulation when they replace easily digested carbohydrates.
In a nutshell, results from the Nurses' Health Study indicate that the amount of carbohydrates in the diet doesn't affect fertility, but the quality of those carbohydrates does. Eating a lot of rapidly digested carbohydrates that continually boost your blood-sugar and insulin levels higher can lower your chances of getting pregnant. This is especially true if you are eating carbohydrates in place of healthful unsaturated fats. On the other hand, eating whole grains, beans, vegetables and whole fruits—all of which are good sources of slowly digested carbohydrates—can improve ovulation and your chances of getting pregnant.
Balancing Fats
In 2003, the government of Denmark made a bold decision that is helping protect its citizens from heart disease: it essentially banned trans fats in fast food, baked goods and other commercially prepared foods. That move may have an unexpected effect—more little Danes. Exciting findings from the Nurses' Health Study indicate that trans fats are a powerful deterrent to ovulation and conception. Eating less of this artificial fat can improve fertility, and simultaneously adding in healthful unsaturated fats whenever possible can boost it even further.
Women, their midwives and doctors, and fertility researchers have known for ages that body fat and energy stores affect reproduction. Women who don't have enough stored energy to sustain a pregnancy often have trouble ovulating or stop menstruating altogether. Women who have too much stored energy often have difficulty conceiving for other reasons, many of which affect ovulation. These include insensitivity to the hormone insulin, an excess of male sex hormones and overproduction of leptin, a hormone that helps the body keep tabs on body fat.
A related issue is whether dietary fats influence ovulation and reproduction. We were shocked to discover that this was largely uncharted territory. Until now, only a few studies have explored this connection. They focused mainly on the relationship between fat intake and characteristics of the menstrual cycle, such as cycle length and the duration of different phases of the cycle. In general, these studies suggest that more fat in the diet, and in some cases more saturated fat, improves the menstrual cycle. Most of these studies were very small and didn't account for total calories, physical activity or other factors that also influence reproduction. None of them examined the effect of dietary fat on fertility.
The dearth of research in this area has been a gaping hole in nutrition research. If there is a link between fats in the diet and reproduction, then simple changes in food choices could offer delicious, easy and inexpensive ways to improve fertility. The Nurses' Health Study research team looked for connections between dietary fats and fertility from a number of different angles. Among the 18,555 women in the study, the total amount of fat in the diet wasn't connected with ovulatory infertility once weight, exercise, smoking and other factors that can influence reproduction had been accounted for. The same was true for cholesterol, saturated fat and monounsaturated fat—none were linked with fertility or infertility. A high intake of polyunsaturated fat appeared to provide some protection against ovulatory infertility in women who also had high intakes of iron, but the effect wasn't strong enough to be sure exactly what role this healthy fat plays in fertility and infertility.
Trans fats were a different story. Across the board, the more trans fat in the diet, the greater the likelihood of developing ovulatory infertility. We saw an effect even at daily trans fat intakes of about four grams a day. That's less than the amount the average American gets each day.
Eating more trans fat usually means eating less of another type of fat or carbohydrates. Computer models of the nurses' diet patterns indicated that eating a modest amount of trans fat (2 percent of calories) in place of other, more healthful nutrients like polyunsaturated fat, monounsaturated fat or carbohydrate would dramatically increase the risk of infertility. To put this into perspective, for someone who eats 2,000 calories a day, 2 percent of calories translates into about four grams of trans fat. That's the amount in two tablespoons of stick margarine, one medium order of fast-food french fries or one doughnut.
Fats aren't merely inert carriers of calories or building blocks for hormones or cellular machinery. They sometimes have powerful biological effects, such as turning genes on or off, revving up or calming inflammation and influencing cell function. Unsaturated fats do things to improve fertility—increase insulin sensitivity and cool inflammation—that are the opposite of what trans fats do. That is probably why the largest decline in fertility among the nurses was seen when trans fats were eaten instead of monounsaturated fats.
The Protein Factor
At the center of most dinner plates sits, to put it bluntly, a hunk of protein. Beef, chicken and pork are Americans' favorites, trailed by fish. Beans lag far, far behind. That's too bad. Beans are an excellent source of protein and other needed nutrients, like fiber and many minerals. And by promoting the lowly bean from side dish to center stage and becoming more inventive with protein-rich nuts, you might find yourself eating for two. Findings from the Nurses' Health Study indicate that getting more protein from plants and less from animals is another big step toward walking away from ovulatory infertility.
Scattered hints in the medical literature that protein in the diet may influence blood sugar, sensitivity to insulin and the production of insulin-like growth factor-1—all of which play important roles in ovulation—prompted us to look at protein's impact on ovulatory infertility in the Nurses' Health Study.
We grouped the participants by their average daily protein intake. The lowest-protein group took in an average of 77 grams a day; the highest, an average of 115 grams. After factoring in smoking, fat intake, weight and other things that can affect fertility, we found that women in the highest-protein group were 41 percent more likely to have reported problems with ovulatory infertility than women in the lowest-protein group.
When we looked at animal protein intake separately from plant protein, an interesting distinction appeared. Ovulatory infertility was 39 percent more likely in women with the highest intake of animal protein than in those with the lowest. The reverse was true for women with the highest intake of plant protein, who were substantially less likely to have had ovulatory infertility than women with the lowest plant protein intake.
That's the big picture. Computer models helped refine these relationships and put them in perspective. When total calories were kept constant, adding one serving a day of red meat, chicken or turkey predicted nearly a one-third increase in the risk of ovulatory infertility. And while adding one serving a day of fish or eggs didn't influence ovulatory infertility, adding one serving a day of beans, peas, tofu or soybeans, peanuts or other nuts predicted modest protection against ovulatory infertility.
Eating more of one thing means eating less of another, if you want to keep your weight stable. We modeled the effect that juggling the proportions of protein and carbohydrate would have on fertility. Adding animal protein instead of carbohydrate was related to a greater risk of ovulatory infertility. Swapping 25 grams of animal protein for 25 grams of carbohydrates upped the risk by nearly 20 percent. Adding plant protein instead of carbohydrates was related to a lower risk of ovulatory infertility. Swapping 25 grams of plant protein for 25 grams of carbohydrates shrank the risk by 43 percent. Adding plant protein instead of animal protein was even more effective. Replacing 25 grams of animal protein with 25 grams of plant protein was related to a 50 percent lower risk of ovulatory infertility.
These results point the way to another strategy for overcoming ovulatory infertility—eating more protein from plants and less from animals. They also add to the small but growing body of evidence that plant protein is somehow different from animal protein.
Milk and Ice Cream
Consider the classic sundae: a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream crisscrossed by rivulets of chocolate sauce, sprinkled with walnuts and topped with a spritz of whipped cream. If you are having trouble getting pregnant, and ovulatory infertility is suspected, think of it as temporary health food. OK, maybe that's going a bit too far. But a fascinating finding from the Nurses' Health Study is that a daily serving or two of whole milk and foods made from whole milk—full-fat yogurt, cottage cheese, and, yes, even ice cream—seem to offer some protection against ovulatory infertility, while skim and low-fat milk do the opposite.
The results fly in the face of current standard nutrition advice. But they make sense when you consider what skim and low-fat milk do, and don't, contain. Removing fat from milk radically changes its balance of sex hormones in a way that could tip the scales against ovulation and conception. Proteins added to make skim and low-fat milk look and taste "creamier" push it even farther away.
It would be an overstatement to say that there is a handful of research into possible links between consumption of dairy products and fertility. The vanishingly small body of work in this area is interesting, to say the least, given our fondness for milk, ice cream and other dairy foods. The average American woman has about two servings of dairy products a day, short of the three servings a day the government's dietary guidelines would like her to have.
The depth and detail of the Nurses' Health Study database allowed us to see which foods had the biggest effects. The most potent fertility food from the dairy case was, by far, whole milk, followed by ice cream. Sherbet and frozen yogurt, followed by low-fat yogurt, topped the list as the biggest contributors to ovulatory infertility. The more low-fat dairy products in a woman's diet, the more likely she was to have had trouble getting pregnant. The more full-fat dairy products in a woman's diet, the less likely she was to have had problems getting pregnant.
Our advice on milk and dairy products might be criticized as breaking the rules. The "rules," though, aren't based on solid science and may even conflict with the evidence. And for solving the problem of ovulatory infertility, the rules may need tweaking. Think about switching to full-fat milk or dairy products as a temporary nutrition therapy designed to improve your chances of becoming pregnant. If your efforts pay off, or if you stop trying to have a baby, then you may want to rethink dairy—especially whole milk and other full-fat dairy foods—altogether. Over the long haul, eating a lot of these isn't great for your heart, your blood vessels or the rest of your body.
Before you sit down to a nightly carton of Häagen-Dazs ("The Fertility Diet said I needed ice cream, honey"), keep in mind that it doesn't take much in the way of full-fat dairy foods to measurably affect fertility. Among the women in the Nurses' Health Study, having just one serving a day of a full-fat dairy food, particularly milk, decreased the chances of having ovulatory infertility. The impact of ice cream was seen at two half-cup servings a week. If you eat ice cream at that rate, a pint should last about two weeks.
Equally important, you'll need to do some dietary readjusting to keep your calorie count and your waistline from expanding. Whole milk has nearly double the calories of skim milk. If you have been following the U.S. government's poorly-thought-out recommendation and are drinking three glasses of milk a day, trading skim milk for whole means an extra 189 calories a day. That could translate into a weight gain of 15 to 20 pounds over a year if you don't cut back somewhere else. Those extra pounds can edge aside any fertility benefits you might get from dairy foods. There's also the saturated fat to consider, an extra 13 grams in three glasses of whole milk compared with skim, which would put you close to the healthy daily limit.
Aim for one to two servings of dairy products a day, both of them full fat. This can be as easy as having your breakfast cereal with whole milk and a slice of cheese at lunch or a cup of whole-milk yogurt for lunch and a half-cup of ice cream for dessert. Easy targets for cutting back on calories and saturated fat are red and processed meats, along with foods made with fully or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
Once you become pregnant, or if you decide to stop trying, going back to low-fat dairy products makes sense as a way to keep a lid on your intake of saturated fat and calories. You could also try some of the nondairy strategies for getting calcium and protecting your bones. If you don't like milk or other dairy products, or they don't agree with your digestive system, don't force yourself to have them. There are many other things you can do to fight ovulatory infertility. This one is like dessert—enjoyable but optional.
The Role of Body Weight
Weighing too much or too little can interrupt normal menstrual cycles, throw off ovulation or stop it altogether. Excess weight lowers the odds that in vitro fertilization or other assisted reproductive technologies will succeed. It increases the chances of miscarriage, puts a mother at risk during pregnancy of developing high blood pressure (pre-eclampsia) or diabetes, and elevates her chances of needing a Cesarean section. The dangers of being overweight or underweight extend to a woman's baby as well.
Weight is one bit of information that the participants of the Nurses' Health Study report every other year. By linking this information with their accounts of pregnancy, birth, miscarriage and difficulty getting pregnant, we were able to see a strong connection between weight and fertility. Women with the lowest and highest Body Mass Indexes (BMI) were more likely to have had trouble with ovulatory infertility than women in the middle. Infertility was least common among women with BMIs of 20 to 24, with an ideal around 21.
Keep in mind that this is a statistical model of probabilities that links weight and fertility. It doesn't mean you'll get pregnant only if you have a BMI between 20 and 24. Women with higher and lower BMIs than this get pregnant all the time without delay or any medical help. But it supports the idea that weighing too much or too little for your frame can get in the way of having a baby.
We call the range of BMIs from 20 to 24 the fertility zone. It isn't magic—nothing is for fertility—but having a weight in that range seems to be best for getting pregnant. If you aren't in or near the zone, don't despair. Working to move your BMI in that direction by gaining or losing some weight is almost as good. Relatively small changes are often enough to have the desired effects of healthy ovulation and improved fertility. If you are too lean, gaining five or 10 pounds can sometimes be enough to restart ovulation and menstrual periods. If you are overweight, losing 5 percent to 10 percent of your current weight is often enough to improve ovulation.
Being at a healthy weight or aiming toward one is great for ovulatory function and your chances of getting pregnant. The "side effects" aren't so bad, either. Working to achieve a healthy weight can improve your sensitivity to insulin, your cholesterol, your blood pressure and your kidney function. It can give you more energy and make you look and feel better.
While dietary and lifestyle contributions to fertility and infertility in men have received short shrift, weight is one area in which there has been some research. A few small studies indicate that overweight men aren't as fertile as their healthy-weight counterparts. Excess weight can lower testosterone levels, throw off the ratio of testosterone to estrogen (men make some estrogen, just as women make some testosterone) and hinder the production of sperm cells that are good swimmers. A study published in 2006 of more than 2,000 American farmers and their wives showed that as BMI went up, fertility declined. In men, the connection between increasing weight and decreasing fertility can't yet be classified as rock solid. But it is good enough to warrant action, mainly because from a health perspective there aren't any downsides to losing weight if you are overweight. We can't define a fertility zone for weight in men, nor can anyone else. In lieu of that, we can say to men who are carrying too many pounds that shedding some could be good for fertility and will be good for overall health.
The Importance of Exercise
Baby, we were born to run. That isn't just the tagline of Bruce Springsteen's anthem to young love and leavin' town. It's also a perfect motto for getting pregnant and for living a long, healthy life. Inactivity deprives muscles of the constant push and pull they need to stay healthy. It also saps their ability to respond to insulin and to efficiently absorb blood sugar. When that leads to too much blood sugar and insulin in the bloodstream, it endangers ovulation, conception and pregnancy. Physical activity and exercise are recommended and even prescribed for almost everyone—except women who are having trouble getting pregnant. Forty-year-old findings that too much exercise can turn off menstruation and ovulation make some women shy away from exercise and nudge some doctors to recommend avoiding exercise altogether, at least temporarily. That's clearly the right approach for women who exercise hard for many hours a week and who are extremely lean. But taking it easy isn't likely to help women who aren't active or those whose weights are normal or above where they should be. In other words, the vast majority of women.
Some exciting results from the Nurses' Health Study and a handful of small studies show that exercise can be a boon for fertility. These important findings are establishing a vital link between activity and getting pregnant. Much as we would like to offer a single prescription for conception-boosting exercise, however, we can't. Some women need more exercise than others, for their weight or moods, and others are active just because they enjoy it. Some who need to be active aren't, while a small number of others may be too active.
Instead of focusing on an absolute number, try aiming for the fertility zone. This is a range of exercise that offers the biggest window of opportunity for fertility. Being in the fertility zone means you aren't overdoing or underdoing exercise. For most women, this means getting at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. But if you are carrying more pounds than is considered healthy for your frame (i.e., a BMI above 25), you may need to exercise for an hour or more. If you are quite lean (i.e., your BMI is 19 or below), aim for the middle of the exercise window for a few months. Keep in mind that the fertility zone is an ideal, not an absolute. Hospital delivery rooms are full of women who rarely, or never, exercise. Not everyone is so lucky. If you are having trouble getting pregnant, then maybe the zone is the right place for you.
Whether you classify yourself as a couch potato or an exercise aficionado, your fertility zone should include four types of activity: aerobic exercise, strength training, stretching and the activities of daily living. This quartet works together to control weight, guard against high blood sugar and insulin, and keep your muscles limber and strong. They are also natural stress relievers, something almost everyone coping with or worrying about infertility can use.
Exercise has gotten a bad rap when it comes to fertility. While the pioneering studies of Dr. Rose Frisch and her colleagues convincingly show that too much exercise coupled with too little stored energy can throw off or turn off ovulation in elite athletes, their work says nothing about the impact of usual exercise in normal-weight or overweight women. Common sense says that it can't be a big deterrent to conception. If it were, many of us wouldn't be here. Our ancestors worked hard to hunt, forage, clear fields and travel from place to place. Early Homo sapiens burned twice as many calories each day as the average American does today and were fertile despite it—or because of it.
Results from the Nurses' Health Study support this evolutionary perspective and show that exercise, particularly vigorous exercise, actually improves fertility. Exercising for at least 30 minutes on most days of the week is a great place to start. It doesn't really matter how you exercise, as long as you find something other than your true love that moves you and gets your heart beating faster.
Chavarro and Willett are in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. Skerrett is editor of the Harvard Heart Letter. For more information, go to health.harvard.edu/newsweek or thefertilitydiet.com .
Every new life starts with two seemingly simple events. First, an active sperm burrows into a perfectly mature egg. Then the resulting fertilized egg nestles into the specially prepared lining of the uterus and begins to grow. The key phrase in that description is "seemingly simple." Dozens of steps influenced by a cascade of carefully timed hormones are needed to make and mature eggs and sperm. Their union is both a mad dash and a complex dance, choreographed by hormones, physiology and environmental cues.
A constellation of other factors can come into play. Many couples delay having a baby until they are financially ready or have established themselves in their professions. Waiting, though, decreases the odds of conceiving and increases the chances of having a miscarriage. Fewer than 10 percent of women in their early 20s have issues with infertility, compared with nearly 30 percent of those in their early 40s. Sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia and gonorrhea, which are on the upswing, can cause or contribute to infertility. The linked epidemics of obesity and diabetes sweeping the country have reproductive repercussions. Environmental contaminants known as endocrine disruptors, such as some pesticides and emissions from burning plastics, appear to affect fertility in women and men. Stress and anxiety, both in general and about fertility, can also interfere with getting pregnant. Add all these to the complexity of conception and it's no wonder that infertility is a common problem, besetting an estimated 6 million American couples.
It's almost become a cliché that diet, exercise and lifestyle choices affect how long you'll live, the health of your heart, the odds you'll develop cancer and a host of other health-related issues. Is fertility on this list? The answer to that question has long been a qualified "maybe," based on old wives' tales, conventional wisdom—and almost no science. Farmers, ranchers and animal scientists know more about how nutrition affects fertility in cows, pigs and other commercially important animals than fertility experts know about how it affects reproduction in humans. There are small hints scattered across medical journals, but few systematic studies of this crucial connection in people.
We set out to change this critical information gap with the help of more than 18,000 women taking part in the Nurses' Health Study, a long-term research project looking at the effects of diet and other factors on the development of chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer and other diseases. Each of these women said she was trying to have a baby. Over eight years of follow-up, most of them did. About one in six women, though, had some trouble getting pregnant, including hundreds who experienced ovulatory infertility—a problem related to the maturation or release of a mature egg each month. When we compared their diets, exercise habits and other lifestyle choices with those of women who readily got pregnant, several key differences emerged. We have translated these differences into fertility-boosting strategies.
At least for now, these recommendations are aimed at preventing and reversing ovulatory infertility, which accounts for one quarter or more of all cases of infertility. They won't work for infertility due to physical impediments like blocked fallopian tubes. They may work for other types of infertility, but we don't yet have enough data to explore connections between nutrition and infertility due to other causes. And since the Nurses' Health Study doesn't include information on the participants' partners, we weren't able to explore how nutrition affects male infertility. From what we have gleaned from the limited research in this area, some of our strategies might improve fertility in men, too. The plan described in The Fertility Diet doesn't guarantee a pregnancy any more than do in vitro fertilization or other forms of assisted reproduction. But it's virtually free, available to everyone, has no side effects, sets the stage for a healthy pregnancy, and forms the foundation of a healthy eating strategy for motherhood and beyond. That's a winning combination no matter how you look at it.
Slow Carbs, Not No Carbs
Once upon a time, and not that long ago, carbohydrates were the go-to gang for taste, comfort, convenience and energy. Bread, pasta, rice, potatoes—these were the highly recommended, base-of-the-food-pyramid foods that supplied us with half or more of our calories. Then in rumbled the Atkins and South Beach diets. In a scene out of George Orwell's "1984," good became bad almost overnight as the two weight-loss juggernauts turned carbohydrates into dietary demons, vilifying them as the source of big bellies and jiggling thighs. Following the no-carb gospel, millions of Americans spurned carbohydrates in hopes of shedding pounds. Then, like all diet fads great and small, the no-carb craze lost its luster and faded from prominence.
It had a silver lining, though, and not just for those selling low-carb advice and products. All the attention made scientists and the rest of us more aware of carbohydrates and their role in a healthy diet. It spurred several solid head-to-head comparisons of low-carb and low-fat diets that have given us a better understanding of how carbohydrates affect weight and weight loss. The new work supports the growing realization that carbohydrate choices have a major impact—for better and for worse—on the risk for heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and digestive health.
New research from the Nurses' Health Study shows that carbohydrate choices also influence fertility. Eating lots of easily digested carbohydrates (fast carbs), such as white bread, potatoes and sugared sodas, increases the odds that you'll find yourself struggling with ovulatory infertility. Choosing slowly digested carbohydrates that are rich in fiber can improve fertility. This lines up nicely with work showing that a diet rich in these slow carbs and fiber before pregnancy helps prevent gestational diabetes, a common and worrisome problem for pregnant women and their babies. What do carbohydrates have to do with ovulation and pregnancy?
More than any other nutrient, carbohydrates determine your blood-sugar and insulin levels. When these rise too high, as they do in millions of individuals with insulin resistance, they disrupt the finely tuned balance of hormones needed for reproduction. The ensuing hormonal changes throw ovulation off-kilter.
Knowing that diet can strongly influence blood sugar and insulin, we wondered if carbohydrate choices could influence fertility in average, relatively healthy women. The answer from the Nurses' Health Study was yes. We started by grouping the study participants from low daily carbohydrate intake to high. One of the first things we noticed was a connection between high carbohydrate intake and healthy lifestyles.
Women in the high-carb group, who got nearly 60 percent of their calories from carbs, ate less fat and animal protein, drank less alcohol and coffee, and consumed more plant protein and fiber than those in the low-carb group, who got 42 percent of calories from carbohydrates. Women in the top group also weighed less, weren't as likely to smoke and were more physically active. This is a good sign that carbohydrates can be just fine for health, especially if you choose good ones.
The total amount of carbohydrate in the diet wasn't connected with ovulatory infertility. Women in the low-carb and high-carb groups were equally likely to have had fertility problems. That wasn't a complete surprise. As we described earlier, different carbohydrate sources can have different effects on blood sugar, insulin and long-term health.
Evaluating total carbohydrate intake can hide some important differences. So we looked at something called the glycemic load. This relatively new measure conveys information about both the amount of carbohydrate in the diet and how quickly it is turned to blood sugar. The more fast carbs in the diet, the higher the glycemic load. (For more on glycemic load, go to health.harvard.edu/newsweek.) Women in the highest glycemic-load category were 92 percent more likely to have had ovulatory infertility than women in the lowest category, after accounting for age, smoking, how much animal and vegetable protein they ate, and other factors that can also influence fertility. In other words, eating a lot of easily digested carbohydrates increases the odds of ovulatory infertility, while eating more slow carbs decreases the odds.
Because the participants of the Nurses' Health Study complete reports every few years detailing their average daily diets, we were able to see if certain foods contributed to ovulatory infertility more than others. In general, cold breakfast cereals, white rice and potatoes were linked with a higher risk of ovulatory infertility. Slow carbs, such as brown rice, pasta and dark bread, were linked with greater success getting pregnant.
Computer models of the nurses' diets were also revealing. We electronically replaced different nutrients with carbohydrates. Most of these substitutions didn't make a difference. One, though, did. Adding more carbohydrates at the expense of naturally occurring fats predicted a decrease in fertility. This could very well mean that natural fats, especially unsaturated fats, improve ovulation when they replace easily digested carbohydrates.
In a nutshell, results from the Nurses' Health Study indicate that the amount of carbohydrates in the diet doesn't affect fertility, but the quality of those carbohydrates does. Eating a lot of rapidly digested carbohydrates that continually boost your blood-sugar and insulin levels higher can lower your chances of getting pregnant. This is especially true if you are eating carbohydrates in place of healthful unsaturated fats. On the other hand, eating whole grains, beans, vegetables and whole fruits—all of which are good sources of slowly digested carbohydrates—can improve ovulation and your chances of getting pregnant.
Balancing Fats
In 2003, the government of Denmark made a bold decision that is helping protect its citizens from heart disease: it essentially banned trans fats in fast food, baked goods and other commercially prepared foods. That move may have an unexpected effect—more little Danes. Exciting findings from the Nurses' Health Study indicate that trans fats are a powerful deterrent to ovulation and conception. Eating less of this artificial fat can improve fertility, and simultaneously adding in healthful unsaturated fats whenever possible can boost it even further.
Women, their midwives and doctors, and fertility researchers have known for ages that body fat and energy stores affect reproduction. Women who don't have enough stored energy to sustain a pregnancy often have trouble ovulating or stop menstruating altogether. Women who have too much stored energy often have difficulty conceiving for other reasons, many of which affect ovulation. These include insensitivity to the hormone insulin, an excess of male sex hormones and overproduction of leptin, a hormone that helps the body keep tabs on body fat.
A related issue is whether dietary fats influence ovulation and reproduction. We were shocked to discover that this was largely uncharted territory. Until now, only a few studies have explored this connection. They focused mainly on the relationship between fat intake and characteristics of the menstrual cycle, such as cycle length and the duration of different phases of the cycle. In general, these studies suggest that more fat in the diet, and in some cases more saturated fat, improves the menstrual cycle. Most of these studies were very small and didn't account for total calories, physical activity or other factors that also influence reproduction. None of them examined the effect of dietary fat on fertility.
The dearth of research in this area has been a gaping hole in nutrition research. If there is a link between fats in the diet and reproduction, then simple changes in food choices could offer delicious, easy and inexpensive ways to improve fertility. The Nurses' Health Study research team looked for connections between dietary fats and fertility from a number of different angles. Among the 18,555 women in the study, the total amount of fat in the diet wasn't connected with ovulatory infertility once weight, exercise, smoking and other factors that can influence reproduction had been accounted for. The same was true for cholesterol, saturated fat and monounsaturated fat—none were linked with fertility or infertility. A high intake of polyunsaturated fat appeared to provide some protection against ovulatory infertility in women who also had high intakes of iron, but the effect wasn't strong enough to be sure exactly what role this healthy fat plays in fertility and infertility.
Trans fats were a different story. Across the board, the more trans fat in the diet, the greater the likelihood of developing ovulatory infertility. We saw an effect even at daily trans fat intakes of about four grams a day. That's less than the amount the average American gets each day.
Eating more trans fat usually means eating less of another type of fat or carbohydrates. Computer models of the nurses' diet patterns indicated that eating a modest amount of trans fat (2 percent of calories) in place of other, more healthful nutrients like polyunsaturated fat, monounsaturated fat or carbohydrate would dramatically increase the risk of infertility. To put this into perspective, for someone who eats 2,000 calories a day, 2 percent of calories translates into about four grams of trans fat. That's the amount in two tablespoons of stick margarine, one medium order of fast-food french fries or one doughnut.
Fats aren't merely inert carriers of calories or building blocks for hormones or cellular machinery. They sometimes have powerful biological effects, such as turning genes on or off, revving up or calming inflammation and influencing cell function. Unsaturated fats do things to improve fertility—increase insulin sensitivity and cool inflammation—that are the opposite of what trans fats do. That is probably why the largest decline in fertility among the nurses was seen when trans fats were eaten instead of monounsaturated fats.
The Protein Factor
At the center of most dinner plates sits, to put it bluntly, a hunk of protein. Beef, chicken and pork are Americans' favorites, trailed by fish. Beans lag far, far behind. That's too bad. Beans are an excellent source of protein and other needed nutrients, like fiber and many minerals. And by promoting the lowly bean from side dish to center stage and becoming more inventive with protein-rich nuts, you might find yourself eating for two. Findings from the Nurses' Health Study indicate that getting more protein from plants and less from animals is another big step toward walking away from ovulatory infertility.
Scattered hints in the medical literature that protein in the diet may influence blood sugar, sensitivity to insulin and the production of insulin-like growth factor-1—all of which play important roles in ovulation—prompted us to look at protein's impact on ovulatory infertility in the Nurses' Health Study.
We grouped the participants by their average daily protein intake. The lowest-protein group took in an average of 77 grams a day; the highest, an average of 115 grams. After factoring in smoking, fat intake, weight and other things that can affect fertility, we found that women in the highest-protein group were 41 percent more likely to have reported problems with ovulatory infertility than women in the lowest-protein group.
When we looked at animal protein intake separately from plant protein, an interesting distinction appeared. Ovulatory infertility was 39 percent more likely in women with the highest intake of animal protein than in those with the lowest. The reverse was true for women with the highest intake of plant protein, who were substantially less likely to have had ovulatory infertility than women with the lowest plant protein intake.
That's the big picture. Computer models helped refine these relationships and put them in perspective. When total calories were kept constant, adding one serving a day of red meat, chicken or turkey predicted nearly a one-third increase in the risk of ovulatory infertility. And while adding one serving a day of fish or eggs didn't influence ovulatory infertility, adding one serving a day of beans, peas, tofu or soybeans, peanuts or other nuts predicted modest protection against ovulatory infertility.
Eating more of one thing means eating less of another, if you want to keep your weight stable. We modeled the effect that juggling the proportions of protein and carbohydrate would have on fertility. Adding animal protein instead of carbohydrate was related to a greater risk of ovulatory infertility. Swapping 25 grams of animal protein for 25 grams of carbohydrates upped the risk by nearly 20 percent. Adding plant protein instead of carbohydrates was related to a lower risk of ovulatory infertility. Swapping 25 grams of plant protein for 25 grams of carbohydrates shrank the risk by 43 percent. Adding plant protein instead of animal protein was even more effective. Replacing 25 grams of animal protein with 25 grams of plant protein was related to a 50 percent lower risk of ovulatory infertility.
These results point the way to another strategy for overcoming ovulatory infertility—eating more protein from plants and less from animals. They also add to the small but growing body of evidence that plant protein is somehow different from animal protein.
Milk and Ice Cream
Consider the classic sundae: a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream crisscrossed by rivulets of chocolate sauce, sprinkled with walnuts and topped with a spritz of whipped cream. If you are having trouble getting pregnant, and ovulatory infertility is suspected, think of it as temporary health food. OK, maybe that's going a bit too far. But a fascinating finding from the Nurses' Health Study is that a daily serving or two of whole milk and foods made from whole milk—full-fat yogurt, cottage cheese, and, yes, even ice cream—seem to offer some protection against ovulatory infertility, while skim and low-fat milk do the opposite.
The results fly in the face of current standard nutrition advice. But they make sense when you consider what skim and low-fat milk do, and don't, contain. Removing fat from milk radically changes its balance of sex hormones in a way that could tip the scales against ovulation and conception. Proteins added to make skim and low-fat milk look and taste "creamier" push it even farther away.
It would be an overstatement to say that there is a handful of research into possible links between consumption of dairy products and fertility. The vanishingly small body of work in this area is interesting, to say the least, given our fondness for milk, ice cream and other dairy foods. The average American woman has about two servings of dairy products a day, short of the three servings a day the government's dietary guidelines would like her to have.
The depth and detail of the Nurses' Health Study database allowed us to see which foods had the biggest effects. The most potent fertility food from the dairy case was, by far, whole milk, followed by ice cream. Sherbet and frozen yogurt, followed by low-fat yogurt, topped the list as the biggest contributors to ovulatory infertility. The more low-fat dairy products in a woman's diet, the more likely she was to have had trouble getting pregnant. The more full-fat dairy products in a woman's diet, the less likely she was to have had problems getting pregnant.
Our advice on milk and dairy products might be criticized as breaking the rules. The "rules," though, aren't based on solid science and may even conflict with the evidence. And for solving the problem of ovulatory infertility, the rules may need tweaking. Think about switching to full-fat milk or dairy products as a temporary nutrition therapy designed to improve your chances of becoming pregnant. If your efforts pay off, or if you stop trying to have a baby, then you may want to rethink dairy—especially whole milk and other full-fat dairy foods—altogether. Over the long haul, eating a lot of these isn't great for your heart, your blood vessels or the rest of your body.
Before you sit down to a nightly carton of Häagen-Dazs ("The Fertility Diet said I needed ice cream, honey"), keep in mind that it doesn't take much in the way of full-fat dairy foods to measurably affect fertility. Among the women in the Nurses' Health Study, having just one serving a day of a full-fat dairy food, particularly milk, decreased the chances of having ovulatory infertility. The impact of ice cream was seen at two half-cup servings a week. If you eat ice cream at that rate, a pint should last about two weeks.
Equally important, you'll need to do some dietary readjusting to keep your calorie count and your waistline from expanding. Whole milk has nearly double the calories of skim milk. If you have been following the U.S. government's poorly-thought-out recommendation and are drinking three glasses of milk a day, trading skim milk for whole means an extra 189 calories a day. That could translate into a weight gain of 15 to 20 pounds over a year if you don't cut back somewhere else. Those extra pounds can edge aside any fertility benefits you might get from dairy foods. There's also the saturated fat to consider, an extra 13 grams in three glasses of whole milk compared with skim, which would put you close to the healthy daily limit.
Aim for one to two servings of dairy products a day, both of them full fat. This can be as easy as having your breakfast cereal with whole milk and a slice of cheese at lunch or a cup of whole-milk yogurt for lunch and a half-cup of ice cream for dessert. Easy targets for cutting back on calories and saturated fat are red and processed meats, along with foods made with fully or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
Once you become pregnant, or if you decide to stop trying, going back to low-fat dairy products makes sense as a way to keep a lid on your intake of saturated fat and calories. You could also try some of the nondairy strategies for getting calcium and protecting your bones. If you don't like milk or other dairy products, or they don't agree with your digestive system, don't force yourself to have them. There are many other things you can do to fight ovulatory infertility. This one is like dessert—enjoyable but optional.
The Role of Body Weight
Weighing too much or too little can interrupt normal menstrual cycles, throw off ovulation or stop it altogether. Excess weight lowers the odds that in vitro fertilization or other assisted reproductive technologies will succeed. It increases the chances of miscarriage, puts a mother at risk during pregnancy of developing high blood pressure (pre-eclampsia) or diabetes, and elevates her chances of needing a Cesarean section. The dangers of being overweight or underweight extend to a woman's baby as well.
Weight is one bit of information that the participants of the Nurses' Health Study report every other year. By linking this information with their accounts of pregnancy, birth, miscarriage and difficulty getting pregnant, we were able to see a strong connection between weight and fertility. Women with the lowest and highest Body Mass Indexes (BMI) were more likely to have had trouble with ovulatory infertility than women in the middle. Infertility was least common among women with BMIs of 20 to 24, with an ideal around 21.
Keep in mind that this is a statistical model of probabilities that links weight and fertility. It doesn't mean you'll get pregnant only if you have a BMI between 20 and 24. Women with higher and lower BMIs than this get pregnant all the time without delay or any medical help. But it supports the idea that weighing too much or too little for your frame can get in the way of having a baby.
We call the range of BMIs from 20 to 24 the fertility zone. It isn't magic—nothing is for fertility—but having a weight in that range seems to be best for getting pregnant. If you aren't in or near the zone, don't despair. Working to move your BMI in that direction by gaining or losing some weight is almost as good. Relatively small changes are often enough to have the desired effects of healthy ovulation and improved fertility. If you are too lean, gaining five or 10 pounds can sometimes be enough to restart ovulation and menstrual periods. If you are overweight, losing 5 percent to 10 percent of your current weight is often enough to improve ovulation.
Being at a healthy weight or aiming toward one is great for ovulatory function and your chances of getting pregnant. The "side effects" aren't so bad, either. Working to achieve a healthy weight can improve your sensitivity to insulin, your cholesterol, your blood pressure and your kidney function. It can give you more energy and make you look and feel better.
While dietary and lifestyle contributions to fertility and infertility in men have received short shrift, weight is one area in which there has been some research. A few small studies indicate that overweight men aren't as fertile as their healthy-weight counterparts. Excess weight can lower testosterone levels, throw off the ratio of testosterone to estrogen (men make some estrogen, just as women make some testosterone) and hinder the production of sperm cells that are good swimmers. A study published in 2006 of more than 2,000 American farmers and their wives showed that as BMI went up, fertility declined. In men, the connection between increasing weight and decreasing fertility can't yet be classified as rock solid. But it is good enough to warrant action, mainly because from a health perspective there aren't any downsides to losing weight if you are overweight. We can't define a fertility zone for weight in men, nor can anyone else. In lieu of that, we can say to men who are carrying too many pounds that shedding some could be good for fertility and will be good for overall health.
The Importance of Exercise
Baby, we were born to run. That isn't just the tagline of Bruce Springsteen's anthem to young love and leavin' town. It's also a perfect motto for getting pregnant and for living a long, healthy life. Inactivity deprives muscles of the constant push and pull they need to stay healthy. It also saps their ability to respond to insulin and to efficiently absorb blood sugar. When that leads to too much blood sugar and insulin in the bloodstream, it endangers ovulation, conception and pregnancy. Physical activity and exercise are recommended and even prescribed for almost everyone—except women who are having trouble getting pregnant. Forty-year-old findings that too much exercise can turn off menstruation and ovulation make some women shy away from exercise and nudge some doctors to recommend avoiding exercise altogether, at least temporarily. That's clearly the right approach for women who exercise hard for many hours a week and who are extremely lean. But taking it easy isn't likely to help women who aren't active or those whose weights are normal or above where they should be. In other words, the vast majority of women.
Some exciting results from the Nurses' Health Study and a handful of small studies show that exercise can be a boon for fertility. These important findings are establishing a vital link between activity and getting pregnant. Much as we would like to offer a single prescription for conception-boosting exercise, however, we can't. Some women need more exercise than others, for their weight or moods, and others are active just because they enjoy it. Some who need to be active aren't, while a small number of others may be too active.
Instead of focusing on an absolute number, try aiming for the fertility zone. This is a range of exercise that offers the biggest window of opportunity for fertility. Being in the fertility zone means you aren't overdoing or underdoing exercise. For most women, this means getting at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. But if you are carrying more pounds than is considered healthy for your frame (i.e., a BMI above 25), you may need to exercise for an hour or more. If you are quite lean (i.e., your BMI is 19 or below), aim for the middle of the exercise window for a few months. Keep in mind that the fertility zone is an ideal, not an absolute. Hospital delivery rooms are full of women who rarely, or never, exercise. Not everyone is so lucky. If you are having trouble getting pregnant, then maybe the zone is the right place for you.
Whether you classify yourself as a couch potato or an exercise aficionado, your fertility zone should include four types of activity: aerobic exercise, strength training, stretching and the activities of daily living. This quartet works together to control weight, guard against high blood sugar and insulin, and keep your muscles limber and strong. They are also natural stress relievers, something almost everyone coping with or worrying about infertility can use.
Exercise has gotten a bad rap when it comes to fertility. While the pioneering studies of Dr. Rose Frisch and her colleagues convincingly show that too much exercise coupled with too little stored energy can throw off or turn off ovulation in elite athletes, their work says nothing about the impact of usual exercise in normal-weight or overweight women. Common sense says that it can't be a big deterrent to conception. If it were, many of us wouldn't be here. Our ancestors worked hard to hunt, forage, clear fields and travel from place to place. Early Homo sapiens burned twice as many calories each day as the average American does today and were fertile despite it—or because of it.
Results from the Nurses' Health Study support this evolutionary perspective and show that exercise, particularly vigorous exercise, actually improves fertility. Exercising for at least 30 minutes on most days of the week is a great place to start. It doesn't really matter how you exercise, as long as you find something other than your true love that moves you and gets your heart beating faster.
Chavarro and Willett are in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. Skerrett is editor of the Harvard Heart Letter. For more information, go to health.harvard.edu/newsweek or thefertilitydiet.com .
Health - MySpace Medical
Dina Fine Maron
For adults, browsing MySpace.com can be a secret window onto how teenagers sculpt their public personas. Teens, one of the most wired groups in America, use the social-networking site to create profiles where they share clips of their favorite songs, post pictures or vent about a bad day.
But MySpace, which now boasts 200 million profiles, is not all fun and games. Findings from a new pair of studies by Megan Moreno, a physician specializing in adolescent medicine, and her colleagues at Seattle Children's Hospital reveal that more than half of the 500 teen profiles they looked at during two and a half months in 2007, read more like cautionary tales, chock full of high-risk behaviors from sexual conquests to binge drinking and drug use. While the prevalence of racy MySpace pages created by teens may not be news, Moreno's studies are the first to systematically catalog the sexual and substance-abuse content of teens' profiles, and to look at the results of an online health intervention. Her results, on a small scale, support the idea that these profiles are an untapped resource for physicians and mental-health professionals. By harnessing this technology as a monitoring tool, physicians, parents and counselors may effectively tag along with teens for some of their social interactions and when appropriate, contact teens at risk.
For the purposes of the study, published Monday in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, researchers staged a sort of online intervention and looked at whether it had any impact on teens. Moreno created a MySpace listing for "Dr. Meg," listed her credentials as a medical professional, and contacted 190 of the teens with risqué profiles. She selected users registered as 18- to 20-year-olds (though many of them were clearly younger), and sent them all a basic message with information about the risky nature of online personal disclosures. She also directed teens to a Web site about sexual health and information on STD testing.
Three months later the researchers found more than a dozen of these teens had eliminated all sexual references on their profiles—more than double the number of sexual reference removals from a comparison group of teens who were not contacted. A handful of the contacted subjects e-mailed Moreno and told her they hadn't known what their "public" status had truly entailed and changed their status to "private." A couple of others told her to mind her own business. Most said nothing at all. Even if the wild behavior these teens are writing about is grounded more in fantasy than reality, law-enforcement and safety advocates have long warned that advertising these behaviors puts kids at risk from online predators looking for vulnerable youths. Parents also worry that some of the allusions to drug use and more compromising photos of teens with alcohol may hamper their teens' future efforts when they apply to college or a job.
To some extent, MySpace does limit public access to profiles of minors, but Moreno says that the site's safety features, like requiring users to have profiles set to private if they register as 14-or 15-year-olds can be easily circumvented. Out of 500 teens claiming to be 18 years old, Moreno found 50 who revealed that they were younger elsewhere on their sites, and many more had pictures or comments that suggested they were underage even if it wasn't explicitly stated. Moreno's team says that the goal of their work is not to monitor the hundreds of thousands of minors on social networks but rather to explore the feasibility of targeted outreach by professionals or parents to teens at risk.
For this particular study, the kids were chosen from Washington, D.C.'s Anacostia neighborhood, one of the poorest in the nation. "We wanted to reach a group that is difficult to contact by conventional public-health methods," Moreno explains. Coauthor Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Seattle Children's Hospital, attributes much of the decrease in contacted teens' sexual references to the fact that the kids were embarrassed. Teens are used to positive reinforcement from their friends for this kind of behavior and the intervention e-mail was probably a rare moderating influence, he says.
The parent of two preteens himself, Christakis advises parents to follow his example—educate themselves about the Internet and create their own profiles even if they are daunted by the technology. He says he had trouble setting up his own profile initially, but it started a great conversation with his son. Any parent can do it, he says. Parents take it upon themselves to check out who their kids are friends with in the real world, so why not online? "The digital divide between the rich and poor is virtually gone, but now there is a new gap; parents are increasingly clueless about what kids do online," he says. Even though teens might not want their parents looking at their profiles, it is a parent's responsibility to check how their teen is representing him or herself, the researchers say, especially if the profile is public.
Adria Shipp, a counselor in North Carolina's Alamance-Burlington school system, echoes those sentiments and has written about sites like MySpace as tools for mental-health professionals' toolkits. Parents should ask their kids to go over their profiles with them, or if the profile is private, even insist they become "friends" online, she says. She advises counselors and parents to talk to teens about why they accept certain people as friends online" and question if their teens know them in real life. Christakis says the time to start these conversations and for parents to educate themselves about technology like MySpace is even before their kids are interested in it. Shipp advises adults to try to sit down with their kids even while their kids create their profiles to head off any risky disclosures.
But where does your teen's privacy come in? According to Shipp, it's best if you go over the site together, but if a profile is listed as public—it is just that. Christakis agrees that although your teen may not be excited about it, you're the parent and it's your responsibility to make sure your teens are safe and representing themselves in ways they won't regret later. "Most teens don't appreciate having a curfew or rules at home, but having rules is essential to healthy development," Moreno says. Shipp says if parents are anxious about respecting their teens' privacy then they can enlist an aunt or some other adult in their teen's life to serve as a bridge for discussing the issue.
Some studies say there is a risk that teens will just clean up their profiles to be parent-rated and then create an alternative one—with the objectionable material intact. But Moreno says that her current research suggests that it's too much trouble for most teens to maintain more than one profile.
Of course, there are a number of complications and concerns that can arise when teachers or counselors contact kids online. In Forsyth, N.C., being "friends" with a student on a social-networking site is grounds for dismissal, Shipp says. The policy is geared toward blocking inappropriate contact, she explains. But "how can we help them, if we can't keep all the lines of communication open?" she asks. Software that blocks school computers' access to social-networking sites also prevents staff from checking on concerns students have about online material in other students' profiles.
Although these health professionals see real promise in the opportunities to use MySpace and similar sites to reach youths, there may be other drawbacks to bringing more adults into this largely teen sphere. Although teens may see MySpace as their space for social voyeurism and an opportunity to explore aspects of their identity, some of the actions they claim to take—like smoking marijuana or drinking underage are illegal, and actionable. Campus police at Western Carolina University have been known to give out drinking citations to students if they have seen pictures of underage students with alcohol published online. And a party invite on Facebook promising lots of alcohol led to its breakup by police in Gaston County, N.C., earlier this month, after the invitation was passed on to them by a watchful adult. Moreno likens parental involvement online to telling teens how to dress: "You want to give leeway, but you don't want your teen walking out wearing a T shirt saying I LIKE DOING DRUGS. It's important for teens to know that even if you are not looking, over 200 million people are."
For adults, browsing MySpace.com can be a secret window onto how teenagers sculpt their public personas. Teens, one of the most wired groups in America, use the social-networking site to create profiles where they share clips of their favorite songs, post pictures or vent about a bad day.
But MySpace, which now boasts 200 million profiles, is not all fun and games. Findings from a new pair of studies by Megan Moreno, a physician specializing in adolescent medicine, and her colleagues at Seattle Children's Hospital reveal that more than half of the 500 teen profiles they looked at during two and a half months in 2007, read more like cautionary tales, chock full of high-risk behaviors from sexual conquests to binge drinking and drug use. While the prevalence of racy MySpace pages created by teens may not be news, Moreno's studies are the first to systematically catalog the sexual and substance-abuse content of teens' profiles, and to look at the results of an online health intervention. Her results, on a small scale, support the idea that these profiles are an untapped resource for physicians and mental-health professionals. By harnessing this technology as a monitoring tool, physicians, parents and counselors may effectively tag along with teens for some of their social interactions and when appropriate, contact teens at risk.
For the purposes of the study, published Monday in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, researchers staged a sort of online intervention and looked at whether it had any impact on teens. Moreno created a MySpace listing for "Dr. Meg," listed her credentials as a medical professional, and contacted 190 of the teens with risqué profiles. She selected users registered as 18- to 20-year-olds (though many of them were clearly younger), and sent them all a basic message with information about the risky nature of online personal disclosures. She also directed teens to a Web site about sexual health and information on STD testing.
Three months later the researchers found more than a dozen of these teens had eliminated all sexual references on their profiles—more than double the number of sexual reference removals from a comparison group of teens who were not contacted. A handful of the contacted subjects e-mailed Moreno and told her they hadn't known what their "public" status had truly entailed and changed their status to "private." A couple of others told her to mind her own business. Most said nothing at all. Even if the wild behavior these teens are writing about is grounded more in fantasy than reality, law-enforcement and safety advocates have long warned that advertising these behaviors puts kids at risk from online predators looking for vulnerable youths. Parents also worry that some of the allusions to drug use and more compromising photos of teens with alcohol may hamper their teens' future efforts when they apply to college or a job.
To some extent, MySpace does limit public access to profiles of minors, but Moreno says that the site's safety features, like requiring users to have profiles set to private if they register as 14-or 15-year-olds can be easily circumvented. Out of 500 teens claiming to be 18 years old, Moreno found 50 who revealed that they were younger elsewhere on their sites, and many more had pictures or comments that suggested they were underage even if it wasn't explicitly stated. Moreno's team says that the goal of their work is not to monitor the hundreds of thousands of minors on social networks but rather to explore the feasibility of targeted outreach by professionals or parents to teens at risk.
For this particular study, the kids were chosen from Washington, D.C.'s Anacostia neighborhood, one of the poorest in the nation. "We wanted to reach a group that is difficult to contact by conventional public-health methods," Moreno explains. Coauthor Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Seattle Children's Hospital, attributes much of the decrease in contacted teens' sexual references to the fact that the kids were embarrassed. Teens are used to positive reinforcement from their friends for this kind of behavior and the intervention e-mail was probably a rare moderating influence, he says.
The parent of two preteens himself, Christakis advises parents to follow his example—educate themselves about the Internet and create their own profiles even if they are daunted by the technology. He says he had trouble setting up his own profile initially, but it started a great conversation with his son. Any parent can do it, he says. Parents take it upon themselves to check out who their kids are friends with in the real world, so why not online? "The digital divide between the rich and poor is virtually gone, but now there is a new gap; parents are increasingly clueless about what kids do online," he says. Even though teens might not want their parents looking at their profiles, it is a parent's responsibility to check how their teen is representing him or herself, the researchers say, especially if the profile is public.
Adria Shipp, a counselor in North Carolina's Alamance-Burlington school system, echoes those sentiments and has written about sites like MySpace as tools for mental-health professionals' toolkits. Parents should ask their kids to go over their profiles with them, or if the profile is private, even insist they become "friends" online, she says. She advises counselors and parents to talk to teens about why they accept certain people as friends online" and question if their teens know them in real life. Christakis says the time to start these conversations and for parents to educate themselves about technology like MySpace is even before their kids are interested in it. Shipp advises adults to try to sit down with their kids even while their kids create their profiles to head off any risky disclosures.
But where does your teen's privacy come in? According to Shipp, it's best if you go over the site together, but if a profile is listed as public—it is just that. Christakis agrees that although your teen may not be excited about it, you're the parent and it's your responsibility to make sure your teens are safe and representing themselves in ways they won't regret later. "Most teens don't appreciate having a curfew or rules at home, but having rules is essential to healthy development," Moreno says. Shipp says if parents are anxious about respecting their teens' privacy then they can enlist an aunt or some other adult in their teen's life to serve as a bridge for discussing the issue.
Some studies say there is a risk that teens will just clean up their profiles to be parent-rated and then create an alternative one—with the objectionable material intact. But Moreno says that her current research suggests that it's too much trouble for most teens to maintain more than one profile.
Of course, there are a number of complications and concerns that can arise when teachers or counselors contact kids online. In Forsyth, N.C., being "friends" with a student on a social-networking site is grounds for dismissal, Shipp says. The policy is geared toward blocking inappropriate contact, she explains. But "how can we help them, if we can't keep all the lines of communication open?" she asks. Software that blocks school computers' access to social-networking sites also prevents staff from checking on concerns students have about online material in other students' profiles.
Although these health professionals see real promise in the opportunities to use MySpace and similar sites to reach youths, there may be other drawbacks to bringing more adults into this largely teen sphere. Although teens may see MySpace as their space for social voyeurism and an opportunity to explore aspects of their identity, some of the actions they claim to take—like smoking marijuana or drinking underage are illegal, and actionable. Campus police at Western Carolina University have been known to give out drinking citations to students if they have seen pictures of underage students with alcohol published online. And a party invite on Facebook promising lots of alcohol led to its breakup by police in Gaston County, N.C., earlier this month, after the invitation was passed on to them by a watchful adult. Moreno likens parental involvement online to telling teens how to dress: "You want to give leeway, but you don't want your teen walking out wearing a T shirt saying I LIKE DOING DRUGS. It's important for teens to know that even if you are not looking, over 200 million people are."
Entertainment - Miley's Future: Sweet or Spicy?
Kurt Soller & Oscar Raymundo
Friday morning in Manhattan, Miley Cyrus gave a free "Good Morning America" concert for more than 10,000 tween girls and their moms. Some of the fans had been waiting since 3 p.m. the day before to get into the show, but two NEWSWEEK reporters--both male and in their early 20s--squeezed into Bryant Park to investigate the Cyrus circus for themselves. "The kids really look up to her," confirmed Diane White, a mom from Medford, N.J., who told us her daughter has asked whether Miley would turn bad "like Lindsay Lohan?" That's what NEWSWEEK's Oscar Raymundo and Kurt Soller spent the walk back to the office debating.
Kurt: OK, Oscar, now that the sun is out of our eyes, what'd you think of the performance?
Oscar: I really liked it, she performs like an adult.
Kurt: Yeah, she's definitely a professional with a great voice. But then, I'm like, "Wait, she's 15!" Shouldn't she be singing about, I dunno, lockers and gym class instead of boyfriends and booty-call texts? And speaking of booty--what was the deal with those shorts she was wearing? Definitely not kid-appropriate.
Oscar: C'mon, tweens don't want to listen to songs highlighting how childish they are. They read Seventeen even though they're 12, talk about boys even though they're not allowed to go on dates and definitely wear short shorts. Have you been to the mall? If anything, I'm surprised Miley has kept it so clean for so long.
Kurt: But there's a clear difference between Old Miley and the girl we saw on stage today. She's gone from Hannah Montana--the kid who played dress-up and worshiped anything that sparkled--to a modern day Lolita. Lately, she makes the news whenever she crosses this imaginary tween line--whether that is a bra photo on MySpace or a questionable spread in Vanity Fair--and she's playing that up. She's at the age where she's discovering her own sexuality, and she's letting America discover it right there with her. This week, for example, the obsession is on her TV Guide interview where she told the magazine she plans on staying a virgin until she marries. "I like to think of myself as the girl that no one can get, that no one can keep in their hand," she added. To me, 15 seems like an awfully young age to commit to that sort of promise, no less to admit to being a coquette. And a girl's sexual power certainly isn't an issue that comes up on Disney's hit "Hannah Montana."
Oscar: Yeah, the difference is that Old Miley was just a big product of the Disney machine. This new Miley's got her adult career ahead of her and it should be her priority. What going to happen after a new "It girl" replaces her exactly the way she replaced "Lizzie McGuire"/Hilary Duff? Her fans are getting older and they're not going to be mesmerized by her silly child tricks for much longer. And it was obvious with that Vanity Fair scandal that Miley wants to be seen as an adult entertainer, not just a kid cash cow. To do that, she needs to take risks. It worked for Rihanna. Everyone loves a good girl gone bad. I'm waiting for the Miley hit featuring Jay-Z.
Kurt: Wait, they're not really collaborating, are they? And I'll give you the Rihanna connection--once "Umbrella" stop being played, Miley's "See You Again" was all over the radio. But I feel like this transformation needs to be a little bit more subtle for Miley to succeed. I'm thinking of stars from our teenage years like Justin Timberlake, a squeaky-clean boy-bander who went away for a few years and came back as a true musician. As for the girls, with Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, we knew they were questionable role models from the moment the words "I'm not that innocent" came out. But with Miley, she's changing her image in front of a group of girls who might be too young to understand how MySpace even works. Meanwhile, she's has gotten so big that parents have no choice but to comply lest their child gets labeled "uncool."
Oscar: But now it's uncool to like her if you're not in that tweeny-bopping stage. And that's a dangerous place to be for a pop star. She needs to widen her demographic appeal, and when it comes to growing up, she needs to be one step ahead of her fans. First thing, though, she needs to get some therapy and drop that whole Hannah Montana split-personality thing.
Kurt: Yeah, good luck getting out of that Disney contract.
Oscar: Just start going to rehab. It worked for Lindsay, no?
Kurt: All too true. Speaking of La Lohan, what do you think is going to happen when all the parents realize they spent so much money and time entertaining their kids with Miley, who seems to be heading down a similar path. One fan I spoke with at the concert told me she liked Miley because "She's nothing like Lindsay." But comparing the two at age 15: Lohan was probably somewhere in Long Island, reveling in "Parent Trap" royalties and attending school. Miley? Well, the whole world knows where she is right now.
Oscar: I thought it was funny that one parent was like, "I shield my kids from the news any time a Miley controversy erupts." It's like abstinence-only education. Teach your kids how to swim, and teach them not to look up to Disney or Nickelodeon tween stars. Because at the end of the day, Jamie Lynn got pregnant, Lindsay had substance-abuse problems and Miley will soon grow up, too.
Kurt: Haha. But let's give the girl a few years, OK? If only because it is much easier to push 12-year-old girls out of the front row. As you said, she really was a great performer.
Oscar: Yeah, I would like her a lot more if I didn't have this guilty feeling whenever I listen to her songs or, you know, get up at 6 a.m. to go see her in Bryant Park with a bunch of soccer moms.
Kurt: Indeed. Let's get some coffee.
© 2008
Friday morning in Manhattan, Miley Cyrus gave a free "Good Morning America" concert for more than 10,000 tween girls and their moms. Some of the fans had been waiting since 3 p.m. the day before to get into the show, but two NEWSWEEK reporters--both male and in their early 20s--squeezed into Bryant Park to investigate the Cyrus circus for themselves. "The kids really look up to her," confirmed Diane White, a mom from Medford, N.J., who told us her daughter has asked whether Miley would turn bad "like Lindsay Lohan?" That's what NEWSWEEK's Oscar Raymundo and Kurt Soller spent the walk back to the office debating.
Kurt: OK, Oscar, now that the sun is out of our eyes, what'd you think of the performance?
Oscar: I really liked it, she performs like an adult.
Kurt: Yeah, she's definitely a professional with a great voice. But then, I'm like, "Wait, she's 15!" Shouldn't she be singing about, I dunno, lockers and gym class instead of boyfriends and booty-call texts? And speaking of booty--what was the deal with those shorts she was wearing? Definitely not kid-appropriate.
Oscar: C'mon, tweens don't want to listen to songs highlighting how childish they are. They read Seventeen even though they're 12, talk about boys even though they're not allowed to go on dates and definitely wear short shorts. Have you been to the mall? If anything, I'm surprised Miley has kept it so clean for so long.
Kurt: But there's a clear difference between Old Miley and the girl we saw on stage today. She's gone from Hannah Montana--the kid who played dress-up and worshiped anything that sparkled--to a modern day Lolita. Lately, she makes the news whenever she crosses this imaginary tween line--whether that is a bra photo on MySpace or a questionable spread in Vanity Fair--and she's playing that up. She's at the age where she's discovering her own sexuality, and she's letting America discover it right there with her. This week, for example, the obsession is on her TV Guide interview where she told the magazine she plans on staying a virgin until she marries. "I like to think of myself as the girl that no one can get, that no one can keep in their hand," she added. To me, 15 seems like an awfully young age to commit to that sort of promise, no less to admit to being a coquette. And a girl's sexual power certainly isn't an issue that comes up on Disney's hit "Hannah Montana."
Oscar: Yeah, the difference is that Old Miley was just a big product of the Disney machine. This new Miley's got her adult career ahead of her and it should be her priority. What going to happen after a new "It girl" replaces her exactly the way she replaced "Lizzie McGuire"/Hilary Duff? Her fans are getting older and they're not going to be mesmerized by her silly child tricks for much longer. And it was obvious with that Vanity Fair scandal that Miley wants to be seen as an adult entertainer, not just a kid cash cow. To do that, she needs to take risks. It worked for Rihanna. Everyone loves a good girl gone bad. I'm waiting for the Miley hit featuring Jay-Z.
Kurt: Wait, they're not really collaborating, are they? And I'll give you the Rihanna connection--once "Umbrella" stop being played, Miley's "See You Again" was all over the radio. But I feel like this transformation needs to be a little bit more subtle for Miley to succeed. I'm thinking of stars from our teenage years like Justin Timberlake, a squeaky-clean boy-bander who went away for a few years and came back as a true musician. As for the girls, with Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, we knew they were questionable role models from the moment the words "I'm not that innocent" came out. But with Miley, she's changing her image in front of a group of girls who might be too young to understand how MySpace even works. Meanwhile, she's has gotten so big that parents have no choice but to comply lest their child gets labeled "uncool."
Oscar: But now it's uncool to like her if you're not in that tweeny-bopping stage. And that's a dangerous place to be for a pop star. She needs to widen her demographic appeal, and when it comes to growing up, she needs to be one step ahead of her fans. First thing, though, she needs to get some therapy and drop that whole Hannah Montana split-personality thing.
Kurt: Yeah, good luck getting out of that Disney contract.
Oscar: Just start going to rehab. It worked for Lindsay, no?
Kurt: All too true. Speaking of La Lohan, what do you think is going to happen when all the parents realize they spent so much money and time entertaining their kids with Miley, who seems to be heading down a similar path. One fan I spoke with at the concert told me she liked Miley because "She's nothing like Lindsay." But comparing the two at age 15: Lohan was probably somewhere in Long Island, reveling in "Parent Trap" royalties and attending school. Miley? Well, the whole world knows where she is right now.
Oscar: I thought it was funny that one parent was like, "I shield my kids from the news any time a Miley controversy erupts." It's like abstinence-only education. Teach your kids how to swim, and teach them not to look up to Disney or Nickelodeon tween stars. Because at the end of the day, Jamie Lynn got pregnant, Lindsay had substance-abuse problems and Miley will soon grow up, too.
Kurt: Haha. But let's give the girl a few years, OK? If only because it is much easier to push 12-year-old girls out of the front row. As you said, she really was a great performer.
Oscar: Yeah, I would like her a lot more if I didn't have this guilty feeling whenever I listen to her songs or, you know, get up at 6 a.m. to go see her in Bryant Park with a bunch of soccer moms.
Kurt: Indeed. Let's get some coffee.
© 2008
Jan 9, 2009
Business - India;Regulator may blacklist Price Waterhouse
Anindita Dey
Auditing firm Price Waterhouse is likely to face a reprimand from the Reserve Bank of India for its alleged involvement in the accounting fiasco of Satyam Computer Services.
Source close to the development said a meeting to this effect would be held shortly. “Prima facie, we have decided to blacklist the firm and send the order to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), who recommend the firms for empanelment for the audit of banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs)”, a source said.
However, the RBI will wait for the formal investigation report of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Registrar of Companies (RoC0, before issuing a final blacklisting order. Meanwhile, it may send a word of caution to the foreign and private sector banks who may be considering Price Waterhouse as auditor. “It is their independent decision, unlike in the case of public-sector banks. As regulator, we can warn them at best, “ the official said.
The sources further said the central bank’s work would be easier if the firm gets blacklisted globally as it managed the Satyam accounts both by the Indian method and the US GAAP method. These accounts formed the basis for pricing, listing and issuing of American depository receipts by the IT firm in the overseas markets. Thus, it amounts to duping international investors too. RBI will most likely not wait for the ICAI probe, which usually takes a long time, but will act on the Sebi and Roc reports.
If issued, this will be the second blacklisting order against the firm. The RBI is still awaiting ICAI’s investigation report on Price Waterhouse’s alleged involvement in overstating the losses of the erstwhile Global Trust Bank in 2003-04. The regulator had barred the firm from the audits of banks and NBFCs for three years following the case.
Auditing firm Price Waterhouse is likely to face a reprimand from the Reserve Bank of India for its alleged involvement in the accounting fiasco of Satyam Computer Services.
Source close to the development said a meeting to this effect would be held shortly. “Prima facie, we have decided to blacklist the firm and send the order to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), who recommend the firms for empanelment for the audit of banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs)”, a source said.
However, the RBI will wait for the formal investigation report of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Registrar of Companies (RoC0, before issuing a final blacklisting order. Meanwhile, it may send a word of caution to the foreign and private sector banks who may be considering Price Waterhouse as auditor. “It is their independent decision, unlike in the case of public-sector banks. As regulator, we can warn them at best, “ the official said.
The sources further said the central bank’s work would be easier if the firm gets blacklisted globally as it managed the Satyam accounts both by the Indian method and the US GAAP method. These accounts formed the basis for pricing, listing and issuing of American depository receipts by the IT firm in the overseas markets. Thus, it amounts to duping international investors too. RBI will most likely not wait for the ICAI probe, which usually takes a long time, but will act on the Sebi and Roc reports.
If issued, this will be the second blacklisting order against the firm. The RBI is still awaiting ICAI’s investigation report on Price Waterhouse’s alleged involvement in overstating the losses of the erstwhile Global Trust Bank in 2003-04. The regulator had barred the firm from the audits of banks and NBFCs for three years following the case.
Business - India;Other bidders for Hyderabad Metro may not be considered
The Andhra Pradesh government will have to forego Rs 30,311 crore over a period of 34 years if its contract with the Maytas Infra-led consortium for executing the Rs 12,000-crore Hyderabad Metro Rail Project falls through in the light of the ongoing Satyam crisis. Discounted (at 13.5 per cent a year) to get its present value, the money is worth Rs 1,240 crore today.
Maytas Infra opened up a new way of funding the build-operate-transfer (BOT) project by offering to pay the government and refusing to take the Rs 4,800 crore available under the viability gap funding from the state and central governments.
The next best bidder for the 71-km project was a consortium led by Malaysia’s Magna Allmore, Siemens, Emirate Trading Agency and Nagarjuna Constructions, which also refused VGF and offered to pay the state government's equity component of Rs 250 crore. Two other bidders — Essar and Reliance-led consortia — sought a grant of Rs 3,100 crore and Rs 2,811 crore, respectively.
Following the latest developments at Satyam, the state government is reviewing the concessionaire agreement with the Maytas-led consortium.
Will the next best bidder be considered if the Maytas consortium falls through? Though all these aspects are yet to be considered, sources said the next best bidder may not be considered. Instead, fresh bids may be called for, which could lead to delay in the execution of the project.
The Maytas-led consortium comprising Nava Bharat Ventures, Italian-Thai Development Plc and IL&FS has committed to contribute to the state government Rs 11 crore on agreement, Rs 50 crore on financial closure, Rs 200 crore in the fourth year, Rs 100 crore each in the seventh, eighth and ninth years, and Rs 1,750 crore a year from the 18th to 34th year. The consortium, which paid Rs 11 crore as initial amount and a Rs 60 crore bank guarantee, is slated to achieve financial closure by March 2009.
Maytas Infra opened up a new way of funding the build-operate-transfer (BOT) project by offering to pay the government and refusing to take the Rs 4,800 crore available under the viability gap funding from the state and central governments.
The next best bidder for the 71-km project was a consortium led by Malaysia’s Magna Allmore, Siemens, Emirate Trading Agency and Nagarjuna Constructions, which also refused VGF and offered to pay the state government's equity component of Rs 250 crore. Two other bidders — Essar and Reliance-led consortia — sought a grant of Rs 3,100 crore and Rs 2,811 crore, respectively.
Following the latest developments at Satyam, the state government is reviewing the concessionaire agreement with the Maytas-led consortium.
Will the next best bidder be considered if the Maytas consortium falls through? Though all these aspects are yet to be considered, sources said the next best bidder may not be considered. Instead, fresh bids may be called for, which could lead to delay in the execution of the project.
The Maytas-led consortium comprising Nava Bharat Ventures, Italian-Thai Development Plc and IL&FS has committed to contribute to the state government Rs 11 crore on agreement, Rs 50 crore on financial closure, Rs 200 crore in the fourth year, Rs 100 crore each in the seventh, eighth and ninth years, and Rs 1,750 crore a year from the 18th to 34th year. The consortium, which paid Rs 11 crore as initial amount and a Rs 60 crore bank guarantee, is slated to achieve financial closure by March 2009.
Lifestyle - Sex resolutions' 09
Though 'quitting smoking', 'losing weight', and 'exercising' make for the most common resolutions for the populace, there's another vow that can Sex resolutions' 09 (Getty Images)
give you an equally healthy life this New Year - Improving your sex life.
After all, it has been scientifically proved that good sex everyday, keeps the doctor away! What's more? It can help you burn that bothersome flab too! So, what are you waiting for? Take charge of your sex life this January, with these fun-filled and exciting 'sexolutions' and make your way to a satisfying and pleasurable bedroom life all through the year!
Resolution # 1: Vow to devote 'more time' to the act.
No denying that 'quickies' are great fun, but when the target is a year full of gratifying sex, nothing works better that investing quality time in the act. "Being one of the fundamental aspects of a man-woman relationship, sex deserves patience and time. But time-pressed lifestyles and busy schedules often leaves couples exhausted by the end of the day leading to a lull in their bedroom.
So, from planning private vacations and early-morning sex sessions to extending foreplay in the bed, anything and everything that keeps the two of you connected for a longer time helps pep up your sexual experience in the New Year," suggests Sandhya Mulchandani, author of Indian Erotica.
Resolution # 2: Promise to 'experiment'
If you think experimentation is only the younger lot's cup of tea, remember that it's the older couples who benefit the most out from all the trials and tests. "Every couple has its own set of pleasure activities that they have been practicing since day one. But it's always good to explore and experiment to know what else charges up your pleasure buttons and hits them better," suggests Sandhya.
Try and know what turns your man on or what arouses your wife. Touch and feel each other's bodies and don't shy away from trying new techniques and positions this year. Think what you want your partner to do between the sheets and communicate your secret desires and innate fantasies the next time you are indulging in some steamy action. You never know you might just discover an all new moan zoan in your partner's body!
Resolution # 3: Pledge to revisit your sensual side
When was the last time you went out shopping for enticing night wear and sassy lingerie the way you did in the initial days of your courtship? When was the last time you turned your bedroom into a love-den to woo your partner? We are sure it's been long, with due courtesy to our busy and overtly practical schedules. Why not revisit your sensual self once again in 2009?
"Feeling beautiful and getting in touch with your sensuality forms an important part of lovemaking, especially for women. If you are feeling sexy and beautiful, chances of being interested and active in sex are a lot higher than otherwise," explains Alka Pandey, author of Kama Sutra for Women.
So, check out the lingerie stores and dig out some sensuous pieces. Also, try and pick some other passion props like perfumed body oils, scented candles, satin sheets, silk scarves etc. and put them to the best of use.
Resolution # 4: Vow to become a 'touchy-feely' couple
Okay, you've just had a busy month when physical contact was nothing more than brushing against your partner while arranging the cupboard or making your way out of the kitchen door. "Day-to-day touching acts as a primary precursor to sex for many of us, especially women. Absence of caressing, cuddling and hugging can become a total passion-killer," explains psychologist, Dr. Aruna Broota.
Even research has proven that partners who keep in touch with each other outside the bed are more active sexual performers. Sexual touching leads to a biological and psychological arousal, which heightens the testosterone levels giving a kick to one's sex drive. Even the mere practice of hugging boosts a woman's level of oxytocin, a hormone that drives you closer to your mate.
So, in the New Year, take a pledge that you'll never let even a single moment of touch go waste. Be it holding hands while walking, hugging each other when you get home or for that matter kissing each other at least once a day - you will try and enjoy each other's physical presence.
Resolution # 5: Speak up if you are not liking something
Enough of faking it! Speak up if you are not enjoying sex with your beau this year! A lot of partners prefer to keep quite or worse still they pretend to enjoying sex even if they remain unfulfilled. Your partner might think what he/she's doing is an incredible turn-on for you, but the truth might be that you are simply waiting for the act to end.
"Voicing out your feelings should not be embarrassing for you, nor knowing that you are not enjoying the act be insulting for your partner. At least it's better than being left dissatisfied. So if it's not working out for you in the New Year, don't hesitate to give your partner a realistic clue.
Instead of directly saying that 'I'm not enjoying sex with you', or 'You fail to arouse my senses', articulate your words like – 'I love when you do it like that'. By just a little alteration of words, you can easily tell your partner what you want without making him feel rejected," suggests Sandhya.
Resolution # 6: Also speak-up if it is working for you
There's no better reward for your partner than letting them know that you simply loved what he/she did for you. "In fact praising what you find great is as important as telling what isn't working," recommends Alka.
So the next time he pleasures you in a unique way or she tickles the never-explored moan zone on your body, don't shy away from saying, 'what you did just swept me off my senses' or a simple 'you were simply great, when are we doing that'! Not only will this boost your partner's confidence, but will also encourage him/her to devise new techniques to woo you.
Resolution # 7: You'll try to keep kids out of your bedroom
"The ideal time for your children to have a separate room for them is when they turn 6. But if there's time for that, there's no harm in making them sleep with your mother-in-law or in the other room at least once a week, to enjoy some private moments with your beau," suggests Aroona.
After all, the simple formula makes it all clear : Parents + Child + One Bed = Zero Sex, so if you want your sex equation to be rocking, make an effort to keep the child out of your room on some days until he/she is grown up enough to sleep alone.
Resolution # 8: At times even 'no-mood' sex will be welcomed
Sex is the last thing on your mind tonight, even as your partner is no less than a wild beast or a virtual sex Goddess eagerly waiting to make in a night to remember – quite acceptable. So, should you shun your partner and sleep in the living room? It is absolutely wrong says Sandhya, adding, "At times, it is okay to go ahead and have sex even when you are not in the best of moods. Sex is not all about getting physical, it is also about intimacy and coming closer and you never know he/ she may just push your right buttons and get you into the groove."
So, instead of waiting for that perfect moment, letting go of your inhibitions and surrendering to the other's needs can be a good resolution for the New Year.
Resolution # 9: Vow to lose control and break the routine!
"Not always workable, but it's fun to break free from all the set parameters once in a while. Make pleasure the highest priority in life at least in 2009. If getting kinky is too much for you, try playing up the passion by doing something adventurous than what you usually do," suggests Alka.
Breaking the monotony of your sex life is an important aim this year. If your bedroom has been your sex den, think about making out in the kitchen, or in the living room. Go out on coffee-dates and reminisce on the past. After all, a lot can happen over coffee! Even cars can be great to relive the good old college days. The aim should be to do things that you don't do usually or your lifestyle doesn't allow you to do at present. Chances are you'll get home to great sex!
Resolution # 10: Go liberal with contraceptive methods
Planning to expand your family? Spontaneous sex is what you should be targeting! Or else find out the best birth control methods. "No method is 100 percent sure shot," feels gynecologist, Alka Dhal, adding, "The choice of contraception depends on factors like the need of birth control, your medical eligibility and when do you want to plan your next pregnancy. Condoms are good, if used correctly and consistently, while the iPill is great if you need an emergency cure.
Consult your doctor and find out the most effective and carefree contraceptive for yourself. "Choose the method that suits you well and feel free to change the contraceptive if it is not working until you find the best option," adds Alka.
Remember, there's no remote control to a great sex life, only efforts work
give you an equally healthy life this New Year - Improving your sex life.
After all, it has been scientifically proved that good sex everyday, keeps the doctor away! What's more? It can help you burn that bothersome flab too! So, what are you waiting for? Take charge of your sex life this January, with these fun-filled and exciting 'sexolutions' and make your way to a satisfying and pleasurable bedroom life all through the year!
Resolution # 1: Vow to devote 'more time' to the act.
No denying that 'quickies' are great fun, but when the target is a year full of gratifying sex, nothing works better that investing quality time in the act. "Being one of the fundamental aspects of a man-woman relationship, sex deserves patience and time. But time-pressed lifestyles and busy schedules often leaves couples exhausted by the end of the day leading to a lull in their bedroom.
So, from planning private vacations and early-morning sex sessions to extending foreplay in the bed, anything and everything that keeps the two of you connected for a longer time helps pep up your sexual experience in the New Year," suggests Sandhya Mulchandani, author of Indian Erotica.
Resolution # 2: Promise to 'experiment'
If you think experimentation is only the younger lot's cup of tea, remember that it's the older couples who benefit the most out from all the trials and tests. "Every couple has its own set of pleasure activities that they have been practicing since day one. But it's always good to explore and experiment to know what else charges up your pleasure buttons and hits them better," suggests Sandhya.
Try and know what turns your man on or what arouses your wife. Touch and feel each other's bodies and don't shy away from trying new techniques and positions this year. Think what you want your partner to do between the sheets and communicate your secret desires and innate fantasies the next time you are indulging in some steamy action. You never know you might just discover an all new moan zoan in your partner's body!
Resolution # 3: Pledge to revisit your sensual side
When was the last time you went out shopping for enticing night wear and sassy lingerie the way you did in the initial days of your courtship? When was the last time you turned your bedroom into a love-den to woo your partner? We are sure it's been long, with due courtesy to our busy and overtly practical schedules. Why not revisit your sensual self once again in 2009?
"Feeling beautiful and getting in touch with your sensuality forms an important part of lovemaking, especially for women. If you are feeling sexy and beautiful, chances of being interested and active in sex are a lot higher than otherwise," explains Alka Pandey, author of Kama Sutra for Women.
So, check out the lingerie stores and dig out some sensuous pieces. Also, try and pick some other passion props like perfumed body oils, scented candles, satin sheets, silk scarves etc. and put them to the best of use.
Resolution # 4: Vow to become a 'touchy-feely' couple
Okay, you've just had a busy month when physical contact was nothing more than brushing against your partner while arranging the cupboard or making your way out of the kitchen door. "Day-to-day touching acts as a primary precursor to sex for many of us, especially women. Absence of caressing, cuddling and hugging can become a total passion-killer," explains psychologist, Dr. Aruna Broota.
Even research has proven that partners who keep in touch with each other outside the bed are more active sexual performers. Sexual touching leads to a biological and psychological arousal, which heightens the testosterone levels giving a kick to one's sex drive. Even the mere practice of hugging boosts a woman's level of oxytocin, a hormone that drives you closer to your mate.
So, in the New Year, take a pledge that you'll never let even a single moment of touch go waste. Be it holding hands while walking, hugging each other when you get home or for that matter kissing each other at least once a day - you will try and enjoy each other's physical presence.
Resolution # 5: Speak up if you are not liking something
Enough of faking it! Speak up if you are not enjoying sex with your beau this year! A lot of partners prefer to keep quite or worse still they pretend to enjoying sex even if they remain unfulfilled. Your partner might think what he/she's doing is an incredible turn-on for you, but the truth might be that you are simply waiting for the act to end.
"Voicing out your feelings should not be embarrassing for you, nor knowing that you are not enjoying the act be insulting for your partner. At least it's better than being left dissatisfied. So if it's not working out for you in the New Year, don't hesitate to give your partner a realistic clue.
Instead of directly saying that 'I'm not enjoying sex with you', or 'You fail to arouse my senses', articulate your words like – 'I love when you do it like that'. By just a little alteration of words, you can easily tell your partner what you want without making him feel rejected," suggests Sandhya.
Resolution # 6: Also speak-up if it is working for you
There's no better reward for your partner than letting them know that you simply loved what he/she did for you. "In fact praising what you find great is as important as telling what isn't working," recommends Alka.
So the next time he pleasures you in a unique way or she tickles the never-explored moan zone on your body, don't shy away from saying, 'what you did just swept me off my senses' or a simple 'you were simply great, when are we doing that'! Not only will this boost your partner's confidence, but will also encourage him/her to devise new techniques to woo you.
Resolution # 7: You'll try to keep kids out of your bedroom
"The ideal time for your children to have a separate room for them is when they turn 6. But if there's time for that, there's no harm in making them sleep with your mother-in-law or in the other room at least once a week, to enjoy some private moments with your beau," suggests Aroona.
After all, the simple formula makes it all clear : Parents + Child + One Bed = Zero Sex, so if you want your sex equation to be rocking, make an effort to keep the child out of your room on some days until he/she is grown up enough to sleep alone.
Resolution # 8: At times even 'no-mood' sex will be welcomed
Sex is the last thing on your mind tonight, even as your partner is no less than a wild beast or a virtual sex Goddess eagerly waiting to make in a night to remember – quite acceptable. So, should you shun your partner and sleep in the living room? It is absolutely wrong says Sandhya, adding, "At times, it is okay to go ahead and have sex even when you are not in the best of moods. Sex is not all about getting physical, it is also about intimacy and coming closer and you never know he/ she may just push your right buttons and get you into the groove."
So, instead of waiting for that perfect moment, letting go of your inhibitions and surrendering to the other's needs can be a good resolution for the New Year.
Resolution # 9: Vow to lose control and break the routine!
"Not always workable, but it's fun to break free from all the set parameters once in a while. Make pleasure the highest priority in life at least in 2009. If getting kinky is too much for you, try playing up the passion by doing something adventurous than what you usually do," suggests Alka.
Breaking the monotony of your sex life is an important aim this year. If your bedroom has been your sex den, think about making out in the kitchen, or in the living room. Go out on coffee-dates and reminisce on the past. After all, a lot can happen over coffee! Even cars can be great to relive the good old college days. The aim should be to do things that you don't do usually or your lifestyle doesn't allow you to do at present. Chances are you'll get home to great sex!
Resolution # 10: Go liberal with contraceptive methods
Planning to expand your family? Spontaneous sex is what you should be targeting! Or else find out the best birth control methods. "No method is 100 percent sure shot," feels gynecologist, Alka Dhal, adding, "The choice of contraception depends on factors like the need of birth control, your medical eligibility and when do you want to plan your next pregnancy. Condoms are good, if used correctly and consistently, while the iPill is great if you need an emergency cure.
Consult your doctor and find out the most effective and carefree contraceptive for yourself. "Choose the method that suits you well and feel free to change the contraceptive if it is not working until you find the best option," adds Alka.
Remember, there's no remote control to a great sex life, only efforts work
Entertainment - Roadies Raghu speaks
I was in Delhi last Saturday, and watched the Mumbai audition episode of Roadies: Hell Down Under with my parents. Before it started, I told them that they could not ask me any questions. In terms of language and violence, this episode was particularly explicit. But of course nobody can stop them from asking questions.
“Why did you throw the nice boy out (Sufi)?” “Why are you pushing the little kid around (Ashish)?” “Why are you pulling his leg? He has such a sweet smile (Sunny)”.
All these questions were answered in the episode itself. Sufi provoked us. Ashish went against the cardinal rule of Roadies: do not prepare and assume a different personality. Be yourself. I had to present him with a situation he wasn’t prepared for, to see how he reacted.
Sunny had an impressive form. We wanted to see how interesting he could be in a situation going against him. But my favourite part was the sneak-peek of the journey at the end. What has been shown is just the tippy-tippy-top of the iceberg.
Roadies this year is Bigger and Badder by far. The whole format has changed, while preserving the basic DNA of the show. We’re aware that the contestants have come with a game-plan. But little do they realise that we have by now become experts at changing the game.
I’m really excited about Akshay Kumar! Rannvijay and I are big fans. The poor Roadies had to pay the price though.. he bajaao’d them.
Let me tell you something you’re not likely to figure out by yourself. Roadies Hell Down Under is inspired by Batman: The Dark Knight! Rannvijay, Rajiv and I are Batman freaks. We saw the premiere together and decided to interpret it in our way.
Some situations from the film, whether resolved or not, find resonance in this series. The Roadies are faced with the same moral dilemmas faced by Batman and the people of Gotham city. My presence is a tribute to the Joker, the “Agent of Chaos”.
The big difference is, I don’t like smiling. (I’m sure I inspire the question “why so serious?”) Watch the show and tell me if you make the connection. Till next time..
“Why did you throw the nice boy out (Sufi)?” “Why are you pushing the little kid around (Ashish)?” “Why are you pulling his leg? He has such a sweet smile (Sunny)”.
All these questions were answered in the episode itself. Sufi provoked us. Ashish went against the cardinal rule of Roadies: do not prepare and assume a different personality. Be yourself. I had to present him with a situation he wasn’t prepared for, to see how he reacted.
Sunny had an impressive form. We wanted to see how interesting he could be in a situation going against him. But my favourite part was the sneak-peek of the journey at the end. What has been shown is just the tippy-tippy-top of the iceberg.
Roadies this year is Bigger and Badder by far. The whole format has changed, while preserving the basic DNA of the show. We’re aware that the contestants have come with a game-plan. But little do they realise that we have by now become experts at changing the game.
I’m really excited about Akshay Kumar! Rannvijay and I are big fans. The poor Roadies had to pay the price though.. he bajaao’d them.
Let me tell you something you’re not likely to figure out by yourself. Roadies Hell Down Under is inspired by Batman: The Dark Knight! Rannvijay, Rajiv and I are Batman freaks. We saw the premiere together and decided to interpret it in our way.
Some situations from the film, whether resolved or not, find resonance in this series. The Roadies are faced with the same moral dilemmas faced by Batman and the people of Gotham city. My presence is a tribute to the Joker, the “Agent of Chaos”.
The big difference is, I don’t like smiling. (I’m sure I inspire the question “why so serious?”) Watch the show and tell me if you make the connection. Till next time..
Health - Kitchen appliances emit unsafe matter
WASHINGTON: Your kitchen appliances, running on natural gas, one of the cleanest fuels, could be emitting dangerous superfine particulate matter.
Italian researchers measured particulate matter produced by natural gas domestic burners to assess risk of exposure to organic emissions, linked with increased mortality due to deposition in the lungs, brain, and circulatory system.
Patrizia Minutolo and others from Università Federico II and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche in Naples and Riello's burner division used advanced optical diagnostic tools, particle collection methods, and particle size assessment to identify particulate matter with diameters between 1 and 10 nanometers.
The researchers concluded that while these particles were present in relatively high concentrations in the flame region of home heating burners, these were strongly oxidized, resulting in very low emissions.
Conversely, domestic stove tops emitted larger amounts of these very small particles. "These critical research findings provide important insights regarding the environmental health consequences associated with commonplace natural gas burners found in many homes," said Domenico Grasso, professor at the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, University of Vermont.
Italian researchers measured particulate matter produced by natural gas domestic burners to assess risk of exposure to organic emissions, linked with increased mortality due to deposition in the lungs, brain, and circulatory system.
Patrizia Minutolo and others from Università Federico II and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche in Naples and Riello's burner division used advanced optical diagnostic tools, particle collection methods, and particle size assessment to identify particulate matter with diameters between 1 and 10 nanometers.
The researchers concluded that while these particles were present in relatively high concentrations in the flame region of home heating burners, these were strongly oxidized, resulting in very low emissions.
Conversely, domestic stove tops emitted larger amounts of these very small particles. "These critical research findings provide important insights regarding the environmental health consequences associated with commonplace natural gas burners found in many homes," said Domenico Grasso, professor at the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, University of Vermont.
Business - India;Govt announces supercession of Satyam board; to appoint 10 directors on new board
NEW DELHI: The government on Friday said it has secured Company Law Board's permission to supercede the Satyam Computers' board.
The CLB has allowed the government to restrain the present directors of the company and appoint a new board with 10 nominees.
"The current Board ceases to exist and there would not be any meeting tomorrow," Corporate Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta said.
Directors will be people of repute who will be shortlisted soon, Gupta added.
The new board will meet in next seven days, he said.
This comes even as the company faces severe liquidity problems.
Meanwhile, Andhra police is initiating action against the Satyam promoter and former chairman Ramalinga Raju.
Satyam scrip closed at Rs 23.85 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, down about 40% from its previous close. The scrip hit an intra-day low of Rs 11.50 on the exchange. Gupta said that the new board would decide on the new management for Satyam Computer and there was no decision to take over the management as yet.
The CLB has allowed the government to restrain the present directors of the company and appoint a new board with 10 nominees.
"The current Board ceases to exist and there would not be any meeting tomorrow," Corporate Affairs Minister Prem Chand Gupta said.
Directors will be people of repute who will be shortlisted soon, Gupta added.
The new board will meet in next seven days, he said.
This comes even as the company faces severe liquidity problems.
Meanwhile, Andhra police is initiating action against the Satyam promoter and former chairman Ramalinga Raju.
Satyam scrip closed at Rs 23.85 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, down about 40% from its previous close. The scrip hit an intra-day low of Rs 11.50 on the exchange. Gupta said that the new board would decide on the new management for Satyam Computer and there was no decision to take over the management as yet.
India - Oil PSU employees call off three days long strike
NEW DELHI: The situation seems to be nearing normalcy as employees of state-run explorer Oil India Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corp, IOC and GAIL have
called off a three-day strike for better pay.
OIL and Bharat Petroleum Corp staff was the first to call of their strike. Indian Oil Corp and GAIL have ended their strike, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Friday, effectively ending the three-day long protests that have hit fuel supplies.
"IOC and GAIL (employees) have called off the strike and it is not because of pressure by the government," Deora told reporters.
The industrial action by employees of state-run oil firms has crippled fuel supplies in many cities.
Bharat Petroleum Corp said it would resume fuel supplies at all locations starting this evening, as more than 70 per cent of the striking employees returned to work.
"Over 70 per cent of the people have resumed work in marketing. By this evening, we will be able to resume fuel supply at all locations.... To make up for the backlog we would work on Saturday and Sunday too," BPCL Director (Marketing) S Radhakrishnan said here.
BPCL accounts for 25 per cent of the petro goods market in the country, while HPCL accounts for 27 per cent and IOC the rest.
HPCL has been functioning normally throughout.
The government on Friday cracked down on the striking oil PSU executives, ordering arrests and calling the army to restore normal fuel supply that was thrown into disarray on the third day of the nationwide stir.
Government cracked the whip after Oil Minister Murli Deora briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the failure of talks with Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA) last night, goading Bharat Petroleum, Oil India and Engineers India executives to return to work to avoid dismissal and arrests.
OSOA struck work on January 7 to press for higher wages, holding the country to ransom by stopping oil and gas output and disrupting fuel supplies that brought road traffic to a halt and delayed domestic and international flights.
About 12,000 petrol pumps of the largest fuel retailer, Indian Oil, and over 3,000 of BPCL are out of stock, leading to mile-long queues at HPCL outlets.
Mumbai ran out of compressed natural gas (CNG) that runs some two lakh buses, taxis and autos but Delhi had enough CNG and piped natural gas stocks to last 7 to 10 days.
However, with gas available from ONGC, as many as 138 CNG stations would be fully functional by tonight, Petroleum Secretary R S Pandey said.
Petrol, diesel supply situation will improve with BPCL executives calling off the strike and army taking dispatch and loading operations of IOC at Delhi.
"Tough is an understatement," Deora said, even as Pandey said that army has been called in and arrest orders are being issued against those who are not relenting.
Officers of ONGC and IOC continued to boycott work. IOC Chairman Sarthak Behuria said list of officers has been sent to district authorities with instruction for arrest if officers do not join duty by tomorrow.
called off a three-day strike for better pay.
OIL and Bharat Petroleum Corp staff was the first to call of their strike. Indian Oil Corp and GAIL have ended their strike, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Friday, effectively ending the three-day long protests that have hit fuel supplies.
"IOC and GAIL (employees) have called off the strike and it is not because of pressure by the government," Deora told reporters.
The industrial action by employees of state-run oil firms has crippled fuel supplies in many cities.
Bharat Petroleum Corp said it would resume fuel supplies at all locations starting this evening, as more than 70 per cent of the striking employees returned to work.
"Over 70 per cent of the people have resumed work in marketing. By this evening, we will be able to resume fuel supply at all locations.... To make up for the backlog we would work on Saturday and Sunday too," BPCL Director (Marketing) S Radhakrishnan said here.
BPCL accounts for 25 per cent of the petro goods market in the country, while HPCL accounts for 27 per cent and IOC the rest.
HPCL has been functioning normally throughout.
The government on Friday cracked down on the striking oil PSU executives, ordering arrests and calling the army to restore normal fuel supply that was thrown into disarray on the third day of the nationwide stir.
Government cracked the whip after Oil Minister Murli Deora briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the failure of talks with Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA) last night, goading Bharat Petroleum, Oil India and Engineers India executives to return to work to avoid dismissal and arrests.
OSOA struck work on January 7 to press for higher wages, holding the country to ransom by stopping oil and gas output and disrupting fuel supplies that brought road traffic to a halt and delayed domestic and international flights.
About 12,000 petrol pumps of the largest fuel retailer, Indian Oil, and over 3,000 of BPCL are out of stock, leading to mile-long queues at HPCL outlets.
Mumbai ran out of compressed natural gas (CNG) that runs some two lakh buses, taxis and autos but Delhi had enough CNG and piped natural gas stocks to last 7 to 10 days.
However, with gas available from ONGC, as many as 138 CNG stations would be fully functional by tonight, Petroleum Secretary R S Pandey said.
Petrol, diesel supply situation will improve with BPCL executives calling off the strike and army taking dispatch and loading operations of IOC at Delhi.
"Tough is an understatement," Deora said, even as Pandey said that army has been called in and arrest orders are being issued against those who are not relenting.
Officers of ONGC and IOC continued to boycott work. IOC Chairman Sarthak Behuria said list of officers has been sent to district authorities with instruction for arrest if officers do not join duty by tomorrow.
Business - India;Satyam withholds salaries for two months; layoffs feared
HYDERABAD/NEW DELHI: Satyam Computer on Friday announced holding back employees salaries for two months, even as rumours were rife that the company might lay off close to 15,000 workers in the coming days.
The offices of Satyam Computer were rife today with the talks about forthcoming pink-slips at the company, which needs over Rs 500 crore every month just to meet its staff costs and has admitted that its cash position was not encouraging.
Employees said they have received an e-mail saying the company would hold back salaries for two months and asked staffers to bear with it.
However, the company spokesperson declined knowledge of any such e-mail and the issue would be looked into.
Even as the company spokesperson denied any layoff plans as of now, the rumours put the estimated job cuts at close to 15,000 by the end of this month.
Employees at the company said on condition of anonymity that they were hearing about imminent lay-off of people who were sitting on the bench or were close to completing their assigned projects. Besides, those being retained would be asked to take substantial salary cuts, they added.
At the same time, global HT consultancy firm Hay Group's Practice Leader Mark Thompson said that employees would suffer the most from the fraud.
Global HR consultancy firm HayGroup's Practice Leader Mark Thompson said: "Based on past experience ... as with Enron, Worldcom and the Mirror Group, it is likely to be the employees who will suffer most from the fraud perpetrated by their bosses."
In early 2000, the collapse of energy trader Enron had left thousands of people out of work, another 8,500 had lost their jobs at accounting firm Arthur Andersen; and Tyco eliminated 15,000 employees in February
The offices of Satyam Computer were rife today with the talks about forthcoming pink-slips at the company, which needs over Rs 500 crore every month just to meet its staff costs and has admitted that its cash position was not encouraging.
Employees said they have received an e-mail saying the company would hold back salaries for two months and asked staffers to bear with it.
However, the company spokesperson declined knowledge of any such e-mail and the issue would be looked into.
Even as the company spokesperson denied any layoff plans as of now, the rumours put the estimated job cuts at close to 15,000 by the end of this month.
Employees at the company said on condition of anonymity that they were hearing about imminent lay-off of people who were sitting on the bench or were close to completing their assigned projects. Besides, those being retained would be asked to take substantial salary cuts, they added.
At the same time, global HT consultancy firm Hay Group's Practice Leader Mark Thompson said that employees would suffer the most from the fraud.
Global HR consultancy firm HayGroup's Practice Leader Mark Thompson said: "Based on past experience ... as with Enron, Worldcom and the Mirror Group, it is likely to be the employees who will suffer most from the fraud perpetrated by their bosses."
In early 2000, the collapse of energy trader Enron had left thousands of people out of work, another 8,500 had lost their jobs at accounting firm Arthur Andersen; and Tyco eliminated 15,000 employees in February
Sport - F1;Honda considering 12 offers for Formula 1 team
LONDON: Honda's Formula One executives are considering 12 offers for the team with its parent company in Japan, which pulled out of the sport amid
the global economic crisis.
The automaker ended its association with the sport in December to focus on its core business of making and selling cars rather than spending $291 million (euro212 million) a year to race them on Grand Prix tracks. Since then, Honda Racing chief executive Nick Fry has been locked in talks to save the team.
``It's looking very positive at the moment,'' Fry told autosport.com on Thursday. ``We had, as you might expect, a huge amount of interest at the start _ probably well in excess of 30 groups came to us.
``We have narrowed that down to something in the region of a dozen, and we're currently talking to Honda about what is the best bet for the future.''
The 2009 season opens with the Australian Grand Prix on March 29. Honda's absence would leave nine teams on the starting grid.
Fry is increasingly confident that the team will be in Melbourne, but is only considering investors which offer long-term stability.
``Many of the potential owners have been kind enough to talk about this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to get something which does have the chance to do very well in the next couple of years,'' Fry said. ``In this economic environment it is difficult, there is no doubt about it, and we've got to be careful that we look not just at 2009, which frankly is the least of our worries.
``It really is making sure we have a long-term future for the staff. Neither Ross (Brawn, the team principal) nor I want to stand there and say that everything is fine if, in one or two years' time, we fall flat on our face again.''
Fry insisted that Honda remains an attractive proposition. ``This is not a situation like some of the smaller teams that have fallen by the wayside, which frankly had an entry on the grid but did not have much in the way of technology, or in the way of engineering substance,'' he said. ``The one thing that we have benefited from, to a level which is difficult to exaggerate, is the amount of money, effort and skill that Honda have put into this.''
the global economic crisis.
The automaker ended its association with the sport in December to focus on its core business of making and selling cars rather than spending $291 million (euro212 million) a year to race them on Grand Prix tracks. Since then, Honda Racing chief executive Nick Fry has been locked in talks to save the team.
``It's looking very positive at the moment,'' Fry told autosport.com on Thursday. ``We had, as you might expect, a huge amount of interest at the start _ probably well in excess of 30 groups came to us.
``We have narrowed that down to something in the region of a dozen, and we're currently talking to Honda about what is the best bet for the future.''
The 2009 season opens with the Australian Grand Prix on March 29. Honda's absence would leave nine teams on the starting grid.
Fry is increasingly confident that the team will be in Melbourne, but is only considering investors which offer long-term stability.
``Many of the potential owners have been kind enough to talk about this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to get something which does have the chance to do very well in the next couple of years,'' Fry said. ``In this economic environment it is difficult, there is no doubt about it, and we've got to be careful that we look not just at 2009, which frankly is the least of our worries.
``It really is making sure we have a long-term future for the staff. Neither Ross (Brawn, the team principal) nor I want to stand there and say that everything is fine if, in one or two years' time, we fall flat on our face again.''
Fry insisted that Honda remains an attractive proposition. ``This is not a situation like some of the smaller teams that have fallen by the wayside, which frankly had an entry on the grid but did not have much in the way of technology, or in the way of engineering substance,'' he said. ``The one thing that we have benefited from, to a level which is difficult to exaggerate, is the amount of money, effort and skill that Honda have put into this.''
Sport - MotoGP;Kawasaki pulls out of MotoGP championship
TOKYO: Kawasaki announced on Friday that it will withdraw from the 2009 MotoGP world championship, citing the global economic downturn.
Kawasaki, which has participated in MotoGP since 2003, finished last among the five manufacturers taking part in the 2008 MotoGP world championship.
"Kawasaki Heavy Industries will suspend participation in 2009 MotoGP championship," the company said in statement. "Due to the influence of the global economic crises we have had to reevaluate our business structure."
Three other Japanese motorcycle manufacturers—Honda, Yamaha, and Suzuki—are expected to continue participating in the event.
The decision by Kawasaki follows the withdrawal of Honda from Formula One last year, and Subaru and Suzuki from the World Rally Championship.
Americans John Hopkins and Jamie Hacking raced with the Kawasaki Racing Team last season along with Australian Anthony West.
Kawasaki, which has participated in MotoGP since 2003, finished last among the five manufacturers taking part in the 2008 MotoGP world championship.
"Kawasaki Heavy Industries will suspend participation in 2009 MotoGP championship," the company said in statement. "Due to the influence of the global economic crises we have had to reevaluate our business structure."
Three other Japanese motorcycle manufacturers—Honda, Yamaha, and Suzuki—are expected to continue participating in the event.
The decision by Kawasaki follows the withdrawal of Honda from Formula One last year, and Subaru and Suzuki from the World Rally Championship.
Americans John Hopkins and Jamie Hacking raced with the Kawasaki Racing Team last season along with Australian Anthony West.
Mktg - Not so impuslive at the supermarket ?
Mark Dolliver
A new research paper challenges the popular notion that unplanned purchases are the norm when people shop at the supermarket. According to a Knowledge@Wharton summary of the findings, such thinking has encouraged retailers to "to devote growing resources to in-store promotion -- for example, featuring certain products at the ends of aisles and in checkout lines to encourage impulse buying."
While not dismissing the importance of in-store marketing, the paper's authors -- Wharton marketing professor David R. Bell and a couple of overseas academics -- argue that some kinds of shoppers are more prone than others to making unplanned purchases and, as such, more susceptible to the influence of such marketing efforts.
The research is based on close observation of shopper behavior in the Netherlands, though Bell says the findings "can be applied generally to American retailers as well." (One caveat, though: Many Dutch shoppers walk to the grocery store, and walkers were less likely to make unplanned purchases than those who drive to the store, as Americans typically do.) "The most basic information the research revealed is that no unplanned buying was done on slightly more than 60 percent of all shopping trips," says the Knowledge@Wharton bulletin. "On the rest of the trips, the shoppers made an average of three unplanned purchases -- far fewer than previous research indicated."
The research also noted significant variations in the incidence of unplanned buying among different demographic cohorts. It found young, unmarried, upper-income adult households doing 45 percent more such buying than the overall average.
Conversely, "Households led by an older person and those that have larger families do 31 percent to 65 percent less spontaneous purchasing." Self-described "fast and efficient" shoppers are, predictably, far to the below-average end of the spectrum, making 82 percent fewer unplanned buys than the overall average. And what if the shopping trip itself is unplanned? Unplanned purchases go up 23 percent in such cases.
A new research paper challenges the popular notion that unplanned purchases are the norm when people shop at the supermarket. According to a Knowledge@Wharton summary of the findings, such thinking has encouraged retailers to "to devote growing resources to in-store promotion -- for example, featuring certain products at the ends of aisles and in checkout lines to encourage impulse buying."
While not dismissing the importance of in-store marketing, the paper's authors -- Wharton marketing professor David R. Bell and a couple of overseas academics -- argue that some kinds of shoppers are more prone than others to making unplanned purchases and, as such, more susceptible to the influence of such marketing efforts.
The research is based on close observation of shopper behavior in the Netherlands, though Bell says the findings "can be applied generally to American retailers as well." (One caveat, though: Many Dutch shoppers walk to the grocery store, and walkers were less likely to make unplanned purchases than those who drive to the store, as Americans typically do.) "The most basic information the research revealed is that no unplanned buying was done on slightly more than 60 percent of all shopping trips," says the Knowledge@Wharton bulletin. "On the rest of the trips, the shoppers made an average of three unplanned purchases -- far fewer than previous research indicated."
The research also noted significant variations in the incidence of unplanned buying among different demographic cohorts. It found young, unmarried, upper-income adult households doing 45 percent more such buying than the overall average.
Conversely, "Households led by an older person and those that have larger families do 31 percent to 65 percent less spontaneous purchasing." Self-described "fast and efficient" shoppers are, predictably, far to the below-average end of the spectrum, making 82 percent fewer unplanned buys than the overall average. And what if the shopping trip itself is unplanned? Unplanned purchases go up 23 percent in such cases.
Entertainment - 'Ghajini' first Hindi movie to cross Rs 200cr mark
Meena Iyer
MUMBAI: Bollywood has shot to a new high, thanks to Ghajini.
When booking for the movie opened at a theatre in the UK on Wednesday, the film became the first to gross Rs 200 crore at the worldwide box office. What's more, the mark has been achieved in little less than two weeks. It has grossed Rs 162 crore in the domestic market and Rs 39 crore has come from overseas till Thursday.
An ecstatic Madhu Mantena, the Ghajini producer, admits to being "overawed'' by the record but trade consultant Amod Mehra is apparently not surprised. "The film was very strong from Day 1. It has been galloping like a one-horse race and, in my estimate, it will cross the Rs-250-crore (gross) mark very easily,'' Mehra said.
Bollywood producer Punkej Kharbanda is also not surprised that a Hindi film has broken all previous box-office records. "In the last year alone, there has been a 40% increase in cinema screens and also a rise in the cinema-going population, especially in the age group of 18-35. With most of the theatres recording good numbers on Ghajini, the Rs-200-crore mark is hardly a surprise,'' Kharbanda said.
Ghajini released with the maximum number of prints in India (1,200 digital and analog versions) and it made inroads into even provincial towns where films never get released on the same day as the rest of the world. A trade source said, "The film is set to take over the mantle of the highest domestic Bollywood earner from Anil Sharma's Gadar-Ek Prem Katha.''
In the overseas market, the film is, till now, second only to Karan Johar's Kabhie Alvida Na Kehna.
Ghajini has also reportedly earned Rs 4 crore from gaming rights (a first for a Bollywood film), Rs 21 crore for satellite rights for India and overseas and something to the tune of Rs 10 crore for home video and music.
ALL-TIME EARNERS
Sholay
Mughal-e-Aazam
Mother India
Hum Aapke Hain Kaun
Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge
Gadar-Ek Prem Katha
Sangam
Bobby
Kranti
Ganga Jamuna
MUMBAI: Bollywood has shot to a new high, thanks to Ghajini.
When booking for the movie opened at a theatre in the UK on Wednesday, the film became the first to gross Rs 200 crore at the worldwide box office. What's more, the mark has been achieved in little less than two weeks. It has grossed Rs 162 crore in the domestic market and Rs 39 crore has come from overseas till Thursday.
An ecstatic Madhu Mantena, the Ghajini producer, admits to being "overawed'' by the record but trade consultant Amod Mehra is apparently not surprised. "The film was very strong from Day 1. It has been galloping like a one-horse race and, in my estimate, it will cross the Rs-250-crore (gross) mark very easily,'' Mehra said.
Bollywood producer Punkej Kharbanda is also not surprised that a Hindi film has broken all previous box-office records. "In the last year alone, there has been a 40% increase in cinema screens and also a rise in the cinema-going population, especially in the age group of 18-35. With most of the theatres recording good numbers on Ghajini, the Rs-200-crore mark is hardly a surprise,'' Kharbanda said.
Ghajini released with the maximum number of prints in India (1,200 digital and analog versions) and it made inroads into even provincial towns where films never get released on the same day as the rest of the world. A trade source said, "The film is set to take over the mantle of the highest domestic Bollywood earner from Anil Sharma's Gadar-Ek Prem Katha.''
In the overseas market, the film is, till now, second only to Karan Johar's Kabhie Alvida Na Kehna.
Ghajini has also reportedly earned Rs 4 crore from gaming rights (a first for a Bollywood film), Rs 21 crore for satellite rights for India and overseas and something to the tune of Rs 10 crore for home video and music.
ALL-TIME EARNERS
Sholay
Mughal-e-Aazam
Mother India
Hum Aapke Hain Kaun
Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge
Gadar-Ek Prem Katha
Sangam
Bobby
Kranti
Ganga Jamuna
Mktg - Burger King Makes 'Sacrifice' on Facebook
Brian Morrissey
It's a common problem for anyone who joined Facebook some time ago. You look at your friend list and wonder who these people are.
Burger King wants to help consumers do something about it.
The fast-food chain has released the Whopper Sacrifice application on Facebook. The app rewards people with a coupon for BK's signature burger when they cull 10 friends. Each time a friend is excommunicated, the application sends a notification to the banished party via Facebook's news feed explaining that the user's love for the unlucky soul is less than his or her zeal for the Whopper.
The effort, crafted by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, came about after agency creative staffers confronted the too-many-friends scenario themselves on Facebook.
"We thought there could be some fun there, removing some of these people who are friends [but] not necessarily] best friends," said Jeff Benjamin, executive interactive creative director at Crispin, and friend to 736 on Facebook. "It's asking the question of which love is bigger, your love for your friends or your love for the Whopper," he said.
The app also adds a box to user profile pages charting their progress toward the free burger with the line, "Who will be the next to go?"
The application is available on Facebook and at WhopperSacrifice.com.
Whopper Sacrifice is the second application Crispin has built for BK. During the election, it released the BK Polarizer, a quiz widget that gauged where users stood on a political matrix compared to their friends.
Brand applications have a spotty record on Facebook, with few enjoying more than a temporary jolt in popularity before quickly fizzling. Some brands have begun rewarding consumers for installing their apps. One example is Kraft's current campaign that includes donations of meals to needy families when users get their friends to add the Kraft Facebook app.
"We always look at these social networks and think of what tool or thing we wish was here," Benjamin said. "A lot of times, brands force a feature or an application that I don't think people ever want. That's when you can waste some money."
The notion of dumping friends in exchange for a burger could offend some, though Crispin has not shied from controversy with BK. Its recent "Whopper Virgins" campaign, showing people in remote areas of the world introduced to fast food, came under fire from many critics. Benjamin said the agency and client were careful to make the application lighthearted rather than "vindictive."
"The [friend] removal is another kind of socializing," he said. "At first you think it's antisocial, but it's a social device. Now we finally have something to talk about."
It's a common problem for anyone who joined Facebook some time ago. You look at your friend list and wonder who these people are.
Burger King wants to help consumers do something about it.
The fast-food chain has released the Whopper Sacrifice application on Facebook. The app rewards people with a coupon for BK's signature burger when they cull 10 friends. Each time a friend is excommunicated, the application sends a notification to the banished party via Facebook's news feed explaining that the user's love for the unlucky soul is less than his or her zeal for the Whopper.
The effort, crafted by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, came about after agency creative staffers confronted the too-many-friends scenario themselves on Facebook.
"We thought there could be some fun there, removing some of these people who are friends [but] not necessarily] best friends," said Jeff Benjamin, executive interactive creative director at Crispin, and friend to 736 on Facebook. "It's asking the question of which love is bigger, your love for your friends or your love for the Whopper," he said.
The app also adds a box to user profile pages charting their progress toward the free burger with the line, "Who will be the next to go?"
The application is available on Facebook and at WhopperSacrifice.com.
Whopper Sacrifice is the second application Crispin has built for BK. During the election, it released the BK Polarizer, a quiz widget that gauged where users stood on a political matrix compared to their friends.
Brand applications have a spotty record on Facebook, with few enjoying more than a temporary jolt in popularity before quickly fizzling. Some brands have begun rewarding consumers for installing their apps. One example is Kraft's current campaign that includes donations of meals to needy families when users get their friends to add the Kraft Facebook app.
"We always look at these social networks and think of what tool or thing we wish was here," Benjamin said. "A lot of times, brands force a feature or an application that I don't think people ever want. That's when you can waste some money."
The notion of dumping friends in exchange for a burger could offend some, though Crispin has not shied from controversy with BK. Its recent "Whopper Virgins" campaign, showing people in remote areas of the world introduced to fast food, came under fire from many critics. Benjamin said the agency and client were careful to make the application lighthearted rather than "vindictive."
"The [friend] removal is another kind of socializing," he said. "At first you think it's antisocial, but it's a social device. Now we finally have something to talk about."
Mktg - TOI takes the bull fight online
Kapil Ohri
The Times of India (TOI) has launched a website, Jallikatu.com, to initiate an online poll and generate public opinion on the 2,000 year old sport of bull fighting, or Jallikattu as it is called in Tamil, that takes place in various villages of Tamil Nadu.
Visitors to the website can vote in favour of continuing or banning the sport and can also submit their opinions on Jallikattu.
Jallikattu is usually held on January 15 every year, as part of the Pongal (harvest festival) celebrations, especially in villages near Madurai. The sport involves getting a bull to run in an open space, while unarmed male participants try to tame it by controlling its horns. This activity is supposed to showcase the men’s masculinity and strength. Although the bull is not killed in this sport, it results in lots of injuries, and even death, for some of the participants.
Animal rights activists, who consider it a cruel game, are already fighting a legal battle in the Supreme Court to have it banned. However, a section of the population, especially in Tamil Nadu, wants the sport to continue.
Speaking to afaqs!, Rahul Kansal, brand director, TOI, says, “As a newspaper, we always raise local issues related to our readers.” The Chennai edition of the newspaper has already started carrying articles on Jallikattu.
Kansal explains the reason for starting the online debate: “We want our community of readers to be engaged in the issue. The site was launched to make it easier for them to participate in the debate and provide their opinions.”
He adds, “The idea of launching the website was conceptualised and developed by JWT Chennai. We just briefed them that we wanted to engage the public in this topical issue.”
Senthil Kumar, executive creative director, JWT Chennai, tells afaqs!, “Every year, as Jallikattu and Pongal draw nearer, it’s a busy time for the lawyers of animal rights activists, who move the Supreme Court asking for a ban on the sport. Thus, we launched the site and developed it to act as a bridge for the readers of TOI in Chennai and everywhere else in India and anyone who’s online to vote in this landmark case.”
Already, 16,611 people have voted in favour of running it, while 14,269 have voted to ban it.
The site is not just a marketing gimmick; TOI claims that the results of the online poll will be submitted as additional evidence in the Supreme Court.
TOI will promote the URL of the site through its own properties. Apart from the online initiative, there are plans to launch various on-ground activities related to Jallikattu in Chennai and the Madurai region.
The Times of India (TOI) has launched a website, Jallikatu.com, to initiate an online poll and generate public opinion on the 2,000 year old sport of bull fighting, or Jallikattu as it is called in Tamil, that takes place in various villages of Tamil Nadu.
Visitors to the website can vote in favour of continuing or banning the sport and can also submit their opinions on Jallikattu.
Jallikattu is usually held on January 15 every year, as part of the Pongal (harvest festival) celebrations, especially in villages near Madurai. The sport involves getting a bull to run in an open space, while unarmed male participants try to tame it by controlling its horns. This activity is supposed to showcase the men’s masculinity and strength. Although the bull is not killed in this sport, it results in lots of injuries, and even death, for some of the participants.
Animal rights activists, who consider it a cruel game, are already fighting a legal battle in the Supreme Court to have it banned. However, a section of the population, especially in Tamil Nadu, wants the sport to continue.
Speaking to afaqs!, Rahul Kansal, brand director, TOI, says, “As a newspaper, we always raise local issues related to our readers.” The Chennai edition of the newspaper has already started carrying articles on Jallikattu.
Kansal explains the reason for starting the online debate: “We want our community of readers to be engaged in the issue. The site was launched to make it easier for them to participate in the debate and provide their opinions.”
He adds, “The idea of launching the website was conceptualised and developed by JWT Chennai. We just briefed them that we wanted to engage the public in this topical issue.”
Senthil Kumar, executive creative director, JWT Chennai, tells afaqs!, “Every year, as Jallikattu and Pongal draw nearer, it’s a busy time for the lawyers of animal rights activists, who move the Supreme Court asking for a ban on the sport. Thus, we launched the site and developed it to act as a bridge for the readers of TOI in Chennai and everywhere else in India and anyone who’s online to vote in this landmark case.”
Already, 16,611 people have voted in favour of running it, while 14,269 have voted to ban it.
The site is not just a marketing gimmick; TOI claims that the results of the online poll will be submitted as additional evidence in the Supreme Court.
TOI will promote the URL of the site through its own properties. Apart from the online initiative, there are plans to launch various on-ground activities related to Jallikattu in Chennai and the Madurai region.
Entertainment - India;Action-packed 2008 for GECs
Sapna Nair
In the television space, the genre that witnessed the most excitement and action in 2008 was general entertainment, be it new launches, changes in programming, or the close fight for the No. 2 and No. 3 spots.
The most momentous event in this space was the dilution of STAR Plus' hegemony. The channel that held an almost 50 per cent share in 2007 was challenged first by Zee TV and then by Colors in 2008.
afaqs! does a quick flashback on the GEC war.
The opening picture: Race for No. 3
INX Media launched its flagship channel, 9X, in late 2007. The year 2008 commenced with the launch of NDTV Imagine. The move expanded the general entertainment genre further and also shook the existing players out of their complacency. STAR Plus had been reigning supreme as the No. 1 for the last eight years; Zee TV was at No. 2; and Sony – although distant in terms of relative channel share and GRPs – was firm at No. 3. 9X had not had a jump start yet.
By Week 11, NDTV Imagine moved closer to Sony Entertainment Television (SET). In Weeks 14 and 15, as per TAM Media Research data on C&S, 4+, HSM, SET and NDTV Imagine were on par, with an 8 per cent channel share each. In Week 16, NDTV Imagine replaced SET in the No. 3 position – the former had a 9 per cent channel share, while the latter stayed at 8 per cent.
Soon, 9X got its act together by introducing a few reality shows. In Week 17, it shared the No. 3 rank with NDTV Imagine, with both channels grabbing an 8 per cent channel share. Sony withdrew to No. 5, with a relative channel share of 7 per cent.
This race for the No. 3 spot soon hit another hurdle – the entry of Viacom18's Colors in July 2008, which changed the scenario drastically.
Colors achieved a feat very few can boast of. It had, perhaps, the most spectacular launch ever on television, and from then on, the GEC game dynamics changed nearly every week.
Colors: The race for No. 2
Colors played several winning cards with its flagship show, Fear Factor – Khatron Ke Khiladi. The show was shot entirely in the locales of South Africa with women celebrities and, most important, had Hindi film actor Akshay Kumar as the host. This helped Colors build a huge viewership base.
The launch episode recorded a TVR of 1.72, which went up to 3.3 in the finale. The fiction programmes on Colors – Balika Vadhu, Jai Shri Krishna and Mohe Rang De – gained immensely due to the action hero's muscle. In fact, Balika Vadhu – the story of an eight-year-old who is married off and the trials and tribulations in her life – has become a runaway success.
With an unbeatable programming lineup, marketing blitzkrieg and a brilliant distribution strategy, Colors jumped two spots to occupy the No. 3 position in the second week of its launch. In Week 31, Colors had garnered a share of 10 per cent in the overall GEC pie, beating Sony, NDTV Imagine, 9X and STAR One.
However, the battle was far from over. After the roaring success of Fear Factor, the launch of Bigg Boss 2 with actor Shilpa Shetty and the increasing popularity of Balika Vadhu brought Colors on par with Zee. In Week 37, while Zee TV managed to grab an 18 per cent share of the GEC pie, Colors moved up to 17 per cent. From then on, Colors kept inching closer to Zee, beating it on some occasions, before finally settling down in the No. 2 position from Week 40 onwards.
"Colors gained share from all the channels in the GEC space. Its share today stands at a formidable 23 per cent, second only to STAR Plus. Zee's share is down from 30 to 21 per cent. SET is a distant No. 4 at 9 per cent," says S Yesudas, chief operating officer, Media Direction.
As per the data for the last week of 2008, Colors has inched even closer to STAR Plus, with a difference of merely 4 percentage points between them. STAR Plus commands a relative share of 27 per cent.
New programming
The year was historic for the general entertainment genre also because it saw the end of three of the longest running soaps on Indian television: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki and Kasautii Zindagi Kay. It was a turning point for STAR Plus as well, because all three were its properties, produced by Balaji Telefilms.
New and fresh programmes entered the viewers' living rooms (see chart), including Nachle Ve with Saroj Khan on NDTV Imagine, Balika Vadhu on Colors, and Aap Ki Kachehri on STAR Plus.
"There has been a slight shift in the approach towards programming and the viewers have liked that. Different subjects and treatment of programmes was a refreshing change from the 'saas-bahu' routine," says Nikhil Rangnekar, executive director, West, Starcom India.
The proof is the ever increasing popularity of Balika Vadhu. As per TAM Media Research data for Week 39, it emerged as the most watched show on television, garnering a TVR of 6.8 and beating Bidaai on STAR Plus, which had been topping the charts till then. The two soaps continue to vie for the top spot.
Rajesh Kamat, chief executive officer, Colors, hails this as one of the most significant changes on television. "The entry of the three new players heralded a new era in the television industry of India, jolting programming from inertia and challenging the status quo. Differentiated programming was accepted," he says.
The GECs sought divine intervention by launching mythological programmes. It was a trend that every channel caught on to throughout the year. The trendsetter was Ramayana on NDTV Imagine, which garnered a significant viewership; Balaji launched its version of Mahabharat on 9X; STAR Plus had Sai Baba and Jai Maa Durga; Zee TV aired Jai Ganesh and the old Ramayan; and Colors served up Jai Shri Krishna.
Innovations
The year also saw a lot of innovative content tieups between television shows and movies. Apart from star anchors – Akshay Kumar in Fear Factor, Salman Khan in Dus Ka Dum, Shilpa Shetty in Bigg Boss 2 – attracting eyeballs, film producers also tied up with television shows to promote their movies.
"The line between television and Bollywood blurred, with the big screen demi-gods making a beeline for shows on the small screen," Kamat says. Colors roping in Akshay Kumar created uproar in the media, as did the sum of money that he was reportedly paid for it. Be it hosting, participating in reality shows or making guest appearances on TV shows, film stars took the television screen by storm.
It seemed to be a win-win situation, as television channels witnessed an upswing in ratings when celebrities made appearances on TV shows. Abhishek Bachhan on Balika Vadhu, Aamir Khan on Dus Ka Dum and Akshay Kumar in Bigg Boss 2 worked magic on the shows' TVRs. Aamir Khan's appearance in Dus Ka Dum, for instance, drove the show's TVR to 3.38, as compared to its average TVR of 2.
Overview
In 2008, the share of the Hindi GEC genre grew to 23.4 per cent from 22.6 per cent in 2007. However, individual channels witnessed a decline in their respective shares, as more players joined the race (see chart).
STAR Plus' relative share fell to 27 per cent, whereas Zee's decreased to 20 per cent. Sony's average share in 2008 was 8 per cent; STAR One and 9X managed a 7 per cent and 6 per cent share, respectively. New entrant Colors, despite launching in the third quarter of the year, managed to grab an average share of 8 per cent, while NDTV Imagine got a 7 per cent share.
Overall, 2008 has been an action-packed year for the GECs, replete with many nail-biting moments. Media observers believe that the trend of fresh and progressive programming will become stronger in 2009. With more launches scheduled in the genre, more upheavals are on the cards, too.
Share of PUT Year 2007 Year 2008
Star Plus 34 27
Zee TV 24 20
Sony Entertainment TV 11 8
Sahara One 8 6
DD1 8 4
Star One 6 7
SAB 5 3
Star Utsav 3 3
Zee Smile 1 1
9X* 0 6
Bindass* 0 1
Hum TV 0 0
Zee Next* 0 1
NDTV Imagine* 0 7
Colors* 0 8
In the television space, the genre that witnessed the most excitement and action in 2008 was general entertainment, be it new launches, changes in programming, or the close fight for the No. 2 and No. 3 spots.
The most momentous event in this space was the dilution of STAR Plus' hegemony. The channel that held an almost 50 per cent share in 2007 was challenged first by Zee TV and then by Colors in 2008.
afaqs! does a quick flashback on the GEC war.
The opening picture: Race for No. 3
INX Media launched its flagship channel, 9X, in late 2007. The year 2008 commenced with the launch of NDTV Imagine. The move expanded the general entertainment genre further and also shook the existing players out of their complacency. STAR Plus had been reigning supreme as the No. 1 for the last eight years; Zee TV was at No. 2; and Sony – although distant in terms of relative channel share and GRPs – was firm at No. 3. 9X had not had a jump start yet.
By Week 11, NDTV Imagine moved closer to Sony Entertainment Television (SET). In Weeks 14 and 15, as per TAM Media Research data on C&S, 4+, HSM, SET and NDTV Imagine were on par, with an 8 per cent channel share each. In Week 16, NDTV Imagine replaced SET in the No. 3 position – the former had a 9 per cent channel share, while the latter stayed at 8 per cent.
Soon, 9X got its act together by introducing a few reality shows. In Week 17, it shared the No. 3 rank with NDTV Imagine, with both channels grabbing an 8 per cent channel share. Sony withdrew to No. 5, with a relative channel share of 7 per cent.
This race for the No. 3 spot soon hit another hurdle – the entry of Viacom18's Colors in July 2008, which changed the scenario drastically.
Colors achieved a feat very few can boast of. It had, perhaps, the most spectacular launch ever on television, and from then on, the GEC game dynamics changed nearly every week.
Colors: The race for No. 2
Colors played several winning cards with its flagship show, Fear Factor – Khatron Ke Khiladi. The show was shot entirely in the locales of South Africa with women celebrities and, most important, had Hindi film actor Akshay Kumar as the host. This helped Colors build a huge viewership base.
The launch episode recorded a TVR of 1.72, which went up to 3.3 in the finale. The fiction programmes on Colors – Balika Vadhu, Jai Shri Krishna and Mohe Rang De – gained immensely due to the action hero's muscle. In fact, Balika Vadhu – the story of an eight-year-old who is married off and the trials and tribulations in her life – has become a runaway success.
With an unbeatable programming lineup, marketing blitzkrieg and a brilliant distribution strategy, Colors jumped two spots to occupy the No. 3 position in the second week of its launch. In Week 31, Colors had garnered a share of 10 per cent in the overall GEC pie, beating Sony, NDTV Imagine, 9X and STAR One.
However, the battle was far from over. After the roaring success of Fear Factor, the launch of Bigg Boss 2 with actor Shilpa Shetty and the increasing popularity of Balika Vadhu brought Colors on par with Zee. In Week 37, while Zee TV managed to grab an 18 per cent share of the GEC pie, Colors moved up to 17 per cent. From then on, Colors kept inching closer to Zee, beating it on some occasions, before finally settling down in the No. 2 position from Week 40 onwards.
"Colors gained share from all the channels in the GEC space. Its share today stands at a formidable 23 per cent, second only to STAR Plus. Zee's share is down from 30 to 21 per cent. SET is a distant No. 4 at 9 per cent," says S Yesudas, chief operating officer, Media Direction.
As per the data for the last week of 2008, Colors has inched even closer to STAR Plus, with a difference of merely 4 percentage points between them. STAR Plus commands a relative share of 27 per cent.
New programming
The year was historic for the general entertainment genre also because it saw the end of three of the longest running soaps on Indian television: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki and Kasautii Zindagi Kay. It was a turning point for STAR Plus as well, because all three were its properties, produced by Balaji Telefilms.
New and fresh programmes entered the viewers' living rooms (see chart), including Nachle Ve with Saroj Khan on NDTV Imagine, Balika Vadhu on Colors, and Aap Ki Kachehri on STAR Plus.
"There has been a slight shift in the approach towards programming and the viewers have liked that. Different subjects and treatment of programmes was a refreshing change from the 'saas-bahu' routine," says Nikhil Rangnekar, executive director, West, Starcom India.
The proof is the ever increasing popularity of Balika Vadhu. As per TAM Media Research data for Week 39, it emerged as the most watched show on television, garnering a TVR of 6.8 and beating Bidaai on STAR Plus, which had been topping the charts till then. The two soaps continue to vie for the top spot.
Rajesh Kamat, chief executive officer, Colors, hails this as one of the most significant changes on television. "The entry of the three new players heralded a new era in the television industry of India, jolting programming from inertia and challenging the status quo. Differentiated programming was accepted," he says.
The GECs sought divine intervention by launching mythological programmes. It was a trend that every channel caught on to throughout the year. The trendsetter was Ramayana on NDTV Imagine, which garnered a significant viewership; Balaji launched its version of Mahabharat on 9X; STAR Plus had Sai Baba and Jai Maa Durga; Zee TV aired Jai Ganesh and the old Ramayan; and Colors served up Jai Shri Krishna.
Innovations
The year also saw a lot of innovative content tieups between television shows and movies. Apart from star anchors – Akshay Kumar in Fear Factor, Salman Khan in Dus Ka Dum, Shilpa Shetty in Bigg Boss 2 – attracting eyeballs, film producers also tied up with television shows to promote their movies.
"The line between television and Bollywood blurred, with the big screen demi-gods making a beeline for shows on the small screen," Kamat says. Colors roping in Akshay Kumar created uproar in the media, as did the sum of money that he was reportedly paid for it. Be it hosting, participating in reality shows or making guest appearances on TV shows, film stars took the television screen by storm.
It seemed to be a win-win situation, as television channels witnessed an upswing in ratings when celebrities made appearances on TV shows. Abhishek Bachhan on Balika Vadhu, Aamir Khan on Dus Ka Dum and Akshay Kumar in Bigg Boss 2 worked magic on the shows' TVRs. Aamir Khan's appearance in Dus Ka Dum, for instance, drove the show's TVR to 3.38, as compared to its average TVR of 2.
Overview
In 2008, the share of the Hindi GEC genre grew to 23.4 per cent from 22.6 per cent in 2007. However, individual channels witnessed a decline in their respective shares, as more players joined the race (see chart).
STAR Plus' relative share fell to 27 per cent, whereas Zee's decreased to 20 per cent. Sony's average share in 2008 was 8 per cent; STAR One and 9X managed a 7 per cent and 6 per cent share, respectively. New entrant Colors, despite launching in the third quarter of the year, managed to grab an average share of 8 per cent, while NDTV Imagine got a 7 per cent share.
Overall, 2008 has been an action-packed year for the GECs, replete with many nail-biting moments. Media observers believe that the trend of fresh and progressive programming will become stronger in 2009. With more launches scheduled in the genre, more upheavals are on the cards, too.
Share of PUT Year 2007 Year 2008
Star Plus 34 27
Zee TV 24 20
Sony Entertainment TV 11 8
Sahara One 8 6
DD1 8 4
Star One 6 7
SAB 5 3
Star Utsav 3 3
Zee Smile 1 1
9X* 0 6
Bindass* 0 1
Hum TV 0 0
Zee Next* 0 1
NDTV Imagine* 0 7
Colors* 0 8
Entertainment - India;Indi Media buys out NewsX
Dhaleta Surender Kumar
The final verdict is out after days of speculations on the buy out of NewsX, the television news venture of INX Network, the company promoted by Indrani Mukerjea.
NewsX has been bought over by Indi Media, a company promoted by Vinay Chhajlani and Jehangir Pocha. Chhajlani is one of the promoters and CEO of Madhya Pradesh based Hindi daily, NaiDunia. Pocha, till date, was editor of Businessworld. He quit Businessworld, today.
The development has been confirmed to afaqs! by Chhajlani as well as Pocha
The final verdict is out after days of speculations on the buy out of NewsX, the television news venture of INX Network, the company promoted by Indrani Mukerjea.
NewsX has been bought over by Indi Media, a company promoted by Vinay Chhajlani and Jehangir Pocha. Chhajlani is one of the promoters and CEO of Madhya Pradesh based Hindi daily, NaiDunia. Pocha, till date, was editor of Businessworld. He quit Businessworld, today.
The development has been confirmed to afaqs! by Chhajlani as well as Pocha
Tech - Test Center review: The 21st-century BlackBerry
San Francisco - The BlackBerry Bold, RIM's new executive QWERTY handset, enters the scene at a time when the utility of the fixed keyboard is under debate. This review overlapped with my longer-term evaluation of touchscreen and touch/keyboard devices, including the BlackBerry Storm, T-Mobile G1, AT&T Fuze (HTC Touch Pro), HTC Touch Diamond, and of course the iPhone 3G. I've had to ponder the question myself: Is the Bold worth its $299 price tag, much less worth a look at all?
I started out unimpressed, but after AT&T pushed out some substantial firmware fixes to the device, I resolved that the Bold has a real place in RIM's lineup and the enterprise mobile market. The Bold respects the enterprise formula, keeping sacred everything that makes the QWERTY BlackBerry a unique business and IT tool but enhancing it in well-selected places. The enhancements start with a platform modernization that exploits a fast CPU and accelerated graphics, enabling an updated GUI framework that makes high-res, widescreen QWERTY look like a million bucks.
Live for the message
Messaging (e-mail, IM, SMS) is still job one. The global BlackBerry notification and delivery infrastructure turns all messages into instant messages. Even polled IMAP and POP mailboxes are monitored by RIM's servers, not your handset, so BlackBerry magic such as prioritized assured delivery, on-demand attachment download, and initial fragment push are part of the coverage plan. No back end is required. If you write as often as you read, there is still no substitute for fixed QWERTY.
Beyond business as usual, Bold takes on a state-of-the-art feature roster, including 3G (UMTS on AT&T's network); 802.11b/g Wi-Fi; GPS; video and still camera; Bluetooth stereo headphones (A2DP) and Bluetooth remote (AVRCP) profiles; and external microSDHC storage expansion. The handset is wrapped in a handsome and durable chassis that incorporates a padded grip, and the piano-black face has broad, well-lit keys and buttons. It looks great from all angles and feels good in either hand, and when it's time to type, the screen stays the same size.
RIM finally let its own programmers use the BlackBerry platform's GUI frameworks for a QWERTY phone. The themable home screens look gorgeous, and you can reorganize app icons to your liking. You'll need to, since AT&T loaded Bold's default home menu with consumery music, video, and ringtone stores. The carrier also manipulates the menu via over-the-air updates, a few of which AT&T issued during my testing. You can stuff little-used or unused icons into folders.
Text remains BlackBerry's stock in trade, and believe it or not, the Bold's text clarity exceeds the BlackBerry Storm's, even with the smaller display. The tiny widescreen is sharper than ink. Although I frequently adjust the text size on the BlackBerry 8800 I carry to compensate for eye fatigue, I find that I can read the BlackBerry Bold at its minimum point size, whatever the time or time zone.
Browser blues
Like other BlackBerrys, the Bold comes up short as a mobile browser. Implementing an interpreted language (JavaScript) in an interpreted language (Java) carries unavoidable drawbacks. On the Bold, the native Web browser is slow and sometimes unstable even over 3G and Wi-Fi links when JavaScript is enabled. In addition, it lacks a tabbed or multisite view, column mode fails to flow text to fill the width of the screen, and rendering errors are frequent on complex pages. The Bold's snappy 3G and Wi-Fi performance do become apparent when you turn off the standard browser's JavaScript interpreter, download the freeware alternative Opera Mini, or lean toward sites designed for mobile devices.
RIM's browser loads content serially instead of using multiple simultaneous TCP connections. Opera Mini, a freeware browser that takes a server-side approach to Web acceleration, is a worthy replacement. Opera Mini passes URL requests to its servers, which compress the content before delivering it to the browser. A side benefit is that Opera Mini does not impose a limit on file download sizes, so you can pull down that 30MB podcast over 3G on your way to the airport. BlackBerry's native browser caps downloads at 5MB.
The Bold can do more with downloaded documents than yesterday's BlackBerrys, thanks to DataViz's Documents to Go. This suite equips the BlackBerry Bold (Verizon bundles the same suite with the BlackBerry Storm) for offline viewing of Office and PDF documents, including e-mail attachments. But it also permits the editing of Office files, complete with formatting and change tracking, and a small one-time upgrade charge enables creation of new Office documents.
AT&T's bundled turn-by-turn navigation software is TeleNav, a favorite and my perennial pick for killer app on any mobile platform it graces. AT&T seemingly engaged in a bit of turf protection by blocking operation of BlackBerry Maps -- the simple, fast, and free navigation tool that RIM puts in every box. Google Maps, though inferior to BlackBerry Maps for navigation, still functions.
For pros only
RIM faces a lot of competition in the enterprise and professional mobile space, not least from its own new and refurbished handsets. BlackBerry Bold puts a needed new spin on old-school QWERTY. Yes, it's a ploy to reach into the pockets of traditional BlackBerry owners who envied the Storm's after-hours potential but wouldn't lop off their keyboards or sacrifice mature enterprise firmware to get it. The Bold updates QWERTY-device feel, fun, and functionality without disruptive compromises that swing it toward the consumer realm.
Is it worth $299? If you're carrying a BlackBerry, and you are among those serious users who type as much as they read, the Bold is worth every penny. The Bold fulfills its new supporting roles as USB storage, media player, video camera, Wi-Fi client, and desktop stand-in quite well. It won't take the market by storm, but it will give those BlackBerry users and enterprises that can afford it a platform for more ambitious applications. Given that the Bold is still a working person's BlackBerry, it makes a more pragmatic perquisite than most other gadgets
I started out unimpressed, but after AT&T pushed out some substantial firmware fixes to the device, I resolved that the Bold has a real place in RIM's lineup and the enterprise mobile market. The Bold respects the enterprise formula, keeping sacred everything that makes the QWERTY BlackBerry a unique business and IT tool but enhancing it in well-selected places. The enhancements start with a platform modernization that exploits a fast CPU and accelerated graphics, enabling an updated GUI framework that makes high-res, widescreen QWERTY look like a million bucks.
Live for the message
Messaging (e-mail, IM, SMS) is still job one. The global BlackBerry notification and delivery infrastructure turns all messages into instant messages. Even polled IMAP and POP mailboxes are monitored by RIM's servers, not your handset, so BlackBerry magic such as prioritized assured delivery, on-demand attachment download, and initial fragment push are part of the coverage plan. No back end is required. If you write as often as you read, there is still no substitute for fixed QWERTY.
Beyond business as usual, Bold takes on a state-of-the-art feature roster, including 3G (UMTS on AT&T's network); 802.11b/g Wi-Fi; GPS; video and still camera; Bluetooth stereo headphones (A2DP) and Bluetooth remote (AVRCP) profiles; and external microSDHC storage expansion. The handset is wrapped in a handsome and durable chassis that incorporates a padded grip, and the piano-black face has broad, well-lit keys and buttons. It looks great from all angles and feels good in either hand, and when it's time to type, the screen stays the same size.
RIM finally let its own programmers use the BlackBerry platform's GUI frameworks for a QWERTY phone. The themable home screens look gorgeous, and you can reorganize app icons to your liking. You'll need to, since AT&T loaded Bold's default home menu with consumery music, video, and ringtone stores. The carrier also manipulates the menu via over-the-air updates, a few of which AT&T issued during my testing. You can stuff little-used or unused icons into folders.
Text remains BlackBerry's stock in trade, and believe it or not, the Bold's text clarity exceeds the BlackBerry Storm's, even with the smaller display. The tiny widescreen is sharper than ink. Although I frequently adjust the text size on the BlackBerry 8800 I carry to compensate for eye fatigue, I find that I can read the BlackBerry Bold at its minimum point size, whatever the time or time zone.
Browser blues
Like other BlackBerrys, the Bold comes up short as a mobile browser. Implementing an interpreted language (JavaScript) in an interpreted language (Java) carries unavoidable drawbacks. On the Bold, the native Web browser is slow and sometimes unstable even over 3G and Wi-Fi links when JavaScript is enabled. In addition, it lacks a tabbed or multisite view, column mode fails to flow text to fill the width of the screen, and rendering errors are frequent on complex pages. The Bold's snappy 3G and Wi-Fi performance do become apparent when you turn off the standard browser's JavaScript interpreter, download the freeware alternative Opera Mini, or lean toward sites designed for mobile devices.
RIM's browser loads content serially instead of using multiple simultaneous TCP connections. Opera Mini, a freeware browser that takes a server-side approach to Web acceleration, is a worthy replacement. Opera Mini passes URL requests to its servers, which compress the content before delivering it to the browser. A side benefit is that Opera Mini does not impose a limit on file download sizes, so you can pull down that 30MB podcast over 3G on your way to the airport. BlackBerry's native browser caps downloads at 5MB.
The Bold can do more with downloaded documents than yesterday's BlackBerrys, thanks to DataViz's Documents to Go. This suite equips the BlackBerry Bold (Verizon bundles the same suite with the BlackBerry Storm) for offline viewing of Office and PDF documents, including e-mail attachments. But it also permits the editing of Office files, complete with formatting and change tracking, and a small one-time upgrade charge enables creation of new Office documents.
AT&T's bundled turn-by-turn navigation software is TeleNav, a favorite and my perennial pick for killer app on any mobile platform it graces. AT&T seemingly engaged in a bit of turf protection by blocking operation of BlackBerry Maps -- the simple, fast, and free navigation tool that RIM puts in every box. Google Maps, though inferior to BlackBerry Maps for navigation, still functions.
For pros only
RIM faces a lot of competition in the enterprise and professional mobile space, not least from its own new and refurbished handsets. BlackBerry Bold puts a needed new spin on old-school QWERTY. Yes, it's a ploy to reach into the pockets of traditional BlackBerry owners who envied the Storm's after-hours potential but wouldn't lop off their keyboards or sacrifice mature enterprise firmware to get it. The Bold updates QWERTY-device feel, fun, and functionality without disruptive compromises that swing it toward the consumer realm.
Is it worth $299? If you're carrying a BlackBerry, and you are among those serious users who type as much as they read, the Bold is worth every penny. The Bold fulfills its new supporting roles as USB storage, media player, video camera, Wi-Fi client, and desktop stand-in quite well. It won't take the market by storm, but it will give those BlackBerry users and enterprises that can afford it a platform for more ambitious applications. Given that the Bold is still a working person's BlackBerry, it makes a more pragmatic perquisite than most other gadgets
Columnists - Jack & Suzy Welch;The Loyalty Fallacy
How should leaders manage loyalty? Some bosses hang their hats on it; to them, loyalty differentiates good employees from bad. But I've seen weak employees who are retained because they're loyal drag a company down. When and where is loyalty important? -- George DeTellis Jr., Orlando
For starters, we can certainly tell you when loyalty feels like the most important thing in the world: during layoffs. Under such fraught circumstances, longtime employees very naturally tend to think of all the years they've served, all the hours they've toiled, all the times they've "been there" for the team or company. And they wonder: "Didn't my loyalty mean anything?"
Meanwhile, their managers are also feeling shaken, although not from shock and anger but from embarrassment and guilt. Because most managers know full well that employees shouldn't discover which corporate values matter most on their last day of work. Values should be a first-day, every-day topic, especially in recessionary times when people deserve to understand which behaviors constitute job-protecting performance.
And that's rarely loyalty alone.
Now, we're not revving up here to announce, "Loyalty is dead," a line that's been bandied about since the early 1980s, when foreign rivals forced many American corporations to lay off armies of people who presumed they had guaranteed lifetime work. As you note in your question, plenty of managers still "hang their hats" on loyalty in its many forms. There's personal loyalty, in which a loyal employee puts the boss at the center of his world in a fawning, obsequious way that everyone sees -- except the boss. And there's full-attendance loyalty, based on relentless showing up. And there's good, old-fashioned loyalty to the company, as if it were a nation-state. Such behaviors do warm the cockles of some managers' hearts and can result in job security.
But not often. These days, it's far more common for managers to protect and reward employees who consistently deliver results. We're not saying that loyal employees aren't given any due. When the economy is strong, a record of loyalty can be enough to "give cover" to an employee with mediocre performance. But when the going gets tough and staff reductions become necessary, the vast majority of managers act in the best interests of the company. Their top performers will stay, loyal or not. And marginal employees -- again, loyal or not -- will be asked to move on.
Is that wrong? Not in our view. Companies can win only if they field the best players, and should that sound mercenary, it's important to remember that, ultimately, everyone in a society benefits when companies thrive and pay taxes. Indeed, if our economy is to get back on its feet, we need companies that are meritocracies now more than ever.
So loyalty isn't dead, but rewarding loyalty without performance should be. It's shortsighted and wrongheaded.
But more wrong still is how few managers communicate the truth about loyalty before they're forced to. Instead, it's usually only as they're handing poor, unsuspecting Joe or Mary their pink slip that they finally admit: "Look, all these years, you came in every day, and you did your job, but you weren't actually very good. And now that someone has to go, it needs to be you."
What a shame. And how unnecessary, too. Any company -- no matter what its size or business -- can have a candid, rigorous performance appraisal system that clarifies which values and behaviors matter and in what measure and, just as importantly, lets employees know where they stand relative to their peers. Granted, even the best, most consistently conducted appraisal systems won't make layoffs easy. But they can go a long way toward taking out the surprise, and at the very least, they bring the usually hushed-up matter of loyalty-vs.-results to the surface for all to see and understand.
Over the next year, the recession is sure to teach every manager at least a few important lessons the hard way. If you haven't been clear up until this point about your organization's real values, you'll likely never again allow a vague or phony performance appraisal to slip by you. When it comes to loyalty, guilt is a great teacher.
For starters, we can certainly tell you when loyalty feels like the most important thing in the world: during layoffs. Under such fraught circumstances, longtime employees very naturally tend to think of all the years they've served, all the hours they've toiled, all the times they've "been there" for the team or company. And they wonder: "Didn't my loyalty mean anything?"
Meanwhile, their managers are also feeling shaken, although not from shock and anger but from embarrassment and guilt. Because most managers know full well that employees shouldn't discover which corporate values matter most on their last day of work. Values should be a first-day, every-day topic, especially in recessionary times when people deserve to understand which behaviors constitute job-protecting performance.
And that's rarely loyalty alone.
Now, we're not revving up here to announce, "Loyalty is dead," a line that's been bandied about since the early 1980s, when foreign rivals forced many American corporations to lay off armies of people who presumed they had guaranteed lifetime work. As you note in your question, plenty of managers still "hang their hats" on loyalty in its many forms. There's personal loyalty, in which a loyal employee puts the boss at the center of his world in a fawning, obsequious way that everyone sees -- except the boss. And there's full-attendance loyalty, based on relentless showing up. And there's good, old-fashioned loyalty to the company, as if it were a nation-state. Such behaviors do warm the cockles of some managers' hearts and can result in job security.
But not often. These days, it's far more common for managers to protect and reward employees who consistently deliver results. We're not saying that loyal employees aren't given any due. When the economy is strong, a record of loyalty can be enough to "give cover" to an employee with mediocre performance. But when the going gets tough and staff reductions become necessary, the vast majority of managers act in the best interests of the company. Their top performers will stay, loyal or not. And marginal employees -- again, loyal or not -- will be asked to move on.
Is that wrong? Not in our view. Companies can win only if they field the best players, and should that sound mercenary, it's important to remember that, ultimately, everyone in a society benefits when companies thrive and pay taxes. Indeed, if our economy is to get back on its feet, we need companies that are meritocracies now more than ever.
So loyalty isn't dead, but rewarding loyalty without performance should be. It's shortsighted and wrongheaded.
But more wrong still is how few managers communicate the truth about loyalty before they're forced to. Instead, it's usually only as they're handing poor, unsuspecting Joe or Mary their pink slip that they finally admit: "Look, all these years, you came in every day, and you did your job, but you weren't actually very good. And now that someone has to go, it needs to be you."
What a shame. And how unnecessary, too. Any company -- no matter what its size or business -- can have a candid, rigorous performance appraisal system that clarifies which values and behaviors matter and in what measure and, just as importantly, lets employees know where they stand relative to their peers. Granted, even the best, most consistently conducted appraisal systems won't make layoffs easy. But they can go a long way toward taking out the surprise, and at the very least, they bring the usually hushed-up matter of loyalty-vs.-results to the surface for all to see and understand.
Over the next year, the recession is sure to teach every manager at least a few important lessons the hard way. If you haven't been clear up until this point about your organization's real values, you'll likely never again allow a vague or phony performance appraisal to slip by you. When it comes to loyalty, guilt is a great teacher.
Tech - New TV trends: Internet movies, 3-D, power saving
LAS VEGAS - TV makers are adding sexy new features like streaming Internet movies and 3-D capabilities this year, betting that they can keep consumers away from basic, no-frills sets, even in a weak economy.
The manufacturers are fighting an unhappy trend. DisplaySearch, a research firm, forecasts that global sales of LCD TVs, the most popular kind, will fall 16 percent in 2009 to $64 billion. That would be the first sales decline since the technology debuted in TVs in 2000.
To entice consumers to come back, manufacturers are touting relatively inexpensive advances. One is that many top-line and even some value-priced TVs will connect to the Internet.
Such TVs started appearing a year ago with limited functions, like being able to display news stories and weather reports. Now, back-end systems and partnerships to provide streaming movies are coming together.
For instance, LG Electronics Inc. and Vizio Corp. announced this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show that some of their TVs will be able to show video from Netflix Inc.'s streaming service. LG said the service would add $200 to $300 to the price of a TV. Panasonic Corp. and Sony Corp. TVs will show videos from Amazon.com Inc.'s Unbox service.
Yahoo Inc. is emerging as the leading provider of other Internet data services to TVs, through something it calls the Widget Engine. Sony, LG, Toshiba Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. all plan to introduce TVs that can grab Flickr photos, YouTube videos and news stories through a broadband connection.
Two other new features cut across the top-tier TV models: improved handling of fast-moving scenes and a reduction of power use.
Last year, manufacturers touted sets that display 120 frames per second, for sharper and smoother action and panning scenes. TV signals and discs have only 24 to 30 frames per second, so the sets compute more frames to stick between the existing ones.
This year, most manufacturers are raising the bar to 240 frames per second, but not by computing more new frames. Instead, the backlight will switch on and off very quickly, fooling the eye into perceiving even smoother movement.
Manufacturers have also jumped on the opportunity to get their sets certified under the new, much tougher Energy Star requirements set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In November, the agency introduced limits for the power use of switched-on TVs. The old Energy Star rules only specified the power that TVs could use in standby mode, with the screen off.
The goal for the Energy Star program is to recognize the most energy-efficient 25 percent of a product category. But most new TVs announced at the show will meet the requirements, so the EPA will likely have to raise the bar.
Sony introduced what it called its "first green line" of LCD TVs. The "Eco Bravia" models will use 40 percent less power than last year's models, exceeding the latest Energy Star requirements. Samsung and Panasonic announced TVs with similar cuts in power consumption, without branding them as "green."
Samsung, the world's largest maker of TVs, is making a big push in LCD TVs that are backlit by light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, rather than the standard fluorescent tubes. This is less radical than dispensing with LCDs altogether to use a different technology known as organic LEDs, yet it promises power savings and eye-popping colors and contrast. LED sets have been on the market in very small quantities, held back by their higher cost.
"We are going to create the market" for LED TVs, said Jong Woo Park, president of the Korean company's digital media division. He didn't say what the new sets would cost.
These energy-saving touches give the new TVs a more subdued tenor than the industry offered last year at CES. Then, there was an emphasis on bigger screens and expensive emerging technologies like organic LEDs, which promise ultra-thin, ultra-bright TVs in the future.
"You can't be too thin. But will people pay extra for it in this economy?" asked Scott Ramirez, vice president of marketing for TVs at Toshiba America Consumer Products. "I have yet to find a person who will say that their flat panel is too fat."
Ramirez also said that while the industry likes to brag about screens with diagonal measurements as large as 150 inches, very few people buy sets costing more than $2,500. That means that practically all sets sold are 55 inches or less. The only major manufacturer that pushed the size envelope at CES this year was Sharp, which introduced an 82-inch screen to fill a gap between its models at 65 inches and 108 inches.
Perhaps the strangest development in TVs is this year's focus on sets capable of showing three dimensions. This idea has been touted since the 1950s. But interest has faded every time, and 3-D viewing has never quite moved beyond the gimmick stage, though the latest generation of digital cinema projectors has enabled widespread 3-D releases of some films.
This time there's a concerted effort from TV makers to make 3-D viewing in the home happen.
"I believe 3-D is the next big wave coming to the consumer electronics industry," said Woo Paik, chief technology officer at LG.
Panasonic Corp. is pushing the hardest, and wants the industry to unite on ways to get 3-D content to TVs. Many TV sets are already capable of showing 3-D images that can be viewed with special glasses. But there are no discs or disc players for 3-D content, nor are there 3-D broadcasts.
Panasonic wants to solve that problem by working with the Blu-ray Disc Association and other bodies to set standards for 3-D delivery systems, resulting in commercial products by next year, according to Yoshi Yamada, chairman and chief executive of Panasonic North America.
The manufacturers are fighting an unhappy trend. DisplaySearch, a research firm, forecasts that global sales of LCD TVs, the most popular kind, will fall 16 percent in 2009 to $64 billion. That would be the first sales decline since the technology debuted in TVs in 2000.
To entice consumers to come back, manufacturers are touting relatively inexpensive advances. One is that many top-line and even some value-priced TVs will connect to the Internet.
Such TVs started appearing a year ago with limited functions, like being able to display news stories and weather reports. Now, back-end systems and partnerships to provide streaming movies are coming together.
For instance, LG Electronics Inc. and Vizio Corp. announced this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show that some of their TVs will be able to show video from Netflix Inc.'s streaming service. LG said the service would add $200 to $300 to the price of a TV. Panasonic Corp. and Sony Corp. TVs will show videos from Amazon.com Inc.'s Unbox service.
Yahoo Inc. is emerging as the leading provider of other Internet data services to TVs, through something it calls the Widget Engine. Sony, LG, Toshiba Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. all plan to introduce TVs that can grab Flickr photos, YouTube videos and news stories through a broadband connection.
Two other new features cut across the top-tier TV models: improved handling of fast-moving scenes and a reduction of power use.
Last year, manufacturers touted sets that display 120 frames per second, for sharper and smoother action and panning scenes. TV signals and discs have only 24 to 30 frames per second, so the sets compute more frames to stick between the existing ones.
This year, most manufacturers are raising the bar to 240 frames per second, but not by computing more new frames. Instead, the backlight will switch on and off very quickly, fooling the eye into perceiving even smoother movement.
Manufacturers have also jumped on the opportunity to get their sets certified under the new, much tougher Energy Star requirements set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In November, the agency introduced limits for the power use of switched-on TVs. The old Energy Star rules only specified the power that TVs could use in standby mode, with the screen off.
The goal for the Energy Star program is to recognize the most energy-efficient 25 percent of a product category. But most new TVs announced at the show will meet the requirements, so the EPA will likely have to raise the bar.
Sony introduced what it called its "first green line" of LCD TVs. The "Eco Bravia" models will use 40 percent less power than last year's models, exceeding the latest Energy Star requirements. Samsung and Panasonic announced TVs with similar cuts in power consumption, without branding them as "green."
Samsung, the world's largest maker of TVs, is making a big push in LCD TVs that are backlit by light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, rather than the standard fluorescent tubes. This is less radical than dispensing with LCDs altogether to use a different technology known as organic LEDs, yet it promises power savings and eye-popping colors and contrast. LED sets have been on the market in very small quantities, held back by their higher cost.
"We are going to create the market" for LED TVs, said Jong Woo Park, president of the Korean company's digital media division. He didn't say what the new sets would cost.
These energy-saving touches give the new TVs a more subdued tenor than the industry offered last year at CES. Then, there was an emphasis on bigger screens and expensive emerging technologies like organic LEDs, which promise ultra-thin, ultra-bright TVs in the future.
"You can't be too thin. But will people pay extra for it in this economy?" asked Scott Ramirez, vice president of marketing for TVs at Toshiba America Consumer Products. "I have yet to find a person who will say that their flat panel is too fat."
Ramirez also said that while the industry likes to brag about screens with diagonal measurements as large as 150 inches, very few people buy sets costing more than $2,500. That means that practically all sets sold are 55 inches or less. The only major manufacturer that pushed the size envelope at CES this year was Sharp, which introduced an 82-inch screen to fill a gap between its models at 65 inches and 108 inches.
Perhaps the strangest development in TVs is this year's focus on sets capable of showing three dimensions. This idea has been touted since the 1950s. But interest has faded every time, and 3-D viewing has never quite moved beyond the gimmick stage, though the latest generation of digital cinema projectors has enabled widespread 3-D releases of some films.
This time there's a concerted effort from TV makers to make 3-D viewing in the home happen.
"I believe 3-D is the next big wave coming to the consumer electronics industry," said Woo Paik, chief technology officer at LG.
Panasonic Corp. is pushing the hardest, and wants the industry to unite on ways to get 3-D content to TVs. Many TV sets are already capable of showing 3-D images that can be viewed with special glasses. But there are no discs or disc players for 3-D content, nor are there 3-D broadcasts.
Panasonic wants to solve that problem by working with the Blu-ray Disc Association and other bodies to set standards for 3-D delivery systems, resulting in commercial products by next year, according to Yoshi Yamada, chairman and chief executive of Panasonic North America.
Tech - Sony making video bifocals and bendable televisions
Glen Chapman
LAS VEGAS, (AFP) – Sony chief executive Sir Howard Stringer unveiled prototypes of video bifocals and bendable televisions as he kicked off a gadget-rich Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Stringer, with help from film celebrity Tom Hanks, unveiled the future products after Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) chief Gary Shapiro called on president-elect Barack Obama to support the industry.
"Obama is the first digital president," Shapiro said while outlining the association's political agenda.
"We don't seek a hand-out. We say embrace us. Let us innovate. Let us create. Our economy will flourish. Innovation is the best medicine to end economic stagnation."
The CEA expects the market for televisions and gadgets to rebound in 2010 after a rocky 2009.
Obama should get more visas issued so US technology firms can import much-needed talent and champion free trade pacts to clear paths for exporting creations, according to Shapiro.
"The need to protect and promote innovation has never been greater," he said. "In short, do the consumer electronics industry no harm."
The CES opening presentation veered from political to comic as movie-star Hanks strode on stage and poked fun at Shapiro and Sony before introducing the main act -- Stringer.
"Sir Howard Stringer is an old buddy," Hanks said after joking that the only reason he was there is because Sony studios keeps mandating CES appearances in his movie contracts.
"If Blu-ray works out, he will be known as Lord Howard Stringer," said Hanks.
Sony Blu-ray technology has been riding high after it won a format war with Toshiba-backed HD-DVD systems a year ago.
Stringer enlisted Hanks to demonstrate video bifocals being developed by Sony.
The glasses enable wearers to observe the world around them while video is streamed on mini-screens crafted into bottom corners of the lenses.
"When wearing these glasses you can actually watch a movie and watch Tom Hanks at the same time," Stringer said while doing just that.
Hanks tried on a pair and remarked they would benefit from some fine tuning to prevent real-world scenes from blurring as one's head moves.
"Generally thinking, a plus," Stringer said after Hanks backed off stage firing quips as he went. "This is the third time I've done this, and it may be the last."
Stringer showed off new Sony gadgets including a Cybershot camera with built-in wireless capabilities that let users upload images to the Internet using "hot spots."
He also unveiled a picture-frame size "alarm clock" that wakes users with images, music or video of their choosing and then serves up news, weather, sports or other day-starting data from the Internet.
A video replica of London's famed Big Ben clock tower chimed from the new generation digital alarm clock Stringer had on stage.
"Wouldn't you like to wake up to Big Ben?" Stringer asked rhetorically before finishing with a quip. "The clock, I mean."
He treated his audience to a peek at a Flex OLED television so thin and malleable that he was able to bend one while it played a video of singer Beyonce' performing.
"How many people get the chance to squeeze Beyonce'?" Stringer queried playfully.
Stringer wrapped his presentation with a clip of a 3-D animated movie being made with new Sony cinematic equipment.
"I love this technology," famed film producer John Lasseter of Pixar said in a cameo appearance on stage with Stringer. "The future of this technology is pretty amazing.
Lasseter added that all Pixar's future films will be in 3-D.
LAS VEGAS, (AFP) – Sony chief executive Sir Howard Stringer unveiled prototypes of video bifocals and bendable televisions as he kicked off a gadget-rich Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Stringer, with help from film celebrity Tom Hanks, unveiled the future products after Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) chief Gary Shapiro called on president-elect Barack Obama to support the industry.
"Obama is the first digital president," Shapiro said while outlining the association's political agenda.
"We don't seek a hand-out. We say embrace us. Let us innovate. Let us create. Our economy will flourish. Innovation is the best medicine to end economic stagnation."
The CEA expects the market for televisions and gadgets to rebound in 2010 after a rocky 2009.
Obama should get more visas issued so US technology firms can import much-needed talent and champion free trade pacts to clear paths for exporting creations, according to Shapiro.
"The need to protect and promote innovation has never been greater," he said. "In short, do the consumer electronics industry no harm."
The CES opening presentation veered from political to comic as movie-star Hanks strode on stage and poked fun at Shapiro and Sony before introducing the main act -- Stringer.
"Sir Howard Stringer is an old buddy," Hanks said after joking that the only reason he was there is because Sony studios keeps mandating CES appearances in his movie contracts.
"If Blu-ray works out, he will be known as Lord Howard Stringer," said Hanks.
Sony Blu-ray technology has been riding high after it won a format war with Toshiba-backed HD-DVD systems a year ago.
Stringer enlisted Hanks to demonstrate video bifocals being developed by Sony.
The glasses enable wearers to observe the world around them while video is streamed on mini-screens crafted into bottom corners of the lenses.
"When wearing these glasses you can actually watch a movie and watch Tom Hanks at the same time," Stringer said while doing just that.
Hanks tried on a pair and remarked they would benefit from some fine tuning to prevent real-world scenes from blurring as one's head moves.
"Generally thinking, a plus," Stringer said after Hanks backed off stage firing quips as he went. "This is the third time I've done this, and it may be the last."
Stringer showed off new Sony gadgets including a Cybershot camera with built-in wireless capabilities that let users upload images to the Internet using "hot spots."
He also unveiled a picture-frame size "alarm clock" that wakes users with images, music or video of their choosing and then serves up news, weather, sports or other day-starting data from the Internet.
A video replica of London's famed Big Ben clock tower chimed from the new generation digital alarm clock Stringer had on stage.
"Wouldn't you like to wake up to Big Ben?" Stringer asked rhetorically before finishing with a quip. "The clock, I mean."
He treated his audience to a peek at a Flex OLED television so thin and malleable that he was able to bend one while it played a video of singer Beyonce' performing.
"How many people get the chance to squeeze Beyonce'?" Stringer queried playfully.
Stringer wrapped his presentation with a clip of a 3-D animated movie being made with new Sony cinematic equipment.
"I love this technology," famed film producer John Lasseter of Pixar said in a cameo appearance on stage with Stringer. "The future of this technology is pretty amazing.
Lasseter added that all Pixar's future films will be in 3-D.
Tech - Review;The Polaroid camera is back, in digital
LAS VEGAS - A strange little ritual used to go along with Polaroid cameras. The shooter would grab the print as it came out of the camera and wave it in the air, as if that would stimulate the chemicals and make the picture appear faster. It didn't. Yet it felt dumb to just stand there, waiting for the picture to develop.
Polaroid stopped making film packs last year, so this little piece of tech culture will soon be just a memory. But just as the film-based Polaroid camera is fading away, along comes its digital replacement.
That's right: Polaroid was set to announce Thursday at the International Consumer Electronics Show that it is introducing a digital camera that produces prints right on the spot. You can even call them "instant" prints, but they take nearly a minute to appear, so they're only as "instant" as the old film prints.
Essentially, the $200 PoGo is a camera that contains a built-in color printer. It produces 2-by-3 inch photos by selectively heating spots on specially treated paper. It has nothing to do with the old chemical Polaroid process, but the prints convey some of the same Pop Art charm: They're grainy and the colors are slightly off, with faces tending toward a deathly blue-green.
The camera is a successor to a standalone printer Polaroid put out last summer, designed to connect to camera phones and digital cameras. When I reviewed it, I noted that if Polaroid combined the printer with an image sensor and an LCD screen, it would be a resurrection of the instant camera. It turns out that's exactly what Polaroid was working on.
Unfortunately, you'll have to wait to get your hands on the camera: Polaroid says it will go on sale in late March or early April.
The camera is a fun product, and people who have been lamenting the death of the Polaroid will find solace in it. Its prints can be peeled apart to reveal a sticky back, which makes them easy to paste on fridges, doors, books, computers, cell phones and other surfaces you want to personalize. For a colleague's going-away party, I took a photo of him, printed out a couple of copies and pasted them on soda cans for an instant "commemorative edition."
The PoGo also has crucial advantages over the old film cameras. You can look at what you shot on the LCD screen, then choose whether you want to print it. You can produce multiple prints of an image, or print something you shot some time ago.
The standalone printer and the new camera use the same paper, which costs $5 for a 10-pack, or $13 for a 30-pack. It's expensive compared to inkjet paper, but about a third of the price of Polaroid film (there are still stocks in stores). No ink or toner is needed.
Despite its high points, The PoGo has the feel of a first-generation product, with noteworthy shortcomings.
As a camera, it's primitive. It doesn't have auto-focus, just a switch for infinity or close-up shots. The resolution is five megapixels, far below that of cheaper compact cameras. Neither of these things matter much for the quality of the prints, which are small and of low resolution anyway, but they do matter if you want to use the digital captures for other purposes.
Like some other cheap digital cameras, there's a substantial lag from the time you press the shutter to when the picture actually is taken, making it nearly impossible to capture action or fleeting expressions.
The prints are narrower than the image captured by the sensor, so you can't print the exact image you see on the screen. Substantial slices are trimmed from the top and bottom of the image to produce the print. In the default shooting mode, the camera doesn't warn you about this effect. You can crop images you've shot, zooming in on parts of them, but there is no way to reduce the size of the image to fit it all on the print.
The life of the rechargeable battery is limited, because of the energy needed to heat up the prints. You can get a bit more than 20 prints on one charge if you do them in one sitting. If you make a print only now and then, you'll get fewer on a charge, because the camera will need to heat up the print head every time. (The old Polaroid cameras didn't have battery problems, because most of them had batteries built into the film packs — a brilliant design. But enough nostalgia.)
None of these flaws are fatal. If you don't like the way the PoGo works as a camera, you can shoot pictures with another camera that uses an SD memory card, then move the card over to the PoGo and print the pictures. But if that's what you plan to use the camera for, you might as well buy the $100 PoGo Instant Mobile Printer, which is slightly smaller. It doesn't take memory cards, but will connect to other cameras with a USB cable.
The camera is much simpler to use than the printer, and it fits the bill for those who want to recapture the simple, spontaneous spirit of Polaroid shooting. Sadly, Polaroid declared bankruptcy in December because of troubles at its parent company. That puts the future supply of PoGo printer paper in question, but Polaroid is still operating, and it appears it will continue for the foreseeable future. In any case, it's likely the portable printing technology will live on, because what it does is unique.
Polaroid stopped making film packs last year, so this little piece of tech culture will soon be just a memory. But just as the film-based Polaroid camera is fading away, along comes its digital replacement.
That's right: Polaroid was set to announce Thursday at the International Consumer Electronics Show that it is introducing a digital camera that produces prints right on the spot. You can even call them "instant" prints, but they take nearly a minute to appear, so they're only as "instant" as the old film prints.
Essentially, the $200 PoGo is a camera that contains a built-in color printer. It produces 2-by-3 inch photos by selectively heating spots on specially treated paper. It has nothing to do with the old chemical Polaroid process, but the prints convey some of the same Pop Art charm: They're grainy and the colors are slightly off, with faces tending toward a deathly blue-green.
The camera is a successor to a standalone printer Polaroid put out last summer, designed to connect to camera phones and digital cameras. When I reviewed it, I noted that if Polaroid combined the printer with an image sensor and an LCD screen, it would be a resurrection of the instant camera. It turns out that's exactly what Polaroid was working on.
Unfortunately, you'll have to wait to get your hands on the camera: Polaroid says it will go on sale in late March or early April.
The camera is a fun product, and people who have been lamenting the death of the Polaroid will find solace in it. Its prints can be peeled apart to reveal a sticky back, which makes them easy to paste on fridges, doors, books, computers, cell phones and other surfaces you want to personalize. For a colleague's going-away party, I took a photo of him, printed out a couple of copies and pasted them on soda cans for an instant "commemorative edition."
The PoGo also has crucial advantages over the old film cameras. You can look at what you shot on the LCD screen, then choose whether you want to print it. You can produce multiple prints of an image, or print something you shot some time ago.
The standalone printer and the new camera use the same paper, which costs $5 for a 10-pack, or $13 for a 30-pack. It's expensive compared to inkjet paper, but about a third of the price of Polaroid film (there are still stocks in stores). No ink or toner is needed.
Despite its high points, The PoGo has the feel of a first-generation product, with noteworthy shortcomings.
As a camera, it's primitive. It doesn't have auto-focus, just a switch for infinity or close-up shots. The resolution is five megapixels, far below that of cheaper compact cameras. Neither of these things matter much for the quality of the prints, which are small and of low resolution anyway, but they do matter if you want to use the digital captures for other purposes.
Like some other cheap digital cameras, there's a substantial lag from the time you press the shutter to when the picture actually is taken, making it nearly impossible to capture action or fleeting expressions.
The prints are narrower than the image captured by the sensor, so you can't print the exact image you see on the screen. Substantial slices are trimmed from the top and bottom of the image to produce the print. In the default shooting mode, the camera doesn't warn you about this effect. You can crop images you've shot, zooming in on parts of them, but there is no way to reduce the size of the image to fit it all on the print.
The life of the rechargeable battery is limited, because of the energy needed to heat up the prints. You can get a bit more than 20 prints on one charge if you do them in one sitting. If you make a print only now and then, you'll get fewer on a charge, because the camera will need to heat up the print head every time. (The old Polaroid cameras didn't have battery problems, because most of them had batteries built into the film packs — a brilliant design. But enough nostalgia.)
None of these flaws are fatal. If you don't like the way the PoGo works as a camera, you can shoot pictures with another camera that uses an SD memory card, then move the card over to the PoGo and print the pictures. But if that's what you plan to use the camera for, you might as well buy the $100 PoGo Instant Mobile Printer, which is slightly smaller. It doesn't take memory cards, but will connect to other cameras with a USB cable.
The camera is much simpler to use than the printer, and it fits the bill for those who want to recapture the simple, spontaneous spirit of Polaroid shooting. Sadly, Polaroid declared bankruptcy in December because of troubles at its parent company. That puts the future supply of PoGo printer paper in question, but Polaroid is still operating, and it appears it will continue for the foreseeable future. In any case, it's likely the portable printing technology will live on, because what it does is unique.
Science - NASA: Keeping shuttle costs $3 billion yearly
Seth Borenstein
WASHINGTON – The cost of continuing the life of the space shuttle past next year's planned retirement is $3 billion a year plus extending the risk of a deadly accident, NASA's chief said Thursday.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told an industry group that NASA has looked into what it would take to keep flying the aging shuttle past 2010. Otherwise, it will mean five years of relying on Russia to get astronauts to the international space station.
After the 2003 Columbia tragedy, President George W. Bush declared that the U.S. should head back to the moon in a new spaceship and to pay for that, the space shuttle would have to be retired.
President-elect Barack Obama has proposed delaying the shuttle's retirement. He and others have expressed concern about the gap between the shuttle's retirement and the new ship's maiden launch.
The new spaceship — a capsule called Orion sitting on top of a new rocket called Ares I — won't be ready until March 2015, according to current schedules. However, if the government spends an additional $3 billion over the next two years on the new ship, that first launch could happen a year earlier, Griffin said. He said building the rocket will cost $2.7 billion.
There are geopolitical reasons — a matter of American pride and standing in the world — for extending the shuttle's life, Griffin said. However, there are engineering reasons not to do that. Keeping the shuttle flying would divert effort away from a new ship to one that is almost 30 years old.
The choice will be up to the new president and Congress. NASA is finishing up a study on what extending the space shuttle program would entail. It should be released later this month, officials said.
Adding new shuttle flights — two a year for up to five years — means more rolls of the dice that there will be a deadly accident.
"We would have a one-in-eight chance of losing the crew in one of the 10 flights," Griffin said. He said that's based on the current risk, about 1 in 80, of a shuttle accident with each flight.
It's likely that NASA will get some additional money to shorten the gap because Obama has promised the space agency an extra $2 billion for at least one year, said Smithsonian Institution space scholar John Logsdon, who was an Obama campaign space adviser. Obama's campaign promise was for at least one additional space shuttle flight, but may stop at one, Logsdon said.
Logsdon said he would focus on the new ship instead of extending the shuttle at all.
There are three remaining shuttles — Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour — and nine flights scheduled through May 31, 2010.
Former NASA exploration chief Scott Horowitz said he worries that if the shuttle flies for five more years it would delay the first launch of the new spaceship. That's because crucial people and key equipment _including a rocket test stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center — needed for Orion and Ares are also used for shuttle flights.
But Doug Cook, NASA's current associate administrator for exploration, said it would be tough, but "we'd find a way to do it."
Horowitz said he thinks the most logical solution would be to extend the shuttle's life by one more year and accelerate the new ship's development a year. It would cost $6 billion and shrink the gap to three years, he said.
To speed up development, Cook said, the new administration would have to commit money in the next few months, otherwise it would be too late to launch by 2014.
WASHINGTON – The cost of continuing the life of the space shuttle past next year's planned retirement is $3 billion a year plus extending the risk of a deadly accident, NASA's chief said Thursday.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told an industry group that NASA has looked into what it would take to keep flying the aging shuttle past 2010. Otherwise, it will mean five years of relying on Russia to get astronauts to the international space station.
After the 2003 Columbia tragedy, President George W. Bush declared that the U.S. should head back to the moon in a new spaceship and to pay for that, the space shuttle would have to be retired.
President-elect Barack Obama has proposed delaying the shuttle's retirement. He and others have expressed concern about the gap between the shuttle's retirement and the new ship's maiden launch.
The new spaceship — a capsule called Orion sitting on top of a new rocket called Ares I — won't be ready until March 2015, according to current schedules. However, if the government spends an additional $3 billion over the next two years on the new ship, that first launch could happen a year earlier, Griffin said. He said building the rocket will cost $2.7 billion.
There are geopolitical reasons — a matter of American pride and standing in the world — for extending the shuttle's life, Griffin said. However, there are engineering reasons not to do that. Keeping the shuttle flying would divert effort away from a new ship to one that is almost 30 years old.
The choice will be up to the new president and Congress. NASA is finishing up a study on what extending the space shuttle program would entail. It should be released later this month, officials said.
Adding new shuttle flights — two a year for up to five years — means more rolls of the dice that there will be a deadly accident.
"We would have a one-in-eight chance of losing the crew in one of the 10 flights," Griffin said. He said that's based on the current risk, about 1 in 80, of a shuttle accident with each flight.
It's likely that NASA will get some additional money to shorten the gap because Obama has promised the space agency an extra $2 billion for at least one year, said Smithsonian Institution space scholar John Logsdon, who was an Obama campaign space adviser. Obama's campaign promise was for at least one additional space shuttle flight, but may stop at one, Logsdon said.
Logsdon said he would focus on the new ship instead of extending the shuttle at all.
There are three remaining shuttles — Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour — and nine flights scheduled through May 31, 2010.
Former NASA exploration chief Scott Horowitz said he worries that if the shuttle flies for five more years it would delay the first launch of the new spaceship. That's because crucial people and key equipment _including a rocket test stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center — needed for Orion and Ares are also used for shuttle flights.
But Doug Cook, NASA's current associate administrator for exploration, said it would be tough, but "we'd find a way to do it."
Horowitz said he thinks the most logical solution would be to extend the shuttle's life by one more year and accelerate the new ship's development a year. It would cost $6 billion and shrink the gap to three years, he said.
To speed up development, Cook said, the new administration would have to commit money in the next few months, otherwise it would be too late to launch by 2014.
World - World waits on jobs data as recession weighs
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. employers probably cut the most jobs in at least 34 years last month as the global economic crisis gathered pace and moves by policy makers took time to filter through to struggling companies.
The U.S. government jobs reports due later on Friday will provide the latest grim assessment of a global financial crisis that has sparked a wave of policy measures from countries worldwide, the latest being interest rates cuts by South Korea and Britain.
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama warned the U.S. economy could stay mired in recession for years without further bold action, though he gave few new details about a package of tax cuts and public-works spending now likely to cost $800 billion or more.
"I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible," Obama said in a speech on the economy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia on Thursday.
"If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits."
Underlining Obama's fears, the U.S. non-farm payrolls report for December, due later on Friday, is expected to show that 2008 produced the biggest job losses since demobilization following World War Two.
For December alone, job cuts are expected to amount to 550,000, the most for a single month in 34 years, taking the unemployment rate to 7 percent.
Indeed, a report earlier this week showing December job losses in the private sector of close to 700,000 raised fears the more comprehensive government report would be worse that expected.
Financial markets were on hold ahead of the key jobs data, with Asian shares easing slightly and government bonds ticking higher as investors anticipated a weak jobs number.
RATES GOING DOWN
Along with trillions of dollars in government stimulus packages, central banks are cutting interest rates to unprecedented levels in an effort to kickstart growth and stem a rising tide of job losses.
The Bank of England cut its benchmark rate by 50 basis points to 1.5 percent on Thursday, the lowest level since the central bank was created in the 17th century. It said the world economy appeared to be undergoing an unusually sharp and synchronized downturn.
"Measures of business and consumer confidence have fallen markedly. World trade growth this year is likely to be the weakest for some considerable time," the British central bank said in a statement.
The Bank of Korea on Friday cut its rate by 50 basis points to a record low of 2.5 percent and warned Asia's fourth-largest economy was weakening rapidly, hurt by a slump in both export demand and domestic consumption.
If proof was needed, Ssangyong Motor Corp, the country's fifth-largest carmaker, said it had filed for court protection, after its sales more than halved in December from year earlier.
Top U.S. automaker General Motors Corp, which won a $13.4 billion federal bailout to avoid a similar demise, said on Thursday it was confident it would win concessions from its main union to meet the conditions of its rescue package.
Credit rating firm Moody's Investors Service said it has put Honda Motor Co Ltd's debt rating on review for a possible downgrade due to shrinking demand.
RETAILERS STRUGGLE
Mounting job losses across a wide range of industries are the latest and arguably most worrying developments in a financial crisis spawned in the collapse of the U.S. mortgage market a year and a half ago.
Worried about their jobs, consumers are reining in spending, deepening the slowdown.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc and other top U.S. retailers delivered disappointing December same-store sales and profit warnings on Thursday, confirming the worst holiday shopping season in nearly 40 years.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, surprised investors who have seen it outperform rivals as the store of choice in a downturn.
Its U.S. December same-store sales rose 1.7 percent, excluding gasoline -- worse than Wall Street's expectation of a 2.8 percent increase. It cut its fourth-quarter profit forecast.
The International Council of Shopping Centers said holiday sales, which include November and December, fell 2.2 percent -- the weakest result since it began compiling such data in 1970.
DIRE
Other regions are also struggling with the global crisis.
Chinese business confidence plunged in the final three months of 2008 as the financial crisis weighed on exports and industrial output.
Manufacturing orders in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, dropped by a much bigger-than-expected 6 percent in November, hit by collapsing demand at home and abroad.
Exports fell by an unprecedented 10.6 percent in November as demand for cars and other mainstays of the manufacturing economy plummeted, reinforcing expectations of a deep interest-rate cut by the European Central bank on January 15.
In Spain, unemployment topped 3 million for the first time and is expected to rise further in 2009, the government said.
In response to the crisis, the leaders of France and Germany called for a complete overhaul of the financial system and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the United States should no longer be allowed to dominate the debate.
They said new institutions are needed to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis and make possible a fairer form of capitalism that does not lead to imbalances in wealth and the world economy.
"Enormous imbalances have appeared ... Purely financial capitalism has perverted the logic of capitalism," Sarkozy said.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Neil Fullick)
The U.S. government jobs reports due later on Friday will provide the latest grim assessment of a global financial crisis that has sparked a wave of policy measures from countries worldwide, the latest being interest rates cuts by South Korea and Britain.
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama warned the U.S. economy could stay mired in recession for years without further bold action, though he gave few new details about a package of tax cuts and public-works spending now likely to cost $800 billion or more.
"I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible," Obama said in a speech on the economy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia on Thursday.
"If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits."
Underlining Obama's fears, the U.S. non-farm payrolls report for December, due later on Friday, is expected to show that 2008 produced the biggest job losses since demobilization following World War Two.
For December alone, job cuts are expected to amount to 550,000, the most for a single month in 34 years, taking the unemployment rate to 7 percent.
Indeed, a report earlier this week showing December job losses in the private sector of close to 700,000 raised fears the more comprehensive government report would be worse that expected.
Financial markets were on hold ahead of the key jobs data, with Asian shares easing slightly and government bonds ticking higher as investors anticipated a weak jobs number.
RATES GOING DOWN
Along with trillions of dollars in government stimulus packages, central banks are cutting interest rates to unprecedented levels in an effort to kickstart growth and stem a rising tide of job losses.
The Bank of England cut its benchmark rate by 50 basis points to 1.5 percent on Thursday, the lowest level since the central bank was created in the 17th century. It said the world economy appeared to be undergoing an unusually sharp and synchronized downturn.
"Measures of business and consumer confidence have fallen markedly. World trade growth this year is likely to be the weakest for some considerable time," the British central bank said in a statement.
The Bank of Korea on Friday cut its rate by 50 basis points to a record low of 2.5 percent and warned Asia's fourth-largest economy was weakening rapidly, hurt by a slump in both export demand and domestic consumption.
If proof was needed, Ssangyong Motor Corp, the country's fifth-largest carmaker, said it had filed for court protection, after its sales more than halved in December from year earlier.
Top U.S. automaker General Motors Corp, which won a $13.4 billion federal bailout to avoid a similar demise, said on Thursday it was confident it would win concessions from its main union to meet the conditions of its rescue package.
Credit rating firm Moody's Investors Service said it has put Honda Motor Co Ltd's debt rating on review for a possible downgrade due to shrinking demand.
RETAILERS STRUGGLE
Mounting job losses across a wide range of industries are the latest and arguably most worrying developments in a financial crisis spawned in the collapse of the U.S. mortgage market a year and a half ago.
Worried about their jobs, consumers are reining in spending, deepening the slowdown.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc and other top U.S. retailers delivered disappointing December same-store sales and profit warnings on Thursday, confirming the worst holiday shopping season in nearly 40 years.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, surprised investors who have seen it outperform rivals as the store of choice in a downturn.
Its U.S. December same-store sales rose 1.7 percent, excluding gasoline -- worse than Wall Street's expectation of a 2.8 percent increase. It cut its fourth-quarter profit forecast.
The International Council of Shopping Centers said holiday sales, which include November and December, fell 2.2 percent -- the weakest result since it began compiling such data in 1970.
DIRE
Other regions are also struggling with the global crisis.
Chinese business confidence plunged in the final three months of 2008 as the financial crisis weighed on exports and industrial output.
Manufacturing orders in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, dropped by a much bigger-than-expected 6 percent in November, hit by collapsing demand at home and abroad.
Exports fell by an unprecedented 10.6 percent in November as demand for cars and other mainstays of the manufacturing economy plummeted, reinforcing expectations of a deep interest-rate cut by the European Central bank on January 15.
In Spain, unemployment topped 3 million for the first time and is expected to rise further in 2009, the government said.
In response to the crisis, the leaders of France and Germany called for a complete overhaul of the financial system and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the United States should no longer be allowed to dominate the debate.
They said new institutions are needed to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis and make possible a fairer form of capitalism that does not lead to imbalances in wealth and the world economy.
"Enormous imbalances have appeared ... Purely financial capitalism has perverted the logic of capitalism," Sarkozy said.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Neil Fullick)
Lifestyle - Pinched Americans stay on treadmill, but seek deals
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Americans squeezed by the economic crisis are still forking out money for gym memberships and dieting centers but health clubs are having to hold down their fees to keep customers coming in.
The Equinox Fitness chain of upscale health clubs on the east and west U.S. coasts saw a 13 percent year-on-year jump in those working out the first Monday of the new year, and analysts at Stifel Nicolaus estimated that overall health club memberships would rise more than 4 percent this year.
"That is a reflection on how (people) have a desire to, in this stressful environment, live a healthy, balanced life," Equinox Chief Executive Harvey Spevak said, adding that members had cut spending on luxurious spa treatments.
But Spevak noted Equinox experienced what he called a "softening" in new health club memberships since the autumn and froze its rates for 2009, holding prices steady for the first time in its 18-year history.
Many people are taking advantage of special deals. Jason Mareydt, who joined the New York Health & Racquet Club upon moving to New York from Detroit late last year, which offered a no-commitment, no joining-fee promotion.
Mareydt, on his way into the club for a free weights workout, said that and the discount he receives through his employer clinched the deal.
Still it is a tough environment for some health-club operators. Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December for the second time in 17 months.
At a time of recession and rising unemployment, there is a growing focus on low-cost options.
Yoga to the People in Manhattan has been packed recently, said one instructor. It has an open class policy, meaning no one has to make a long-term financial commitment, and suggests a donation of $10 a class, roughly half what others charge.
Daniel Devenport, a 27-year old street performer who works out at the 14th Street YMCA in Manhattan, said he had already adopted a low-cost, "minimalist" lifestyle but won't give up the gym. "It is a place to meet new people," he said.
GROWTH EASES IN SLIMMING BUSINESS
Growth in the diet business is slowing as consumers try to find ways around high prices for plans that include pre-packaged meals.
Grace White, a 46-year old registered nurse in Maryland who joined Weight Watchers last June pays a $40 a month membership fee. She says that cost is worth it for the moral support she gets from weekly group meetings.
She is trying to lower her costs by buying more regular grocery items than prepared meals sold by the diet company. "It is more economical," she said.
Companies that sell meals as part of their plans include Nestle-owned Jenny Craig, NutriSystem Inc and Weight Watchers. The latter says its program is designed to allow dieters to have a choice.
Industry analysts at Barclay's Capital project 3.3 percent revenue growth for U.S. "healthy lifestyle" companies in 2009, down from 8.6 percent growth last year.
Mike Connor, who lives in Lewiston, Maine, said he pays $16.95 a month to have online access to Weight Watchers. He and his wife, who is also in the program, opted not to pay more to attend group meetings but they do sometimes splurge on prepared meals, saying it can save time.
Weight Watchers declined to say if there had been any significant shift in business volume since the new year. However, it conceded that cost was on customers' minds.
"Consumers clearly are being more discerning and selective in how they spend their disposable income," Weight Watchers CEO David Kirchhoff said in an e-mail.
(Editing by Daniel Trotta and David Storey)
The Equinox Fitness chain of upscale health clubs on the east and west U.S. coasts saw a 13 percent year-on-year jump in those working out the first Monday of the new year, and analysts at Stifel Nicolaus estimated that overall health club memberships would rise more than 4 percent this year.
"That is a reflection on how (people) have a desire to, in this stressful environment, live a healthy, balanced life," Equinox Chief Executive Harvey Spevak said, adding that members had cut spending on luxurious spa treatments.
But Spevak noted Equinox experienced what he called a "softening" in new health club memberships since the autumn and froze its rates for 2009, holding prices steady for the first time in its 18-year history.
Many people are taking advantage of special deals. Jason Mareydt, who joined the New York Health & Racquet Club upon moving to New York from Detroit late last year, which offered a no-commitment, no joining-fee promotion.
Mareydt, on his way into the club for a free weights workout, said that and the discount he receives through his employer clinched the deal.
Still it is a tough environment for some health-club operators. Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December for the second time in 17 months.
At a time of recession and rising unemployment, there is a growing focus on low-cost options.
Yoga to the People in Manhattan has been packed recently, said one instructor. It has an open class policy, meaning no one has to make a long-term financial commitment, and suggests a donation of $10 a class, roughly half what others charge.
Daniel Devenport, a 27-year old street performer who works out at the 14th Street YMCA in Manhattan, said he had already adopted a low-cost, "minimalist" lifestyle but won't give up the gym. "It is a place to meet new people," he said.
GROWTH EASES IN SLIMMING BUSINESS
Growth in the diet business is slowing as consumers try to find ways around high prices for plans that include pre-packaged meals.
Grace White, a 46-year old registered nurse in Maryland who joined Weight Watchers last June pays a $40 a month membership fee. She says that cost is worth it for the moral support she gets from weekly group meetings.
She is trying to lower her costs by buying more regular grocery items than prepared meals sold by the diet company. "It is more economical," she said.
Companies that sell meals as part of their plans include Nestle-owned Jenny Craig, NutriSystem Inc and Weight Watchers. The latter says its program is designed to allow dieters to have a choice.
Industry analysts at Barclay's Capital project 3.3 percent revenue growth for U.S. "healthy lifestyle" companies in 2009, down from 8.6 percent growth last year.
Mike Connor, who lives in Lewiston, Maine, said he pays $16.95 a month to have online access to Weight Watchers. He and his wife, who is also in the program, opted not to pay more to attend group meetings but they do sometimes splurge on prepared meals, saying it can save time.
Weight Watchers declined to say if there had been any significant shift in business volume since the new year. However, it conceded that cost was on customers' minds.
"Consumers clearly are being more discerning and selective in how they spend their disposable income," Weight Watchers CEO David Kirchhoff said in an e-mail.
(Editing by Daniel Trotta and David Storey)
Tech - Why businesses are embracing Macs
San Francisco - It's not your imagination. Apple Macintoshes are turning up in businesses beyond the creative departments, increasingly becoming a normal part of the IT fabric. One recent IT survey by researcher Information Technology Intelligence shows that 23 percent of respondents had at least 30 Macs in their businesses, 12 percent had at least 4,000 Macs -- and 68 percent said they would let users choose Macs as their work PCs in the next year. A Forrester Research survey of larger enterprises showed that Macs now account for 4.5 percent of deployed systems. (Both IDC and Gartner report that Macs now make up 9.1 percent of all PCs sold to individuals.)
IT's acceptance of the Mac appears to be genuine, not a grudging response to unwanted user demand: "Desktop managers are painting a rosy future for Apple on the corporate desktop," the recent Forrester report states. One reason is the quality of the Mac hardware and operating system; Information Technology Intelligence's survey shows that 82 percent of IT respondents rated the Mac platform as very good or excellent, compared with 60 percent for Windows Vista.
"About a year ago, I started noticing that every time I brought my MacBook Pro to a conference, just about everyone else had one too," says Carl Howe, a research director at the Yankee Group. Howe is not alone: "We're definitely hearing more stories of Mac consumers pushing IT to let them use Macs at Windows-based work environments," says Tim Bajarin, president of the consultancy Creative Strategies.
The growth in Mac adoption has been driven by several factors, everything from Apple's conversion to an Intel-based platform with several virtualization options to run Windows to the Webification of corporate applications, the rise of software as a service, and Apple's dramatic ascendance in consumer mindshare.
"IT shouldn't be afraid of Macs," says Kunal Malik, IT director at Citrix Systems, a virtualization provider. "They're very manageable. You just have to prepare the environment, understand how to manage the Mac's limitations, and then help your users adopt the platform they want."
Acceptance of user-managed PC gives Macs a boost
A key reason for growing Mac acceptance in business is a significant change in corporate IT: an increased willingness to let down the fortress gates and let employees use the systems they feel most productive with.
"The Baby Boomers were happy if technology worked," says Benjamin Gray, an analyst at Forrester Research. "They're rapidly being replaced by much a younger, more technology-savvy generation that grew up with access to smartphones, handheld devices, and the full Internet in their pocket. These guys have a much greater passion for whatever devices and applications they feel they need in order to be productive."
Yankee Group's Howe points out that, unlike 10 years ago, today many tech-savvy users believe they have technology at home that is far superior to what they use at work. Companies looking to attract these users are beginning to get the message that they should loosen up their sourcing practices to give them the platforms they want -- and Macs make up a big percentage of them.
The related trend that favors the adoption of Macs in business is the blurred line between life and work computing. "It's getting less and less feasible for IT to separate home and work computing like it used to. Our business and consumer lifestyles, in which people work at the office six to eight hours a day, go home early to pick up sick kids at school or eat dinner, then work two or three hours more at night, have blended far too much," says Bajarin.
Road warriors have grown less tolerant of IT's efforts to prevent them from bringing their personal applications and files with them. "People just don't want to have to switch devices to go on the road," says Gray. "They want to be able to take along their personal life." IT departments have started to acknowledge these changes and look at ways to satisfy their users' needs.
What can a Mac do in business beyond graphics?
At the end of the day, a computer at the office has to support the business's work needs. Can a Mac really run the applications and connect to the systems that businesses need users to access?
It turns out that the Mac can run a large swatch of business applications, not just the graphics and publishing applications for which it's best known. Even if IT doesn't yet know that, many tech-savvy users do.
For example, Macs fit very well in software development and marketing, where a Mac with Windows and Linux VMs can test and demonstrate software in just about any OS. That's why many developers prefer Macs.
In sales and marketing, many users much prefer Apple's Keynote instead of Microsoft's PowerPoint as a presentation tool, as well as Pages instead of Word as a document-creation tool. "I've always found that working with graphics and different layouts is far easier and quicker in Pages than in Word," says John Welsh, a senior systems engineer for the Zimmerman and Partners ad agency.??
Standard communication apps such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook (called Entourage on the Mac), Lotus Notes, and Novell GroupWise all have native Mac versions. And Macs can run pretty much any application delivered via a browser, whether or not it has a native Mac version. "Let's face it, for an awful lot of users, the PC is basically an e-mail and Web-browsing machine, with maybe a spreadsheet and/or word processor," says Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research.
And the Mac's ability to run Windows in a virtual machine ensures that Windows-only apps, including Web-delivered software dependent on Microsoft's ActiveX technology, means Mac users can be full participants. "We're hearing lots of companies say they'll spend $89 for Fusion or Parallels and support Windows applications on the Mac," says consultant Bajarin. "However, if the user has a problem with the Mac OS side, they tell him to go to one of the Genius Bars at a local Apple Store."
IT uses the tools it already has to manage the Windows VM, which protects the company from any security issues on the Mac side. "They also like that the VM is a file they can back up," says Yankee Group's Howe. "If the Windows desktop gets infected, they can simply go back to a previous copy."
Another option is to boot the Mac directly into a Windows partition using Apple's included Boot Camp software, though this option does not allow simultaneous use of Mac and Windows applications as virtualization-based Fusion and Parallels do. And because it is a partition, there's no single VM file to back up and restore from; instead, IT has to handle the Boot Camp partition as it would an actual PC's drive
IT's acceptance of the Mac appears to be genuine, not a grudging response to unwanted user demand: "Desktop managers are painting a rosy future for Apple on the corporate desktop," the recent Forrester report states. One reason is the quality of the Mac hardware and operating system; Information Technology Intelligence's survey shows that 82 percent of IT respondents rated the Mac platform as very good or excellent, compared with 60 percent for Windows Vista.
"About a year ago, I started noticing that every time I brought my MacBook Pro to a conference, just about everyone else had one too," says Carl Howe, a research director at the Yankee Group. Howe is not alone: "We're definitely hearing more stories of Mac consumers pushing IT to let them use Macs at Windows-based work environments," says Tim Bajarin, president of the consultancy Creative Strategies.
The growth in Mac adoption has been driven by several factors, everything from Apple's conversion to an Intel-based platform with several virtualization options to run Windows to the Webification of corporate applications, the rise of software as a service, and Apple's dramatic ascendance in consumer mindshare.
"IT shouldn't be afraid of Macs," says Kunal Malik, IT director at Citrix Systems, a virtualization provider. "They're very manageable. You just have to prepare the environment, understand how to manage the Mac's limitations, and then help your users adopt the platform they want."
Acceptance of user-managed PC gives Macs a boost
A key reason for growing Mac acceptance in business is a significant change in corporate IT: an increased willingness to let down the fortress gates and let employees use the systems they feel most productive with.
"The Baby Boomers were happy if technology worked," says Benjamin Gray, an analyst at Forrester Research. "They're rapidly being replaced by much a younger, more technology-savvy generation that grew up with access to smartphones, handheld devices, and the full Internet in their pocket. These guys have a much greater passion for whatever devices and applications they feel they need in order to be productive."
Yankee Group's Howe points out that, unlike 10 years ago, today many tech-savvy users believe they have technology at home that is far superior to what they use at work. Companies looking to attract these users are beginning to get the message that they should loosen up their sourcing practices to give them the platforms they want -- and Macs make up a big percentage of them.
The related trend that favors the adoption of Macs in business is the blurred line between life and work computing. "It's getting less and less feasible for IT to separate home and work computing like it used to. Our business and consumer lifestyles, in which people work at the office six to eight hours a day, go home early to pick up sick kids at school or eat dinner, then work two or three hours more at night, have blended far too much," says Bajarin.
Road warriors have grown less tolerant of IT's efforts to prevent them from bringing their personal applications and files with them. "People just don't want to have to switch devices to go on the road," says Gray. "They want to be able to take along their personal life." IT departments have started to acknowledge these changes and look at ways to satisfy their users' needs.
What can a Mac do in business beyond graphics?
At the end of the day, a computer at the office has to support the business's work needs. Can a Mac really run the applications and connect to the systems that businesses need users to access?
It turns out that the Mac can run a large swatch of business applications, not just the graphics and publishing applications for which it's best known. Even if IT doesn't yet know that, many tech-savvy users do.
For example, Macs fit very well in software development and marketing, where a Mac with Windows and Linux VMs can test and demonstrate software in just about any OS. That's why many developers prefer Macs.
In sales and marketing, many users much prefer Apple's Keynote instead of Microsoft's PowerPoint as a presentation tool, as well as Pages instead of Word as a document-creation tool. "I've always found that working with graphics and different layouts is far easier and quicker in Pages than in Word," says John Welsh, a senior systems engineer for the Zimmerman and Partners ad agency.??
Standard communication apps such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook (called Entourage on the Mac), Lotus Notes, and Novell GroupWise all have native Mac versions. And Macs can run pretty much any application delivered via a browser, whether or not it has a native Mac version. "Let's face it, for an awful lot of users, the PC is basically an e-mail and Web-browsing machine, with maybe a spreadsheet and/or word processor," says Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research.
And the Mac's ability to run Windows in a virtual machine ensures that Windows-only apps, including Web-delivered software dependent on Microsoft's ActiveX technology, means Mac users can be full participants. "We're hearing lots of companies say they'll spend $89 for Fusion or Parallels and support Windows applications on the Mac," says consultant Bajarin. "However, if the user has a problem with the Mac OS side, they tell him to go to one of the Genius Bars at a local Apple Store."
IT uses the tools it already has to manage the Windows VM, which protects the company from any security issues on the Mac side. "They also like that the VM is a file they can back up," says Yankee Group's Howe. "If the Windows desktop gets infected, they can simply go back to a previous copy."
Another option is to boot the Mac directly into a Windows partition using Apple's included Boot Camp software, though this option does not allow simultaneous use of Mac and Windows applications as virtualization-based Fusion and Parallels do. And because it is a partition, there's no single VM file to back up and restore from; instead, IT has to handle the Boot Camp partition as it would an actual PC's drive
World - Gaza violence rages on despite UN cease-fire call
Matti Friedman & Ibrahim Barzak
JERUSALEM – The U.N. Security Council called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, but an intense bombardment of missiles from Israeli jets and helicopters early Friday and a barrage of Hamas rockets indicated there may be no quick end to the fighting.
The Security Council resolution was approved Thursday night by a 14-0 vote, with the United States abstaining. The resolution "stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."
Israel and Hamas were not parties to the council vote and it is now up to them to stop the fighting. But a Hamas spokesman said the Islamic militant group "is not interested" in the cease-fire because it was not consulted and the resolution did not meet its minimum demands.
Israel's top leaders were set Friday to discuss the cease-fire — or a possible expansion of the ground offensive.
"Israel has acted, is acting and will act only according to its own considerations, the security of its citizens and its right to self defense," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said in a statement from her office ahead of the meeting.
One Israeli airstrike killed two Hamas militants and another unidentified man, while another flattened a five-story building in northern Gaza, killing at least seven people, including an infant, Hamas security officials said. By mid-morning, 13 Palestinians had been killed.
In all, Israeli aircraft struck more than 30 targets before dawn, and constant explosions continued after first light. Friday's deaths in Gaza pushed the Palestinian death toll to about 760 in the nearly two-week-old conflict, at least half of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Thirteen Israelis have died.
Israel launched its assault on Dec. 27 in an attempt to halt years of rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled territory.
Despite the devastating offensive, Hamas continued to bombard residents of southern Israel. Rockets hit Friday morning across southern Israel, including in and around Beersheba and Ashkelon, which — like other cities within rocket range of Gaza — have largely been paralyzed since the fighting began.
Israel called up thousands of reserve troops earlier in the week, and they are now ready for action.
The Security Council action came hours after a U.N. agency suspended food deliveries to Gaza, and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers. It also followed concerns of a wider conflict after militants in Lebanon fired rockets into northern Israel early Thursday, though the border has been quiet since.
The United States abstained from the Security Council vote even though it helped hammer out the resolution's text along with Arab nations that have ties to Hamas and the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. "fully supports" the resolution but abstained "to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation" with Israel and Hamas, also aimed at achieving a cease-fire.
The resolution expresses "grave concern" at the escalating violence and the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and emphasizes the need to open all border crossings and achieve a lasting solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
It also calls on U.N. member states "to intensify efforts to provide arrangements and guarantees in Gaza in order to sustain a durable cease-fire and calm, including to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition and to ensure the sustained reopening" of border crossings.
In addition, the resolution "condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians" and calls for "unimpeded" humanitarian access to Gaza."
Israel has paused its operations for three-hour periods in the last two days to allow aid to reach civilians.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas envoy to Lebanon, told the al-Arabiya satellite channel that the group "is not interested in it because it does not meet the demands of the movement."
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the U.N. failed to consider the interests of the Palestinian people. "This resolution doesn't mean that the war is over," he told the al-Jazeera satellite television network. "We call on the Palestinian fighters to mobilize and be ready to face the offensive, and we urge the Arab masses to carry on with their angry protests."
Following the resolution, Egypt was expected to take the lead in persuading Israel and Hamas to accept it. Israeli representatives returned home from talks in Cairo Thursday, and Hamas was due to send political leaders to the Egyptian capital on Saturday.
Israel's government says any cease-fire must guarantee an end to rocket fire and arms smuggling into Gaza. During a six-month cease-fire that ended with the current operation, Hamas is thought to have used tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border to smuggle in the medium-range rockets it is now using to hit deeper than ever inside Israel.
Hamas has said it won't accept any agreement that does not include the full opening Gaza's blockaded border crossings. Israel is unlikely to agree to that demand, as it would allow Hamas to strengthen its hold on the territory which it violently seized in June 2007.
With Israeli troops now in control of many of the open areas used by militants to launch rockets, gunman have continued shooting from inside populated neighborhoods.
The conflict has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza increasingly desperate for food, water, fuel and medical assistance, and the situation was expected to worsen as humanitarian efforts fall victim to the fighting.
One of the dead Thursday was a Ukrainian woman, the first foreigner to die in the fighting, according to Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain. He said the woman was married to a Palestinian doctor who trained in Ukraine and returned with her to Gaza. Her 2-year-old son was also killed in the tank shelling east of Gaza City, he said.
AP writers Edith M. Lederer and John Heilprin at the United Nations contributed to this report.
JERUSALEM – The U.N. Security Council called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, but an intense bombardment of missiles from Israeli jets and helicopters early Friday and a barrage of Hamas rockets indicated there may be no quick end to the fighting.
The Security Council resolution was approved Thursday night by a 14-0 vote, with the United States abstaining. The resolution "stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."
Israel and Hamas were not parties to the council vote and it is now up to them to stop the fighting. But a Hamas spokesman said the Islamic militant group "is not interested" in the cease-fire because it was not consulted and the resolution did not meet its minimum demands.
Israel's top leaders were set Friday to discuss the cease-fire — or a possible expansion of the ground offensive.
"Israel has acted, is acting and will act only according to its own considerations, the security of its citizens and its right to self defense," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said in a statement from her office ahead of the meeting.
One Israeli airstrike killed two Hamas militants and another unidentified man, while another flattened a five-story building in northern Gaza, killing at least seven people, including an infant, Hamas security officials said. By mid-morning, 13 Palestinians had been killed.
In all, Israeli aircraft struck more than 30 targets before dawn, and constant explosions continued after first light. Friday's deaths in Gaza pushed the Palestinian death toll to about 760 in the nearly two-week-old conflict, at least half of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Thirteen Israelis have died.
Israel launched its assault on Dec. 27 in an attempt to halt years of rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled territory.
Despite the devastating offensive, Hamas continued to bombard residents of southern Israel. Rockets hit Friday morning across southern Israel, including in and around Beersheba and Ashkelon, which — like other cities within rocket range of Gaza — have largely been paralyzed since the fighting began.
Israel called up thousands of reserve troops earlier in the week, and they are now ready for action.
The Security Council action came hours after a U.N. agency suspended food deliveries to Gaza, and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers. It also followed concerns of a wider conflict after militants in Lebanon fired rockets into northern Israel early Thursday, though the border has been quiet since.
The United States abstained from the Security Council vote even though it helped hammer out the resolution's text along with Arab nations that have ties to Hamas and the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. "fully supports" the resolution but abstained "to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation" with Israel and Hamas, also aimed at achieving a cease-fire.
The resolution expresses "grave concern" at the escalating violence and the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and emphasizes the need to open all border crossings and achieve a lasting solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
It also calls on U.N. member states "to intensify efforts to provide arrangements and guarantees in Gaza in order to sustain a durable cease-fire and calm, including to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition and to ensure the sustained reopening" of border crossings.
In addition, the resolution "condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians" and calls for "unimpeded" humanitarian access to Gaza."
Israel has paused its operations for three-hour periods in the last two days to allow aid to reach civilians.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas envoy to Lebanon, told the al-Arabiya satellite channel that the group "is not interested in it because it does not meet the demands of the movement."
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the U.N. failed to consider the interests of the Palestinian people. "This resolution doesn't mean that the war is over," he told the al-Jazeera satellite television network. "We call on the Palestinian fighters to mobilize and be ready to face the offensive, and we urge the Arab masses to carry on with their angry protests."
Following the resolution, Egypt was expected to take the lead in persuading Israel and Hamas to accept it. Israeli representatives returned home from talks in Cairo Thursday, and Hamas was due to send political leaders to the Egyptian capital on Saturday.
Israel's government says any cease-fire must guarantee an end to rocket fire and arms smuggling into Gaza. During a six-month cease-fire that ended with the current operation, Hamas is thought to have used tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border to smuggle in the medium-range rockets it is now using to hit deeper than ever inside Israel.
Hamas has said it won't accept any agreement that does not include the full opening Gaza's blockaded border crossings. Israel is unlikely to agree to that demand, as it would allow Hamas to strengthen its hold on the territory which it violently seized in June 2007.
With Israeli troops now in control of many of the open areas used by militants to launch rockets, gunman have continued shooting from inside populated neighborhoods.
The conflict has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza increasingly desperate for food, water, fuel and medical assistance, and the situation was expected to worsen as humanitarian efforts fall victim to the fighting.
One of the dead Thursday was a Ukrainian woman, the first foreigner to die in the fighting, according to Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain. He said the woman was married to a Palestinian doctor who trained in Ukraine and returned with her to Gaza. Her 2-year-old son was also killed in the tank shelling east of Gaza City, he said.
AP writers Edith M. Lederer and John Heilprin at the United Nations contributed to this report.
World - Will the Pope Cancel His Holy Land Trip?
Jeff Israely
Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI's election, a Vatican Cardinal close to the pontiff predicted a Holy Land pilgrimage would be the first or second trip on the new papal itinerary. "It will happen soon," the Cardinal told me privately. "He very badly wants to go."
Nearly four years and 10 trips later, the visit was finally confirmed last month, even though some prickly bilateral issues between the Holy See and the Israeli government remained unresolved. But as Israel's assault on Gaza reaches the two-week mark, Vatican diplomats now say the long anticipated voyage (with planned stops in Israel, the West Bank and Jordan) is increasingly at risk of being cancelled. (See pictures of Benedict XVI's first year.)
Following the first rounds of air strikes on Hamas targets, chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi had cautioned that it was "premature" to say whether the conflict would scuttle the trip. But Church insiders now acknowledge that hopes for the planned visit are growing dimmer as the conflict deepens with Israel's all-out air and ground assault on Gaza growing bloodier. "At the beginning, you could imagine [the war] not forcing the Pope to change his plans," says one well-placed Vatican insider, who often travels to the region. "But it's clear now that everything would have to be reconsidered for [the trip] to happen." (See pictures from the Pope's 2007 visit to America.)
The Palestinian death toll has topped 700, according to U.N. and other sources in Gaza, while 11 Israelis have been killed, eight of them soldiers. Meanwhile, worldwide calls for a cease-fire - including repeated pleas from Benedict himself - have been for naught. On Thursday, during his annual address to the international diplomatic corps assigned to the Holy See, the Pope said that "military options are no solution and that violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly condemned." The Vatican has long called for a negotiated settlement, and wants Israel and the United States to engage other regional players, including Syria and Iran, to find what the Pope on Thursday called a "global approach" to finding a lasting Middle East peace.
Complicating matters for the planned papal trip was a remark by Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Office for Justice and Peace, who likened the situation in Gaza to a "concentration camp." Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman responded bluntly on Thursday. "We are astounded to hear from a spiritual dignitary words that are so far removed from truth and dignity," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor was quoted as telling Reuters. "The vocabulary of Hamas propaganda, coming from a member of the College of Cardinals, is a shocking and disappointing phenomenon."
The issue of the Holocaust had already been a sticking point during negotiations for a possible papal visit. Church officials have demanded Israel remove a photograph caption at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial that criticizes Pope Pius XII's conduct during World War II. Jewish leaders and some historians argue that Pius failed to use his moral power to denounce the atrocities. Catholic leaders are pushing for Pius to be made a saint of the Church, saying he was one of the 20th century's great popes, and that he did what was possible during Nazi occupation. Benedict has given mixed signals as to whether he will forge ahead with the cause for beatification, the last step before sainthood.
The debate over these historical matters may become moot if the current conflict continues, and the trip to Israel gets shelved. Less politically oriented than his immediate predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Benedict finds his comfort zone when reflecting on Church history and digging into Christian theology. Having already written a best-selling scholarly treatise on Jesus during his papacy, Benedict had envisioned his trip to the holy sites in the Middle East as above all a pilgrimage to the birthplace of his faith. Such was the case in 1964 when Pope Paul VI visited holy sites on the first papal visit to Israel, long before the Vatican and the Jewish State had established diplomatic relations. When John Paul II went in 2000 it was a mix of pilgrimage and politics, with an inevitable emphasis on inter-religious relations.
If the violence does end soon enough, and the papal trip can be salvaged, Benedict's arrival in the region would inevitably be much more political than he may have initially hoped. "He wanted to make a voyage of faith. But the context has changed," says the Vatican source. "Now the focus would be on peace. It could give him the chance to leave a legacy there." First, though, he must pray for the chance to even make such a complicated pilgrimage, as the Middle East's collision of faith and politics grows bloodier by the day.
Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI's election, a Vatican Cardinal close to the pontiff predicted a Holy Land pilgrimage would be the first or second trip on the new papal itinerary. "It will happen soon," the Cardinal told me privately. "He very badly wants to go."
Nearly four years and 10 trips later, the visit was finally confirmed last month, even though some prickly bilateral issues between the Holy See and the Israeli government remained unresolved. But as Israel's assault on Gaza reaches the two-week mark, Vatican diplomats now say the long anticipated voyage (with planned stops in Israel, the West Bank and Jordan) is increasingly at risk of being cancelled. (See pictures of Benedict XVI's first year.)
Following the first rounds of air strikes on Hamas targets, chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi had cautioned that it was "premature" to say whether the conflict would scuttle the trip. But Church insiders now acknowledge that hopes for the planned visit are growing dimmer as the conflict deepens with Israel's all-out air and ground assault on Gaza growing bloodier. "At the beginning, you could imagine [the war] not forcing the Pope to change his plans," says one well-placed Vatican insider, who often travels to the region. "But it's clear now that everything would have to be reconsidered for [the trip] to happen." (See pictures from the Pope's 2007 visit to America.)
The Palestinian death toll has topped 700, according to U.N. and other sources in Gaza, while 11 Israelis have been killed, eight of them soldiers. Meanwhile, worldwide calls for a cease-fire - including repeated pleas from Benedict himself - have been for naught. On Thursday, during his annual address to the international diplomatic corps assigned to the Holy See, the Pope said that "military options are no solution and that violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly condemned." The Vatican has long called for a negotiated settlement, and wants Israel and the United States to engage other regional players, including Syria and Iran, to find what the Pope on Thursday called a "global approach" to finding a lasting Middle East peace.
Complicating matters for the planned papal trip was a remark by Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Office for Justice and Peace, who likened the situation in Gaza to a "concentration camp." Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman responded bluntly on Thursday. "We are astounded to hear from a spiritual dignitary words that are so far removed from truth and dignity," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor was quoted as telling Reuters. "The vocabulary of Hamas propaganda, coming from a member of the College of Cardinals, is a shocking and disappointing phenomenon."
The issue of the Holocaust had already been a sticking point during negotiations for a possible papal visit. Church officials have demanded Israel remove a photograph caption at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial that criticizes Pope Pius XII's conduct during World War II. Jewish leaders and some historians argue that Pius failed to use his moral power to denounce the atrocities. Catholic leaders are pushing for Pius to be made a saint of the Church, saying he was one of the 20th century's great popes, and that he did what was possible during Nazi occupation. Benedict has given mixed signals as to whether he will forge ahead with the cause for beatification, the last step before sainthood.
The debate over these historical matters may become moot if the current conflict continues, and the trip to Israel gets shelved. Less politically oriented than his immediate predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Benedict finds his comfort zone when reflecting on Church history and digging into Christian theology. Having already written a best-selling scholarly treatise on Jesus during his papacy, Benedict had envisioned his trip to the holy sites in the Middle East as above all a pilgrimage to the birthplace of his faith. Such was the case in 1964 when Pope Paul VI visited holy sites on the first papal visit to Israel, long before the Vatican and the Jewish State had established diplomatic relations. When John Paul II went in 2000 it was a mix of pilgrimage and politics, with an inevitable emphasis on inter-religious relations.
If the violence does end soon enough, and the papal trip can be salvaged, Benedict's arrival in the region would inevitably be much more political than he may have initially hoped. "He wanted to make a voyage of faith. But the context has changed," says the Vatican source. "Now the focus would be on peace. It could give him the chance to leave a legacy there." First, though, he must pray for the chance to even make such a complicated pilgrimage, as the Middle East's collision of faith and politics grows bloodier by the day.
Entertainment - Critics' final answer: `Slumdog' wins 5 awards
Sandy Cohen
SANTA MONICA, Calif. – The critics have spoken, and "Slumdog Millionaire" is their final answer.
The rags-to-riches tale won a leading five prizes, including best picture, at Thursday night's Critics' Choice Awards. "Slumdog" also won honors for director Danny Boyle, writer Simon Beaufoy, star Dev Patel and composer A.R. Rahman.
"It's amazing to see how generous you've been to our film," said Boyle, who called the movie "a love song" to Mumbai.
"You're mad really," he continued backstage. "You're a bit like the Indians are mad about movies. When you find a movie you love, you go for it really."
"The Dark Knight" also won a pair of trophies: best action movie and best supporting actor for Heath Ledger. The crowd rose to its feet as the film's director, Christopher Nolan, accepted the award for Ledger.
"I can't presume to speak for him. His voice was as unique as it was original," said Nolan, adding that working with the actor "was one of the greatest experiences any of us ever had or will have."
"His contributions to cinema should be greatly appreciated," Nolan said, "so thanks for this appreciation."
Ledger died of an accidental drug overdose in January 2007.
Sean Penn was another double winner, earning best actor honors and sharing the acting-ensemble prize for "Milk."
A humble Penn said the real Harvey Milk would have been his first choice for the starring role.
"He had the charisma that an actor can only aspire to," Penn said.
Co-star Josh Brolin called Penn's turn as the groundbreaking gay politician "the most incredible performance ever."
Milk came into the contest with eight nominations. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" also had eight nods, but didn't win a single award.
Kate Winslet was named best supporting actress for "The Reader," while Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep tied for best actress for "Rachel Getting Married" and "Doubt" respectively.
"Meryl is my idol," Hathaway said backstage. "To win with my idol who I was nominated against is amazing. I'm so thrilled for her and I'm very thrilled for myself, too."
Winslet and Streep weren't on hand to accept their awards, nor was Bruce Springsteen, who won best song for "The Wrestler," from the movie of the same name.
Director Darren Aronofsky accepted on the Boss' behalf.
"I don't know how you put words into the coolest man's mouth," he said, "so I'll just say thank you."
"WALL-E" was the best animated feature and "Tropic Thunder" was best comedy.
"There's a lot of awards out there, and this one, I think, has the most meaning," said writer, director and star Ben Stiller. "I'm not just saying that because this is the only award our movie was nominated for."
Richard Gere received a standing ovation as he accepted the Joel Siegel award, which recognizes an entertainer's humanitarian efforts. The 59-year-old actor is a longtime supporter of Tibet.
"Clearly I'm undeserving of this," Gere said, urging the audience to "channel all that energy to Tibet."
The 14th annual Critics' Choice Awards, presented by the Broadcast Film Critics Association at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, honored cinematic excellence in 17 categories. The group, which represents more than 200 TV, radio and online critics from the United States and Canada, founded the Critics' Choice Awards in 1995.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. – The critics have spoken, and "Slumdog Millionaire" is their final answer.
The rags-to-riches tale won a leading five prizes, including best picture, at Thursday night's Critics' Choice Awards. "Slumdog" also won honors for director Danny Boyle, writer Simon Beaufoy, star Dev Patel and composer A.R. Rahman.
"It's amazing to see how generous you've been to our film," said Boyle, who called the movie "a love song" to Mumbai.
"You're mad really," he continued backstage. "You're a bit like the Indians are mad about movies. When you find a movie you love, you go for it really."
"The Dark Knight" also won a pair of trophies: best action movie and best supporting actor for Heath Ledger. The crowd rose to its feet as the film's director, Christopher Nolan, accepted the award for Ledger.
"I can't presume to speak for him. His voice was as unique as it was original," said Nolan, adding that working with the actor "was one of the greatest experiences any of us ever had or will have."
"His contributions to cinema should be greatly appreciated," Nolan said, "so thanks for this appreciation."
Ledger died of an accidental drug overdose in January 2007.
Sean Penn was another double winner, earning best actor honors and sharing the acting-ensemble prize for "Milk."
A humble Penn said the real Harvey Milk would have been his first choice for the starring role.
"He had the charisma that an actor can only aspire to," Penn said.
Co-star Josh Brolin called Penn's turn as the groundbreaking gay politician "the most incredible performance ever."
Milk came into the contest with eight nominations. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" also had eight nods, but didn't win a single award.
Kate Winslet was named best supporting actress for "The Reader," while Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep tied for best actress for "Rachel Getting Married" and "Doubt" respectively.
"Meryl is my idol," Hathaway said backstage. "To win with my idol who I was nominated against is amazing. I'm so thrilled for her and I'm very thrilled for myself, too."
Winslet and Streep weren't on hand to accept their awards, nor was Bruce Springsteen, who won best song for "The Wrestler," from the movie of the same name.
Director Darren Aronofsky accepted on the Boss' behalf.
"I don't know how you put words into the coolest man's mouth," he said, "so I'll just say thank you."
"WALL-E" was the best animated feature and "Tropic Thunder" was best comedy.
"There's a lot of awards out there, and this one, I think, has the most meaning," said writer, director and star Ben Stiller. "I'm not just saying that because this is the only award our movie was nominated for."
Richard Gere received a standing ovation as he accepted the Joel Siegel award, which recognizes an entertainer's humanitarian efforts. The 59-year-old actor is a longtime supporter of Tibet.
"Clearly I'm undeserving of this," Gere said, urging the audience to "channel all that energy to Tibet."
The 14th annual Critics' Choice Awards, presented by the Broadcast Film Critics Association at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, honored cinematic excellence in 17 categories. The group, which represents more than 200 TV, radio and online critics from the United States and Canada, founded the Critics' Choice Awards in 1995.
Travel - High and Dry in Chile's Atacama Desert
When the latest 007 flick Quantum of Solace exploded on the world's screens last year, its desert climax highlighted the fact that South America is not all steaming jungles and snowcapped peaks. The continent is also the site of the most arid place on earth — the stunning Atacama Desert in northern Chile.
The area is a fitting locale for part of the film's plot, which involves the sinister Quantum organization in an attempt to cut off a country's precious supply of fresh water. Only parts of Antarctica see less rainfall than the Atacama — a strip of land about 600 miles (1,000 km) long, sandwiched between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. NASA has conducted training missions there, since the rugged landscape is the closest to a Martian surface on our planet, and some of the world's most powerful telescopes are located in the Atacama because its air has little to no moisture. Indeed, parts of the desert are so dry that no life grows — not even bacteria. Of course, all this makes the Atacama seem like the world's most unlikely place for tourism, but its remoteness and superlatives are exactly the things that attract travelers.
"When we opened in 1998, everyone thought we were crazy," says Maurice Dides, the manager of the Hotel de Larache, www.explora.com, located near the sleepy, sandy, stucco village of San Pedro de Atacama. "Now, we are doing renovations just to keep up with all the new properties opening up here."
Since 2006, a number of lodgings have popped up around San Pedro, each more tasteful and upscale than the last. The intimate Awasi, www.awasi.com, feels like the kind of private compound a Hollywood celebrity would relish, while the brand new Hotel Kunza, www.hotelkunza.cl, with its desert-themed spa, is taking a page out of the Four Seasons book. Although put on the travel map by trailblazing backpackers over a decade ago, San Pedro now sees the famous and the well-heeled: Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore have both visited. Small wonder that even more lavish resorts in San Pedro are on the drawing board.
Most lodges in San Pedro include meals, drinks and excursions into the desert in their room price. Die-hard adventurers trudge up the 100-meter-plus mocha sand dunes of the Valle de la Muerte and surf down them on specially outfitted sand boards. Others opt for hikes up the cone-shaped Licancabur volcano, on the border between Chile and Bolivia, with its 19,420-ft. (5,920 m) summit topped by Incan ruins. On any given morning, you'll find groups of travelers dipping into the steaming hot springs at the Tatio Geysers, where over 80 vents make it the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere. The Atacama's high-altitude plains are also home to flamingo-filled salt lakes, where dainty vicuñas (smaller cousins to the llama) go to drink while strange-looking vizcachas (looking like a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel) hop by.
Some political tensions hang in the desert air. Bolivia still claims parts of the Atacama won by Chile in the 1800s War of the Pacific, and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Bolivian President Evo Morales continue to work on patching up the ongoing border dispute. More recently, black flags have fluttered over San Pedro and other Atacama towns in protest at a planned water project that will divert resources from the Tatio Geysers and other Atacama water sources for state-owned mining projects. "Nobody has told us how these water resources are going to be replenished. Who will assure us that we are going to be able to continue to live in this region?" asks Sandra Berna Martinez, mayor of the San Pedro district.
Perhaps 007 will have a solution
The area is a fitting locale for part of the film's plot, which involves the sinister Quantum organization in an attempt to cut off a country's precious supply of fresh water. Only parts of Antarctica see less rainfall than the Atacama — a strip of land about 600 miles (1,000 km) long, sandwiched between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. NASA has conducted training missions there, since the rugged landscape is the closest to a Martian surface on our planet, and some of the world's most powerful telescopes are located in the Atacama because its air has little to no moisture. Indeed, parts of the desert are so dry that no life grows — not even bacteria. Of course, all this makes the Atacama seem like the world's most unlikely place for tourism, but its remoteness and superlatives are exactly the things that attract travelers.
"When we opened in 1998, everyone thought we were crazy," says Maurice Dides, the manager of the Hotel de Larache, www.explora.com, located near the sleepy, sandy, stucco village of San Pedro de Atacama. "Now, we are doing renovations just to keep up with all the new properties opening up here."
Since 2006, a number of lodgings have popped up around San Pedro, each more tasteful and upscale than the last. The intimate Awasi, www.awasi.com, feels like the kind of private compound a Hollywood celebrity would relish, while the brand new Hotel Kunza, www.hotelkunza.cl, with its desert-themed spa, is taking a page out of the Four Seasons book. Although put on the travel map by trailblazing backpackers over a decade ago, San Pedro now sees the famous and the well-heeled: Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore have both visited. Small wonder that even more lavish resorts in San Pedro are on the drawing board.
Most lodges in San Pedro include meals, drinks and excursions into the desert in their room price. Die-hard adventurers trudge up the 100-meter-plus mocha sand dunes of the Valle de la Muerte and surf down them on specially outfitted sand boards. Others opt for hikes up the cone-shaped Licancabur volcano, on the border between Chile and Bolivia, with its 19,420-ft. (5,920 m) summit topped by Incan ruins. On any given morning, you'll find groups of travelers dipping into the steaming hot springs at the Tatio Geysers, where over 80 vents make it the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere. The Atacama's high-altitude plains are also home to flamingo-filled salt lakes, where dainty vicuñas (smaller cousins to the llama) go to drink while strange-looking vizcachas (looking like a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel) hop by.
Some political tensions hang in the desert air. Bolivia still claims parts of the Atacama won by Chile in the 1800s War of the Pacific, and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Bolivian President Evo Morales continue to work on patching up the ongoing border dispute. More recently, black flags have fluttered over San Pedro and other Atacama towns in protest at a planned water project that will divert resources from the Tatio Geysers and other Atacama water sources for state-owned mining projects. "Nobody has told us how these water resources are going to be replenished. Who will assure us that we are going to be able to continue to live in this region?" asks Sandra Berna Martinez, mayor of the San Pedro district.
Perhaps 007 will have a solution
Travel - Jakarta's Temple to Good Taste
JASON TEDJASUKMANA
The giant, 11-ft.-high (3.5 m) Buddha watching over A-list revelers was the only one looking serene at the opening of Jakarta's Buddha Bar last November. All other faces betrayed an excitement that had been pent up for 18 months, during which an old immigration office in the upscale Menteng district underwent a much touted multimillion-dollar transformation into a branch of the famed Parisian bar-restaurant — the French establishment's first Asian foray.
Eight weeks after the launch and the buzz surrounding Jakarta's latest nightspot, tel: (62-21) 390 0899, has not died down. There's a downstairs bar, an upstairs restaurant with a Pacific Rim menu, and the terraces and gardens are a pleasant change in a city where drinking and air-conditioning tend to go hand in hand.
Fusion may be a somewhat tired concept, but thoughtful design has elevated what could easily have been a tired look into a timeless one, with deep reds and dark woods lending richness to the interior. The building itself is another plus. "We thought it was sad that so many buildings here need to be saved and decided to restore this one," explains marketing director Renny Sutiyoso.
Despite the grandeur of the building (originally called the Bataviasche Kuntskring when it was built in 1913 by the Dutch colonial administration) and its grounds, Buddha Bar doesn't impose cover charges or enforce a strict dress code. "We want to create a Paris-like experience without the attitude," says Sutiyoso. Areas in the vicinity of Menteng — the Indonesian capital's stuffy old-money enclave — are starting to loosen up in similar fashion, with new venues like the Social House restaurant and the cabaret-themed Raden Puas luring giddy scenesters and young socialites. In the face of this influx, kudos must go to the older residents, who include former President Megawati Sukarnoputri and have so far maintained a Buddha-like calm.
The giant, 11-ft.-high (3.5 m) Buddha watching over A-list revelers was the only one looking serene at the opening of Jakarta's Buddha Bar last November. All other faces betrayed an excitement that had been pent up for 18 months, during which an old immigration office in the upscale Menteng district underwent a much touted multimillion-dollar transformation into a branch of the famed Parisian bar-restaurant — the French establishment's first Asian foray.
Eight weeks after the launch and the buzz surrounding Jakarta's latest nightspot, tel: (62-21) 390 0899, has not died down. There's a downstairs bar, an upstairs restaurant with a Pacific Rim menu, and the terraces and gardens are a pleasant change in a city where drinking and air-conditioning tend to go hand in hand.
Fusion may be a somewhat tired concept, but thoughtful design has elevated what could easily have been a tired look into a timeless one, with deep reds and dark woods lending richness to the interior. The building itself is another plus. "We thought it was sad that so many buildings here need to be saved and decided to restore this one," explains marketing director Renny Sutiyoso.
Despite the grandeur of the building (originally called the Bataviasche Kuntskring when it was built in 1913 by the Dutch colonial administration) and its grounds, Buddha Bar doesn't impose cover charges or enforce a strict dress code. "We want to create a Paris-like experience without the attitude," says Sutiyoso. Areas in the vicinity of Menteng — the Indonesian capital's stuffy old-money enclave — are starting to loosen up in similar fashion, with new venues like the Social House restaurant and the cabaret-themed Raden Puas luring giddy scenesters and young socialites. In the face of this influx, kudos must go to the older residents, who include former President Megawati Sukarnoputri and have so far maintained a Buddha-like calm.
Entertainment - Great Movie Performances;2008
Richard Corliss
Kate Winslet
The Reader; Revolutionary Road
She can do almost anything, be almost anyone, as long as the code word is danger. A ticket to a Kate Winslet movie pays for a trip into uncharted lands and toxic emotions. She doesn't play weak; she's not in it for the fun. She looks over the edge, leaps in and takes you down with her.
This English actress, 33, has been a force for sizzle and discomfort since she was a teenager, in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, in which she propelled another girl onto a murderous fantasy ride. In Titanic, her biggest hit and least jangling role, she was the aristocratic love and death of poor boy Leonardo DiCaprio. Jude, Iris, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: they all cast her as the dominant female force. That suited Winslet, since her intelligence as an actress is essentially critical; it gives an erotic taunt and charge to any encounter. Winslet women usually proceed from an enveloping restlessness, a resentment of the status quo. This life isn't enough; let's stir things up, till death do us part.
Reunited with DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road, she's the wife who wants to flee suburbia to rekindle a bohemian past. She speaks in cheerful midcentury modulations, but you detect the whisper of murder under her breath. Why can't her husband hear her pleas, which are also threats? Because he's wrapped in career anomie. He ignores her at his peril.
In The Reader, Winslet's Hanna Schmitz, survivor and handmaiden of the Third Reich, can't escape or erase the past — not even through the carnal, almost feral intensity of a brief affair she has with a teenage boy, Michael (David Kross), in 1958. If Hanna is the sum of what she's done, then she is satanic. If she is the repository of Michael's and the moviegoer's fascination, then she's saved from eternal infamy. Winslet puts across all of Hanna's misery, moral blind spots and allure in a performance of precise and desperate passion. Come fly with me, her laser stare says — to hell.
Mickey Rourke
The Wrestler
The Oscar for Best Actor of 2008? Up for grabs. Comeback of the Year, the Decade, the Millennium? No contest. Rourke, the cool, smoldering dude of '80s films like Rumble Fish, Year of the Dragon and Angel Heart, the guy who pissed his career away through bad attitude and worse behavior, has returned in triumph as Randy (The Ram) Robinson, a past-his-prime wrestler taking a last shot at redemption. To prove to director Darren Aronofsky that a chancy actor still had greatness in him, Rourke endured months of rigorous conditioning (35 lb. of new muscle) and brutal training (for Randy's patented standing-scissors move). "I wanted Darren to be proud of me, and I wanted the wrestlers to be proud of me," he says. "And after three MRIs, a lot of acupuncture, a lot of chiropractors and a really good doctor, we put the broken pieces together, and we were able to nail it." The rest — the acting, the revelation of a tender, broken, resilient soul — is what Rourke, 52, used to do superbly, and he brought it again. "I gave Darren everything I had, anything I ever learned about how to get there emotionally or physically. This is what acting is all about, and I love doing it again." And we love watching you do it. Welcome back, champ.
Reported by Rebecca Winters Keegan
Ben Kingsley
Elegy
He acts in so many movies — six that came out last year, including stints as a swami in The Love Guru, a doped-out psychotherapist in The Wackness and a CIA biggie in War, Inc. — that you may wonder when Ben Kingsley has time to be Ben Kingsley. Yet the man who has played Gandhi, Moses, Simon Wiesenthal and Meyer Lansky has a range to match his energy.
One thing Kingsley doesn't get many shots at is a romantic lead. In Elegy, from Philip Roth's novel The Dying Animal, he lends his Mensa machismo and minute emotional calibrations to David, a college professor with a string of sexual conquests and, suddenly, a reason to love somebody: the graduate student Consuela (wan, radiant Penélope Cruz). "David is absolutely terrified of intimacy," Kingsley says. "It takes someone as forceful, tenacious, brave and loving as Consuela to bash through the layers of his defense." In Cruz and director Isabel Coixet, he found "people for whom I had an absolute trust and affection. We were all singing the same song, just in different ranges."
So often a master of disguise, Sir Ben wanted David to be a kind of self-portrait. "I asked [Coixet] if I could please be. It was like stripping down — to my voice, my mannerisms, my speech patterns — so that I felt really vulnerable. Between action and part, I didn't jump into 'disguised me.'" Just so, in Kingsley's exposure, there is acute, all-too-human revelation.
Reported by Lina Lofaro
Viola Davis
Doubt
She plays the mother of the only black boy in his class at a Catholic school in the Bronx, N.Y., in 1964, and she's been called in for a chat with the principal (Meryl Streep). "She's hoping it's nothing serious," Davis says of her character, Mrs. Miller. But when she hears accusations involving her child and a priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman), "she has no choice but to fight for the right of her son." Drop by careful drop, she pours out her heart, revealing the grit and desperation of any parent trying to ensure that her child has a better life than she did. It's a thrilling few minutes, thanks to writer-director John Patrick Shanley's pinpoint dramaturgy as well as the actress's restraint. "In 1964," she says, "I don't have the choice to flail my arms or raise my voice." Davis was inspired by her own mother, the rare black woman in a Rhode Island town in the '60s, who, she says, "had to fight for us on a daily basis." The Golden Globe nominee next plays a brasher sort of battler, an ex-prostitute in Madea Goes to Jail, in which she faces another strong female antagonist: Tyler Perry in drag as Madea.
Reported by Rebecca Winters Keegan
Sally Hawkins
Happy-Go-Lucky
Poppy, a primary-school teacher in London, is someone who dares to hug life, in all its human forms, so close to her, she practically chokes it. Hawkins' own unconditional embrace of Poppy has connected with audiences and won her awards galore. She devised this canny optimist with director Mike Leigh (who makes his films in a months-long improv process with his actors) and plays it full-out. "You're trying not to edit yourself," she says. "It makes you self-conscious once you start third-eyeing yourself." That's how Hawkins, 32, who also shone in a 2007 TV version of Jane Austen's Persuasion, managed to create that rare movie character, a secular saint. "It's easy to wallow in the dark, to be cynical. It's a brave choice to be happy. It's taking a stand."
Reported by Rebecca Winters Keegan
Michael Shannon
Revolutionary Road
His part of the film took only five days to shoot, but Shannon's John Givings has an indelible impact. In three short scenes with Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), the psychologically troubled young man acts as shrink, surgeon and exorcist, opening the couple's suburban wounds and exposing the grievances inside. As Shannon notes, "He's trying to say, I see the truth of your circumstance, that we can be totally honest with one another. Wouldn't that be nice." Shannon, 34, also plays up John's ruthless wit: "Because his life is so difficult, he's chosen to turn it into a game — to have fun at any cost." It's a breakout turn for Shannon, who has built a neat résumé of off-kilter characters (Bug, Shotgun Stories) and who, with his subtle, nervy portrait here, dominates the screen whenever he's on it. The actor gives full props to director Sam Mendes ("No matter how much thought you've put into it, he's thought about it more"), but Shannon is the one who brings this discomfiting character to searing, sympathetic life.
Reported by Lina Lofaro
Dakota Fanning
The Secret Life of Bees
She was 6 when she co-starred with Sean Penn in I Am Sam. Since then, her leading men have included Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise. So Fanning, now 14, is an up-close appreciator of star quality. "They have a presence about them on the set," she says. "You can see the experience in their eyes. I'm so lucky to have learned from them." But what Fanning has, nobody can teach: a gravity and poise that guide the moviegoer's eye to where she is, seemingly doing nothing. (There are few film pleasures as rewarding as watching Fanning listen.) In Bees, she is Lily Owens, a white kid in the '60s South who finds, in three nurturing black women, the motherhood she's desperately searched for. "In life, I've always had that," Fanning says of her mom Joy, whom she calls her best friend. "So I was able to see why Lily wants it so much." In her next project, the X-Men-ish action film Push, she plays a teen with clairvoyant abilities — no stretch for an actress who sees deeply into her roles. "When I'm the character, I'm not myself anymore. It's always seemed like play to me. What I've dreamed of came to life." However Fanning does it, it's a miraculous transference.
Reported by Lina Lofaro
Jean-Claude Van Damme
JCVD
"I should have been dead a couple of times," the Belgian martial-arts star says of a Hollywood lifestyle full of hard drugs, fast women and loose money. "But something is holding me here. I've got a good star." Just now, a little starlight is shining on Van Damme, 48, whose career had long languished in the direct-to-DVD bin. In Mabrouk El Mechri's JCVD, the "Muscles from Brussels" plays a worn-out, washed-up celeb named Jean-Claude Van Damme who gets tangled in a bank heist and must confront his own demons as well as the usual flying bullets, fists and feet. Being himself was a cauterizing risk for the macho man, but Van Damme rose to the challenge: the centerpiece is not a high-kicking fight with the bad guys but a six-minute monologue in which Van Damme reduces himself to tears by confessing the sins of his stardom. "I was dying to say something to people with more education than myself but who didn't dream as much as I had, and explain maybe that's why I became JCVD." The performance may not get Van Damme back into the big-studio productions he yearns for — Quentin Tarantino may never call — but it's the work of a daring, questing, real actor. "We cannot judge people by their first apparition," he says. "Like Arnold Schwarzenegger — in the beginning he was only seen as an action hero. Now he is a governor."
Reported by Lina Lofaro
Kate Winslet
The Reader; Revolutionary Road
She can do almost anything, be almost anyone, as long as the code word is danger. A ticket to a Kate Winslet movie pays for a trip into uncharted lands and toxic emotions. She doesn't play weak; she's not in it for the fun. She looks over the edge, leaps in and takes you down with her.
This English actress, 33, has been a force for sizzle and discomfort since she was a teenager, in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, in which she propelled another girl onto a murderous fantasy ride. In Titanic, her biggest hit and least jangling role, she was the aristocratic love and death of poor boy Leonardo DiCaprio. Jude, Iris, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: they all cast her as the dominant female force. That suited Winslet, since her intelligence as an actress is essentially critical; it gives an erotic taunt and charge to any encounter. Winslet women usually proceed from an enveloping restlessness, a resentment of the status quo. This life isn't enough; let's stir things up, till death do us part.
Reunited with DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road, she's the wife who wants to flee suburbia to rekindle a bohemian past. She speaks in cheerful midcentury modulations, but you detect the whisper of murder under her breath. Why can't her husband hear her pleas, which are also threats? Because he's wrapped in career anomie. He ignores her at his peril.
In The Reader, Winslet's Hanna Schmitz, survivor and handmaiden of the Third Reich, can't escape or erase the past — not even through the carnal, almost feral intensity of a brief affair she has with a teenage boy, Michael (David Kross), in 1958. If Hanna is the sum of what she's done, then she is satanic. If she is the repository of Michael's and the moviegoer's fascination, then she's saved from eternal infamy. Winslet puts across all of Hanna's misery, moral blind spots and allure in a performance of precise and desperate passion. Come fly with me, her laser stare says — to hell.
Mickey Rourke
The Wrestler
The Oscar for Best Actor of 2008? Up for grabs. Comeback of the Year, the Decade, the Millennium? No contest. Rourke, the cool, smoldering dude of '80s films like Rumble Fish, Year of the Dragon and Angel Heart, the guy who pissed his career away through bad attitude and worse behavior, has returned in triumph as Randy (The Ram) Robinson, a past-his-prime wrestler taking a last shot at redemption. To prove to director Darren Aronofsky that a chancy actor still had greatness in him, Rourke endured months of rigorous conditioning (35 lb. of new muscle) and brutal training (for Randy's patented standing-scissors move). "I wanted Darren to be proud of me, and I wanted the wrestlers to be proud of me," he says. "And after three MRIs, a lot of acupuncture, a lot of chiropractors and a really good doctor, we put the broken pieces together, and we were able to nail it." The rest — the acting, the revelation of a tender, broken, resilient soul — is what Rourke, 52, used to do superbly, and he brought it again. "I gave Darren everything I had, anything I ever learned about how to get there emotionally or physically. This is what acting is all about, and I love doing it again." And we love watching you do it. Welcome back, champ.
Reported by Rebecca Winters Keegan
Ben Kingsley
Elegy
He acts in so many movies — six that came out last year, including stints as a swami in The Love Guru, a doped-out psychotherapist in The Wackness and a CIA biggie in War, Inc. — that you may wonder when Ben Kingsley has time to be Ben Kingsley. Yet the man who has played Gandhi, Moses, Simon Wiesenthal and Meyer Lansky has a range to match his energy.
One thing Kingsley doesn't get many shots at is a romantic lead. In Elegy, from Philip Roth's novel The Dying Animal, he lends his Mensa machismo and minute emotional calibrations to David, a college professor with a string of sexual conquests and, suddenly, a reason to love somebody: the graduate student Consuela (wan, radiant Penélope Cruz). "David is absolutely terrified of intimacy," Kingsley says. "It takes someone as forceful, tenacious, brave and loving as Consuela to bash through the layers of his defense." In Cruz and director Isabel Coixet, he found "people for whom I had an absolute trust and affection. We were all singing the same song, just in different ranges."
So often a master of disguise, Sir Ben wanted David to be a kind of self-portrait. "I asked [Coixet] if I could please be. It was like stripping down — to my voice, my mannerisms, my speech patterns — so that I felt really vulnerable. Between action and part, I didn't jump into 'disguised me.'" Just so, in Kingsley's exposure, there is acute, all-too-human revelation.
Reported by Lina Lofaro
Viola Davis
Doubt
She plays the mother of the only black boy in his class at a Catholic school in the Bronx, N.Y., in 1964, and she's been called in for a chat with the principal (Meryl Streep). "She's hoping it's nothing serious," Davis says of her character, Mrs. Miller. But when she hears accusations involving her child and a priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman), "she has no choice but to fight for the right of her son." Drop by careful drop, she pours out her heart, revealing the grit and desperation of any parent trying to ensure that her child has a better life than she did. It's a thrilling few minutes, thanks to writer-director John Patrick Shanley's pinpoint dramaturgy as well as the actress's restraint. "In 1964," she says, "I don't have the choice to flail my arms or raise my voice." Davis was inspired by her own mother, the rare black woman in a Rhode Island town in the '60s, who, she says, "had to fight for us on a daily basis." The Golden Globe nominee next plays a brasher sort of battler, an ex-prostitute in Madea Goes to Jail, in which she faces another strong female antagonist: Tyler Perry in drag as Madea.
Reported by Rebecca Winters Keegan
Sally Hawkins
Happy-Go-Lucky
Poppy, a primary-school teacher in London, is someone who dares to hug life, in all its human forms, so close to her, she practically chokes it. Hawkins' own unconditional embrace of Poppy has connected with audiences and won her awards galore. She devised this canny optimist with director Mike Leigh (who makes his films in a months-long improv process with his actors) and plays it full-out. "You're trying not to edit yourself," she says. "It makes you self-conscious once you start third-eyeing yourself." That's how Hawkins, 32, who also shone in a 2007 TV version of Jane Austen's Persuasion, managed to create that rare movie character, a secular saint. "It's easy to wallow in the dark, to be cynical. It's a brave choice to be happy. It's taking a stand."
Reported by Rebecca Winters Keegan
Michael Shannon
Revolutionary Road
His part of the film took only five days to shoot, but Shannon's John Givings has an indelible impact. In three short scenes with Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), the psychologically troubled young man acts as shrink, surgeon and exorcist, opening the couple's suburban wounds and exposing the grievances inside. As Shannon notes, "He's trying to say, I see the truth of your circumstance, that we can be totally honest with one another. Wouldn't that be nice." Shannon, 34, also plays up John's ruthless wit: "Because his life is so difficult, he's chosen to turn it into a game — to have fun at any cost." It's a breakout turn for Shannon, who has built a neat résumé of off-kilter characters (Bug, Shotgun Stories) and who, with his subtle, nervy portrait here, dominates the screen whenever he's on it. The actor gives full props to director Sam Mendes ("No matter how much thought you've put into it, he's thought about it more"), but Shannon is the one who brings this discomfiting character to searing, sympathetic life.
Reported by Lina Lofaro
Dakota Fanning
The Secret Life of Bees
She was 6 when she co-starred with Sean Penn in I Am Sam. Since then, her leading men have included Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise. So Fanning, now 14, is an up-close appreciator of star quality. "They have a presence about them on the set," she says. "You can see the experience in their eyes. I'm so lucky to have learned from them." But what Fanning has, nobody can teach: a gravity and poise that guide the moviegoer's eye to where she is, seemingly doing nothing. (There are few film pleasures as rewarding as watching Fanning listen.) In Bees, she is Lily Owens, a white kid in the '60s South who finds, in three nurturing black women, the motherhood she's desperately searched for. "In life, I've always had that," Fanning says of her mom Joy, whom she calls her best friend. "So I was able to see why Lily wants it so much." In her next project, the X-Men-ish action film Push, she plays a teen with clairvoyant abilities — no stretch for an actress who sees deeply into her roles. "When I'm the character, I'm not myself anymore. It's always seemed like play to me. What I've dreamed of came to life." However Fanning does it, it's a miraculous transference.
Reported by Lina Lofaro
Jean-Claude Van Damme
JCVD
"I should have been dead a couple of times," the Belgian martial-arts star says of a Hollywood lifestyle full of hard drugs, fast women and loose money. "But something is holding me here. I've got a good star." Just now, a little starlight is shining on Van Damme, 48, whose career had long languished in the direct-to-DVD bin. In Mabrouk El Mechri's JCVD, the "Muscles from Brussels" plays a worn-out, washed-up celeb named Jean-Claude Van Damme who gets tangled in a bank heist and must confront his own demons as well as the usual flying bullets, fists and feet. Being himself was a cauterizing risk for the macho man, but Van Damme rose to the challenge: the centerpiece is not a high-kicking fight with the bad guys but a six-minute monologue in which Van Damme reduces himself to tears by confessing the sins of his stardom. "I was dying to say something to people with more education than myself but who didn't dream as much as I had, and explain maybe that's why I became JCVD." The performance may not get Van Damme back into the big-studio productions he yearns for — Quentin Tarantino may never call — but it's the work of a daring, questing, real actor. "We cannot judge people by their first apparition," he says. "Like Arnold Schwarzenegger — in the beginning he was only seen as an action hero. Now he is a governor."
Reported by Lina Lofaro
World - Oil's sinking fortunes
VIVIENNE WALT
Few of us will miss 2008. Stock markets tanked. Government budgets bled as billions went to bail out banks. Thousands lost their jobs or their homes, or both. Yet amid the gloom there was one reason to celebrate as the year ended: filling your car with gas got cheaper with each day. After hitting a high of $147 a barrel in July, world oil prices have crashed to their lowest levels since 2004. By Jan. 7 the cost of oil for February delivery was around $43 a barrel — less than half the price of a year earlier. Goldman Sachs last month predicted that the price could sink to as low as $30 by March. For car owners, airlines and any person or company that uses a lot of fuel, plunging gas prices provide a financial break just when it is needed most
But not everyone is applauding the return of cheap oil. Oil-producing nations that raked in billions over the past few years now face a reckoning. Governments that didn't set aside any of their windfall, or shortsightedly budgeted on sky-high prices — and more than a few fall into both categories — are grappling with tumbling revenues. The reality of lower oil prices for countries such as Iran, Nigeria, Russia and Venezuela in 2009 is likely to include political unrest, massive cuts in public spending, and rocketing inflation and unemployment. "The brutality and speed of the price decline is a huge shock economically and politically for some of these countries," says Didier Houssin, director of energy markets and security for the International Energy Agency in Paris.
That shock is just starting to hit the world's fourth-biggest oil producer, Iran. The price crash has pummeled Iran's foreign earnings, 85% of which come from its shipments of 3.8 million barrels of oil a day. Last summer the country was garnering about $300 million a month from oil and natural gas. This month it's likely to make just $100 million, according to Saeed Leylaz, an economist in Tehran who edits the business newspaper Sarmayeh.
For many of Iran's 65 million people, responsibility for the downturn has settled on one man: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. International sanctions have tightened during Ahmadinejad's fiery presidency, resulting in oil exports dominating Iran's economy even more than normal. According to energy analysts and economists, Ahmadinejad has also spent billions of dollars from Iran's Oil Stabilization Fund, which is supposed to act as a safety net during an oil crash, to pay for social programs for his millions of supporters, most of whom are poor — though there is little public accounting for where the money has gone.
Iranian budget deficits have soared and inflation is now a hefty 25% a year, according to Cliff Kupchan of risk consultancy Eurasia Group in Washington. Government officials are "digging a deeper hole, spending money they do not have," Kupchan says. Last November, 60 Iranian economists sent Ahmadinejad a letter warning him that his policies threatened economic ruin. "We have nothing because Mr. Ahmadinejad has spent it all," says Leylaz, who did not sign the letter, though he is a fierce critic of the President. "Mr. Ahmadinejad's economic policy has an absolute lack of financial discipline. His priority is making people satisfied now, not to have money for the future."
After months of upbeat assurances, Ahmadinejad finally admitted last month that economic problems had compelled him to recalculate the 2009 budget to reflect an oil price between $30 and $35 a barrel rather than $60. He also drafted a bill to scrap lavish fuel and electricity subsidies, which give Iranians some of the world's cheapest gas (just 36¢ a gallon), even though it has to be imported from foreign refineries. The move is a high-stakes gamble for the President, who is up for re-election in June and is already cast by his opponents as the cause of the Iranians' deepening poverty. "Mr. Ahmadinejad will spend as much money as possible to make people happy," Leylaz says. "Then immediately after the election we will face the collapse."
Halfway around the world, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez is confronting a similar predicament. Two years after Chávez won his third term, Venezuela faces a deep recession. The price Caracas gets for its oil has dropped some 70% since July to about $31 a barrel. That has left Chávez with about half the money he budgeted to spend in 2009, and doesn't take into account the millions of dollars Venezuela will lose each month if it abides by recently agreed OPEC production cuts.
Despite all that, Chávez vows to keep spending, especially on social programs such as public housing and health. He has also flaunted his petro-wealth over the past few years, by giving money and free oil to allies like Bolivia and Cuba. Such generosity may be unsustainable, as Chávez is discovering. He provided cheap heating oil to poor Americans in New York, Massachusetts and elsewhere until last week, when Venezuela's financial meltdown forced him to scrap the program.
As with Ahmadinejad, the Venezuelan leader's political future hangs on a looming vote: a referendum on Feb. 15 to decide whether to amend the constitution to eliminate term limits that would allow Chávez to run for President indefinitely. "The government is in a hurry," says Ricardo Hausmann, a former Venezuelan Minister of Planning who's now director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University. "It has to approve the constitutional amendment before it is forced to cut subsidies and depreciate the currency."
Hausmann predicts inflation and unemployment will both spike this year, leading to a full-blown economic crisis. While social spending is high, Venezuelans have protested the government's failure to deliver fully on promises of cheap housing and plentiful jobs. Now the country's income has plunged, that anger is sure to increase, says Hausmann. "The train is running at 150 miles an hour and it has a big brick wall ahead of it," he says. "We are heading toward a crash and the pilot is not stepping on the brake."
In Russia, an oil-driven recession has also sparked protests. Late last month hundreds of demonstrators poured onto the streets in several cities after the government announced a 30% tariff on imported cars, a measure designed to protect the country's struggling domestic auto industry.
Unlike Iran and Venezuela, Russian officials squirreled away at least $600 billion in cash reserves during the years of soaring energy prices. But Russia's economic growth has fallen from 7% to about 2%, its stock index is down by some 70%, and investors have withdrawn $190 billion since last August. Zeljko Bogetic, the World Bank's chief economist in Moscow, warned investors last month that if the oil price drops to $30 a barrel and stays at that level through 2010, Russia would be forced to empty the rest of its cash reserves and borrow money abroad. "Clearly we are in the middle of a major growth recession in Russia," Bogetic said.
As Russia spends its savings, its power abroad could ebb. Russia has worked for years to reassert itself as a major international player. It has exported large quantities of arms (often to anti-Western allies like Iran and North Korea), cut off gas exports to Europe (most recently two weeks ago), and hosted the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg. But Russia's clout, built on its growing oil wealth, could now crumble, says James Hickey, Russia expert at London-based think tank Chatham House: "Everything Russia does in foreign policy is about them looking for respect, wanting to be treated as a major player. But that is hugely undermined now. At $50 a barrel this is a very different Russia."
Markedly lower oil prices are devastating not just to those countries that benefited from $147-a-barrel crude. Unlike in Russia, the oil boom barely touched the lives of most people in Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria. About two-thirds of Nigeria's 146 million people still live on about one dollar a day, according to the World Bank. As prices crashed last year, Nigeria's production slumped, too, due to rebel attacks on pipelines in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Last October, Nigeria's central bank governor Chukwuma Soludo announced there was almost nothing left in the country's rainy-day fund because production halts had forced the government to spend its savings on government salaries. With oil prices heading lower, Soludo warned, there was little to protect Nigerians from greater hardship. "Everybody will be affected one way or another," he said.
In Nigeria at least, cheap oil could have an upside: with revenues dwindling, government officials may be forced to exercise greater financial discipline, says Pat Utomi, professor of political economics at Lagos Business School. Utomi points out that the 1980s oil crash led to much-needed privatization of state-run industries in Nigeria, strengthening the economy overall. "Nigerians say they have never benefited from oil," Utomi notes. "Progress is probably best with lower oil prices."
If that's the case, then ordinary Nigerians are in luck. Energy analysts say oil prices are likely to remain low until the recession ends — probably not before 2010 at the earliest. Scrambling to prevent further price drops, the 11 OPEC oil ministers voted in December to pump 2 million fewer barrels a day — the biggest production cut in the organization's 48-year history. But even this may fail to push prices up, since it is the dramatic slowdown in global growth, and not an oil glut, that is driving the cost of oil lower. It is this cold truth and its consequences that have leaders from Ahmadinejad to Chávez so rattled.
Few of us will miss 2008. Stock markets tanked. Government budgets bled as billions went to bail out banks. Thousands lost their jobs or their homes, or both. Yet amid the gloom there was one reason to celebrate as the year ended: filling your car with gas got cheaper with each day. After hitting a high of $147 a barrel in July, world oil prices have crashed to their lowest levels since 2004. By Jan. 7 the cost of oil for February delivery was around $43 a barrel — less than half the price of a year earlier. Goldman Sachs last month predicted that the price could sink to as low as $30 by March. For car owners, airlines and any person or company that uses a lot of fuel, plunging gas prices provide a financial break just when it is needed most
But not everyone is applauding the return of cheap oil. Oil-producing nations that raked in billions over the past few years now face a reckoning. Governments that didn't set aside any of their windfall, or shortsightedly budgeted on sky-high prices — and more than a few fall into both categories — are grappling with tumbling revenues. The reality of lower oil prices for countries such as Iran, Nigeria, Russia and Venezuela in 2009 is likely to include political unrest, massive cuts in public spending, and rocketing inflation and unemployment. "The brutality and speed of the price decline is a huge shock economically and politically for some of these countries," says Didier Houssin, director of energy markets and security for the International Energy Agency in Paris.
That shock is just starting to hit the world's fourth-biggest oil producer, Iran. The price crash has pummeled Iran's foreign earnings, 85% of which come from its shipments of 3.8 million barrels of oil a day. Last summer the country was garnering about $300 million a month from oil and natural gas. This month it's likely to make just $100 million, according to Saeed Leylaz, an economist in Tehran who edits the business newspaper Sarmayeh.
For many of Iran's 65 million people, responsibility for the downturn has settled on one man: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. International sanctions have tightened during Ahmadinejad's fiery presidency, resulting in oil exports dominating Iran's economy even more than normal. According to energy analysts and economists, Ahmadinejad has also spent billions of dollars from Iran's Oil Stabilization Fund, which is supposed to act as a safety net during an oil crash, to pay for social programs for his millions of supporters, most of whom are poor — though there is little public accounting for where the money has gone.
Iranian budget deficits have soared and inflation is now a hefty 25% a year, according to Cliff Kupchan of risk consultancy Eurasia Group in Washington. Government officials are "digging a deeper hole, spending money they do not have," Kupchan says. Last November, 60 Iranian economists sent Ahmadinejad a letter warning him that his policies threatened economic ruin. "We have nothing because Mr. Ahmadinejad has spent it all," says Leylaz, who did not sign the letter, though he is a fierce critic of the President. "Mr. Ahmadinejad's economic policy has an absolute lack of financial discipline. His priority is making people satisfied now, not to have money for the future."
After months of upbeat assurances, Ahmadinejad finally admitted last month that economic problems had compelled him to recalculate the 2009 budget to reflect an oil price between $30 and $35 a barrel rather than $60. He also drafted a bill to scrap lavish fuel and electricity subsidies, which give Iranians some of the world's cheapest gas (just 36¢ a gallon), even though it has to be imported from foreign refineries. The move is a high-stakes gamble for the President, who is up for re-election in June and is already cast by his opponents as the cause of the Iranians' deepening poverty. "Mr. Ahmadinejad will spend as much money as possible to make people happy," Leylaz says. "Then immediately after the election we will face the collapse."
Halfway around the world, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez is confronting a similar predicament. Two years after Chávez won his third term, Venezuela faces a deep recession. The price Caracas gets for its oil has dropped some 70% since July to about $31 a barrel. That has left Chávez with about half the money he budgeted to spend in 2009, and doesn't take into account the millions of dollars Venezuela will lose each month if it abides by recently agreed OPEC production cuts.
Despite all that, Chávez vows to keep spending, especially on social programs such as public housing and health. He has also flaunted his petro-wealth over the past few years, by giving money and free oil to allies like Bolivia and Cuba. Such generosity may be unsustainable, as Chávez is discovering. He provided cheap heating oil to poor Americans in New York, Massachusetts and elsewhere until last week, when Venezuela's financial meltdown forced him to scrap the program.
As with Ahmadinejad, the Venezuelan leader's political future hangs on a looming vote: a referendum on Feb. 15 to decide whether to amend the constitution to eliminate term limits that would allow Chávez to run for President indefinitely. "The government is in a hurry," says Ricardo Hausmann, a former Venezuelan Minister of Planning who's now director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University. "It has to approve the constitutional amendment before it is forced to cut subsidies and depreciate the currency."
Hausmann predicts inflation and unemployment will both spike this year, leading to a full-blown economic crisis. While social spending is high, Venezuelans have protested the government's failure to deliver fully on promises of cheap housing and plentiful jobs. Now the country's income has plunged, that anger is sure to increase, says Hausmann. "The train is running at 150 miles an hour and it has a big brick wall ahead of it," he says. "We are heading toward a crash and the pilot is not stepping on the brake."
In Russia, an oil-driven recession has also sparked protests. Late last month hundreds of demonstrators poured onto the streets in several cities after the government announced a 30% tariff on imported cars, a measure designed to protect the country's struggling domestic auto industry.
Unlike Iran and Venezuela, Russian officials squirreled away at least $600 billion in cash reserves during the years of soaring energy prices. But Russia's economic growth has fallen from 7% to about 2%, its stock index is down by some 70%, and investors have withdrawn $190 billion since last August. Zeljko Bogetic, the World Bank's chief economist in Moscow, warned investors last month that if the oil price drops to $30 a barrel and stays at that level through 2010, Russia would be forced to empty the rest of its cash reserves and borrow money abroad. "Clearly we are in the middle of a major growth recession in Russia," Bogetic said.
As Russia spends its savings, its power abroad could ebb. Russia has worked for years to reassert itself as a major international player. It has exported large quantities of arms (often to anti-Western allies like Iran and North Korea), cut off gas exports to Europe (most recently two weeks ago), and hosted the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg. But Russia's clout, built on its growing oil wealth, could now crumble, says James Hickey, Russia expert at London-based think tank Chatham House: "Everything Russia does in foreign policy is about them looking for respect, wanting to be treated as a major player. But that is hugely undermined now. At $50 a barrel this is a very different Russia."
Markedly lower oil prices are devastating not just to those countries that benefited from $147-a-barrel crude. Unlike in Russia, the oil boom barely touched the lives of most people in Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria. About two-thirds of Nigeria's 146 million people still live on about one dollar a day, according to the World Bank. As prices crashed last year, Nigeria's production slumped, too, due to rebel attacks on pipelines in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Last October, Nigeria's central bank governor Chukwuma Soludo announced there was almost nothing left in the country's rainy-day fund because production halts had forced the government to spend its savings on government salaries. With oil prices heading lower, Soludo warned, there was little to protect Nigerians from greater hardship. "Everybody will be affected one way or another," he said.
In Nigeria at least, cheap oil could have an upside: with revenues dwindling, government officials may be forced to exercise greater financial discipline, says Pat Utomi, professor of political economics at Lagos Business School. Utomi points out that the 1980s oil crash led to much-needed privatization of state-run industries in Nigeria, strengthening the economy overall. "Nigerians say they have never benefited from oil," Utomi notes. "Progress is probably best with lower oil prices."
If that's the case, then ordinary Nigerians are in luck. Energy analysts say oil prices are likely to remain low until the recession ends — probably not before 2010 at the earliest. Scrambling to prevent further price drops, the 11 OPEC oil ministers voted in December to pump 2 million fewer barrels a day — the biggest production cut in the organization's 48-year history. But even this may fail to push prices up, since it is the dramatic slowdown in global growth, and not an oil glut, that is driving the cost of oil lower. It is this cold truth and its consequences that have leaders from Ahmadinejad to Chávez so rattled.
Sport - Tennis;Nadal's new spin
Eben Harrell
After studying the exotic wildlife of the Galápagos Islands, Charles Darwin surmised that animals can develop unique traits when they evolve in isolation. In the tennis world, Rafael Nadal is such an animal. Based on the island of Majorca, Nadal and his family shunned mainstream training programs as he grew up, preferring the more homespun methods of Rafael's uncle Toni, whose tennis credentials consist of a brief stint competing on the national circuit. Passing up funding from Spain's national tennis academy, and scholarship money from America's private academies, Rafael and Toni would travel to the mainland only when a tournament required it. More skillful opponents were viewed as problems to overcome, not exemplars to be mimicked. Nadal — who first picked up a racquet aged 3 — and his coach found their own solutions, developing a style of play concerned less with form and technique than with results. What matters is winning. Or as Nadal puts it, "I've always liked the competition more than the tennis."
Whatever; it's worked. The approach ultimately produced an unorthodox, physical and devastatingly effective game that has taken Nadal, 22, to the top of men's tennis. In 2008, he recorded one of the sport's most successful seasons, becoming the first player since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to win on the slow clay of Roland Garros in Paris and the slick grass of Wimbledon in the same year, while also picking up an Olympic gold and the ATP's top ranking. Given all that, you might expect Nadal to stick with what's working. But he and, most especially, his coach can't help themselves. Having proved that Nadal's unique style can beat any player in the world, Toni has been quietly picking apart Nadal's game, remaking it shot by shot so that the Spaniard plays not less classically but more classically. As Nadal prepares for this year's first grand slam event, in Australia beginning Jan. 19, the top seed and his coach seem to be posing a new challenge: Can tennis's great outsider win by embracing normal?
All athletes develop their own mix of style and technique. But Nadal's peculiarity is quantifiable. San Francisco–based tennis researcher John Yandell has used video-capture technology to record the topspin of Nadal's forehand. He found that Nadal's shot rotates at an average of 3,200 times a minute. Andre Agassi, one of the game's great shotmakers, generated 1,900 rotations per minute in his prime, and current world No. 2 Roger Federer, whose forehand is considered among the game's best, generates 2,700. As U.S. Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe has said of Nadal, "His normal safe forehand is the toughest shot in the world."
That forehand is the central component of a style that tennis experts call "counter-punching." It's one that absorbs an opponent's attacking play with aggressive returns, and springs from Nadal and his uncle's contrarian instincts. Nadal is naturally right-handed. But early on, Toni decided his protégé should play with his left hand to impart unusual southpaw spin. Toni then encouraged, or perhaps failed to correct, the extreme grip Nadal uses, and the unusual way he swings his racquet. To this day, instead of using the forward momentum of his body to generate pace on his forehand as the training manuals recommend, Nadal falls backward from the net on his forehand, whipping his racquet behind his head instead of across his body. This movement results in looping shots that keep an opponent heaving balls back, often on the run, in a nightmare from which only an error provides release. Rallying with Nadal, says former Top 10 player turned coach Brad Gilbert, "is an education in pain."
It's a pain Nadal applied indiscriminately last year, even against Federer, who may just be the greatest player of all time. The Spaniard's rise to No. 1 ended a five-year period in which Federer's free-flowing and artistic play came as close as humanly possible to achieving perfection within the boxed constraints of a tennis court. Since his first French Open victory in 2005, Nadal's more muscular game has consistently overcome the Swiss star on Nadal's favorite surface — clay. But in 2008, Nadal came out on top in four meetings, including an epic five-set Wimbledon final that dethroned the grass-court champion in one of the greatest matches ever played. More than any other, that match — in which Nadal seized control early on and slowly squeezed the air out of Federer, even as the Swiss player thrashed out a brave but doomed comeback — summed up Nadal's unique brand of tennis: protracted but certain in its path to victory.
Nadal's exoticism on the tennis court stands in contrast to the conventional life he lives off it. The son of a prosperous family — his father, Sebastian, runs a successful window company, another uncle was a star soccer defender for Barcelona and Spain — Nadal retains the earnest good manners of a middle-class Spaniard. Rebellious in his fist-pumping, swashbuckling play, he dresses smartly for social occasions. He lists his hobbies as golf, fishing and video games, and follows his uncle's rule that he carry his own bags and racquets when at tournaments. He still lives with his parents. His girlfriend, 20-year-old Maria Francisca Perello, is a student in Majorca whom Nadal met through family friends. "People see Nadal as some sort of rebel, but he's really just a normal guy, a normal Spaniard. He likes normal things and he lives a normal life," says his publicist Benito Perez-Barbadillo. Or, as Nadal puts it, "I'm happy all the time. But I'm most happy at home."
The Weakness in Power
Nadal may be a simple guy off the court, but he has found himself cast as a villain on it. Tennis purists have long bleated that his jarring, defensive game is less pleasing to watch and less effective than Federer's fluid style. Recently, though, the game's élite have started to come around. Swedish great Stefan Edberg has declared Nadal "unbeatable" by today's professionals, and Pete Sampras told reporters on Dec. 2 it may be Nadal, not Federer, who breaks his career-defining record of 14 major championships (Nadal has 5; Federer, five years older, has 13).
But there is a caveat. Can someone with such a high-intensity game last long enough to break all the records? Tennis players' longevity varies depending on their style of play. As points and matches lengthen, careers often shorten. Nadal and his coterie of physical trainers know that the flip side of his heavy topspin is that it forces him to engage in bruising rallies. His muscle-bound physique — which Nadal says is down to genes rather than weight-lifting — adds an extra burden: the explosive forces those muscles generate put his body under increased strain.
This is particularly evident on a hard court, which offers less forgiveness than the softer surfaces of clay and grass, and may explain why Nadal has never managed to make the final of a Grand Slam hard-court event. Ask his trainer, Rafael Maymo, what parts of Nadal's body are under strain when he plays, and he answers: "Shoulder, feet, legs and back. Oh wait, that's every part." Sampras is even more direct: [Nadal] puts so much effort into each point that eventually something will break."
Just as his counter-punching style relies on a fundamental obstinacy, Nadal seems naturally resistant to criticism. In interviews, he consistently deflects questions with rhetorical returns ("But clearly I play better, no?" "I've won on grass before, no?"). At the BNP Paribas Masters in November, he insisted that what really needed changing was the length of the professional tennis season, not his game. (Two days later, tendinitis in his knee forced him to withdraw from the event.) "The Tour is very tough because the season is too long in my opinion," he told TIME as he melted four squares of butter into a steaming heap of plain pasta. (A portion of salmon waited to one side). "Next year is going to be very difficult for me because I have had such a tough season already."
But while Nadal gripes about too many matches, Toni has been reworking his nephew's game to make it less physically demanding. In recent months, the pair have focused on increasing the velocity of Nadal's serve in the hope of earning more aces, and improving Nadal's net play in the hope of shortening rallies. More drastically, they have begun altering Nadal's trademark forehand. In Paris, I spent two hours watching Nadal practice forehands with a follow-through that came around his body in the traditional manner rather than whiplashing behind his head. Toni barked complaints if his pupil unconsciously reverted to his old follow-through. At one point, unhappy with the results, Toni pointed at a promotional picture of Federer on the JumboTron above the court, a post-forehand action shot of the Swiss player with the caption hit that back if you can! See, like that!, Toni seemed to be indicating. "Federer is a wonderful player," Toni says later, before making a gesture with his hand in imitation of a painter's strokes. "He plays with [this]," he says, hand brushing up and down. "His spirit is so easy."
Is his coach encouraging Nadal to mimic Federer? "No, Federer is too good," says Toni. "Rafael must play like himself but better, [less spin], quicker points." But how can Federer be too good when Rafael is ranked No. 1? "There is a difference between who is better and who knows more," says Toni. "Better now is Rafael, he is No. 1 in the ranking. But who has the best game? Federer."
Playing the Game
Spend a few days with Nadal and it becomes clear that the changes he is making to his game are part of a wider makeover that he and his handlers have planned for 2009. At the center of these changes is the desire to project a more mature image. Whether that comes from Nadal himself is tough to say. Tennis stars can remain children long into their careers. Many players turn pro in their mid-teens. In the player's lounge at the Paris Masters, top pros in their late teens or early twenties lay around on faux-zebra-skin couches while their managers hustled the phones. The most popular section of the players' restaurant was a wall filled with jars of candy and licorice, and back at the hotel players spent a good portion of their time playing video games together. Even in this setting, there has always been something particularly childlike about Nadal's public persona, from his obsessive prematch routine of arranging his water bottles just so, to his compulsive butt-scratching between points, to his habit of posing for championship photographs while biting onto trophies like a teething tot.
Nadal's manager, Carlos Costa of the management company IMG, says the young champ is ready to grow up. The role model, again, is Federer, who has positioned himself as an elder statesman of the tour and whose exquisite touch on the court and advertiser-friendly image as a trilingual Swiss gentleman brought in an estimated $35 million in prize money and endorsements in 2008. (Nadal's camp won't discuss finances, but tennis writers estimate Nadal's earnings fall considerably short of that.) "When you see Nadal and Federer it's a different type of person," says Costa. [Federer] is more adult, [Nadal] seems more like a kid." If Nadal's earnings are to grow, that will have to change. Nadal's sponsors target "young people," says Costa. "But he needs to be the kind of guy that brands can think of as an ambassador. Someday he's going to be a man, more than a kid."
That day may be some way off. As part of the campaign to rebrand Nadal, Nike announced last summer that the player would wear a new line of attire at the U.S. Open. Nadal normally wears knee-length shorts and a sleeveless shirt — a trademark pirate costume loved by fans, which looks ridiculous on anything other than Nadal's muscled body. Nike said the new line would be "more mature" and appeal to an older tennis-playing public. But only days before the tournament began, the clothes were withdrawn because Nadal said he felt uncomfortable.
Could changing tennis's most unique and effective specimen backfire? Nadal will never lose certain aspects of what makes him so effective: his pugilist spirit, and the ability to impose his muscular game on more talented players. But so much of his success stems from his resistance to tradition that Toni's plan to make his charge more orthodox may dim Nadal's aura among fellow pros. When I asked the American player Andy Roddick about the changes, he couldn't believe that Nadal would voluntarily reduce the spin on his forehand. "One of the things that is difficult about facing [Nadal] is the extreme topspin he gets on the ball," Roddick told TIME. "If it's true, I don't think it would make him more effective."
And while sponsors may want Nadal to become a man, he needs to be his own man. Fans love Nadal because he seems so real. Even his most deliberate calculations — to pick up the racquet in his left hand and hit the ball in a way nobody has before — seem to stem from a subversive instinct. For tennis's antihero, on the court at least, normal might be a step too far.
After studying the exotic wildlife of the Galápagos Islands, Charles Darwin surmised that animals can develop unique traits when they evolve in isolation. In the tennis world, Rafael Nadal is such an animal. Based on the island of Majorca, Nadal and his family shunned mainstream training programs as he grew up, preferring the more homespun methods of Rafael's uncle Toni, whose tennis credentials consist of a brief stint competing on the national circuit. Passing up funding from Spain's national tennis academy, and scholarship money from America's private academies, Rafael and Toni would travel to the mainland only when a tournament required it. More skillful opponents were viewed as problems to overcome, not exemplars to be mimicked. Nadal — who first picked up a racquet aged 3 — and his coach found their own solutions, developing a style of play concerned less with form and technique than with results. What matters is winning. Or as Nadal puts it, "I've always liked the competition more than the tennis."
Whatever; it's worked. The approach ultimately produced an unorthodox, physical and devastatingly effective game that has taken Nadal, 22, to the top of men's tennis. In 2008, he recorded one of the sport's most successful seasons, becoming the first player since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to win on the slow clay of Roland Garros in Paris and the slick grass of Wimbledon in the same year, while also picking up an Olympic gold and the ATP's top ranking. Given all that, you might expect Nadal to stick with what's working. But he and, most especially, his coach can't help themselves. Having proved that Nadal's unique style can beat any player in the world, Toni has been quietly picking apart Nadal's game, remaking it shot by shot so that the Spaniard plays not less classically but more classically. As Nadal prepares for this year's first grand slam event, in Australia beginning Jan. 19, the top seed and his coach seem to be posing a new challenge: Can tennis's great outsider win by embracing normal?
All athletes develop their own mix of style and technique. But Nadal's peculiarity is quantifiable. San Francisco–based tennis researcher John Yandell has used video-capture technology to record the topspin of Nadal's forehand. He found that Nadal's shot rotates at an average of 3,200 times a minute. Andre Agassi, one of the game's great shotmakers, generated 1,900 rotations per minute in his prime, and current world No. 2 Roger Federer, whose forehand is considered among the game's best, generates 2,700. As U.S. Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe has said of Nadal, "His normal safe forehand is the toughest shot in the world."
That forehand is the central component of a style that tennis experts call "counter-punching." It's one that absorbs an opponent's attacking play with aggressive returns, and springs from Nadal and his uncle's contrarian instincts. Nadal is naturally right-handed. But early on, Toni decided his protégé should play with his left hand to impart unusual southpaw spin. Toni then encouraged, or perhaps failed to correct, the extreme grip Nadal uses, and the unusual way he swings his racquet. To this day, instead of using the forward momentum of his body to generate pace on his forehand as the training manuals recommend, Nadal falls backward from the net on his forehand, whipping his racquet behind his head instead of across his body. This movement results in looping shots that keep an opponent heaving balls back, often on the run, in a nightmare from which only an error provides release. Rallying with Nadal, says former Top 10 player turned coach Brad Gilbert, "is an education in pain."
It's a pain Nadal applied indiscriminately last year, even against Federer, who may just be the greatest player of all time. The Spaniard's rise to No. 1 ended a five-year period in which Federer's free-flowing and artistic play came as close as humanly possible to achieving perfection within the boxed constraints of a tennis court. Since his first French Open victory in 2005, Nadal's more muscular game has consistently overcome the Swiss star on Nadal's favorite surface — clay. But in 2008, Nadal came out on top in four meetings, including an epic five-set Wimbledon final that dethroned the grass-court champion in one of the greatest matches ever played. More than any other, that match — in which Nadal seized control early on and slowly squeezed the air out of Federer, even as the Swiss player thrashed out a brave but doomed comeback — summed up Nadal's unique brand of tennis: protracted but certain in its path to victory.
Nadal's exoticism on the tennis court stands in contrast to the conventional life he lives off it. The son of a prosperous family — his father, Sebastian, runs a successful window company, another uncle was a star soccer defender for Barcelona and Spain — Nadal retains the earnest good manners of a middle-class Spaniard. Rebellious in his fist-pumping, swashbuckling play, he dresses smartly for social occasions. He lists his hobbies as golf, fishing and video games, and follows his uncle's rule that he carry his own bags and racquets when at tournaments. He still lives with his parents. His girlfriend, 20-year-old Maria Francisca Perello, is a student in Majorca whom Nadal met through family friends. "People see Nadal as some sort of rebel, but he's really just a normal guy, a normal Spaniard. He likes normal things and he lives a normal life," says his publicist Benito Perez-Barbadillo. Or, as Nadal puts it, "I'm happy all the time. But I'm most happy at home."
The Weakness in Power
Nadal may be a simple guy off the court, but he has found himself cast as a villain on it. Tennis purists have long bleated that his jarring, defensive game is less pleasing to watch and less effective than Federer's fluid style. Recently, though, the game's élite have started to come around. Swedish great Stefan Edberg has declared Nadal "unbeatable" by today's professionals, and Pete Sampras told reporters on Dec. 2 it may be Nadal, not Federer, who breaks his career-defining record of 14 major championships (Nadal has 5; Federer, five years older, has 13).
But there is a caveat. Can someone with such a high-intensity game last long enough to break all the records? Tennis players' longevity varies depending on their style of play. As points and matches lengthen, careers often shorten. Nadal and his coterie of physical trainers know that the flip side of his heavy topspin is that it forces him to engage in bruising rallies. His muscle-bound physique — which Nadal says is down to genes rather than weight-lifting — adds an extra burden: the explosive forces those muscles generate put his body under increased strain.
This is particularly evident on a hard court, which offers less forgiveness than the softer surfaces of clay and grass, and may explain why Nadal has never managed to make the final of a Grand Slam hard-court event. Ask his trainer, Rafael Maymo, what parts of Nadal's body are under strain when he plays, and he answers: "Shoulder, feet, legs and back. Oh wait, that's every part." Sampras is even more direct: [Nadal] puts so much effort into each point that eventually something will break."
Just as his counter-punching style relies on a fundamental obstinacy, Nadal seems naturally resistant to criticism. In interviews, he consistently deflects questions with rhetorical returns ("But clearly I play better, no?" "I've won on grass before, no?"). At the BNP Paribas Masters in November, he insisted that what really needed changing was the length of the professional tennis season, not his game. (Two days later, tendinitis in his knee forced him to withdraw from the event.) "The Tour is very tough because the season is too long in my opinion," he told TIME as he melted four squares of butter into a steaming heap of plain pasta. (A portion of salmon waited to one side). "Next year is going to be very difficult for me because I have had such a tough season already."
But while Nadal gripes about too many matches, Toni has been reworking his nephew's game to make it less physically demanding. In recent months, the pair have focused on increasing the velocity of Nadal's serve in the hope of earning more aces, and improving Nadal's net play in the hope of shortening rallies. More drastically, they have begun altering Nadal's trademark forehand. In Paris, I spent two hours watching Nadal practice forehands with a follow-through that came around his body in the traditional manner rather than whiplashing behind his head. Toni barked complaints if his pupil unconsciously reverted to his old follow-through. At one point, unhappy with the results, Toni pointed at a promotional picture of Federer on the JumboTron above the court, a post-forehand action shot of the Swiss player with the caption hit that back if you can! See, like that!, Toni seemed to be indicating. "Federer is a wonderful player," Toni says later, before making a gesture with his hand in imitation of a painter's strokes. "He plays with [this]," he says, hand brushing up and down. "His spirit is so easy."
Is his coach encouraging Nadal to mimic Federer? "No, Federer is too good," says Toni. "Rafael must play like himself but better, [less spin], quicker points." But how can Federer be too good when Rafael is ranked No. 1? "There is a difference between who is better and who knows more," says Toni. "Better now is Rafael, he is No. 1 in the ranking. But who has the best game? Federer."
Playing the Game
Spend a few days with Nadal and it becomes clear that the changes he is making to his game are part of a wider makeover that he and his handlers have planned for 2009. At the center of these changes is the desire to project a more mature image. Whether that comes from Nadal himself is tough to say. Tennis stars can remain children long into their careers. Many players turn pro in their mid-teens. In the player's lounge at the Paris Masters, top pros in their late teens or early twenties lay around on faux-zebra-skin couches while their managers hustled the phones. The most popular section of the players' restaurant was a wall filled with jars of candy and licorice, and back at the hotel players spent a good portion of their time playing video games together. Even in this setting, there has always been something particularly childlike about Nadal's public persona, from his obsessive prematch routine of arranging his water bottles just so, to his compulsive butt-scratching between points, to his habit of posing for championship photographs while biting onto trophies like a teething tot.
Nadal's manager, Carlos Costa of the management company IMG, says the young champ is ready to grow up. The role model, again, is Federer, who has positioned himself as an elder statesman of the tour and whose exquisite touch on the court and advertiser-friendly image as a trilingual Swiss gentleman brought in an estimated $35 million in prize money and endorsements in 2008. (Nadal's camp won't discuss finances, but tennis writers estimate Nadal's earnings fall considerably short of that.) "When you see Nadal and Federer it's a different type of person," says Costa. [Federer] is more adult, [Nadal] seems more like a kid." If Nadal's earnings are to grow, that will have to change. Nadal's sponsors target "young people," says Costa. "But he needs to be the kind of guy that brands can think of as an ambassador. Someday he's going to be a man, more than a kid."
That day may be some way off. As part of the campaign to rebrand Nadal, Nike announced last summer that the player would wear a new line of attire at the U.S. Open. Nadal normally wears knee-length shorts and a sleeveless shirt — a trademark pirate costume loved by fans, which looks ridiculous on anything other than Nadal's muscled body. Nike said the new line would be "more mature" and appeal to an older tennis-playing public. But only days before the tournament began, the clothes were withdrawn because Nadal said he felt uncomfortable.
Could changing tennis's most unique and effective specimen backfire? Nadal will never lose certain aspects of what makes him so effective: his pugilist spirit, and the ability to impose his muscular game on more talented players. But so much of his success stems from his resistance to tradition that Toni's plan to make his charge more orthodox may dim Nadal's aura among fellow pros. When I asked the American player Andy Roddick about the changes, he couldn't believe that Nadal would voluntarily reduce the spin on his forehand. "One of the things that is difficult about facing [Nadal] is the extreme topspin he gets on the ball," Roddick told TIME. "If it's true, I don't think it would make him more effective."
And while sponsors may want Nadal to become a man, he needs to be his own man. Fans love Nadal because he seems so real. Even his most deliberate calculations — to pick up the racquet in his left hand and hit the ball in a way nobody has before — seem to stem from a subversive instinct. For tennis's antihero, on the court at least, normal might be a step too far.
Lifestyle - The good China
Stephanie Rogers
In 2001, when bidding for the chance to host the Olympic Games in its capital city of Beijing, China pledged to present pristine skies, waterways and cityscapes as well as cutting-edge green technology if chosen. The rapidly developing nation, which nabbed the title of world's largest greenhouse-gas emitter from the United States last year, failed to act on that promise until the last possible minute, rushing to clean up just months before the games started in August.
Clearly, the environment has not been a priority for China, which has long put the bulk of its energy and resources into expanding its economy. The heavy cloak of smog that hangs over the country has grown worse over the years as scores of factories and plants emit noxious smoke into the air. In the early days of climate negotiations, says Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Chinese authorities were hardly cooperative.
"They just wouldn't hear of anything. They saw this effort as a Western conspiracy to prevent them from growing," Kerry said in a conference call earlier this month.
Beijing's cleanup for the Olympics — though not a full delivery on its 2001 promise — was surprisingly successful, at least temporarily. Traffic was severely limited within city limits and many polluting factories and other businesses were shut down for the duration of the games, and air quality improved dramatically. Results from an unprecedented NASA satellite study to measure the impact of the air pollution controls show that levels of certain pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide, declined sharply while the restrictions were in place.
The success of the controls encouraged the Chinese government to begin a six-month trial of citywide traffic restrictions, which, though not as drastic as the cutbacks during the Olympics, should make quite an impact on the city's emissions. Beijing citizens are also still using the new subway line and airport rail link created for the games and taking advantage of reduced bus fares.
China still has a long way to go, however, in terms of cutting its emissions and cleaning up the pollution that has fouled its air and spread through its waterways. Its countryside is littered with villages tainted by toxic chemicals like lead and mercury, and the people who live there are dying of cancer at alarming rates. Factories in these areas pour chemical-laden waste into the waterways, and poor residents have no way to protect themselves from the contaminants.
These pressing problems have been caused by the government's decades-old attitude of expansion at all costs, yet officials say efforts to clean up the environment would hamper the growth of China's middle class. It's true that the country's growing economy has afforded many people in China a higher standard of living, but the poor who are left behind are worse off than ever.
Despite recent green initiatives, the government's focus remains primarily on economic welfare, and China still has plans to build more than 550 coal-fired power plants. The country depends on coal, a major carbon emitter, for more than 70 percent of its power — compare that to an average of 20 percent in other countries around the world.
Many people are optimistic that China is at least willing to discuss environmental measures and climate controls with Western nations. Last year, China agreed to work toward containing carbon emissions as long as it receives technological and financial help.
"That was a very big step," says Li Yan of Greenpeace. "Now the challenge is not to say what is the next step, but to implement" policy with Western financial help.
It remains to be seen whether any real action will be taken. The global financial crisis may cause more factories to close as demand for Chinese goods slows down, and some hope that a portion of Beijing's recently announced billion-dollar stimulus package will go toward clean technology.
But at the same time, others fear that smaller budgets will prompt officials to put environmental goals on the back burner and allow the businesses that have created much of the country's growth to keep on polluting. China's actions through the global recession may be the biggest indicator we'll get as to how serious it really is about cleaning up the environment.
In 2001, when bidding for the chance to host the Olympic Games in its capital city of Beijing, China pledged to present pristine skies, waterways and cityscapes as well as cutting-edge green technology if chosen. The rapidly developing nation, which nabbed the title of world's largest greenhouse-gas emitter from the United States last year, failed to act on that promise until the last possible minute, rushing to clean up just months before the games started in August.
Clearly, the environment has not been a priority for China, which has long put the bulk of its energy and resources into expanding its economy. The heavy cloak of smog that hangs over the country has grown worse over the years as scores of factories and plants emit noxious smoke into the air. In the early days of climate negotiations, says Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Chinese authorities were hardly cooperative.
"They just wouldn't hear of anything. They saw this effort as a Western conspiracy to prevent them from growing," Kerry said in a conference call earlier this month.
Beijing's cleanup for the Olympics — though not a full delivery on its 2001 promise — was surprisingly successful, at least temporarily. Traffic was severely limited within city limits and many polluting factories and other businesses were shut down for the duration of the games, and air quality improved dramatically. Results from an unprecedented NASA satellite study to measure the impact of the air pollution controls show that levels of certain pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide, declined sharply while the restrictions were in place.
The success of the controls encouraged the Chinese government to begin a six-month trial of citywide traffic restrictions, which, though not as drastic as the cutbacks during the Olympics, should make quite an impact on the city's emissions. Beijing citizens are also still using the new subway line and airport rail link created for the games and taking advantage of reduced bus fares.
China still has a long way to go, however, in terms of cutting its emissions and cleaning up the pollution that has fouled its air and spread through its waterways. Its countryside is littered with villages tainted by toxic chemicals like lead and mercury, and the people who live there are dying of cancer at alarming rates. Factories in these areas pour chemical-laden waste into the waterways, and poor residents have no way to protect themselves from the contaminants.
These pressing problems have been caused by the government's decades-old attitude of expansion at all costs, yet officials say efforts to clean up the environment would hamper the growth of China's middle class. It's true that the country's growing economy has afforded many people in China a higher standard of living, but the poor who are left behind are worse off than ever.
Despite recent green initiatives, the government's focus remains primarily on economic welfare, and China still has plans to build more than 550 coal-fired power plants. The country depends on coal, a major carbon emitter, for more than 70 percent of its power — compare that to an average of 20 percent in other countries around the world.
Many people are optimistic that China is at least willing to discuss environmental measures and climate controls with Western nations. Last year, China agreed to work toward containing carbon emissions as long as it receives technological and financial help.
"That was a very big step," says Li Yan of Greenpeace. "Now the challenge is not to say what is the next step, but to implement" policy with Western financial help.
It remains to be seen whether any real action will be taken. The global financial crisis may cause more factories to close as demand for Chinese goods slows down, and some hope that a portion of Beijing's recently announced billion-dollar stimulus package will go toward clean technology.
But at the same time, others fear that smaller budgets will prompt officials to put environmental goals on the back burner and allow the businesses that have created much of the country's growth to keep on polluting. China's actions through the global recession may be the biggest indicator we'll get as to how serious it really is about cleaning up the environment.
Lifestyle - Restaurants can now convert fat to 'vegawatts'
Karl Burkart
Bio-diesel driving hippies have been loving the free french fry oil for fueling up their buses, but now they may find restaurant owners less likely to part with all that old grease. A new company called Owl Power has invented an inexpensive cogeneration system that converts waste oil into both electricity and hot water, saving up to 25% on utility costs.
Most restaurants operate on a pretty small margin and often utilities are a business' #1 cost. In addition, a restaurant often has to pay to have its waste oil hauled off (unless they can find a biodiesel buyer). James Peret, found and CEO of Owl Power, devised a way to kill two birds with one stone, while helping reduce the amount of fossil fuels that a restaurant typically requires.
The unit called the 'Vegawatt' is about the size of a commercial refrigerator and is installed outside the building. Waste oil is deposited, filtered and refined through a patent-pending four-step process, producing refined diesel fuel. The fuel, unlike biodiesel which is made using caustic chemicals, is then combusted in a diesel engine, creating both electricity and a hot water supply that feeds directly into the existing hot water heater. The basic 5 kilowatt unit sells for about $22,000 and for a typical restaurant (with 3-5 fryers) will pay for itself in less than three years.
After that, it can supply an estimated 10-25% of a typical restaurant's utility bill. There are 1.2 million restaurants in the US using an estimated 3 billion gallons of vegetable oil per year. That is a whole lot of stored energy, most of it unused. The Vegawatt allows that latent energy to be harnessed, helping restaurants reduce cost while keeping CO2 out of the air.
The Vegawatt fuel is considered "carbon neutral." It produces just a little less CO2 than natural gas (about 640 grams of CO2 per kWh) but since the fuel comes from crops which absorb CO2 during their growing season, it is considered a net zero emitter by the EPA (PDF). It also burns super clean, adhering to the EPA's highest Tier 4 emission standards, which means less air pollutants like NOx and sulfer dioxide.
The very first system was just installed at a fish fry restaurant in Dedham,
Bio-diesel driving hippies have been loving the free french fry oil for fueling up their buses, but now they may find restaurant owners less likely to part with all that old grease. A new company called Owl Power has invented an inexpensive cogeneration system that converts waste oil into both electricity and hot water, saving up to 25% on utility costs.
Most restaurants operate on a pretty small margin and often utilities are a business' #1 cost. In addition, a restaurant often has to pay to have its waste oil hauled off (unless they can find a biodiesel buyer). James Peret, found and CEO of Owl Power, devised a way to kill two birds with one stone, while helping reduce the amount of fossil fuels that a restaurant typically requires.
The unit called the 'Vegawatt' is about the size of a commercial refrigerator and is installed outside the building. Waste oil is deposited, filtered and refined through a patent-pending four-step process, producing refined diesel fuel. The fuel, unlike biodiesel which is made using caustic chemicals, is then combusted in a diesel engine, creating both electricity and a hot water supply that feeds directly into the existing hot water heater. The basic 5 kilowatt unit sells for about $22,000 and for a typical restaurant (with 3-5 fryers) will pay for itself in less than three years.
After that, it can supply an estimated 10-25% of a typical restaurant's utility bill. There are 1.2 million restaurants in the US using an estimated 3 billion gallons of vegetable oil per year. That is a whole lot of stored energy, most of it unused. The Vegawatt allows that latent energy to be harnessed, helping restaurants reduce cost while keeping CO2 out of the air.
The Vegawatt fuel is considered "carbon neutral." It produces just a little less CO2 than natural gas (about 640 grams of CO2 per kWh) but since the fuel comes from crops which absorb CO2 during their growing season, it is considered a net zero emitter by the EPA (PDF). It also burns super clean, adhering to the EPA's highest Tier 4 emission standards, which means less air pollutants like NOx and sulfer dioxide.
The very first system was just installed at a fish fry restaurant in Dedham,
Lifestyle - Barack's gas guzzler... it's kind of a Cadillac
Jim Motavalli
The very first president to ride in a car was William McKinley in 1899, but it was Teddy Roosevelt who, in 1902, became the first to lead a motorcade. The place was Hartford, Connecticut, and the car was a purple-upholstered Columbia Electric Victoria. Neither President spent much time in an automobile, however.
President William Howard Taft had a Baker Electric, and a White Steam car, too. According to automotive historian Michael L. Bromley, early Presidents looked at the automobile with some suspicion as a symbol of conspicuous wealth. By 1909, with mass production of the Model T Ford underway, a case could be made that cars were helpful to the masses. And so Taft was able to lead the way--he owned no less than four cars.
In 1977, President Carter made a splash by hosting a hydrogen-powered Cadillac Seville in his inaugural parade. The Caddy, designed by Roger Billings, could also run on gasoline.
As President-elect, Barack Obama has made a substantial commitment to green cars—he wants to put a million plug-in hybrid cars on American roads by 2015. But will he live out his principles? His personal car, a not particularly fuel-efficient Chrysler 300C, was mysteriously put up for sale on eBay in December, with a starting bid of $100,000. The car was pulled before it attracted any bids, so maybe it’s still in the Presidential motor pool.
But Obama definitely has a new car, made by General Motors. A new Presidential Cadillac limousine goes into service January 20, with the two-mile inaugural parade its first public appearance. Since President Kennedy was shot in Dallas in 1963, Presidential Cadillacs have been not only enclosed, but virtually armor-plated. That might be prudent, but it certainly makes the new and rather hideous limo extremely heavy. Even with a diesel engine, don’t expect it to have good fuel economy.
Bromley says he's unsure why Obama really needs a new limousine, since George W. Bush was furnished with a brand-new 2006 Cadillac DTS-based version. "Cadillac probably wants it to reflect the look of its latest models," he said.
The President mover is assembled from a unique assortment of GM car and SUV parts. Details are kept secret, but there’s probably a GM 2500 truck chassis under the Caddy body. The car incorporates five-inch-thick armor, run-flat tires and an interior sealed against chemical attack. With the advanced communications equipment on board, it’s something of a mobile White House.
If he can get away with it, Obama may spend some leisure time in a Smart Car or a Toyota Prius. But when the new limo and his regular flights on Air Force One are taken into account, the President-elect’s carbon profile is likely to go way up in 2009.
The very first president to ride in a car was William McKinley in 1899, but it was Teddy Roosevelt who, in 1902, became the first to lead a motorcade. The place was Hartford, Connecticut, and the car was a purple-upholstered Columbia Electric Victoria. Neither President spent much time in an automobile, however.
President William Howard Taft had a Baker Electric, and a White Steam car, too. According to automotive historian Michael L. Bromley, early Presidents looked at the automobile with some suspicion as a symbol of conspicuous wealth. By 1909, with mass production of the Model T Ford underway, a case could be made that cars were helpful to the masses. And so Taft was able to lead the way--he owned no less than four cars.
In 1977, President Carter made a splash by hosting a hydrogen-powered Cadillac Seville in his inaugural parade. The Caddy, designed by Roger Billings, could also run on gasoline.
As President-elect, Barack Obama has made a substantial commitment to green cars—he wants to put a million plug-in hybrid cars on American roads by 2015. But will he live out his principles? His personal car, a not particularly fuel-efficient Chrysler 300C, was mysteriously put up for sale on eBay in December, with a starting bid of $100,000. The car was pulled before it attracted any bids, so maybe it’s still in the Presidential motor pool.
But Obama definitely has a new car, made by General Motors. A new Presidential Cadillac limousine goes into service January 20, with the two-mile inaugural parade its first public appearance. Since President Kennedy was shot in Dallas in 1963, Presidential Cadillacs have been not only enclosed, but virtually armor-plated. That might be prudent, but it certainly makes the new and rather hideous limo extremely heavy. Even with a diesel engine, don’t expect it to have good fuel economy.
Bromley says he's unsure why Obama really needs a new limousine, since George W. Bush was furnished with a brand-new 2006 Cadillac DTS-based version. "Cadillac probably wants it to reflect the look of its latest models," he said.
The President mover is assembled from a unique assortment of GM car and SUV parts. Details are kept secret, but there’s probably a GM 2500 truck chassis under the Caddy body. The car incorporates five-inch-thick armor, run-flat tires and an interior sealed against chemical attack. With the advanced communications equipment on board, it’s something of a mobile White House.
If he can get away with it, Obama may spend some leisure time in a Smart Car or a Toyota Prius. But when the new limo and his regular flights on Air Force One are taken into account, the President-elect’s carbon profile is likely to go way up in 2009.
Health - How much mercury is in fish we eat ?
Russell McLendon
Global warming isn't fossil fuels' only dirty trick. While it is the most sweeping and civilization-threatening side effect of our carbon economy, there are lots of toxins lurking in every lump of coal and drop of oil. And one especially scary fossil-based toxin is also now embedded in your mahi-mahi: mercury.
While atmospheric CO2 starts a chain reaction that disrupts delicate natural processes across the planet, mercury is a more hands-on pollutant. It injects itself into the food chain, accumulates as it moves up and then attacks our bodies directly when we eat contaminated animals, namely fish.
Mercury poisoning can cause severe brain, kidney and lung damage to children and adults, but it’s even more dangerous to fetuses. It prevents nerve cells in the brain from forming correctly, which can damage attention span, fine motor function, language skills, visual-spatial abilities and verbal memory. That’s why the FDA suggests women who are pregnant or plan to become pregnant avoid fish with the highest levels of mercury: shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish.
But why do some fish have more mercury than others? They are what they ate.
Mercury is released into the air just like CO2 when fossil fuels are burned, and coal-fired power plants are the main source. Rather than drifting up into the atmosphere, though, mercury accumulates in clouds and falls to earth with rain. Most of it drains into streams, rivers, lakes and oceans, where plankton absorb it and convert it to the dangerous methylmercury. Small fish like minnows spend their lives eating this plankton, and the merthlymercury builds up in them. Bigger fish eat the minnows, and each fish up the food chain accumulates more and more of it; that’s why smaller fish like anchovies and tilapia have the lowest mercury levels and predator fish like shark and swordfish have the highest. That's also why women who aren't pregnant but plan to eventually have kids should avoid predator fish, because mercury builds up in humans, too.
The United States leapt forward in combating mercury pollution with the 2005 Clean Air Mercury Rule and now contributes only about 3 percent of annual human emissions worldwide. But that doesn’t mean U.S. fish are mercury-free. That 3 percent is still significant — more than5 million pounds in 2006 — and much of our fish comes from waters polluted by other countries' mercury emissions. Furthermore, all that mercury doesn't just go away each year; it adds up over time as it climbs the aquatic food chain from plankton to people. In November, theNew York Times reported that bald eagles in the Catskills were showing increasing levels of mercury — not enough yet to further threaten that species, but an indicator nonetheless that the toxin is still contaminating wild fish and moving up the food chain.
Global warming isn't fossil fuels' only dirty trick. While it is the most sweeping and civilization-threatening side effect of our carbon economy, there are lots of toxins lurking in every lump of coal and drop of oil. And one especially scary fossil-based toxin is also now embedded in your mahi-mahi: mercury.
While atmospheric CO2 starts a chain reaction that disrupts delicate natural processes across the planet, mercury is a more hands-on pollutant. It injects itself into the food chain, accumulates as it moves up and then attacks our bodies directly when we eat contaminated animals, namely fish.
Mercury poisoning can cause severe brain, kidney and lung damage to children and adults, but it’s even more dangerous to fetuses. It prevents nerve cells in the brain from forming correctly, which can damage attention span, fine motor function, language skills, visual-spatial abilities and verbal memory. That’s why the FDA suggests women who are pregnant or plan to become pregnant avoid fish with the highest levels of mercury: shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish.
But why do some fish have more mercury than others? They are what they ate.
Mercury is released into the air just like CO2 when fossil fuels are burned, and coal-fired power plants are the main source. Rather than drifting up into the atmosphere, though, mercury accumulates in clouds and falls to earth with rain. Most of it drains into streams, rivers, lakes and oceans, where plankton absorb it and convert it to the dangerous methylmercury. Small fish like minnows spend their lives eating this plankton, and the merthlymercury builds up in them. Bigger fish eat the minnows, and each fish up the food chain accumulates more and more of it; that’s why smaller fish like anchovies and tilapia have the lowest mercury levels and predator fish like shark and swordfish have the highest. That's also why women who aren't pregnant but plan to eventually have kids should avoid predator fish, because mercury builds up in humans, too.
The United States leapt forward in combating mercury pollution with the 2005 Clean Air Mercury Rule and now contributes only about 3 percent of annual human emissions worldwide. But that doesn’t mean U.S. fish are mercury-free. That 3 percent is still significant — more than5 million pounds in 2006 — and much of our fish comes from waters polluted by other countries' mercury emissions. Furthermore, all that mercury doesn't just go away each year; it adds up over time as it climbs the aquatic food chain from plankton to people. In November, theNew York Times reported that bald eagles in the Catskills were showing increasing levels of mercury — not enough yet to further threaten that species, but an indicator nonetheless that the toxin is still contaminating wild fish and moving up the food chain.
Lifestyle - Dine Out,Don't throw out
Ashley Chase
As you might guess, being a pizza jockey isn't the most glamorous job on Earth. But hey, as a college student, it helps pay the bills. Having been one myself for several years, as well as a server of other types of food, I have spent many an hour watching how the restaurant business works. One of the inevitable, unfortunate aspects of food service is that an incredible amount of food and materials go to waste. Happily, this doesn't have to be the case. The expertise I've gained in my years of pizza- and noodle-slinging can finally be put to good use other than a few extra dollars: a list of things you can start doing to reduce your impact while dining in or taking out.
1) Take your leftovers home. Even if you don't think you (or your roommates, family or dog) will eat that leftover food, there's a much greater chance it won't go to waste if you bring it with you. It's illegal for restaurants to save anything diners leave on a table, so it gets thrown away even if it looks untouched. Of course, a Styrofoam or plastic to-go box is even less biodegradable than wasted food, so ask if paper boxes or doggie bags are available, or bring your own Tupperware. Moral of the story: Do your hungry-two-hours-from-now self a favor and take it home. You'll spare it from the landfill and enjoy it again later.
2) Conserve napkins. Most of us are guilty of this -- you order some food at the counter, grab a huge wad of napkins, and end up leaving half of them on your table or throwing them away. The automatic-throw-away rule comes into play here once again; the staff will throw those unused napkins out once you're gone, even if they appear clean. Paper waste contributes directly to the destruction of the Earth's already-dwindling, incredibly vital forests. Make life easier on yourself and everyone else by not using (or taking) more napkins than you need.
3) Use cash instead of credit. When possible, try to throw down a few greenbacks instead of always resorting to plastic. Credit card transactions usually produce at least three different pieces of paper, two of which often end up in the trash. Especially when it's a small amount to be paid, shell out some cash and save paper.
4) Support community eateries that serve local or organic food. Locally grown food is important to you and your community in several ways. For one, organic food is produced according to certain production standards that prohibit the use of conventional pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Also, organic produce contains up to 40 percent more antioxidants than conventional equivalents (that's a good thing). If you're not sold on the personal-health argument, think about the planet's health. In terms of local food, since farmers grow it locally, the impact on the planet is much smaller because it doesn't have to travel as far to its final destination (read: smaller carbon emissions). Another perk is that frequenting restaurants/bars/markets/etc. located right in your community keeps you in touch with what's going on in your area, supports the local economy and (hooray!) saves gas.
5) Drink draft beer. Attention, beer lovers. College students, Homer Simpson and everyone in between, good news: You can be greener with your beer consumption, and not just on St. Patrick's Day. Draft beer is stored in kegs -- huge metal barrels that are reusable. Bottled and canned beers come in single-use containers that restaurants and bars often just throw out instead of recycling. So next time you're at happy hour, go easy on Mother Nature and order what's on tap. It also wouldn't hurt to try out a locally brewed beer (see No. 4).
6) Bring your own mug. Attention, coffee lovers. We all have our vices. Some people secretly rock out to Miley Cyrus with the soundproof car windows tightly closed; others fiend for coffee. If you're a regular coffee drinker (supporting the cafe that serves locally grown coffee, of course), cut down on some paper waste by bringing your own travel mug. The life of a paper coffee cup maxes out at about one hour from the time it hits your caffeine-craving hand. A lot of trees have to be sacrificed for your daily fix if you're using a new cup every day. You can spend as little as $5 one time (which is about as much as one large coffee drink from certain -- cough -- Seattle-based coffee conglomerates) and have a permanent container. Many coffee shops are happy to fill your personal mug, and some even give you a discount.
7) Try to skip appetizers and desserts more often. Although some pre- and post-entree additions can be delicious, they can also be wasteful. Studies have shown that Americans waste an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption -- an astounding statistic, especially when you consider another sad fact -- that about 13 percent (PDF) of the world's population doesn't have enough food daily to sustain a healthy life. There's a much greater chance of something going to waste if you order more food than you can finish. If you must do it, refer to tip No. 1 and take your extra food home.
8) Don't get utensils with takeout. This is a big one. Countless materials are wasted with takeout. If you know you're taking your food straight home, where you have your own forks, spoons, knives, napkins, dressings, sauces, plates, bowls, chopsticks, etc., do the planet a favor and ask your takeout place not to give you those items. You'll conserve a bunch of paper, plastic and other increasingly scarce materials, and you can also feel good about saving your favorite restaurant some money.
9) And for my fellow servers, recommend this to your managers: Save your "gray water." This is a great practice I picked up from one of my restaurant jobs. Next to the bin or receptacle where dirty glasses go, keep a bucket with a strainer hanging down into it. Any glasses containing water can be dumped into the bucket. The strainer catches ice, which eventually melts into the water below, and lemons and straws that may have been in the glass can be easily removed. Then the water from the bucket can be used to water plants in or outside your restaurant, or whatever creative second use you can come up with for it.
As you might guess, being a pizza jockey isn't the most glamorous job on Earth. But hey, as a college student, it helps pay the bills. Having been one myself for several years, as well as a server of other types of food, I have spent many an hour watching how the restaurant business works. One of the inevitable, unfortunate aspects of food service is that an incredible amount of food and materials go to waste. Happily, this doesn't have to be the case. The expertise I've gained in my years of pizza- and noodle-slinging can finally be put to good use other than a few extra dollars: a list of things you can start doing to reduce your impact while dining in or taking out.
1) Take your leftovers home. Even if you don't think you (or your roommates, family or dog) will eat that leftover food, there's a much greater chance it won't go to waste if you bring it with you. It's illegal for restaurants to save anything diners leave on a table, so it gets thrown away even if it looks untouched. Of course, a Styrofoam or plastic to-go box is even less biodegradable than wasted food, so ask if paper boxes or doggie bags are available, or bring your own Tupperware. Moral of the story: Do your hungry-two-hours-from-now self a favor and take it home. You'll spare it from the landfill and enjoy it again later.
2) Conserve napkins. Most of us are guilty of this -- you order some food at the counter, grab a huge wad of napkins, and end up leaving half of them on your table or throwing them away. The automatic-throw-away rule comes into play here once again; the staff will throw those unused napkins out once you're gone, even if they appear clean. Paper waste contributes directly to the destruction of the Earth's already-dwindling, incredibly vital forests. Make life easier on yourself and everyone else by not using (or taking) more napkins than you need.
3) Use cash instead of credit. When possible, try to throw down a few greenbacks instead of always resorting to plastic. Credit card transactions usually produce at least three different pieces of paper, two of which often end up in the trash. Especially when it's a small amount to be paid, shell out some cash and save paper.
4) Support community eateries that serve local or organic food. Locally grown food is important to you and your community in several ways. For one, organic food is produced according to certain production standards that prohibit the use of conventional pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Also, organic produce contains up to 40 percent more antioxidants than conventional equivalents (that's a good thing). If you're not sold on the personal-health argument, think about the planet's health. In terms of local food, since farmers grow it locally, the impact on the planet is much smaller because it doesn't have to travel as far to its final destination (read: smaller carbon emissions). Another perk is that frequenting restaurants/bars/markets/etc. located right in your community keeps you in touch with what's going on in your area, supports the local economy and (hooray!) saves gas.
5) Drink draft beer. Attention, beer lovers. College students, Homer Simpson and everyone in between, good news: You can be greener with your beer consumption, and not just on St. Patrick's Day. Draft beer is stored in kegs -- huge metal barrels that are reusable. Bottled and canned beers come in single-use containers that restaurants and bars often just throw out instead of recycling. So next time you're at happy hour, go easy on Mother Nature and order what's on tap. It also wouldn't hurt to try out a locally brewed beer (see No. 4).
6) Bring your own mug. Attention, coffee lovers. We all have our vices. Some people secretly rock out to Miley Cyrus with the soundproof car windows tightly closed; others fiend for coffee. If you're a regular coffee drinker (supporting the cafe that serves locally grown coffee, of course), cut down on some paper waste by bringing your own travel mug. The life of a paper coffee cup maxes out at about one hour from the time it hits your caffeine-craving hand. A lot of trees have to be sacrificed for your daily fix if you're using a new cup every day. You can spend as little as $5 one time (which is about as much as one large coffee drink from certain -- cough -- Seattle-based coffee conglomerates) and have a permanent container. Many coffee shops are happy to fill your personal mug, and some even give you a discount.
7) Try to skip appetizers and desserts more often. Although some pre- and post-entree additions can be delicious, they can also be wasteful. Studies have shown that Americans waste an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption -- an astounding statistic, especially when you consider another sad fact -- that about 13 percent (PDF) of the world's population doesn't have enough food daily to sustain a healthy life. There's a much greater chance of something going to waste if you order more food than you can finish. If you must do it, refer to tip No. 1 and take your extra food home.
8) Don't get utensils with takeout. This is a big one. Countless materials are wasted with takeout. If you know you're taking your food straight home, where you have your own forks, spoons, knives, napkins, dressings, sauces, plates, bowls, chopsticks, etc., do the planet a favor and ask your takeout place not to give you those items. You'll conserve a bunch of paper, plastic and other increasingly scarce materials, and you can also feel good about saving your favorite restaurant some money.
9) And for my fellow servers, recommend this to your managers: Save your "gray water." This is a great practice I picked up from one of my restaurant jobs. Next to the bin or receptacle where dirty glasses go, keep a bucket with a strainer hanging down into it. Any glasses containing water can be dumped into the bucket. The strainer catches ice, which eventually melts into the water below, and lemons and straws that may have been in the glass can be easily removed. Then the water from the bucket can be used to water plants in or outside your restaurant, or whatever creative second use you can come up with for it.
Lifestyle - How to green your breakfast
Russell McLendon
The Worst Breakfast Foods
You may have heard that you are what you eat, but you're also not what you don't eat. No need to avoid these breakfast foods like the plague; maybe just avoid them like obesity, heart disease, wastewater runoff and global warming.
Fast food: Why would you trust the food from any restaurant so rushed it fuses words together (Frescuit, Croissan'wich) or can't be bothered to spell out conjunctions (Big N' Tasty, Biscuit 'N' Gravy)? While it's true fast-food companies are scrambling to revamp their images in the post-Super Size Me era, and some have made nutritional improvements, the industry's environmental impacts haven't gotten as much attention. Fast-food chains have huge carbon footprints, support factory farming and produce a massive amount of packaging waste every year.
Cinnamon rolls, doughnuts and pastries: Depending where you get your pastries, you might be better off eating a piece of birthday cake for breakfast. A lot depends on the source and how it's made, though, so try for healthier or more sustainable alternatives. Get a whole-wheat doughnut instead of Boston cream, or a low-fat cinnamon roll instead of a Honey Bun. And if you do eat a cinnamon roll, for your own sake, don't do this.
Pork: Getting early-morning protein from bacon, ham and sausage can actually ward off hunger later in the day. Unfortunately, most pork comes from industrial hog farms that produce mountains of manure and emit greenhouse gases, ammonia and foul smells that encroach on neighbors. Look for fresh, organic pork that doesn't contain preservatives (PDF) and wasn't fed antibiotics, or buy low-sodium and low-fat products. Center-cut bacon often has at least 20 percent less fat than traditional cuts, and turkey bacon has about a third less. If you're feeling eco-conscious and adventurous, try soy-based veggie bacon, which has less saturated fat and cholesterol than any meat variety.
Whole eggs: Eggs are the champions of breakfast, the foundation on which the traditional American morning is built. A whole fried egg has about double the protein of a slice of bacon, and is high in essential nutrients such as selenium and choline. But eggs' downside is their yolks, which are high in cholesterol, saturated fat and trans fat. Eating egg whites instead essentially eliminates those problems, but both whole eggs and egg whites still have a bit much sodium, which can lead to high blood pressure.
Pancakes, waffles, and French toast with butter and syrup: Actually, the main problem with these is just the butter and syrup, so no need to throw out your waffle iron. If you can skip both condiments in favor of real fruit preserves or raw honey, or at least opt for low-fat versions, you'll be doing yourself a favor. If you're making French toast yourself, use egg whites and skim milk to cut down on cholesterol and fat.
The Best breakfast foods
Cap'n Crunch, Count Chocula and Frankenberry may be single-minded pitchmen, but they all learned long ago the importance of fitting into the larger "complete breakfast." We think it's time to take that concept to the next level; below is a list of prenoon eats that are good for both you and the planet you live on. Keep in mind that the best breakfast is a combination of these foods — but that doesn't mean there's not room for a little Cap'n in you, too.
Fruits and vegetables: Citrus fruits like oranges and grapefruits are good sources of vitamin C and dietary fiber, and "superfoods" like blueberries, blackberries and raspberries offer cancer-fighting antioxidants. Adding kidney, pinto or red beans to an egg-white omelet or breakfast salad will throw in some protein as well as more antioxidants than any other food besides wild blueberries. Buy these organic and locally grown when you can, which will lessen their environmental impact. If the added cost is too much, try growing beans or berries in your back yard, or a citrus tree indoors if you live in a cold climate.
Cereals and grains: Fiber is your digestive tract's hall monitor. It keeps things moving and turns one of the body's less pleasant processes into a breeze. Some types, such as soluble fiber from oats or barley, can even reduce the risk of diabetes and heart disease. That's why we especially recommend oatmeal (see "Saving green on a green breakfast" for more). Try to limit sugars if you eat breakfast cereals — namely high-fructose corn syrup, which is heavily processed and contributes to substantial environmental damage — and aim for ones that are organic and fortified with nutrients. That's not to say cereals with mascots can't be part of a complete breakfast, but Toucan Sam will adjust to sharing you with Kashi, Total and Special K.
Dairy: Low-fat milk, cheese and yogurt have plenty of protein and less sodium, cholesterol and preservatives than most breakfast meats. Dairy is also the highest natural source of calcium, which is especially important for children and young women. Look for organic labels on dairy products to avoid various factory-farming collateral such as antibiotics and waste pollution. Even if you're vegan, lactose-intolerant or just dairy-wary, calcium isn't hard to come by. Try soy milk, fortified cereals and salmon; spinach, kale and turnip greens are also solid calcium sources that can be added to an omelet or eaten as a side.
Lean meats or egg whites: As we mentioned earlier, protein is important in the morning, and although you can get it from things like nuts and beans, animal sources are still at the top of the heap. If you do eat meat, there are lots of healthy options. Fish, poultry, dairy and egg whites are the best bets. If you eat pork or beef, try to find it fresh and organic when possible, and look for low-fat and reduced-sodium versions.
Whole-wheat bagels, toast and English muffins: These are simple, cheap and, if you choose them wisely, nutritious. Make sure they're whole-wheat, and avoid brands sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. English muffins often have fewer calories than bagels (and their nook-to-cranny ratio is much higher). Mainly, though, the healthiness depends on the spread. Don't use butter or margarine with trans fats or high amounts of saturated fat. Look for low-fat cream cheese, or better yet, use real fruit preserves or raw honey.
Top 5 ways to a greener breakfast
It's easy to make breakfast more than a saccharine muffin wolfed down between rush-hour brake stomps. If you're smart about it, you'll not only save money and be more energetic, satiated and mentally sharp throughout the day — you'll also reduce your contribution to ongoing environmental damage.
1) Don't get fast food. It's bad for you (fat, sodium and cholesterol) and the planet (large carbon footprint, factory farming and packaging waste). The only ones who win when you stop for a Croissan'wich or Frescuit are Burger King and Wendy's.
2) Get local food. Fresh pork products can be preservative-free, and if they come from organic local farms they're less destructive to the environment than meat from industrial farms. If you can't buy fresh from a local butcher or farmer's market, try to at least minimize the distance the food is shipped, driven and flown — burning fossil fuels along the way — from the farm to your table.
3) Eat organic meat and eggs. Industrial hog and poultry farms are some of the most notorious agricultural polluters in the United States, and it's no secret the animals aren't always treated well. Organic farms produce less chemical and biological pollution than conventional industrial farms, and also don't use synthetic pesticides, antibiotics or growth hormones.
4) Better yet, eat less meat. Plant farming is less energy-intensive, and thus more environmentally friendly, than animal farming. A 2006 University of Chicago study (PDF) even found that the greenhouse-gas emissions from meat- and plant-based diets can differ as much as the emissions from driving a regular sedan and a gas-electric hybrid. Meat is also generally more expensive than plant-based breakfasts, and you can get more vitamins, fiber and antioxidants and less fat, sodium and cholesterol. If you're worried about missing your morning protein, try incorporating more dairy, nuts or beans into your breakfast, or just eat a small amount of meat, like an egg white or a couple slices of turkey bacon.
5) Recycle. If you do get a to-go breakfast, save your trash in a bag and recycle the waste when you get to work or back home. Better yet, bring your own reusable plate, cup or silverware. If you make your own breakfast, whether it's granola and a grapefruit or bacon and eggs, you'll have some kind of waste left — a cereal box, fruit rind, bacon wrapper, egg carton. Try to buy products with recyclable packaging, and consider composting what you can in your back yard.
The Worst Breakfast Foods
You may have heard that you are what you eat, but you're also not what you don't eat. No need to avoid these breakfast foods like the plague; maybe just avoid them like obesity, heart disease, wastewater runoff and global warming.
Fast food: Why would you trust the food from any restaurant so rushed it fuses words together (Frescuit, Croissan'wich) or can't be bothered to spell out conjunctions (Big N' Tasty, Biscuit 'N' Gravy)? While it's true fast-food companies are scrambling to revamp their images in the post-Super Size Me era, and some have made nutritional improvements, the industry's environmental impacts haven't gotten as much attention. Fast-food chains have huge carbon footprints, support factory farming and produce a massive amount of packaging waste every year.
Cinnamon rolls, doughnuts and pastries: Depending where you get your pastries, you might be better off eating a piece of birthday cake for breakfast. A lot depends on the source and how it's made, though, so try for healthier or more sustainable alternatives. Get a whole-wheat doughnut instead of Boston cream, or a low-fat cinnamon roll instead of a Honey Bun. And if you do eat a cinnamon roll, for your own sake, don't do this.
Pork: Getting early-morning protein from bacon, ham and sausage can actually ward off hunger later in the day. Unfortunately, most pork comes from industrial hog farms that produce mountains of manure and emit greenhouse gases, ammonia and foul smells that encroach on neighbors. Look for fresh, organic pork that doesn't contain preservatives (PDF) and wasn't fed antibiotics, or buy low-sodium and low-fat products. Center-cut bacon often has at least 20 percent less fat than traditional cuts, and turkey bacon has about a third less. If you're feeling eco-conscious and adventurous, try soy-based veggie bacon, which has less saturated fat and cholesterol than any meat variety.
Whole eggs: Eggs are the champions of breakfast, the foundation on which the traditional American morning is built. A whole fried egg has about double the protein of a slice of bacon, and is high in essential nutrients such as selenium and choline. But eggs' downside is their yolks, which are high in cholesterol, saturated fat and trans fat. Eating egg whites instead essentially eliminates those problems, but both whole eggs and egg whites still have a bit much sodium, which can lead to high blood pressure.
Pancakes, waffles, and French toast with butter and syrup: Actually, the main problem with these is just the butter and syrup, so no need to throw out your waffle iron. If you can skip both condiments in favor of real fruit preserves or raw honey, or at least opt for low-fat versions, you'll be doing yourself a favor. If you're making French toast yourself, use egg whites and skim milk to cut down on cholesterol and fat.
The Best breakfast foods
Cap'n Crunch, Count Chocula and Frankenberry may be single-minded pitchmen, but they all learned long ago the importance of fitting into the larger "complete breakfast." We think it's time to take that concept to the next level; below is a list of prenoon eats that are good for both you and the planet you live on. Keep in mind that the best breakfast is a combination of these foods — but that doesn't mean there's not room for a little Cap'n in you, too.
Fruits and vegetables: Citrus fruits like oranges and grapefruits are good sources of vitamin C and dietary fiber, and "superfoods" like blueberries, blackberries and raspberries offer cancer-fighting antioxidants. Adding kidney, pinto or red beans to an egg-white omelet or breakfast salad will throw in some protein as well as more antioxidants than any other food besides wild blueberries. Buy these organic and locally grown when you can, which will lessen their environmental impact. If the added cost is too much, try growing beans or berries in your back yard, or a citrus tree indoors if you live in a cold climate.
Cereals and grains: Fiber is your digestive tract's hall monitor. It keeps things moving and turns one of the body's less pleasant processes into a breeze. Some types, such as soluble fiber from oats or barley, can even reduce the risk of diabetes and heart disease. That's why we especially recommend oatmeal (see "Saving green on a green breakfast" for more). Try to limit sugars if you eat breakfast cereals — namely high-fructose corn syrup, which is heavily processed and contributes to substantial environmental damage — and aim for ones that are organic and fortified with nutrients. That's not to say cereals with mascots can't be part of a complete breakfast, but Toucan Sam will adjust to sharing you with Kashi, Total and Special K.
Dairy: Low-fat milk, cheese and yogurt have plenty of protein and less sodium, cholesterol and preservatives than most breakfast meats. Dairy is also the highest natural source of calcium, which is especially important for children and young women. Look for organic labels on dairy products to avoid various factory-farming collateral such as antibiotics and waste pollution. Even if you're vegan, lactose-intolerant or just dairy-wary, calcium isn't hard to come by. Try soy milk, fortified cereals and salmon; spinach, kale and turnip greens are also solid calcium sources that can be added to an omelet or eaten as a side.
Lean meats or egg whites: As we mentioned earlier, protein is important in the morning, and although you can get it from things like nuts and beans, animal sources are still at the top of the heap. If you do eat meat, there are lots of healthy options. Fish, poultry, dairy and egg whites are the best bets. If you eat pork or beef, try to find it fresh and organic when possible, and look for low-fat and reduced-sodium versions.
Whole-wheat bagels, toast and English muffins: These are simple, cheap and, if you choose them wisely, nutritious. Make sure they're whole-wheat, and avoid brands sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. English muffins often have fewer calories than bagels (and their nook-to-cranny ratio is much higher). Mainly, though, the healthiness depends on the spread. Don't use butter or margarine with trans fats or high amounts of saturated fat. Look for low-fat cream cheese, or better yet, use real fruit preserves or raw honey.
Top 5 ways to a greener breakfast
It's easy to make breakfast more than a saccharine muffin wolfed down between rush-hour brake stomps. If you're smart about it, you'll not only save money and be more energetic, satiated and mentally sharp throughout the day — you'll also reduce your contribution to ongoing environmental damage.
1) Don't get fast food. It's bad for you (fat, sodium and cholesterol) and the planet (large carbon footprint, factory farming and packaging waste). The only ones who win when you stop for a Croissan'wich or Frescuit are Burger King and Wendy's.
2) Get local food. Fresh pork products can be preservative-free, and if they come from organic local farms they're less destructive to the environment than meat from industrial farms. If you can't buy fresh from a local butcher or farmer's market, try to at least minimize the distance the food is shipped, driven and flown — burning fossil fuels along the way — from the farm to your table.
3) Eat organic meat and eggs. Industrial hog and poultry farms are some of the most notorious agricultural polluters in the United States, and it's no secret the animals aren't always treated well. Organic farms produce less chemical and biological pollution than conventional industrial farms, and also don't use synthetic pesticides, antibiotics or growth hormones.
4) Better yet, eat less meat. Plant farming is less energy-intensive, and thus more environmentally friendly, than animal farming. A 2006 University of Chicago study (PDF) even found that the greenhouse-gas emissions from meat- and plant-based diets can differ as much as the emissions from driving a regular sedan and a gas-electric hybrid. Meat is also generally more expensive than plant-based breakfasts, and you can get more vitamins, fiber and antioxidants and less fat, sodium and cholesterol. If you're worried about missing your morning protein, try incorporating more dairy, nuts or beans into your breakfast, or just eat a small amount of meat, like an egg white or a couple slices of turkey bacon.
5) Recycle. If you do get a to-go breakfast, save your trash in a bag and recycle the waste when you get to work or back home. Better yet, bring your own reusable plate, cup or silverware. If you make your own breakfast, whether it's granola and a grapefruit or bacon and eggs, you'll have some kind of waste left — a cereal box, fruit rind, bacon wrapper, egg carton. Try to buy products with recyclable packaging, and consider composting what you can in your back yard.
Tech - A P.G rated Second Life
Josh Quittner
The weather outside is frightful, but video games are delightful. So lately, I've been cocooning inside with Sony's PlayStation Home, and I think it's the most realistic-looking implementation yet of a 3-D world. The 17 million or so owners of the pricey PlayStation 3--which costs $400--can download a free beta version via Sony's PlayStation Network, which connects the game consoles on the Web so users can play one another
Home is Sony's ambitious (albeit boringly named) attempt to create an online place for gamers to hang out in realistic virtual environments. So far, that includes a mall, a town plaza, a bowling alley, an arcade and apartments. Sony is betting Home can generate new revenue, since gamers will be able to try--then buy--all kinds of video games, movies, music and other offerings from Sony's many business partners.
After downloading the software to your PlayStation, you log in and create an avatar, which you pilot using your PlayStation controller. Much like the Wii system, your avatar's features are customizable--within limits. Want your character to be 8 ft. (2.4 m) tall? Forget it. Humans are sized like the real deal. No really enormous noses either. Your character can't even be as fat as your average t
The weather outside is frightful, but video games are delightful. So lately, I've been cocooning inside with Sony's PlayStation Home, and I think it's the most realistic-looking implementation yet of a 3-D world. The 17 million or so owners of the pricey PlayStation 3--which costs $400--can download a free beta version via Sony's PlayStation Network, which connects the game consoles on the Web so users can play one another
Home is Sony's ambitious (albeit boringly named) attempt to create an online place for gamers to hang out in realistic virtual environments. So far, that includes a mall, a town plaza, a bowling alley, an arcade and apartments. Sony is betting Home can generate new revenue, since gamers will be able to try--then buy--all kinds of video games, movies, music and other offerings from Sony's many business partners.
After downloading the software to your PlayStation, you log in and create an avatar, which you pilot using your PlayStation controller. Much like the Wii system, your avatar's features are customizable--within limits. Want your character to be 8 ft. (2.4 m) tall? Forget it. Humans are sized like the real deal. No really enormous noses either. Your character can't even be as fat as your average t