Hollywood-style sting nabs alleged pirate kingpin

BRUSSELS (AP) — The alleged pirate kingpin thought he was going work in the movies. Instead he landed in jail.

In a sting operation worthy of Hollywood, Mohamed Abdi Hassan was lured from Somalia to Belgium with promises of work on a documentary about high-seas crime that would "mirror his life as a pirate," federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle said Monday.

But rather than being behind the camera as an expert adviser, Abdi Hassan ended up behind bars, nabbed as he landed Saturday at Brussels airport.

"(He's) one of the most important and infamous kingpin pirate leaders, responsible for the hijacking of dozens of commercial vessels from 2008 to 2013," Delmulle said.

Abdi Hassan — whose nickname, Afweyne, means "Big Mouth" — was charged with hijacking the Belgian dredger Pompei and kidnapping its nine-member crew in 2009, Delmulle said.

The Pompei's crew was released after 10 weeks in captivity when the ship's owner paid a reported $3 million ransom. Belgium caught two pirates involved in the hijacking, convicted them and sentenced them to nine and 10 years in prison.

But prosecutors still wanted the ringleaders.

"Too often, these people remain beyond reach while they let others do the dirty work," Delmulle told reporters.

Malaysian authorities almost captured the reclusive Adbi Hassan in April 2012, but a document from the Somali transitional government let him slip back home, according to a U.N. report last year that called him "one of the most notorious and influential" leaders of a piracy ring that has netted millions in ransom.

So Belgian authorities decided to go undercover to get him, because they knew he traveled very little and that an international arrest warrant would produce no results in unstable Somalia.

They approached an accomplice known as Tiiceey, dangling a fake job as an adviser to a fake movie about piracy, Delmulle said.

The two men took the bait. Tiiceey was also arrested Saturday.

The prosecutor refused to divulge any more details of the sting. The two Somalis were to appear in court Tuesday in Brugge.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hollywood-style-sting-nabs-alleged-pirate-kingpin-173109688.html
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Bristol Speedway unveils plan for Vols-Hokies game

BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee and Virginia Tech will finally play a football game at Bristol Motor Speedway and expect to set a single-game football attendance record in what is being billed as the "Battle at Bristol."

Track and officials from both universities formally announced the plans Monday amid confetti and fireworks during a festive news conference at the 52-year-old racetrack. The game is scheduled for Sept. 10, 2016.

"I full well believe we'll play in front of the largest crowd to ever watch or have watched a football game — that's college and pro," Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver said.

Bristol Motor Speedway general manager and executive vice president Jerry Caldwell said seating capacity for the game would be in excess of 150,000. The track sits nearly halfway between the campuses of the two schools, off Interstate 81 in Tennessee.

The NCAA-recognized attendance record for college football of 115,109 was set last month at Michigan Stadium for Michigan-Notre Dame.

Bristol's proximity to both campuses made this event a rumored possibility since the 1990s. Weaver remembers discussing it with former Volunteers athletic directors Doug Dickey and Mike Hamilton.

Caldwell said track officials explored the feasibility of a game again early this year. He then approached Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart and Weaver.

After all that talking and speculation, the game's finally going to happen. Weaver said the game is "a reality that's as big as anything that's happened in the world of football."

"It's a chance and opportunity to be part of something extremely special that will live with you for a lifetime," said Tennessee coach Butch Jones, who was grand marshal of the Food City 500 at the Bristol speedway in March.

Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer drove on the Bristol speedway as part of a charity celebrity race in 2009 and remembers sitting in the Bristol bleachers watching races as a high school student.

"Next to Lane Stadium, this is my favorite sports venue, I promise you," Beamer said.

The game was announced amid great fanfare, though a scheduling conflict prevented BMS track owner and president Bruton Smith from attending. Beamer, Weaver, Jones, Hart and track officials sat on a giant stage on the racetrack's infield. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam offered videotaped messages.

"We want to make this a huge, huge deal," Smith had told The Associated Press. "Our goal is to set a world record for the largest attended football game in the world."

To the left of the stage, numbers and yard markers were painted on the infield to create an asphalt football field, complete with artificial turf end zones featuring the Tennessee checkerboard on one side and Virginia Tech lettering on the other end. To the right were race cars in Virginia Tech and Tennessee school colors bearing the number '16.

"If you have an opportunity to play in a venue that's going to set the all-time record for football at every level — the largest crowd potentially to ever witness a football game — well, you can talk about that for the rest of your life," Hart said.

To accommodate a football field, the speedway will need modifications, some of which will happen as soon as next year, Caldwell said. A massive video board that sits atop a pylon in the middle of the infield will be taken out, Caldwell said.

"Screens will be added inside the facility so everyone can still see everything," he said.

Bristol is scheduled to host NASCAR races just two weeks before this football game. Only until after that's complete can the football field be installed, with 8,500 tons of rock as its base.

Then there is the matter of fans in the stands being close enough to the field to be able to tell what is going on down there. Tennessee's Neyland Stadium, which holds more than 102,000, would fit inside Bristol Motor Speedway.

"It's not a football stadium so it's going to be a bit different, but I think you'll see that the sight lines are great and are going to be very similar to what you would see in a college football program maybe within 10 to 20 yards from where you would be in a football stadium," Caldwell said.

There also were logistical issues involving the schools.

Tennessee had been scheduled to play Nebraska in 2016 as part of a home-and-home series that has now been pushed back to 2026 and 2027.

All those hurdles help explain why this game took so many years to become reality.

"There was a collective willingness to prioritize this and make it happen," Hart said. "It wasn't an easy trip that we took. There were times you said, 'Well, no wonder this has never happened.' But we got through those rough spots and this is a great day."

___

AP College Football Writer Ralph D. Russo contributed to this report

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bristol-speedway-unveils-plan-vols-hokies-game-152048739--spt.html
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Court Clears Way for Vivendi to Sell $8.2 Billion in Activision Blizzard Stock

Activision Blizzard's "Call of Duty"

Vivendi might proceed with a plan to sell $5.83 billion in Activision Blizzard stock to the video-game maker and another $2.34 billion in stock to an investment group led by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly, a court ruled on Thursday.

The plan stalled last month due to a temporary court injunction, though the Delaware Supreme Court said the deal can go through, and Activision Blizzard said later it expected to close the transaction by Oct. 15.

STORY: Court Blocks Activision Blizzard's Plan to Buy Stock From Vivendi 

The deal had been challenged by an Activision shareholder, who argued that it amounted to a merger that would give too much control to Kotick and Kelly, but Chief Justice Myron Steele disagreed.

"There is no reasonable possibility of success on the merits," Steele wrote of the legal challenge, according to Bloomberg. "The stock purchase agreement here contested is not a merger, business combination or similar transaction."

Kotick and Kelly's group includes Davis Advisors, Leonard Green & Partners and Tencent Holdings, a Chinese publisher of video games. The deal will make the group the largest Activision Blizzard shareholder with about 25 percent of the company, compared to the 12 percent that Vivendi will retain.

Shares of Activision rose 5 percent on Thursday to $17.05. The deal calls for Vivendi to sell its shares for $13.60 apiece.

Activision Blizzard's games include Call of Duty, Skylanders and World of Warcraft.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheHollywoodReporter-Technology/~3/TSGhYbwDKPE/story01.htm
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Michael B. Jordan Confirms He Auditioned For 'Star Wars'

Speaking with the Associated Press, Michael B. Jordan followed the lead from Saoirse Ronan and admitted that he had read for a part in "Star Wars: Episode VII," a rumor started by Latino-Review a few weeks ago. Also like Ronan, Jordan downplayed the reading, saying that pretty much everyone in Hollywood has audition. "I mean, […]Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/10/10/michael-b-jordan-star-wars/
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Watch how Google brought Street View to the Burj Khalifa (video)

Street View's fine for navigation, but we're sure plenty more people use it just for their armchair tourism. Google has now turned its attention to giving thrill-seekers a chance to gaze out from the top of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. Using Trekker backpacks and trolleys, it took the Googlers three days to capture the images from both the viewing gallery on the 124th floor and the window cleaning gantry on the 80th. Curious to experience some of that vertigo for yourself? Video's after the break.

Filed under: Cameras, GPS, Google

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Via: Official Google Blog

Source: Google Street View

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/24/street-view-burj-khalifa/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Breast-Fed Children More Likely to Climb the Social Ladder

Children who are breast-fed may be more likely to reach a higher social class than their parents, a new study finds.

The researchers looked at about 34,000 people in the U.K., either born in 1958 or in 1970, and compared their social class at the age 33 or 34 with that of their fathers when they were children.? Among the study participants, those who had been breast-fed were more likely to have moved up the social hierarchy in adulthood, which the researchers defined as having a job of higher social status than their fathers.

The study found that while breast-feeding increased the chance of moving upward socially by 24 percent, it also reduced the chance of sliding downward by 20 percent.

The results suggest that breast-feeding improved children's neurological development, resulting in better cognitive abilities, which in turn helped them with their upward move in the society, the researchers said. ?

Breast-fed children in the study also had fewer signs of emotional stress, which could have contributed to their success later in the life, according to the study published today (June 24) in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Previous studies have suggested that nutrients in breast milk improve cognitive development. Similarly, skin-to-skin contact between mother and child has been linked to enhanced mother-child bonding, and reduced stress.

"Perhaps the combination of physical contact and the most appropriate nutrients required for growth and brain development is implicated in the better neurocognitive and adult outcomes of breast-fed infants," the researchers wrote in their study. [The Facts on Moms & Breast-Feeding]

For the study, the researchers asked mothers of two large groups of people born 12 years apart whether they had breast-fed their children.

They then compared people's social class as children ? based on the social class of their father when they were 10 or 11 ? with their social class as adults, measured when they were 33 or 34. Social class was based on different categories of occupations, from unskilled and manual, to managerial and professional jobs.

The researchers measured children's cognitive performance and stress response every few years. They found that cognitive abilities and stress scores accounted for about a third of the total impact of breast-feeding.

There is evidence that some constituents of breast milk, such as long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, are essential for neurological development of the child. The researchers said they suspect that there may be other nutrients in breast milk as well that support child's development.

The study also found that fewer children were breast-fed in 1970 than in 1958. More than two-thirds of children born in 1958 were breast-fed, compared with one-third in 1970.

The results suggest that there may be lifelong social benefits from breast-feeding, the study said. Such benefits may be even greater for more vulnerable children who are born preterm or with low birth weight.

Email Bahar Gholipour or follow her @alterwired. Follow?LiveScience?@livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/breast-fed-children-more-likely-climb-social-ladder-223721956.html

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Obama 'disappointed' over court's ruling

Holding signs with images of murdered civil rights workers, demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court??

President Barack Obama and his attorney general said they were "deeply disappointed" by the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act, a cornerstone of the civil rights movement that helped dismantle decades of discriminatory voting restrictions in the South when it passed 60 years ago. The vote was split 5-4, with the court's liberal justices dissenting.

The decision drastically scales back the federal government's power to reject state laws it believes discriminate against minority voters, which include some efforts to tighten identification requirements and limit early voting hours at the ballot box. A wave of such laws swept 30 states over the past few years, and the Obama administration has aggressively fought them in court.

The president said he was "deeply disappointed" by the decision in a statement on Tuesday. "While today?s decision is a setback, it doesn?t represent the end of our efforts to end voting discrimination," Obama said. "I am calling on Congress to pass legislation to ensure every American has equal access to the polls."

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act?reauthorized by Congress for an additional 25 years in 2006?gives the federal government the ability to pre-emptively reject changes to election law in states and counties that have a history of discriminating against minority voters. The law covers nine states and portions of seven more, most of them in the South. The formula used to decide which states are subject to this special scrutiny (set out in Section 4 of the law) is based on decades-old voter turnout and registration data, the justices ruled, which is unfair to the states covered under it. States that had a discriminatory poll test in the 1960s and low turnout among minority voters must seek special permission from the federal government to change their election laws, even though many of these states now have near-equal voter turnout rates between minorities and whites.

"The coverage formula that Congress reauthorized in 2006 ignores these developments, keeping the focus on decades-old data relevant to decades-old problems," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion. "Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions."

The Justice Department used Section 5 of the law to block voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina last year, and it also struck down early voting restrictions in five counties in Florida. (Minority voters are more likely than white voters to vote early in person, and they are less likely than whites to have a government-issued photo ID.) Some Democrats argued that these laws were intentionally trying to suppress minority turnout in order to benefit Republicans.

The court has effectively now put the ball back in Congress' court, writing in its decision that it is up to Congress to write a new formula that is based on current data. States or counties that fit the new formula could still be subject to federal "preclearance" of changes to their elections procedures. It remains to be seen whether Congress, which is now more partisanly divided than in 2006, would tackle the challenge of creating a new rubric to find and eradicate racial discrimination at the polls. The president called on Congress to pass legislation addressing the ruling in a statement on Tuesday.

In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes the "sad irony" of Roberts' decision is that it strikes down the key part of the Voting Rights Act because it has been so successful at preventing racial discrimination. "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet," she writes. Ginsburg also slams the court's majority for relying on turnout and registration rates "as if that were the whole story" and ignoring so-called second-generation laws and regulations designed to make it harder for minorities to vote. (One such Mississippi regulation sought to cancel a local election in 2001 because black candidates announced their intention to run.)

Civil rights groups warned that the decision will negatively affect minority voters who live in the covered jurisdictions. "This is a sad day for democracy," said Myrna Perez, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice advocacy center. "The Voting Rights Act is a needed and instrumental tool in our fight to eradicate racial discrimination, and the Supreme Court's decision today has made it much harder to utilize this tool effectively." Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement that Congress should act to draft another coverage formula. "We urge Congress to act with urgency and on a bipartisan basis to protect voting rights for minorities," Henderson said. Brennan Center for Justice President Michael Waldman said Congress had a "duty" to update the formula. It's unclear what factors would go into a new formula, however, since voter registration and turnout data would not work.

"This decision represents a serious setback for voting rights?and has the potential to negatively affect millions of Americans across the country," Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday afternoon. "I am hopeful that new protections can and will pass in this session of Congress."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said in a statement that "as long as Republicans have a majority in the House and Democrats don't have 60 votes in the Senate, there will be no preclearance."

Discriminating against minority voters is still illegal under the act, but those who hope to challenge discriminatory actions would have to do so through the regular court process, which takes longer than the special?preclearance?pathway set up under the law.

Court watchers predicted the decision, given the conservative justices' comments on the law during oral arguments and in other cases. Justices in the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, including Roberts, expressed reservations that the nine Southern states covered by the law still required the same degree of federal oversight that they did 60 years ago. "Voter turnout and registration rates [between blacks and whites] now approach parity," Roberts wrote in a decision in 2009. "Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels."

Another argument against Section 4's constitutionality was that it's unclear whether minority voters in Southern states are more likely to face discrimination at the polls than they are in other states. Voter ID laws, for example, have passed in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Indiana. Because those states do not have a history of voter discrimination?and are not covered by the act?their voter ID laws did not have to first pass federal inspection. That said, Southern states covered under the act were much more likely to pass a voter ID law than other states. Seven of the nine states covered in full under the act adopted such a law, compared with 12 noncovered states. Also, the law allowed counties to remove themselves from the preclearance list if they demonstrated they had not discriminated against minority voters in recent years.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/news/supreme-court-strikes-down-key-part-voting-rights-141205218.html

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Changes at the IRS

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Angelina Jolie, UNHCR Envoy, Urges World To End Rape In War

UNITED NATIONS ? Angelina Jolie made her debut before the U.N.'s most powerful body as a special envoy for refugees Monday and urged the world's nations to make the fight against rape in war a top priority.

The actress told the Security Council that "hundreds of thousands ? if not millions ? of women, children and men have been raped in conflicts in our lifetimes."

Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said the Security Council has witnessed 67 years of wars and conflict since it was established "but the world has yet to take up warzone rape as a serious priority."

"You set the bar," she told the council. "If the ... council sets rape and sexual violence in conflict as a priority it will become one and progress will be made. If you do not, this horror will continue."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who presided over the meeting, stressed that "in conflicts in nearly every corner of the globe, rape is used systematically and ruthlessly, in the almost certain knowledge that there will be no consequences for the perpetrators."

Soon after Jolie spoke, the council adopted a legally-binding resolution demanding the complete and immediate cessation of all acts of sexual violence by all parties to armed conflict. It noted that sexual violence can constitute a crime against humanity and a contributing act to genocide, called for improved monitoring of sexual violence in conflict, and urged the U.N. and donors to assist survivors.

It was the broadest resolution adopted by the council on the sexual violence in conflict. Hague said Britain plans to follow-up by convening a global gathering during the annual General Assembly meeting of world leaders in September to keep up the pressure for action.

Hague said at a discussion later at the Ford Foundation that his prime motivation for pressing for global action against sexual violence was the 1990s war in Bosnia, partly because of an adviser but also because of Jolie's 2011 film, "In the Land of Blood and Honey," about former lovers who end up on the opposite sides of the conflict. He said he arranged the film's British premiere at the Foreign Office and has been campaigning with Jolie since then, including a visit to Congo in March, "to move the stigma and the shame from the victim to the perpetrator."

"The time has come for the world to take a strong and determined stand to make clear that the systematic use of rape as a weapon is not acceptable in the modern world and our objective is to change the entire global attitude to these issues," Hague said.

Getting the whole world talking about sexual violence in conflict and the need to punish perpetrators not victims "will shift attitudes ? maybe over a period of years, but we have begun," he said.

Jolie, who has traveled extensively in her role as goodwill ambassador, recalled several of the survivors she had met ? the mother of a five-year-old girl raped outside a police station in Goma in eastern Congo, and a Syrian woman she spoke to in Jordan last week who asked to hide her name and face "because she knew that if she spoke out about the crimes against her she would be attacked again, and possibly killed."

"Let us be clear what we are speaking of: Young girls raped and impregnated before their bodies are able to carry a child, causing fistula," Jolie said, referring to an injury caused by violent rapes that tear apart the flesh separating the bladder and rectum from the vagina, leaving the girls unable to control their bowels or bladder.

She continued: "Boys held at gunpoint and forced to sexually assault their mothers and sisters. Women raped with bottles, wood branches and knives to cause as much damage as possible. Toddlers and even babies dragged from their homes, and violated."

Zainab Hawa Bangura, the U.N. special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, told the council that two weeks ago she visited Bosnia where an estimated 50,000 women were victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence during the war, but only a handful of perpetrators have been prosecuted.

Later, at the Ford Foundation, she said that on an African trip with Hague, she visited the village of Mambasa in eastern Congo's Ituri district where 11 babies aged 6 to 12 months had been raped, 59 children aged 1 to 3 years old had been raped and 182 girls aged 5 to 15 years old had been raped.

"Who will rape a baby?," Bangura asked. "It means you want to wipe the community away. That's the only explanation you can have."

Jolie pleaded with the Security Council ? and all countries ? to implement the resolution and not let the issue drop.

"Meet your commitments, debate this issue in your parliaments, mobilize people in your countries, and build it into all your foreign policy efforts," she urged. "Together, you can turn the tide of global opinion, shatter impunity and finally put an end to this abhorrence."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paid tribute to Jolie for being the voice of millions forced to flee their homes "and now for the many survivors of wartime rape whose bodies have been used as battlegrounds."

He called on all leaders to apprehend and prosecute perpetrators "and be part of a global coalition of champions determined to break this evil."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/angelina-jolie-unhcr-envoy_n_3491103.html

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Nikkei: Microsoft porting first-party game franchises to Android and iOS

Microsoft is selective about where its first-party game franchises appear -- outside of lightweight releases like Kinectimals and Wordament, it prefers to use games as technology showcases and system sellers. It may not be picky for much longer, though, as Nikkei claims that Microsoft has reached a deal with Japan's KLab to develop Android and iOS versions of its first-party titles. The deal reportedly includes adaptations of both PC and Xbox games, and would start with a free-to-play variant of Age of Empires that could launch before the end of the 2013 fiscal year. We've reached out to Microsoft to verify the rumor, but it's clear that the arrangement could be a breakthrough for gamers who aren't wedded to Microsoft's existing mobile strategy.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Microsoft

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Via: Reuters

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98% Before Midnight

All Critics (144) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (140) | Rotten (3)

Hawke and Delpy remain as charming as ever, and their combined goofiness is more endearing than annoying.

Love is messy here, life cannot be controlled, satisfaction is far from guaranteed. Romance is rocky at best. But romance still is.

Though "Before Midnight" is often uncomfortable to watch, it's never less than mesmerizing - and ultimately, a joy to walk with this prickly but fascinating couple again.

"Before Midnight" is heartbreaking, but not because of Jesse and Celine. It's the filmmakers' passions that seem to have cooled.

Before Midnight is fascinating to watch, and so long as Celine and Jesse are communicating, there's still hope.

How (Jesse and Celine) try to rekindle that flame is what drives Midnight, a film that feels so authentic it's like overhearing a conversation you're not sure you should be hearing.

Like the first two films, it reflects the real world in a way that seems almost preternatural. It's just that, here, the real world is a harsher, more disappointing place.

The duo, clearly so comfortable in their characters' skin, indulge in intelligent banter, sharp humour and emotional truths.

So much better written than contemporary novels, this film is a literary as well as cinematic achievement to cherish. For grown-ups.

As before, it's often very funny, with Jesse and Celine swapping Woody Allen-esque one-liners - nicely snarky, appealingly abrasive.

The acting, the dialogue and direction are superb.

None of the films is faultless in itself, but, tinted with complementary tones, the complete cycle comes as close to perfection as any trilogy in cinema history.

Marvelous. It's impossible to shake the feeling that we are merely eavesdropping on reality. Witty, wise, and -- most important of all -- truly romantic in ways that movies usually aren't.

It's been 18 years since Hawke, Delpy and Linklater introduced us to Jesse and Celine, and their story just gets richer, funnier and more punchy each time we see them. In 1995's Before Sunrise, they were idealistic 23-year-olds.

Hawke and Delpy are as believably real as any screen couple can ever be.

This is one of the few sequels for which the cliche 'eagerly awaited' is truly applicable.

Predictably, it's just as great as the first two.

By the end, Before Midnight inches towards a dawn of charm. But it's a troubled trip.

As an organic experiment in collaboration between actors and director, it is a triumph, co-created and co-owned by Delpy, Linklater and Hawke.

Hawke and Delpy, who are both credited on the script too, have never found co-stars to bounce off more nimbly or bring out richer nuances in their acting.

The performances and dialogue are wonderfully naturalistic; a reminder that the best special effects are often the cheapest.

Before Midnight is about the nature of long-term relationships, and the way love deepens and grows but also finds itself subject to the complications of maturity. Smart, insightful, and poignant.

For those who witnessed Jesse and Celine's tentative getting together as inter railing students almost twenty years ago, it's reassuring to see them still in love.

Brilliantly directed, superbly written and impeccably acted, this is a thoroughly enjoyable, thought-provoking and emotionally engaging drama that perfectly complements the previous two films.

It remains as engaging, illuminating, honest and funny as its predecessor; here's hoping we revisit Jesse and C?line in another decade or so.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/before_midnight_2013/

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State Department to name lawyer Cliff Sloan to close Guantanamo (reuters)

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World Bank, U.N. join hands in conflict zones but face hurdles

By Anna Yukhananov

(Reuters) - When the heads of the World Bank and the United Nations flew into the violence-wracked African city of Goma on a cloudy day last month, it was the first time the giants of international development had joined forces in the struggle to help the world's most fragile regions.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon traveled to three countries in the Great Lakes region in East Africa to cement a new partnership, tying $1 billion in bank money to the U.N. peacekeeping efforts in the region.

They announced the funding in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), even as mortar shells were falling in the country's eastern edge in Goma. But the men, both born in South Korea, pledged to continue their trip.

"We're going there because our belief is that peace, security and economic development are intertwined," Kim said in Kinshasa. "We're going with a very specific purpose in mind: there must be a peace dividend."

The organizations admit the effort to work together faces hurdles. Both have vast, unwieldy bureaucracies that have historically competed with each other, and the bank had been wary of loaning to fragile states with shaky governments and murky institutions.

Further, development analysts warn that no one has yet figured out a surefire way to bring lasting development to countries caught in cycles of violence.

But with half the world's poorest people set to live in conflict-torn regions by 2018, the institutions can ill afford to do nothing, the World Bank and analysts say.

COMPETING FOR CREDIT

The organizations have already cooperated in some countries including Liberia and Bosnia. They even signed a framework agreement in 2008, vowing to work together in nations experiencing crises or just emerging from them.

But other efforts have fizzled, or been limited to one-off attempts in specific countries or situations, analysts say.

"There wasn't any kind of systematic, organizational way for the two institutions to work together," said Steven Radelet, a professor at Georgetown University. "Sometimes it has worked well, and sometimes there have been big gaps."

The United Nations and World Bank often have similar goals. But their approaches diverge and they use different vocabularies, with the bank focused on economics and the United Nations steeped in notions of security and human development.

Even on the trip to the Great Lakes, logistics officers grew frustrated trying to familiarize themselves with each other's protocols.

Competition over who gets credit for programs also has stymied efforts at cooperation.

Aid agencies tend to jump in to help countries, duplicating efforts and complicating matters for governments that have limited capacity to deal with so many organizations, said Laurence Chandy, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank.

"There's a subtle but massive distinction ... between coordinating and cooperating," he said. "The truth is, we really struggle even to coordinate.

"Cooperation is a whole new paradigm."

ELEPHANTS COOPERATE

The joint mission to Africa, which included visits to the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, was meant to signal from the top that this time would be different, Kim said.

"There's this African saying, 'When the elephant fights, the grass suffers,'" he said in an interview in Entebbe, Uganda. "I've been the grass for most of my life, watching these powerful organizations fight each other on the ground."

Kim has spent most of his career in public health, unlike the diplomats and bankers who preceded him as head of the bank.

His work at the World Health Organization, a U.N. agency, gave him an insider's view of the United Nations' strengths and foibles, said Raymond Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, a development group.

The idea behind the Great Lakes campaign is that development cannot exist without security, and security cannot last without giving people incentives to keep the peace, which development projects can offer.

On his trip to the region, Kim announced $1 billion in new funds for infrastructure projects, cross-border trade, and health and education services. It will be contingent on all countries in the region abiding by a U.N.-brokered peace deal from late February.

Researchers like Chris Blattman at Columbia University say there is evidence that large infrastructure projects like roads and power plants - a strength of the bank - can help stabilize a country and boost the economy.

But combating poverty in fragile states has been notoriously difficult. Those countries lag behind the rest of the world in standard measures of health, education and infant mortality, and are vulnerable to relapse when conflict returns.

Dealing with security is also a new thing for the World Bank, which in the past largely avoided fragile states.

"I'm not doing this just because I want to be the Kumbaya guy," Kim said, in reference to working with the United Nations. "I'm doing this because if we are to have any hope of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity, there's just no question we have to work with everybody."

"To me, not to work with the U.N. means that you're admitting up front that you're going to have low aspirations."

As he approaches his one-year anniversary at the helm of the bank, Kim has made collaboration with development organizations, including the United Nations, a top priority. Kim and Ban have talked about doing another joint trip, this time to Africa's Sahel.

Several factors have driven the bank's shift in focus to countries in turmoil.

First, of the 82 countries qualifying for loans and grants from the bank's fund for the poorest nations, 31 are classified as fragile states. The bank now proposes that about 20 percent of such funds go to those states, up from 8 percent in the late 1990s.

The nature of fragility has also changed. The number of conflicts around the world is falling, but they now tend to last longer, blurring the distinction between humanitarian aid that rushes in when a crisis erupts, and long-term development.

Finally, the realities of population growth mean that half of the world's poorest people will live in conflict-torn regions by 2018, and more than two-thirds by 2030, according to a Brookings Institution analysis.

That suggests the World Bank cannot achieve its goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 without focusing on conflict areas.

The DRC, where violence has repeatedly displaced people and hampered programs, could prove to be a particularly tough test case. More than 70 percent of its 67 million people live below the poverty line, despite billions of dollars in development aid over the past decade.

"It's easy to write off the chances in these sorts of situations. But it's really about what the alternative is," Chandy said. "If the bank isn't going to be there, who is?"

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Xavier Briand)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-bank-u-n-join-hands-conflict-zones-051034839.html

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Domestic Violence: It's assuming epidemic proportions - Effah ...

By Ishola Balogun & Aderonke Adeyeri
Not many know that relationship or marriage is meant to bring out the better person in a spouse. But, the reverse is the case in our society today as many people especially married women suffer different kinds of domestic violence.

It is a paradox that a love relationship being nurtured by spouses would suddenly turn to a theater of absurdities, leading to several injuries and scattered homes.? What kind of a person resorts to domestic violence against the spouse or domestic intimate partner? What kind of a person thinks it is right to continually humiliate or talk down a life intimate partner?

Domestic Violence

Chioma Obi, 35, got married to her loving husband Daniel in Abia State but three years after, it became a an undesirable relationship.? She was beaten and battered most times to coma. Chioma is currently suffering from partial blindness.? The story is not different from that of Tomilola Akinrogbe, who courted her husband for four years but little did she know that the day she signed her wedding certificate was like signing her death warrant when her husband, Adewale Akinrogbe stabbed her to death after an argument ensued between the couple at their residence, Ijaiye, Ogun State.

Apart from physical battering, once a spouse is physically or emotionally abused,? he or she is no longer free, no longer valued, respected or safe.? What can be more violent than living under such circumstance.

When Saturday Vanguard sought the opinions of experts on the issue, they expressed worry over the dangerous trend in our society.

Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, the Executive Director, Project Alert,? a non-governmental women?s rights organisation set up to promote and protect the rights of women and young girls who share his view on the issue opined that the current? rate of domestic violence in Nigeria can not be established, as there has not been a national survey to that effect. However, she said that following the current trend, one in five Nigerian women is a victim of domestic violence. ?As according to the 2012 Gender in Nigeria Report, one out of every five Nigerian women and girls aged 15-24 years, has been a victim of one form of violence or the other.?

She said while poverty and social economic challenges could be considered to be one of the numerous reasons for domestic violence, they are not the main reason for the act. ?Domestic violence, as indeed other forms of violence against women/young girls, is a power relationship. It is more about men and boys feeling they have power and control over women and young girls, and physically and sexually assaulting them into submission. Putting them (i.e women/girls) in their place (below men) as its often said.

This idea was corroborated by Pa? Aderibigbe Olofin, an octogenarian and sociologist based in Lagos. He stated that violent behaviour often originates from a sense of entitlement which is often supported by sexist, racist, homophobic and other discriminatory attitudes of a person, mainly the man. ?Male privilege operates on an individual and societal level to maintain a situation of male dominance, where men have power over women and children.?

Olofin added that violence at homes could be as a result of avoiding important issues out of fear of angering your partner or? excessively jealous and possessive or domineering attitudes.

?When your partner control where you go or what you do, limit your access to money, phone or car;

destroy your belongings or property; threatens to hurt you or kill you if you opt and of the relationship or marriage could be possible cause of domestic violence.

Effah-Chukwuma however stated that culture and religion play a major role in the continued perpetration of violence against women in general, and domestic violence in particular. ?This is because people hide under the guise of both, to justify acts of domestic violence. You here people saying things like ??its our culture??; ??the African culture allows it??; ??the Bible says a woman should be submissive, and if she is not, she should be beaten??; ??a foolish woman breaks her home?? etc. All these add up to keep women in abusive relationships, while encouraging their husbands to continue their abusive acts.?

?

She expressed worry over the increase in the trend, adding that her NGO receives an average of eight cases of domestic violence per week. ?At Project Alert, we receive an average of 8 cases weekly. In 50% of these cases, we are able to settle the matter, after several counselling sessions with both parties individually and then together. We mediate and help them arrive at a mutual agreement, especially where there has been no physical injury, on either parties. In 25% of the cases, the extended family members come in, and take over the matter, with the consent of the couple, and try to resolve the matter. In the remaining 25%, the violence and threat to life is so severe that the woman, states clearly that she does not want to go back to the marriage, for fear of dying, and as such wants a separation or divorce. Thus our first response is typically to try mediating,? she noted.

Effah-Chukwuma also stated that both domestic violence which includes physical battering, threat to life etc and sexual violence (rape, gang rape, incest, defilement, sexual abuse) are the two commonest forms of violence against women and young girls in Nigeria. ?In fact sexual violence against children (especially little girls) is becoming very prevalent. Hardly can a day go by, without one newspaper reporting a case of defilement and incest against a young girl, some times as little as two years of age. It is in my opinion, that it is assuming epidemic proportions,? she stressed.

On how stigmatization has been affecting agencies intervention and prosecution, Effah-Chukwuma agreed that stigmatization is one of the factors that cause victims to remain silent.

?Yes, stigmatization is an issue, as it causes victims to keep silent, and not cry out for help. The greatest challenge however is the poor response from the criminal justice system (police and courts) and social service providers (hospitals, social welfare) to victims and their families/friends. Police insensitivity to and unprofessional handling of sexual violence cases due to poor training and lack of logistics, has resulted in low reporting rates of sexual violence cases especially.?

?Lack of logistics for the police means that victims of crime have to fund the process of seeking justice, starting from providing transportation to investigating police officers, going to hospital, paying for medical tests, pay for telephone calls, etc. Very few victims can afford all these costs, and as such their cases never get prosecuted. The courts on the other hand are also insensitive to the plights of victim, with the frequent adjournments and delays. Justice delayed it is said, is justice denied.?

?The Domestic Violence Law of Lagos state, which was enacted in May 2007, is a relatively new law that Lagosians are just getting to know about. It requires aggressive mass sensitization and awareness creation by government, targeting the public, the police and the judiciary. My organization Project Alert, in 2008 and 2009, bought copies of the law from the Ministry of Justice, and donated to all police divisions in Lagos, during the tenure of Mr. Marvel Akpoyibo as Commissioner of Police in the state. We also conducted some trainings for officers. However there is a need for a sustained public awareness campaign on the law, if it is to make impact, and help prevent acts of violence in the domestic sphere. Presently it is not very functional, as so many people are yet to know about it, and understand how the law works.?

She advised that government at all levels should stop playing politics with the lives of women and young girls, and take seriously the issue of domestic violence and sexual violence. Effah-Chukwuma maintained that more and more women are suffering various health implications and even dying from these twin problems. ?Relevant agencies charged with responding and providing support services to victims, should be well trained and well equipped to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. Government, NGOs and the private sector need to partner to end all forms of violence against women and young girls,? she stated. Shedding more light on the issue, Pa? Aderibigbe Olofin, said: ?Domestic violence includes assault with weapons such as knife, gun, matchet, burning or killing, pushing, throwing, kicking, slapping, grabbing, hitting, punching, beating, biting, restraining, confinement to hurt and cause emotional imbalance in a person.?

?When your partner control where you go or what you do, limit your access to money, phone or car;

destroy your belongings or property; threatens to hurt you or kill you if you opt and of the relationship or marriage could be possible cause of domestic violence.

According to him, other causes include, ?when your partner forces you to participate in an unwanted, unsafe or degrading sexual activity;? is domestic violence.

He opined that although it is most times caused by men.? ?It is as a result of the inequalities between men and women, rooted in patriarchal traditions that encourage men to believe they are entitled to power and control over their partners.?

He added that alcohol and other chemical substance may contribute to violent behaviour. ?A drunk or high person will be less likely to control his violent impulse at the slightest provocation by a spouse.

He advised that people should acquaint themselves with the existing prohibitive laws to seek redress.

Olofin urged spouses to take note of signs of an abusive relationship which according to him is the first step to ending it. He added that it is absurd to live in fear of the person you love.

Comments are moderated. Please keep them clean and brief.

Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/06/domestic-violence-its-assuming-epidemic-proportions-effah-chukwuma/

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3DTV Is Officially Never Going to Happen

That was it. That was 3DTV's best chance. ESPN just decided to discontinue its push for 3DTV sporting events, deciding its time would be better spent focusing on traditional high resolution broadcasts and Tim Tebow daguerreotypes. And that, in a nutshell, effectively kills 3DTV's chances of ever going mainstream.

ESPN giving up on 3D is crippling in a way that seems almost impossible for 3DTV to overcome. That's because if anyone ever really wanted 3D on their TV for anything but movies, it was for sports. In a survey from 2010, around the time 3DTVs were first becoming widely available, 61 percent of people polled said that sports were the thing they'd most want to view on a 3DTV. Movies will remain more or less fine?though often the 3D Blu-ray is simply bundled with a collector's edition or the regular edition?mostly because they're such a boon to box office numbers. But sports were the foothold into the wider world of TV.

It's hard to imagine a more perfect canvas for 3D on your television than sports. That makes sense on a few cascading levels. For one, sports are played three dimensionally, with depth and perspective that simply isn't necessary or utilized on traditional programming. Shows like the evening news and How I Met Your Mother are scripted or staged in ways that make 3D, essentially, superfluous. It would be nice, more or less, but wouldn't really add much in the end.

To go with a debatable improvement to traditional programming, it also poses some unique technical headaches. Taking advantage of 3D is complicated, because a lot of the visual tricks you can use with a regular display?depth of field, odd framing, etc?can look positively dreadful in 3D. As Mark Wilson wrote for Gizmodo's review of Avatar back in 2010, "An out of focus shoulder breaking the corner of the frame is pretty much the worst implementation of 3D I could imagine." For Breaking Bad or Mad Men, that might be a problem. For sports, which keeps the entire court or field in focus at all times? No such thing.

Then there's just the purely visceral experience of watching sports. LeBron James flashing into the frame, delivering a dunk like lightning from a god. Lionel Messi whirling through the penalty box, whipping a pass to a teammate at the far post, as the depth and the angle of that teammate's run shows through in 3D just a little more clearly. Adrian Peterson making very fast men seem impossibly slow. You want to see moments like this in 3D. Or, well, you would if you had any interest in 3D to begin with.

It's possible that the way we watch TV now?or at least how the tech-forward vanguard that would adopt the technology and introduce it to the world?just doesn't mesh with 3D, or more specifically, 3D glasses. We text and tweet and trawl through Twitter lists looking for GIFs, in real time, as we're watching games or episodes of touchstone shows like Game of Thrones. It's just a different experience than it was just a few years ago, when 3D was making its renewed push. And while 3D glasses might be something you're willing to endure when sitting down to watch a movie?an act that still, blessedly, common etiquette keeps second screening out of?no one wants that mess while peeking down at a phone or tablet or laptop in between plays, or while folding laundry and half-paying attention to True Blood.

Maybe now, if like ESPN everyone else finally gives up the ghost, we can finally start seeing some more practical advancements in TV tech. There's 4K, of course, though that's a ways off, and who knows when it'll come off of its gaudy price points. There any number of attempts at smell-o-vision tech,which hey, why not. And there's also the stuff we just haven't thought of yet, or haven't taken seriously enough to try in earnest. Transparent displays that can live in the center of a room as sort of windows, that become screens. Or bendable displays that we can fold up in our pockets, or that compress down onto a shelf. Maybe some weird tech that makes massive screens an affordable thing. The point is, if we put our energy into everything that isn't 3D, maybe we end up with something more useful.

It's tempting to say that burying 3DTV, or being plainly against the idea, is an anti-technology sentiment, that we're shoving off progress in favor of our comfortable old viewing habits. Rejecting sabermetrics for box scores, basically. But often we confuse a way forward for the way forward. 3D as we have it now is a progressive technology only in that it's different, not because it's an imperative for furthering how we watch TV.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/3dtv-is-officially-never-going-to-happen-512905205

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Get the newest version of the Android Central App before anyone else

Join our beta test group and move yourself to the front of the line

We love beta testing. We love playing with things that might break, will break and need some testing. To that end, Google recently introduced proper beta testing of applications through Google Play, and we're going to start using it.

Want to get the latest version of the newest Android Central App before anyone else? Want to help us test things out and squash bugs? Here's how to order:

• Join the Android Central App Beta group.
• Sit back and wait for us to start pushing beta builds.

It's that simple. We'll start with the beta builds in the coming weeks. Thanks for your help!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/5otgsKIgZPI/story01.htm

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China's E-Commerce Companies Go Global - CKGSB Knowledge

E-commerce retailer VANCL?s English language website is tailored to western customers. Will this be enough for VANCL to make it in international e-markets? (Source: en.VANCL.com)

Can China?s e-commerce companies like Jingdong Mall and VANCL replicate their success in international markets?

Just a few weeks before stepping down, Jack Ma, the founder and former CEO of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, addressed the students of Stanford University. While talking of his humble start in China?s e-commerce industry and his rise to the top, he made a remarkable statement: ?I am thankful for the inspiration that Silicon Valley gave me.?

Back in China, Ma explained, he started working in the internet business in 1995 obsessed with how to catch up with Silicon Valley.

And catch up he did.

Fourteen years after its founding, Alibaba is the world?s largest online business-to-business (B2B) platform delivering e-commerce solutions for small businesses worldwide. There are others following in its footsteps?such as business-to-consumer (B2C) players like VANCL, China?s biggest fashion e-tailer, and Jingdong Mall (JD.com, which till recently was called 360buy.com), the second-largest B2C online retailer in China. Jingdong and VANCL account for 16% and 0.9% of the B2C market respectively, whereas market leader Tmall (owned by Alibaba) has 44.10% (owned by Alibaba).

During his speech at Stanford, Ma said he never wrote a business plan. Instead, he embraced what he saw as the best plan: change.

Change, Now the Only Constant

Today, China?s e-tailers are embracing change like never before. McKinsey & Company predicts that by 2020 China?s e-commerce market will equal that of the US, Japan, the UK, Germany and France combined today. To stay competitive in such a huge market these companies need to be nimble. For many, internationalization will help strengthen their brand and create new value.

VANCL and Jingdong have hundreds of millions of active users but they are by no means global giants yet. Venturing abroad will boost their reputation and help balance the already squeezed profit margins in the increasingly overcrowded home market. Ajing-mao, an analyst at e-commerce research institute Analysys International, agrees. ?Going abroad is the only way for a company to grow and develop fast, especially for e-commerce enterprises that have certain inherent advantages due to the internet. That?s the case, for example, of the rapid growth of B2C e-commerce sites like eBay and Amazon.?

Jia Jia, Associate Vice-President responsible for the overseas business of VANCL, explains that the global push was ?a response to the pressure posed by global e-commerce brands aiming at China?. ASOS is one such site. The popular UK-headquartered fashion e-tailer recently announced ambitious plans of launching a Chinese website in October. ASOS was following in the footsteps of other companies like online luxury fashion outlet Net-a-Porter that entered China a few months ago.

But Chinese companies will only be able to compete globally if they offer global consumers unique value proposition. To achieve that and to move up the value chain, they will need to invest in brand-building.

It is early days still and the pioneers have done precious little on that front. Jia Jia, VANCL?s Associate Vice-President responsible for the overseas business, acknowledges that for his company, ?it?s too early to do branding?. ?We don?t have any advantage yet compared to other e-commerce websites especially in the US, or in Spain with Zara,? he says.

Casting the Net Wide

VANCL debuted its international website in 2010. But it wasn?t until March this year that the company started to invest more resources in their global strategy. Roughly 10% of their target consumers include overseas Chinese, but VANCL has ambitious plans of expanding into new areas with the help of teams familiar with the tastes of the specific target markets. Additionally, it is testing different business models to see how to tap in markets such as Russia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Interestingly, one year after it launched its global site, it made it available in three additional languages?Spanish, Portuguese and Russian.

Jingdong, on the other hand, doesn?t have a diversified market yet and only 30% of their customers are from outside the US. The global website (in English) was launched in October 2012 to embrace the opportunities created by the already developed Western e-commerce market. Shipping the 400,000 products on offer to more than 30 destinations, Jingdong intends to reproduce in an international setting its model of a company that creates value for consumers by selling ?Made in China? products from China. ?Our advantage is low prices and we will keep that. Our team is based in China but people can buy from other markets and then we ship from China,? says Shi Tao, Vice-President (Retail), Jingdong.

But will these sites disrupt international markets?

The Acid Test

Even though companies like Jingdong have gone global, it appears as if they are really catering to overseas Chinese. This strategy might help them gain momentum abroad while testing their models and progressively diversifying their target markets. But the real test for these companies? global forays will be gaining acceptability with non-Chinese consumers.

A.T. Kearney?s report ?E-commerce is the Next Frontier in Global Expansion?? recommends localization of websites, and development of new business models, shipping options and payment methods as the key to success. Superior costumer experience and not underestimating local players are high on the list of recommendations.

This recipe, however, brings with it a set of challenges that fuel skepticism among some industry watchers with regard to the potential success of these ambitious companies. According to Ajing-mao, among the issues of concern are ?a lack of understanding of user demand in international markets and the customers? distrust toward the quality of Chinese products, coupled with a blind international expansion?.

VANCL and Jingdong are still in the first stages of their global expansion. They are using their websites to experiment with products, categories, shipping and payment solutions, customer service and website design. Jingdong?s Shi says that it?s a wait-and-watch strategy. ?We launch the website first, then we see the behavior of the people: what they like, what pictures they click on, etc. In the future, if we notice a given country likes red color, we will then switch the color of the website to red.? In a way, how the global customer reacts to this constant optimization and customization of the website will eventually determine their business strategy as well as their key target markets.

?Categories would be our main ?strategy?,? says Shi. Since the launch of the global website, Jingdong has been trying to learn about the global market, the culture of these consumers, their preferred categories and payment options. As a result, the site has undergone a few changes here and there: books, for instance, is now at the top of the categories menu, the less popular categories have been removed and there?s a bigger offer of domestic products.

But this alone won?t do the job. User experience and search engine optimizion (SEO) play a crucial role in their chances to compete in globally. Doug Pierce, Founder and CEO of analytics at Cogney SEO agency, reckons that compared to Amazon, China?s e-tailers lag behind in determinant factors of search engine rankings, such as like organic keywords, ad keywords and referring domains. Also, in terms of localization of the websites, ?they must be in perfect English, allow photoshopping of products and open links in new tabs?, he adds.

On the other hand, accurate customization of their websites also implies a thorough understanding of the data generated by user transactions of international users, something that will also help companies figure out the shopping behavior of target consumers. Li Yang, Assistant Professor of Marketing at CKGSB, says, ?Most Chinese firms lack enough understanding of the Big Data concept, let alone of using it in a foreign environment.? Which is why, these companies will find it difficult to deal with important aspects of Big Data, such as data security or privacy protection since they are used to their domestic business models where they can make profits without taking into account consumers? privacy, he adds.

The China Advantage

For Jingdong, the fact that Chinese books are one of the top sales items is an indicator that the site is well received by the global Chinese community. Nonetheless, if Jingdong wants to reach a wider pool of consumers it will have to urgently deal with inconsistencies of the English site, where many product categories and specifications are only in Chinese and ads and banners are mostly targeting the global Chinese consumer.

Shi thinks it wouldn?t be smart to confront giants like eBay or Amazon. Instead, he aims at wining other markets by building trust with customers, always without losing sight of their very-low price advantage. The company?s self-built logistics network in China will give them an advantage when shipping Chinese goods from their own warehouses in the country. In the future, given the importance buyers give to speedy delivery, Jingdong plans a combined strategy where the most popular products will be stored in local warehouses to cut delivery times, while the rest will be shipped directly from China.

Nevertheless, both options pose great challenges. Domestically, Chinese e-tailers are used to extremely low shipping costs that allow them to remain competitive in the domestic market by offering next-day deliveries and free (or very low price) delivery services. CKGSB?s Li says that overseas they will find it hard to achieve the same efficiency. They?ll have to rely on third-party delivery companies that charge higher fees. On the other hand, local players will enjoy an advantageous position making it hard for Chinese companies to compete against such cheap shipping options.

Li says, ?The delivery cost for Amazon is already low as Amazon is able to leverage its negotiating power with shipping companies. When Chinese internet firms go to these countries, I doubt these new players would get cheap shipping as Amazon does.?

Connecting and Localizing

As they go global, China?s e-commerce players need to increasingly localize their offering to suit different country contexts.

Jingdong?s site, for example, now offers the option of checking prices in currencies like Euros, Pounds, Australian Dollars and Hong Kong Dollars, a part from US Dollars. Shi explains that providing wider currency choices helps non-US consumers avoid the inconvenience of going to Google to check the price of the goods they want to buy in their own currency.

Moreover, VANCL?s Jia Jia thinks the strategy of building a strong relationship with the user also helps overcome the negative perception often associated with ?Made in China? products and brands. In addition, investing in social networking through sites like Facebook or Twitter will help ?strengthen the exchanges with the local consumers, narrow the psychological distance with the overseas consumer and keep track of their needs,? notes Ajing-mao. VANCL?s global site, for instance, has a style guide book, a blog and an affiliate program. Combined with other social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, they are used as critical channels to get closer to the new market.

Local partnerships appear as a key strategy to build trust and create higher value. Last year, VANCL launched its first country-specific website in Vietnam. As a B2B2C platform, the Vietnamese partner is responsible of developing its own inventory of VANCL products that the company later sells to the local consumer through VANCL?s Vietnamese web portal. It might try this model in other markets in Southeast Asia in the future. Jingdong is also working in a similar partnership with a Russian site. In this case, the Russian platform would handle costumer service, delivery and payment solutions, whereas Jingdong would take care of the website, provide the products and ensure the low prices are maintained.

The model of company cooperation and platform cooperation gives a dramatic advantage in terms of localization because it provides companies a bigger margin in terms of offering a better service to international costumers and earn their trust. According to Shi, ?In the future, this will probably be a better strategy to land into different markets. Amazon chose to acquire or set up their company and their own team. I think in the future this won?t be the only way to do this kind of businesses.?

Source: http://knowledge.ckgsb.edu.cn/2013/06/03/china/chinas-e-commerce-companies-go-global/

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What It's Really Like To Be A Google Intern - Business Insider

Rohan Shah

Rohan Shah just finished a semester interning at Google. To become a Google intern, Shah took a leave of absence from his school in Illinois.

In early January, 20-year-old Rohan Shah got an email from Google.

The search giant ? the best company to work for in the world! ? was interested in interviewing him for one of its coveted internship positions.

It had been weeks since Shah filled out the online application following a career fair at his college, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He had already accepted another summer internship at Qualcomm one month prior.

But this was Google! And Shah couldn't let the opportunity slip by.

A Google spokesperson says Google accepts only 1,500 interns out of 40,000 applicants every year in the United States. Earning a spot at Google is competitive, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn just made a movie about it.

Shah went through with the interview process, which spanned more than one month. By the end of January, he was offered a position.

Instead of canceling his summer plans with Qualcomm, Shah called his school and took a leave of absence. He flew to Mountain View, California and became one of about 50 interns this past spring.

What was the interview process like? And what's it really like being a Google Intern? Shah and other interns recount their tales.

Getting The Interview: A Slow And Tedious Process

The Google interview process, whether you're applying for an internship or a full-time position, begins with an online application. The hopeful candidate fills out forms that inquire about his or her grade point average, past experiences, extra curricular activities and more.

Shah didn't do anything fancy with his resume to attract attention. But he can speak three languages, he has received a volunteering medal of honor, and he's on his school's Dean's List. In addition, he's been a teaching assistant, held previous internships and, just for fun, he creates Android apps.

Still, it took multiple weeks for Google to respond to his November application. When Google finally did, it sent him an email.

Another intern candidate, Evan Carmi, said he waited a month and a half before hearing from Google HR when he applied in 2010.

The email correspondence between Google HR and the candidate leads to two phone interviews with current Google employees.

That's when the process really begins.

A Series Of 'Highly Technical' 45-Minute Interviews

Google was once infamous for asking tough brainteasers during its interview process. After a bout of negative press, Google forbid its staff from asking candidates questions like "How many cows are in Canada?"

Still, the interviews ? even for interns ? are highly technical.

"It was essentially applying your knowledge in a very practical situation," Shah explains, which is about as in-depth as Google will let him go. Google has a strict policy against sharing company information, although it allowed our interview with Shah.

"It's figuring out if you can scale a system, or you can make something much more efficient," he says. The best applicants are able to apply those concepts quickly throughout the entire 45-minute process.?

Carmi's interviews were equally technical, and he wrote freely about them in a 2010 blog post. His first of the back-to-back calls was from a Site Reliability Engineer at Google. He asked Carmi?questions pertaining to Python, such as "Write a function with the following specification: Input: a list. Output: a copy of the list with duplicates removed."

Carmi's second interview was with a Carnegie Mellon graduate on Google's Webmaster Tools Team who asked him to write actual code. A single question took up the vast majority of the 45-minute slot and caused Carmi to all but break a sweat.

Carmi was asked to do a third technical phone interview and his dreams of becoming a Google intern died there.

Shah was more fortunate. One week after his two phone interviews, he received an email from HR: "You did well in the interviews, we want to continue the process," he was told.

The Google recruiter then helped him figure out which department he'd like to intern for, and more interviews followed.

"I had interviews with around five different teams," he says.

Unlike the phone interviews, the team interviews aren't technical. They help the potential interns get to know the different groups within Google and?learn if they'll like working in one over another.

By late January ? three months after submitting his application ? Shah was officially a Google intern. He'd be joining Google's Android department.

His next stop: Mountain View.

Housing, Roommates, And Commute, All Covered By Google

It may seem impossible to get an internship offer across the country and start working there two weeks later.

But if you're a Google intern, the company solves all of your housing and travel logistics for you. Shah was put up in Google-paid corporate housing, in San Jose's North Park, with fellow Google interns for roommates.

Shah was assigned three roommates, two from Argentina and one from Ukraine. "I got to meet people from a completely different culture. I got to learn from them and picked up a bit of their languages as well," says Shah. "It was a great housing experience for me."

Shah describes the apartment as "very nice" with a train station close by for easy access to most places in Silicon Valley.

There's no need for a car or a bike when you're a Google intern. Google sends free shuttles throughout the entire Bay Area, including San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto and Berkeley, to take employees to work and home at night.

Bikes are available on Google's campus for long-term rent, or for hopping from office to office around the 'Plex.

A Week And A Half Of Orientation

The intern orientation process goes on for a week and a half. Interns are taught how the data centers work, how the company functions, and what Google's goals are. They also meet all the other new Googlers.

"Just in the first week you feel like you've been an employee for a year," Shah says. "You get acclimated with the company very quickly."

From the moment he stepped onto Google's grassy campus, Shah was in love.

"My first day was amazing," he says.

Making The Money

Google interns get paid more than most full-time employees across the country. According to Glassdoor, the average Google intern makes $5,678 per month, or $68,136 per year.

Shah's pay was slightly more at about $6,100 per month or $80,000 per year.* Take into account all of the perks, including free rent, transportation, gym membership and food, and a Google intern is living large.

"I didn't find myself wasting any money, except on weekends when I went exploring," says Shah. "It was a great semester."

So, What Do Google Interns Do All Day?

A lot of work, and a lot of team building activities.

Shah recalls trips to museums, movies, hiking and biking excursions, as well as several trips to San Francisco, all organized by Google. He was the only intern on his Android team, and there were a lot of team dinners, including one on his 20th birthday.

Unlike most other internships, where the underlings send faxes and grab coffees, Google interns work on real products that will be used by the world.

Each intern is assigned a project within his or her group. They're also assigned a mentor who will chat with them weekly, or as frequently as the intern needs, and give feedback on their progress.

YouTube Kitt Vanderwater, a former Google intern and current Google software engineer.

Shah's project involved working with old Gmail code and launching a new, top-secret feature. His favorite memory from the internship is the day he rolled out the Android feature internally. He received tons of feedback from his peers, and then it hit him: The work he had done at Google was going to impact millions of people.

"It was a great sense of satisfaction," Shah recalls.

A current Google software engineer, Kitt Vanderwater, had a similar experience when she interned in the Google+ department. "I had a lot of responsibility," she says. "It was a little overwhelming because I was doing all these things I had never done before. I was the one who was driving a lot of the decisions we were making, I ended up making the page for signed-out search, which was the first experience anyone got in the new Google+ search. So basically I owned this page that tons of people were going to land on when Search was actually launched."

What Googlers Are Really Like

Googlers aren't a bunch of social misfits, although that's how they're occasionally portrayed. Shah was surprised how normal and non-geeky everyone at Google was, engineers included.

"One thing that really surprised me working at Google was that every single employee is extremely creative and extremely active," Shah says. "There's a very clear divide between work and life. Google engineers are very well-balanced. I have evidence that people really are the best thing at Google."

"I have evidence that people really are the best thing at Google."

Meeting Sergey Brin

Interns aren't all introduced to Google's top executives. Nor are they allowed to test out all of the cool-new devices that Google is building. Shah never zipped around in a driverless car or wore Google Glass while he was there. But he did run into Google co-founder Sergey Brin once.

"The one time I did meet Sergey, three intern friends and I were going bowling," Shah explained. (But not bowling off campus, of course. Google has its own alley.) "Sergey happened to be passing by, showing his friend around the place. That's actually as much as I saw of Sergey."

The Perks: 24 Cafes, Multiple Gyms, A Wellness Center And More

You won't starve working for Google. Like most Googlers, Shah says the food was "probably the biggest perk."

He estimated the Googleplex had 24 cafes with a wide variety of cuisines to choose from: Mexican, American, Indian, salad bars, pizza shops and burger joints. Gyms are located close to cafes for anyone feeling over-fed.

The gyms are well equipped and are often completely full, says Shah.

If you get sick, you just go to Google's wellness center. Feel a knot in your back? Go to the on-campus masseuse. All are available for interns as well as employees.

"Free food and refreshments, free gym membership, laundry, dancing lessons, etc,"?Paul Baltescu, a two-time Google intern, rattles off perks on Quora. "Intern events are also loads of fun: you may go to paintball, laser tag, watch a SF Giants game and all summer interns go on a luxury boat trip on the San Francisco Bay. Also, depending on your team you may attend other fun events like white river rafting, a three days trip to Lake Tahoe or may get to visit other Google offices."

The Cons of Being A Google Intern? There Are None

If there are any downsides to being a Google intern, Shah can't recall any. His only complaint is more of a frustration with himself.

Shah wasn't as experienced an Android developer as Google's full-time engineers, so it took him some time before he could fully contribute to the team. But he says his co-workers were understanding and his mentor was always there for encouragement.

Like Shah, Baltescu can think of only pros when he recalls his internship experience.

"Both internships helped me develop basic software engineering skills that I wouldn't have otherwise learned from school projects (how to code search efficiently, how to unit test properly, how to use version control systems, etc.)," he writes on Quora. "I also learned some new technologies like python and App Engine and brushed on my JavaScript and C++. I'm very grateful for what I've learned at Google and I strongly recommend their internship program to any student wishing to become a software engineer in the near future."

Life After A Google Internship

For Shah, one internship led right into another. When we contacted him he was getting ready for his first day at Qualcomm. But he had already interviewed for a full-time job at Google after graduation and was waiting to hear back. Interns can interview before their departure, and their mentors can help them prep.

Shah has a good shot. Jenna Wandres, Google's Communications Associate who oversees all things culture, tells us: "We rely heavily on those interns when we're thinking about hiring."

Shah's advice to other hopeful Google interns?

"Google is really looking for experience," he says. "They want to find engineers who are motivated, so activities outside of school really help. At the same time, you need to know your basics. You need to understand simple algorithms and how to apply them. Google is all about application."

The best piece of advice comes from Shah's Google mentor: Stay calm.

"I know every interviewer says that, But Google interviews are kind of unnerving because they're highly technical. Calming down was what really helped me through."

And if you don't get the internship?

You'll probably end up alright.

"I ended up with an internship at The New York Times that summer, and returned there the summer after as a Interactive News Developer," Carmi, the candidate Google rejected, tells us. "I graduated last week from Wesleyan University."

*The story originally reported that Shah's salary was less than the average Google intern, but it turns out his was actually more and was equivalent to an $80,000 annual salary.?

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-really-like-to-be-a-google-intern-2013-5

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