Sunday 31 October 2010

Istanbul suicide blast injures 22, including 10 police

A suicide bomb blast in the centre of Istanbul has injured 22 people, including 10 policemen.

Dubai bomb was flown on passenger planes

The device had been placed in a cardboard box and posted to the US

One of the two bombs posted from Yemen last week was transported on two passenger planes before being seized in Dubai, Qatar Airways says.

Why is a universal translator so elusive?

By LJ Rich - BBC Click

With a global economy and flights that can take you all over the world in hours, why is it that we still struggle with a language barrier that technology is finding hard to break down?

Turn on a TV in a Tokyo hotel room and you will get, if you do not speak the language, a jumble of incomprehensible symbols.
And from the moment you touch down in Japan, chances are you will be faced with a world that is difficult to decode.
Some of the world's most untranslatable words are Japanese. For instance, the word "naa", used in the Kansai area of Japan to emphasise statements or agree with someone, is placed third in a list of the most difficult words to translate - so what can be done when confronted by information that you are unable to process?
Translators are expensive and while useful in getting out of sticky situations, they are often out of the reach of the regular tourist.
So a gadget that was the perfect translation tool would be ideal. If only it were that simple.
Science fiction has always circumnavigated the problem of language with clever devices which act as universal translators - Doctor Who's Tardis, the Babel fish in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - but in reality it has been a lot more tricky.

Because of different fonts, written text can be very difficult to translate

There are already a clutch of reading aids on the web - most notably, and now in over 50 languages, Google Translate. For access to websites beyond your mother tongue, just enter the web page address and the tool does all the hard work.
The problem is that, so far, it is quite literal with its translations and lacks the nuance of someone who speaks the language. Google itself says "while we are working on the problem, it may be some time before anyone can offer human quality translations".
Another site called dotSUB lets members add their own subtitles or translations to videos - think YouTube meets Wikipedia - and the free version allows people to translate through 400 languages, though there is no formal quality control.
Kanji understand?
Japanese is particularly challenging as there are three different types of writing.
One alphabet is especially for foreign words and if that was not complicated enough there are also over 50,000 symbols - Kanji - which are actually pictures of whole words.
You need about 2,000 of them to get through daily life in Japan.
An iPhone app called WishoTouch lets you enter Kanji by hand then gives you a dictionary definition. But you will need to know the stroke order - although the add-on lets you photograph your mystery Kanji, one character at a time.

The translation device used by the US military costs thousands of dollars

So faced with the thought of dinner, and a whole load of symbols in a row, you are going to wish for a quicker and less painful way to help you find out what is on the menu.
One translation tool that deals with written text is called a Quicktionary and it is a character reader. It looks similar to a pen and when swiped across text it will give you a translation. At least, that is the idea.
This device is impressive but only works with two typefaces - a problem shared by most text readers.
And perhaps the most comprehensive gadget on a market is a 126-language cross translator made by Ectaco.
"It all started 20 years ago with the Russian market," says Greg Stetson, product manager of Ectaco.
"In Russia there were a lot of immigrants coming into America and [our product] started off as a Russian electronic dictionary - after that it evolved from electronic dictionaries to more language learning products - and from Russian it had to expand into different languages."
Artificial intelligence
Even soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq have used mobile translation when talking to local people. Voxtec's Phraselator has been the choice of the US military for years but, with a price tag of thousands of dollars, this is unlikely to transfer into success in the mass market.
Even if a machine can eventually translate speech in real time across hundreds of languages, it would still need some artificial intelligence to work out what people are actually implying - as everyone knows, no matter what country we are in, we do not always say what we mean.

Japan's three types of writing make the language especially hard to translate

"The Japanese prefer to speak in a roundabout way," says linguist Takafumi Shimizu, of Sophia University Tokyo.
"So if a taxi driver said to you it's difficult to get there in 10 minutes, he actually means it's impossible. Likewise when Japanese people want to refuse a request or invitation, they would say I'll think about it but do not expect a preferable answer later because the actual meaning is 'I'm refusing'."
And even if you get the right words, you might get them in the wrong order - luckily if you're speaking to Professor Shimizu, he will probably understand you anyway.
"In English, the basic word order is subject, verb, object," he says.
"In Japanese the best word order is subject, object and then verb. So for example 'I bought tea leaves at Harrods yesterday' would be, in Japanese, 'yesterday Harrods at I tea leaves bought'."
In Star Trek, their universal translation device was not invented until the latter half of the 22nd Century and even then it was not flawless. Let's just hope we do not have to wait that long for something similar in real life

Learn English Free Study Lesson 30 - (store owner, clerk, stock keeper, commission)

Learn English Free Study Lesson 29 - (manufacture, reseller, wholesaler)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 28 - (mass customization, production)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 27 - (satisfaction, servicing, retention)

Learn Business English Study Lesson 26 - (product, price, promotion, place)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 25 - (customer wants, needs, target market)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 24 - (marketing department, advertising, budget)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 23 - (concept, conception, pricing, promotion)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 22 - (marketing, exchange, value, message)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 22 - (marketing, exchange, value, message)

This free Business English

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 21 - (Customer, servicing, client, client book)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 20 - (employee, turnover, absenteeism)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 20 - (employee, turnover, absenteeism)

This lesson is for Business English as a Second Language (ESL) students who want to practice speaking, reading, writing and listening. We discuss the words employee, employee turnover, turnover and absenteeism in this video. I teach every day for free by posting videos for you to learn!

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 19 - (Component, module, assembly, item, unit)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 19 - (Component, module, assembly, item, unit)

This video helps English as a Second Language students learn how to speak with words such as component, module, assembly, item and unit. I am a free ESL school teacher and I post videos daily. Have fun learning to speak, read and write English with these practice videos!

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 18 - (Consistency, variable, variation, variables)

Learn Business English Free Study Lesson 17 - (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)

This lesson describes the SWOT analysis tool that is taught in university. You can learn it free as an ESL student on my channel. This video is for semi-fluent English learners who are trying to improve their business communication skills. I hope you are having fun reading, writing and talking in English! I am a free ESL school teacher for the world to become educated.

Learn Business English Study Free Lesson 16 (figurehead, spokesperson, monitor, liaison)

Learn Business English Lesson 15 - (Planning, organizing, leading, controlling)

Learn Business English Lesson 14 - (standard, stock, commonplace, run of the mill)

Learn Business English Lesson 13 - (research, feasibility, feasibility study, business simulation)

Learn Business English Lesson 12 - (termination, severance pay, dismissal)

Learn Business English Lesson 11 - (evaluation, promotion, demotion, appraisal)

Learn Business English Lesson 10 - (financial, monetary, asset, liability)

Learn Business English Lesson 9 - (System, approach, systematic approach)

Learn Business English Lesson 8 - (People skills, well liked, well rounded, versatile)

Learn Business English Lesson 7 - (training, staffing, motivating, disciplining, managing conflict

Saving the planet one gadget at a time

New iPhone apps connect with smart meters to tell you your energy use

Saving energy in a home full of gadgets can seem impossible but the latest home energy technology can help you save the planet - and money.

What would you do with gigabit internet speeds?

South Korea is already ahead of the global technological curve but it is looking to forge even further ahead by boosting broadband speeds across the nation.

South Korean broadband speeds let content almost fly onto the screen

It is not aiming at 100, 200 or even 500 megabits per second (Mbps). Instead it has devised a national plan for 1,000Mbps connections to be commonplace by 2012.
The government is encouraging enterprise to spend the 34 trillion Won (£19bn), required to complete the scheme. By way of a comparison, that figure is roughly the same as the nation's annual education budget.
In theory, this idea will give many homes in South Korea a connection speed 500 times faster than is guaranteed in the UK.
In practice, South Korea is already considered the country quickest for broadband. The current average connection, according to a report by web firm Akamai, is 12Mbps - the highest in the world.

How quick is a 1GB connection?

Download Tolstoy's War and Peace: 0.002 secs (2mbps: 1 sec)

Download a 45-minute album: 0.05 secs (2mbps: 26 secs)

Download a 90-minute HD film: 3 mins 36 secs (2mbps: 30hrs)

Watch 1-minute of Super HD: 6 mins 40 secs (2mbps: 200hrs)

The Kung family are just one of the families reaping the benefits of blisteringly fast broadband.
Click visited the family to find out how it used the high-speed link. On a typical day twenty-something Kevin would be in his bedroom immersed in multiplayer online gaming, an activity which South Koreans have adopted as something of a national sport
In the living room, Eunice and her toddler might be enjoying the television. Thanks to the fast connection they can watch and interact.
With a £12-a-month ($19) subscription to an internet TV service, the family has access to dozens of regular channels, tens of thousands of movies on demand, interactive services like Twitter, and English learning through subtitles and karaoke.
"At home I'm using 100 megabits right now and that satisfies me a lot because it's fast," says Eunice Kung.
"But 1,000 megabits in three years? That'll surprise people but I think it's a very natural conclusion because South Korean people are very impatient, they need everything quickly, quickly, quickly. They need more, all the time."

Wireless networks are seen as key to the future of mobile data

In the UK, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that Britain will lead Europe into the era of super-fast broadband by 2015.
Some companies are already promising speeds of around 50Mbps and the government has guaranteed a 2Mbps connection for everyone by the end of the current parliament.
But what can a 1,000Mbps super-fast connection be used for?
Firstly, it is about speed - Hollywood blockbusters can be downloaded in 12 seconds or the entire James Bond back catalogue can be delivered whilst the kettle boils.
Super HD
And one thing that is becoming increasingly common is streaming television. While a Department for Media, Culture and Sport spokesperson in the UK says that "two megabits is sufficient" for streaming services, the next generation of hi-definition content will stretch the bandwidth limits worldwide.
According to the Blu-ray Disc Association, it takes a 40Mbps connection to stream full HD content but that is only the tip of the iceberg.
3D images, by their very nature, require a quicker transfer rate and Super HD, to be introduced over the next decade, goes even further.
It has 16 times as many pixels as today's high-end HD and the compressed version needs a minimum bandwidth of 320Mbps. The uncompressed stream requires 24 gigabits a second.

South Koreans are often seen as an entire nation of "early adopters"

The quickening pace of fixed line and wi-fi services seems not to cater for the growing trend of mobile users. In South Korea, a network of LTE - advanced cellular data networks - is being introduced.
But Lee Suk-Chae, chairman of Korea Telecom, says that these networks alone will not be sufficient to meet our needs.
"I think in the future we will really see a data deluge - data will explode over the network," he says.
"And you cannot handle that data traffic only through the mobile internet. Although there will be LTE, still you won't be able to handle all that traffic.
"Fixed line is essential to support that traffic and in that sense, I think people want to watch the content they want anywhere, anytime, and to satisfy their demands you need to have a strong network, maybe a gigabit internet."
He says that only 10% of data transfer is through 3G networks, 70% coming through wi-fi - which is not that surprising when you consider the number of hotspots in South Korea's urban areas.
And with a nation full of early-adopters, it seems only a matter of time before Koreans are surfing the net at speeds the rest of us can only dream about.

BA chairman attacks US airport security checks

The chairman of British Airways has said some "completely redundant" airport security checks should be scrapped and the UK should stop "kowtowing" to US security demands.

Indonesia tsunami deaths increase after Sumatra quake

Women and children flee to higher ground in Padang, West Sumatra

Many residents in Padang, West Sumatra, fled to higher ground after the earthquake

More than 100 people have been killed and many are missing after a tsunami triggered by an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.

Learn Business English Lesson 6 - (pyramid scheme, ponzi scheme, scam, swindle)

Learn Business English Lesson 5 - (analyst, motivator, negotiator, overseer)

Business English- (Job applicant, job placement, job search, job interview)

trustworthy, honest dealer, crook, blacklist

Learn Business English Lesson 2 - (Organization, manager, resources, allocate, negotiate)

Learn Business English Lesson 1 (Entrepreneur, venture capital, business funding, venture

Way Cure For Boredom

Way Cure For Boredom

three Way Cure For

Boredom

Get out of the house. This is the oldest boredom antidote in the book right here. I sometimes find that I get

Shareholder Agreement Non-Negotiables

Shareholder Agreement Non-Negotiables

we had this article in our exam)

Shareholder Agreement Non-Negotiables

Good fences make good neighbours, and when it comes to
business, good shareholder agreements make good
partnerships.

Not only does a shareholder agreement outline
what each party agrees to, but it offers crucial protection for you,
your partner and your business in the event of unforeseen
circumstances. And let’s face it, no one goes into a partnership
foreseeing the circumstances that will end that happy union.
A shareholder agreement deals with the relationship between
shareholders and the relationship of shareholders with the
company.

It deals with the ownership of shares, the disposition and
alienation of shares, the management of a company, meetings of
shareholders and directors, voting rights at such meetings, the
composition of the board of directors and the dividend policy of
the company.

A spokesman from Cliffe Dekker Attorneys, one of the largest
corporate law firms in South Africa, advises that: “The drafting of
shareholder agreements is complex and advice should be
sought from a properly qualified practitioner or firm as each case
should be evaluated and dealt with on its own merits.” The firm
has put together the following outline of what may typically be
found in a shareholder agreement.

Share capital

A shareholder agreement should deal with the share capital of a
company and must record the number and nature of shares in
issue and/or subscribed for and the number and percentage held
by each shareholder. It should also set out whether there are
different classes of shares (such as ordinary shares and
preference shares) and the rights attached to those classes.

Directors

The document should stipulate the size of the board, state which
of the shareholders is entitled to appoint directors and provide
for the removal and replacement of directors. It would also
typically include provisions relating to the quorum at board
meetings and the voting powers of directors.

Shareholding

It should outline how shareholders' meetings are to be held, what
will constitute a quorum, how proxies will be treated and what
will occur in the event of a deadlock. Some of the most important
provisions of a shareholder agreement from the perspective of a
minority shareholder are those relating to minority protections.
Generally such clauses stipulate that the directors and
shareholders will not be entitled to pass resolutions on certain
reserved matters without the consent of a specified percentage
of the shareholders. For instance, if the specified percentage is
80%, a shareholder holding 25% of the issued share capital of
the company will be able to prevent the passing of a resolution

Dividends/payments to shareholders

The dividend policy of the company should be set out in the
shareholders’ agreement – that is, the circumstances under
which a company will declare dividends. It is often provided that
a company will not declare dividends if it owes any amount on
a loan account to its shareholders or if it is indebted to any third
party lender.

Management

The management provisions of a shareholder agreement usually
state who is responsible for the day-to-day management of the
company (overall responsibility for the management of the
company resides with the board of directors), the identity and
appointment of the managing director and senior executives, the
manner in which the annual budget of the company is approved,
the appointment of the auditors of the company, how the audit of
the company will be conducted, the furnishing of management
accounts and reports to the board and the shareholders.

Transfer of shares

A shareholder agreement usually provides for ‘rights of first
refusal’, otherwise known as pre-emptive rights, which means
that if a shareholder wishes to dispose of his shares, he first has
to offer them to the remaining shareholders at the price he has
been offered for them by an outsider. He is not allowed to sell to
the outsider at a lower price or on better terms than those offered
to the remaining shareholders.

Deemed offer

The deemed offer, or forced sale, provisions of a shareholder
agreement play an important role. For instance, the shareholder
agreement can state that if the BEE level of shareholders is
reduced below a certain level, the shareholders will be deemed to
have offered to sell their shares to the other shareholders on the
occurrence of the event which led to the reduction of the BEE
level. The deeming provisions can also stipulate other trigger
events which can give rise to a deemed offer (such as
insolvency, change of control, the resignation of an executive
who is also a shareholder). These provisions should also state
how the purchase price will be determined in the event of a
deemed offer.

Come-along / Tag-along

Shareholder agreements often include clauses which provide
that under certain specified circumstances, where majority
shareholders sell their shares, the minority shareholders can
arrange to be bought out on the same terms (tag-along). The
come-along clause states that if majority shareholders wish to
sell their shares to a third party who wants to purchase 100% of
the share capital of the company, the majority shareholders can
require that the minority shareholders also sell their shares on
the same terms.

Other Provisions

Shareholder agreements contain various other provisions,
including provisions relating to breaches of the agreement, the
remedies for such breaches and dispute resolution.

Ford gets U.S. export-import bank loan to export 2011 Explorer and other models

The United States Export-Import Bank announced today that it has approved a $250 million working capital loan guarantee for FoMoCo. The loan facility will finance $3.1 billion of export sales for over 200,000 vehicles being sold to buyers in Canada and Mexico. These exports represent 15 percent of Ford’s 2009 production and the vehicles will be manufactured in plants located in Chicago, Illinois.

Bank lending expected to remain tight in 2010

The Associated Press

he Federal Reserve said Monday that most banks expect their lending to remain tight through the second half of next year, with the exception of mortgage standards, which already are loosening a bit.

Hawaii Car Insurance - Auto Insurance Quote in HI

Hawaii Car Insurance - Auto Insurance Quote in HI

Hawaii's State motto: "Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono ("The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness")"
Finding low cost auto insurance rates in Hawaii has never been easier.

30 most expensive word in Google Adsense one word starting from 5 dollars to 100 dollars

car insurance in hawaii
ct car insurance
buy car insurance on line
purchase car insurance online

Turkey targets $50bn China trade

China's Premier Wen Jiabao, left, with Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan after addressing the media in Ankara on Friday. (Reuters)

Professional Saudi abaya designers criticize copycat newbies

Published: Oct 6, 2010 21:38 Updated: Oct 6, 2010 22:10

Blast ends Friday prayers at Afghan mosque; 20 killed

A combo image shows file pictures of engineer Mohammad Omar, the provincial governor of northern Kunduz province, who was among 20 people killed by a bomb blast in a mosque in Takhar, Afghanistan, on Friday. (EPA)

John Lennon Google Doodle

John Lennon Google Doodle

Security contractors in Afghanistan 'fund Taliban'

Private security personnel stand guard on a Kabul street (file photo)

Private security guards are often used to guard compounds or convoys

Heavy US reliance on private security in Afghanistan has helped to line the pockets of the Taliban, a US Senate report says.

Saudi women fight for control of their marital fate

Women in Saudi Arabia are fighting back against tribal traditions that make them hostage to the whims of their fathers and male guardians who alone can decide who their future husbands will be.

Shia Muslims in the Gulf.. Worrying times

The Economist - « Cairo » - 24 / 9 / 2010 - 10:38 pm

Bahrain’s Shias get all steamed up

A rise in sectarian tensions and official jitters across the region

For minorities, success is best in small doses. Too much may stir bigotry and charges of dual loyalty, or even make some within the minority dangerously impatient for change. Shias on the Arab side of the Persian Gulf have long lived with such ironies. Largely ignored through centuries under Sunni rulers, they now feel increasingly exposed.
First came the Islamic revolution of 1979 in neighbouring Iran, whose ripples frightened those rulers and emboldened their Shia subjects, leading to ugly clashes that subsided only in the 1990s. The more recent rise of Shia influence in Iraq and the success of Hizbullah, the Shia party-cum-militia in Lebanon, have caused similar waves, made stronger by Iran’s bid to become the dominant—and perhaps nuclear-armed—regional power.
Conditions for Shias vary among the Gulf monarchies but had until recently been broadly improving. In relaxed and relatively liberal Kuwait, where Shias account for a third of the ultra-rich citizenry, they have long been prominent in business and in government. Some hold high office in Bahrain, too, but proportionately far fewer than their two-thirds share of the island kingdom’s population.
Saudi Arabia has the largest number of Shias at 2m-odd, but they are thinly diluted in a population ten times bigger and are subject to more systematic discrimination. No Shia has become a cabinet minister or general—or even a headmistress in a state school, reflecting the Saudis’ severe Wahhabism, in effect the kingdom’s official doctrine. Still, in recent years the Saudi government has loosened some strictures on Shia worship and forced extremist Sunni clerics to lessen their anti-Shia vitriol.
Those gains look fragile amid a mood of rising sectarian tension across the region. In Bahrain, months of agitation by Shias campaigning for greater rights have led to growing government fears of worse to come in the event of trouble with Iran. Pressure from Saudi-aligned Sunni radicals has led to a full-scale crackdown on Shia politicking. Widespread arrests, the closure of mainstream Shia websites and newspapers, and the banning of some Shia preachers from mosque pulpits have combined to tilt much of Shia opinion into sullen hostility to the state.

Sectarian jitters

Many Bahrainis were shocked when a prominent Shia cleric, Ayatollah Hussein Mirza Najati, was ordered to be stripped of his citizenship. By contrast, Bahrain’s Shias often complain that the government has secretly given citizenship to thousands of foreign Sunnis in a bid to alter the sectarian balance. Moderate Shias still counsel patience with the ruling al-Khalifa family, whose promises of reform a decade ago had quelled unrest until now. But clouds may be gathering ahead of a parliamentary election due next month.
Kuwait’s authorities have grown jittery, too. Following sustained pressure from Islamist Sunni members of parliament, the emirate revoked the Kuwaiti passport of Yasser al-Habib, a Shia preacher exiled in London, whose sermons suggesting that one of Muhammad’s wives had poisoned the prophet prompted widespread outrage, including condemnation by fellow Shia clerics. Alarmed by a spate of calls for Sunni protests, Kuwaiti police have banned all public meetings.
More quietly, Saudi authorities have for months been harassing local Shia campaigners, arresting dozens and holding many for weeks at a time. A ban on fatwas by independent Sunni clerics has muted public attacks on Shias, but Sunni chat-sites on the internet still describe them menacingly as a fifth column for Iran.

The Veil in Islam: Origins and Reasons

Ayoub Abdullah - 27 / 9 / 2010 - 9:40 am

Before we dive into explaining why Muslim woman wear the veil, let us discover the reasons gradually. First of all, having understood Adam’s story is a fundamental base to approach the Islamic perspective. So, what is Adam’s story in Islam?

Sunday 31 October 2010

Dubai bomb was flown on passenger planes

Wednesday 27 October 2010

Learn Business English Lesson 7 - (training, staffing, motivating, disciplining, managing conflict

Saving energy in a home full of gadgets can seem impossible but the latest home energy technology can help you save the planet - and money.

Tuesday 26 October 2010

What would you do with gigabit internet speeds?

Learn Business English Lesson 1 (Entrepreneur, venture capital, business funding, venture

Saturday 9 October 2010

Friday 8 October 2010

Friday 1 October 2010

feedage