Migrant crisis: Thousands overwhelm Croatia

At the Hungarian-Serbian border (CNN)A day afterCroatia opened its border

to migrants, chaos erupted as thousands of people broke through police barriers set up
at the train station in the border town of Tovarnik.
Women were wailing and police tried to help children as masses of people pushed their
way out of the holding area set up for processing, CNN's Ivan Watson reported.
Police did not use force against the migrants, as they tried to keep the barriers in place.
They finally gave up and the migrants started running into Croatia.
In just 24 hours, more than 7,600 migrants have arrived through at least seven border
crossings.
Terence Pike, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Croatia, told
CNN that Croatian authorities had been prepared to handle only an influx of 500
migrants and refugees a day.
"I think that too many refugees entered in an uncontrolled way on the first day," said
Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.
''Yes, of course, Croatia showed a human face, but I stress that the safety of Croatian
citizens and the stability of the state comes first," she said.
How you can help in the migrant crisis
Croatia can't care for and satisfy the needs of so many people, she said, calling for
tougher surveillance across state borders.
Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said the capacity to take in migrants has been reached.
By nightfall, police set up a new perimeter in an attempt to stop more than 1,000
migrants from penetrating farther into Tovarnik, where bullet holes left over from the
Balkan wars of the 1990s still scar some buildings.

26 photos: Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Hungary closed of

Croatia became the latest pressure point in the migrant crisis after Hungarian riot police
used tear gas and water cannons Wednesday to turn back people at that country's
border with Serbia.
Migrants attempting to reach Western Europe were left with a difficult choice: Stay and
contend with Hungary's tough new border defenses, or set out through Croatia on
another uncertain path toward the European Union's wealthier nations.
Frustrations boiled over after Hungary had sealed the final hole in its border with Serbia
a day earlier, shutting of a popular route used by tens of thousands of people in
Europe's vast migrant crisis.

The move left desperate men, women and children -- most of them fleeing violence in
the Middle East -- blocked by a razor-wire fence from entering.
But the impasse at that entry point into the European Union won't stop the flow of
migrants attempting their arduous journeys, said Eugenio Ambrosi, regional director of
the International Organization for Migration.
"People will continue to try to reach Europe through Hungary, Croatia or any other route
that might be available to them," he told CNN.
More barriers ahead?

After Croatia, migrants are expected to try to reach Germany by traveling up through
Slovenia and then Austria. But it's unclear whether they'll ultimately fare better on that
route.
Slovenia Prime Minister Miro Cerar tweated Thursday that his country is committed to
protecting the EU's external borders.
The Slovenian Interior Ministry said it hadn't discussed with Croatia the possibility of
providing a safe corridor to migrants and that such a move would violate national and
European laws.

Migrants must make their own way into Europe 01:01

The ministry said it would carry out its "obligations to manage migration and control its
borders" and expected Croatia to do the same.

Croatia is a member of the European Union, but unlike its northern neighbors, it isn't
part of the Schengen Agreement that eliminated border controls between many EU
nations.
Some people gathered at the Serbian-Hungarian border said they were wary of taking
the Croatian route if it meant they would only end up stuck at yet another closed
crossing.
They say turning around and heading back to the troubled countries they fled -- such as
Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iraq -- isn't an option.
The current crisis has prompted other EU nations to reintroduce security measures at
borders with other member states.
Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck said his country had
started border control measures on its southern border with Slovenia.
German minister for migrants resigns

Germany's minister for migration and refugees resigned "for personal reasons" on
Thursday.
Manfred Schmidt had been criticized for the slow process of dealing with asylum
application and creating a backlog.
At the end of August, 276,617 applications still needed to be processed, according to a
ministry spokesperson.
"Dr. Schmidt has done an excellent job and the federal interior minister regrets losing
him as head of this office," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said in a
statement.
Children sufering: A true picture of Europe's migrant crisis

A huge crisis

Syrian refugees swim to Europe 02:29

Aid workers say Europe is facing its largest refugee and migrant crisis since World War
II.
Seeking refuge: Full coverage of the migration crisis
More than 430,000 migrants have come to Europe by sea so far this year, double the
number that arrived during all of 2014, the International Organization for Migration said.
Migrants typically cross the Mediterranean and try to go through Greece, Macedonia,
Serbia, Hungary and Austria before finally reaching Germany or other European
countries known to be welcoming to refugees.
The EU is still trying to figure out how to distribute 160,000 migrants -- and whether to
set quotas for member countries to absorb them.
"The crisis is moving quite fast -- and unfortunately is moving much faster than the
response that was put in place by all the concerned governments," said Ambrosi of the
IOM.
Are countries obligated to take in refugees?
CNN's Ivan Watson reported from Tovarnik, Ben Wedeman reported from the
Hungarian-Serbian border; Susanna Capelouto wrote from Atlanta; and Jethro Mullen
wrote from Hong Kong. CNN's Milena Veselinovic, Alex Hunter, Tim Hume and Holly
Yan contributed to this report.

Are countries obligated to take in refugees? In some cases, yes

Hundreds of thousands of migrants are pounding on Europe's invisible doors -- dirty,

exhausted and desperate to escape the daily carnage in their homelands.
But their arrival also puts a strain on European resources.Germany expects to take in
800,000 refugees and says it will spend at least 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion). Austria,
which received 16,000 migrants in just two days, said it won't be able to keep up with
this pace.
At the same time, several oil-rich Arab nations closer to the conflict zones have come
under harsh criticism because they've taken in virtually no refugees.
So are countries obligated to house refugees? If so, why?
For the most part, it boils down to an international treaty.
What does the treaty say?

26 photos: Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

The 1951 Refugee Convention was adopted after World War II, when hundreds of
thousands of refugees were displaced across Europe.
The treaty defines what refugees are -- those who is seeking refuge from persecution. It
also gives them a very important right -- the right to not be sent back home into harm's
way, except under extreme circumstances.
"Since, by definition, refugees are not protected by their own governments, the
international community steps in to ensure they are safe and protected," said the
UNHCR, the United Nations' refugee agency.
The treaty was amended in 1967, in part to include refugees from around the world.
And according to the provisions, "refugees deserve, as a minimum, the same standards
of treatment enjoyed by other foreign nationals in a given country and, in many cases,
the same treatment as nationals," the UNHCR said.
The agency said more than 50 million refugees have been resettled.
Why migrants head to the Mediterranean
Who has signed on to the treaty?

The refugees' dangerous journey to safe haven 04:00

Over the past several decades, 142 states have signed onto both the 1951 Refugee
Convention and the 1967 protocol.
Hungary is one of the signatories. But it has been criticized by migrants and activists
who say refugees are left in decrepit conditions as they await transfer. Now, Hungary is
erecting a fence at the Serbian border to help control the flow of migrants.
Countries outside of Europe are also stepping up to handle the current flood of
refugees. Venezuela, which signed on to the 1967 protocol, said it will take in 20,000
refugees. Australia said it has absorbed 4,500 refugees from Syria and Iraq over the
past year.
Noticeably absent from the list: the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar,
Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
How you can help in the migrant crisis
How many refugees has Europe taken in this year?

Well over 366,000 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe this year,
the UNHCR said. Another 2,800 attempted the journey, but either died or disappeared.
The vast majority of refugees come from three countries: Iraq, where migrants are
fleeing the brutality of ISIS; Afghanistan, which has been devastated by war; and Syria,
where civilians are grappling with both ISIS and indiscriminate attacks in the country's
civil war.
A country-by-country look at the crisis
What rights do refugees have?

In addition to not getting sent back to their home countries, refugees have several other
rights, including:

- The right to not be punished for illegally entering countries that signed on to the treaty
- The right to housing

Tensions flare along Serbia-Hungary border 02:17

- The right to work

- Access to education
- Access to public assistance
- Access to courts
- The right to get identification and travel documents
Why aren't Gulf countries taking in refugees?

Since oil-rich Gulf states are close to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, they'd help absorb
some of the refugees, right?
Wrong.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have each
given millions of dollars to the United Nations to help Syrian refugees. But they haven't
housed any of them, according to Amnesty International.

"We've been asking that not only the borders of the region are open, but that all other
borders -- especially in the developed world -- are also open," said Antonio Guterres,
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Abdul Khaleq Abdulla, a retired professor from United Arab Emirates University, said
Gulf states have security on their minds.

Gulf states ofer little physical support to migrants 02:49

"Having refugees also feeds into ISIS' appeal," Abdulla said. "And it feeds into the
violence in the region, which is already the most violent region on Earth. So all in all,
anything that goes in the neighborhood impacts the security and the stability of the Arab
Gulf states who are by far the most stable and the most secure."
And those Gulf states aren't party to the international treaty -- so technically, they don't
have to help.
Things to know about Europe's migrant crisis at land and sea

For all the presidential candidates' uproar over the U.S.-Mexico border, the world's
biggest migrant crisis actually lies with the European Union, reeling from mass deaths
on land and sea.
In the span of just a week in August, 71 refugees were found dead in a truck in Austria,
and scores of other migrants died of Europe's shores yet again.

Indeed, the Mediterranean Sea is called the world's deadliest border because
thousands of desperate migrants and refugees drown on unseaworthy boats trying to
reach Europe from Africa and the Mideast.
On land, 60 men, eight women, and three children were found dead in the abandoned
truck on an Austria highway this week, and the victims are most likely Syrian refugees,
authorities said.
Here are four things to know about the humanity migrating to Europe's doorstep despite
deadly peril. Arrests were announced in the Austrian deaths; Italian authorities arrested
10 people in the 52 deaths of migrants and refugees found aboard a boat of Libya.
Why are so many migrating?

As of August, more than 300,000 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean,
exceeding the number in all of 2014, which was 219,000, a United Nations
spokeswoman said.
However, another group estimated that 432,761 migrants and refugees have reached
Europe by sea this year as of early September, according to the International
Organization for Migration.

Desperate journey ends in sufocation for 71 migrants 01:39

The reasons for the mass movement are as varied as the nationalities of the people
involved.

In broad terms, migrants and refugees are fleeing war, persecution and poverty in Africa
and the Arabian peninsula.
Eritreans and Syrians made up half the migrant traffic to Europe last year, according to
Arezo Malakooti, director of migration research at Altai Consulting.
In their case, Eritreans are fleeing "one of the poorest countries in the world and a
closed and highly securitized state under an authoritarian government,"according to a
report by the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat in Nairobi last year.
In other words, they are running from a life of repression and abject poverty.
In the Mideast, more than 4 million Syrians have fled four years of civil war, becoming
the worst refugee crisis seen in 25 years by the United Nations.
There's also a pull factor: Migrants see Libya as an open door to the Mediterranean
because of the country's deteriorating security, so they use its coast as a stepping stone
to Europe, experts say.
Just how deadly is it?

The Mediterranean passage accounted for 65% of all migrant deaths last year, the
International Organization for Migration said.
That equates to 3,279 deaths.

51 people found dead in 1 boat by authorities 01:45

This year, a total of 2,748 migrants have died in the Mediterranean as of early
September, accounting for 73% of all migrant deaths worldwide, the IOM said.
Even over a yearslong view, the European external borders remain the biggest
deathtrap for migrants and refugees, with 22,400 deaths between 1996 and 2014, the
organization said.
The next deadliest?
The U.S.-Mexico border with 6,029 deaths between 1998 and 2013, the group said,
citing U.S. Border Patrol statistics.
What's being done about this?

This may sound familiar to those exasperated by how the U.S. Congress is gridlocked
over immigration reform and the U.S.-Mexico border: A Europe-wide solution moves at a
painfully slow pace.
"There is no simple, nor single, answer to the challenges posed by migration. And nor
can any member state efectively address migration alone. It is clear that we need a
new, more European approach," European Commission officials said on August 6.

Inside migrants' journey to Europe 03:52

Member states don't appear to be in a hurry.

"Migration is not a popular or pretty topic. It is easy to cry in front of your TV set when
witnessing these tragedies. It is harder to stand up and take responsibility. What we

need now is the collective courage to follow through with concrete action on words that
will otherwise ring empty," the commission officials said.
Portugal, the Netherlands and Finland support search and rescue operations at sea.
But Italy reduced its rescue missions after the rest of Europe wouldn't help shoulder the
onus of the crisis: Because of its proximity to Libya, Italy feels it has done more than its
fair share of picking up, sheltering and feeding migrants.
Britain isn't supporting the naval Operation Triton held under the auspices of the
European Union's Frontex, contending the rescue fleets are "an unintended 'pull
factor' encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and thereby
leading to more tragic and unnecessary deaths."
The European Commission has scheduled a November summit with key African
countries to "tackle this challenge from all angles."
What's the diference between migrant and refugee?

The distinction is crucial for European countries receiving new arrivals.

Why?
Refugees, as defined under the 1951 Refugee Convention, are entitled to basic rights
under international law, including the right not to be immediately deported and sent back
into harm's way.
A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her home country because of
armed conflict or persecution. Syrians are a prime example.

New barriers go up as migrants flood to Europe 03:32

Migrants, however, are processed under the receiving country's immigration laws. So,
ultimately, these terms have major implications for those seeking asylum and the
countries being asked to grant it.
A migrant is someone who chooses to resettle to another country in search of a better
life.
So, for example, those fleeing poverty in Nigeria, looking for work in Europe, would not
have refugee status and would be considered migrants.
But, technically, refugees are also migrants.
So, what term should we use?
The United Nations notes that both groups are present in Europe and at its shores. It's
safe to call all of them migrants because each is migrating, but many of them are also
refugees.
The extraordinary world of Soviet bus shelters

It's universally acknowledged that the old Soviet Union had many faults, but creating
weird and wonderful structures that celebrate the humble bus ride isn't one of them.
When it came to building roadside bus shelters, Moscow's former satellite states were
streets, perhaps even highways, ahead of the rest of the world.

Before their 1990s independence, the Soviet states threw up hundreds of extravagant
rest stops, giving tyro architects and artists unusually free rein to express their wilder
ideas.
And so bus passengers from Estonia to Armenia have been able to pause beneath
buildings resembling UFOs, majestic crowns and concrete eagles while waiting for the
number 37 to come rumbling into view.
With many of these beautiful -- sometimes brutalist -- structures now crumbling away, it's
a legacy that might have passed unnoticed if it wasn't for Canadian photographer
Christopher Herwig.
Herwig, 40, first stumbled across them after setting himself the challenge of snapping
an interesting photograph every hour while cycling from London to St. Petersburg in
2002.
"I was getting of my bike to photograph things I normally wouldn't photograph -- things
like clothes lines, power lines, mail boxes and bus stops," he tells CNN. "And then as I
got into the former Soviet Union, I saw these bus stops were actually worthy of me
taking photographs."

Herwig has amassed photographs of at least 1,000 former Soviet bus shelters.
Middle of nowhere

That set in motion an odyssey lasting more than a decade as Herwig criss-crossed 14
countries or territories on various assignments, his eyes always on the side of the road
on the lookout for suitable shelters.
The fruits of his travels have been collected into a book, "Soviet Bus Stops" -- a now
sold-out KickStarter project that's being republished by Fuel in September with a
foreword by renowned criticJonathan Meades.
Herwig says his obsession with Soviet shelters wasn't always appreciated by the locals
who they were built to serve.

"A lot of the bus stops that were intriguing weren't in cities or villages. They were often in
the middle of nowhere, particularly in Kazakhstan -- there was often no one around," he
adds.
"But when there were people around, for the most part they would not get it. They would
not see that the bus stop was worth photographing and they thought I was doing
something that was making fun of them.
"A lot of people thought the bus stops were kind of disgusting because some were used
just to dump garbage or go to the bathroom, and most of them are in quite rough
condition.
"I would try to explain that my motives were actually quite genuine and that I thought this
was a fairly positive part of history and quite fun, and quite beautiful and quite creative.
"Most people wouldn't quite see it right away."

Herwig says some of his favorite shelters are found in the disputed region of Abkhazia.
Octopus, waves and UFOs

Some did though, most notably taxi drivers he hired along the way to help him track
down his targets.
"A couple of the taxi drivers really got into the game as well, and they could really spot
them. There was one driver, even though it was getting late when we're searching for
one bus shelter and couldn't find it, he just wouldn't give up."
Herwig also credits his bus stop quest for taking him to destinations that wouldn't
otherwise have been on his radar.
"I probably wouldn't have gone to Armenia, or Belarus or Ukraine or Moldova or the
region of Abkhazia," he says.
"At that point I really didn't have any other reason for traveling apart from the project. It
was really fun and I got to places I wouldn't have normally gone to because of the bus
stops."
His favorite stops, he says, include some found in Abkhazia, a breakaway region still
claimed by Georgia, that were created by Zurab Tsereteli, an artist who went on to
become president of the Russian Academy of Arts.
"He was one of the pioneers who really pushed it to the limit. His were more like
sculptures, much more animated -- there was one like an octopus, one like a wave, one
like a shell, one like a UFO.
"He was really out there in terms of the design, they were heavily painted and a lot of
fun."
MORE: Photographing Europe's invisible borders

"Soviet Bus Stops" by Christopher Herwig is published in September 2015.

Free expression

Herwig believes that creating bus stops was one of the few opportunities that artists and
architects had under restrictive Soviet regimes to fully express themselves.
"I think a lot of people didn't judge or restrict the artists at the time on these bus stops
because they're quite a minor architectural form.
"They weren't something that was going to clash ideologically with the Soviet Union and
they're seen as a way of bringing art to the people."
Herwig, originally from Vancouver but currently living in Amman, Jordan, says that
having photographed at least 1,000, his bus shelter project is over for the time being.
But he doesn't rule out reviving it.

"I've restarted it four times now," he says. "I think I'm done, but I wouldn't be surprised
that if I get the option to travel somewhere else I'll pick up some more.
"I haven't completely shut the book on it. There are actually no pictures from Russia in
there, so maybe..."
"Soviet Bus Stops" is available for order via the Fuel website.

Migrant crisis: EU nations face plans for binding quotas

(CNN)The European Commission has set out detailed plans for mandatory quotas for
EU nations to take in refugees, as Europe struggles to cope with a huge influx of
migrants -- many of them fleeing war in Syria.
European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the proposed measures would
"ensure that people in clear need of international protection are relocated swiftly after
arriving -- not just now but also for any crisis in the future."
Under the proposals, 120,000 refugees will be relocated from Greece, Italy and Hungary
-- three EU nations at the forefront of the crisis, thanks to transit routes across the
Mediterranean and through the Balkans.
Of those, 15,600 will come from Italy, 50,400 from Greece and 54,000 from Hungary,
the European Commission said.
They would be distributed among other EU states according to binding quotas based on
each country's population, GDP, past asylum applications received and employment
rate. Additional EU funding would be provided to countries taking in refugees.

Moments later, smuggler abandons them at sea 02:28

The figure of 120,000 is on top of a proposal by the European Commission in May to

relocate 40,000 people in need of international protection from Italy and Greece.
EU member states must still agree to the proposals. Their interior ministers are due to
met Monday to discuss the issue.
Some, such as Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic -- have
already voiced strong opposition to the idea of mandatory quotas.
But others, including Germany, say it is the only way to ensure a fair distribution of
refugees among EU member states.
Addressing EU Parliament members, Juncker said: "We Europeans should know and
should never forget why giving refuge and complying with the fundamental right to
asylum is so important."
The new measures will institute a truly European approach and ensure that people in
clear need of help receive it swiftly, he said.
"If ever European solidarity needed to manifest itself, it is on the question of the refugee
crisis. It is time to show collective courage and deliver this European response now."
Germany: Europe faces a big test

The measures proposed by the European Commission also include a permanent

relocation mechanism for all EU members and the establishment of a common EU list of

safe countries of origin. Nations such as Albania, Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia should be
added to this, it said.
These steps would speed up the process of individual asylum applications from
individuals coming from countries considered to be safe across Europe.

Sutherland: Migrants should be shared responsibility 02:40

The European Commission also proposed a more efective returns policy for those
migrants who do not have the right to stay in the European Union.
And it said renewed eforts were needed to look for political solutions in Syria, Iraq and
Libya, and to support the countries around Syria, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey,
which are hosting the bulk of those who've fled its civil war.
On top of this, the commission has allocated 1.8 billion euros for a "Trust Fund for
Africa," it said, in a bid to limit migration from African nations where populations have
few opportunities.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Economics Minister Sigmar
Gabriel said in a joint statement that Europe "faces a big test" but the "brave proposals"
of the European Commission were heading the right way.
"Only if we all pull together, can we manage to handle the large number of refugees
appropriately. We need a European refugee policy, which will live up to the expectations
of the people and the expectations of Europe," they said.

Europe has to shoulder its responsibility for refugees with a spirit of solidarity and
ensuring a fair distribution, the statement said.
It's also important to tackle the root causes of migration, such as conflict and poverty,
and develop a convincing plan of action on a European level, they said.
New guidelines for migrants' treatment

Amid concern over the welcome -- or lack thereof -- given to some migrants, the Council
of Europe issued new guidelines Wednesday to its 47 member states on their treatment
of the new arrivals.

Migrants: Who are they?01:47

The recommendations address "the reception and temporary living conditions of

migrants and asylum seekers, to ensure respect for their human rights," the body's
secretary general said.
"The ongoing migrant crisis is creating unprecedented challenges for European states,"
Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland wrote in a letter to member states. "A minority of
countries is being asked to absorb the majority of incomers and political solidarity is
being severely tested."
Jagland added that "many of the incomers are asylum seekers whose requests to stay
in Europe will be accepted," and said "it is self-defeating to mistreat or demean any
future member of our societies."

Jagland also commissioned an urgent analysis to improve the prosecution of those

involved in human smuggling.
The Council of Europe is an intergovernmental organization made up of 47 European
countries that have signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty
designed to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Migrant crisis: Europe reaps what it has sown

There is something almost Biblical about the mass exodus of desperate people fleeing
Syria and other war-torn and impoverished countries. For European governments,
struggling to manage the crisis engulfing their borders, the Bible has a succinct lesson
they might do well to ponder: "For whatever one sows, that will he also reap."

Moments later, smuggler abandons them at sea 02:28

This fatal flood-tide of human jetsam, surging haphazardly across the Mediterranean,
has not suddenly materialized out of nowhere. The crisis has been building for years,
reaching back to the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and much further still,
to the era of European colonialism in the Middle East and north Africa.
The shocking photos of the limp, lifeless body of Aylan Kurdi, the two-year-old Syrian
toddler who drowned of Turkey last week, does not come as a total surprise. At least
2,000 migrants have perished in similar circumstances this year. More than 350,000
have braved the journey across the Mediterranean to Europe in 2015, according to the
International Organisation for Migration -- and they are still coming.

What is heartening is the overdue outpouring of public concern triggered by Aylan's

needless, shaming death. Perhaps volunteer food bank collectors in Hamburg,
emergency convoy drivers in Belfast and local councillors in Normandy are ready to
admit what their governments will not: that the West bears primary responsibility for this
recurring tragedy -- and that, whatever the causes, common human decency demands
Europe do all it can to halt it.
Warlords and fanatics

That a large proportion of the refugees comes from Afghanistan is no coincidence.

Nearly 15 years after the events of 9/11 prompted the U.S.-led invasion, much of the
country remains a fearful, dangerous place plagued by warlords and fanatics.
Despite billions disbursed in western aid, the "new" Afghanistan has yet to materialize.
Nato's departure last year did not mark the end of the war, just the beginning of the next
phase. The government in Kabul is divided, incompetent and corrupt. If ordinary
Afghans can get out, they will. In the silent referendum on the outcome of American
nation-building, they are voting with their feet.

Would ending wars in Syria stem tide of migrants? 02:43

The picture in Iraq is even more alarming. The window on post-Saddam political reform,
painfully opened by U.S. and British troops after 2003, was slammed shut by a
sectarian-minded, Iranian-dominated Shia majority government in Baghdad. Make no
mistake: inept

Western politicians let this happen. Although a new, less divisive regime is now in
power, the damage was done.
A third or more of Iraq is now in the hands of the very worst kind of Islamist extremists
and foreign jihadis who have wrenched control from the alienated and demoralized
Sunni minority. The jihadis murder, torture and rape without conscience or constraint.
Would you and your family stick around? Waiting for Washington or London to remedy
the mess they made in Iraq is akin to bailing water on the Titanic with a sieve.
And then there is Syria. Millions displaced, hundreds of thousands dead, the
neighborhood destabilized, the war continuing with no end in sight. Is it fair to blame
Barack Obama, David Cameron or Angela Merkel for President Bashar al-Assad's
genocidal, Russian and Iranian-backed bid to cling to power?
Not really.
But they can all be faulted, along with Arab and Turkish leaders and cold-blooded
Vladimir Putin, for doing so very little, in practical terms, to halt the slaughter either
through military or diplomatic interventions.
No-fly zones

It is plain political cowardice to continue to deny Syrian civilians the protection of no-fly
zones and internal safe havens, as aforded to the Iraqi Kurds and Shia in the 1990s.
This could be done with minimal military risk. It could mitigate the awful toll exacted by
Assad's chemical weapons and barrel bombs. It would fulfill, in part, the duty of the U.S.
and EU countries to uphold the U.N.-mandated "responsibility to protect." And it might
reduce or even reverse the flow of Syrian migrants heading for Greece.

Putin, Erdogan blame West for Syrian Crisis 04:42

Nor is it any use saying the Arab regimes of the Gulf, key actors in Syria's tragedy,
should do more to help. Of course they should. But as so often when a humanitarian
crisis blows up, they sit on their hands and their wallets. Just look at the unremitting
sufering in Yemen and Somalia.
The chaos in Libya following the West's 2011 intervention, U.S. acquiescence in Egypt's
repressive, post-Arab Spring counter-revolution, and the generational injustice done to
the Palestinians are all powerful factors in Europe's migrant crisis. So, too, are the
historical machinations of colonialist Britain, France and Italy that so grotesquely
distorted traditional culture and society from Sudan, Eritrea and Chad to Mali, Nigeria
and Algeria.
What now is the legacy of the colonial era? Rather than increasing investment,
technology, training and education in those countries so their people do not need to
seek a better life elsewhere -- their chief imperial inheritance is, too often, political,
ethnic and religious schism, aid dependency, unfair trade rules, and climate change
created by the polluting industries of the North.
Rapid population growth in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in large
numbers of young people hitting working age at the same time, also means high
unemployment and likely political turmoil.

Recognizing responsibility

Instead of building walls, shutting doors and arguing about numbers, European leaders
-- encouraged by Washington -- must recognize their responsibilities, historical and
current, moral and practical. At the weekend, Germany, its people and politicians,
seemed to be leading the way, with Britain's Conservative government trailing reluctantly
behind. But one country cannot do it all.
Much more generous, collective EU refugee and asylum arrangements are required.
Safe and legal immigration channels must be expanded, search and rescue must be
improved, and a longer-term relocation scheme for sharing asylum-seekers across the
28 EU member states must be agreed.
Europe is reaping a whirlwind of its own making. It needs to stand up, or risk being
blown away.
Refugee crisis: Pressure builds for U.S. to welcome more Syrians

Of the 4 million Syrian refugees who have fled attacks by their government and ISIS, the
United States has taken in 0.03% of them.
That's a pitiful number that needs to be changed immediately, a growing number of
Americans say. Both Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic
candidate Martin O'Malley agree: the U.S. needs to step up.
But how many should the United States take in? And what risks would be involved?
How the U.S. fares

So far, the U.S. has accepted 1,500 Syrian refugees. By contrast, Germany said it will
take in 800,000 migrants in the current refugee crisis. Several other countries, such as
Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, have each taken in hundreds of thousands of Syrians.
The International Rescue Committee called for the United States to open its doors to
65,000 Syrian refugees.

An online petition asking the U.S. government to do exactly that has garnered more than
54,000 signatures.
"The U.S. has historically been the world leader in recognizing the moral obligation to
resettle refugees," International Rescue Committee president and CEO David Milliband
said.
"But in the four years of the Syria crisis, there has been inertia rather than leadership."
Syrian refugees: Which countries welcome them; which don't
What the government says

The Obama administration says is considering helping more with refugee resettlement.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said he anticipates the figure of 1,500
accepted refugees to double before the end of the year.
"I expect to see the U.S. will take in even more going forward," Kirby told CNN last
week.
The National Security Council said the United States has helped quite a bit financially.
"It is important to note that the United States has provided over $4 billion in
humanitarian assistance since the Syrian crisis began, and over $1 billion in assistance
this year," NSC spokesman Peter Boogaard said. "The U.S. is the single largest donor to
the Syrian crisis."
West to blame for migrant crisis?
Where's the hurdle

Some say opening the country to more Syrian refugees runs the risk of having
extremists slip through.
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, a son of immigrants, said the U.S. must
be careful.

"We would be potentially open to the relocation of some of these individuals at some
point in time to the United States," he said.
"We'd always be concerned that within the overwhelming number of the people seeking
refugee, someone with a terrorist background could also sneak in."
But the process for Syrians seeking asylum in the United States is complicated by a
long security vetting procedure meant to ensure that only desperate refugees -- not
extremists -- reach American soil. It typically takes 18 months before a refugee
designated for resettlement in the United States can actually set foot in the country.
Opinion: Why U.S. should do more for refugees
Where opposing presidential candidates agree

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, whose campaign often focuses on expelling illegal
immigrants, said the United States should accept more Syrian refugees due to the
"unbelievable humanitarian problem."
"I hate the concept of it, but on a humanitarian basis, with what's happening, you have
to," Trump told Fox News.
Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley backed the IRC's call for the U.S. to
accept 65,000 refugees.
"Americans are a generous and compassionate people," he said. "But today our policies
are falling short of those values. We must do more to support Syrian refugees -- and we
must certainly welcome more than the proposed 5,000 to 8,000 refugees next year."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Obama hasn't acted strongly enough during the
Syrian crisis and "has allowed these folks to be slaughtered."
"I frankly can't imagine as president of the United States how you could permit this to
happen on this scale," he said. "And now we're seeing those results."

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state when the
Syrian crisis unfolded, said she and other members of the Obama administration
wanted to be more aggressive helping Syrian rebels in their battle against Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
"I advocated for a more robust policy," Clinton told MSNBC. She said she called on the
"entire world" to come together to solve the crisis.
But Michel Gabaudan, president of Refugees International, said the United States can't
be blamed for extreme violence in Syria.
"To accuse Washington of the tremendous horrors that al-Assad has been vesting on
his own people is perhaps going a step too far," he said.
Are countries obligated to take in refugees?
What's in it for the United States

The United States also stands to gain from helping Syrian refugees, Gabaudan said.
"I would argue there is another obligation beyond a moral obligation to help refugees -and to help particularly those who are in Turkey, in Lebanon and in Jordan," he said.
"These countries are allies of the U.S. We have a moral obligation to look after the
refugees, but we also have an interest in the security of these countries, and that the
refugees in these countries do not lead to some destabilization. And that's another
factor why we should move further in providing assistance."
CNN's Steph

Misery for migrants caught in bottleneck at Greece-Macedonia border

Near Idomeni, northern Greece (CNN)Amid scenes of misery, thousands of

migrants -- most of them fleeing Syria's bitter conflict -- remained stranded Saturday in a
no-man's land on the border between northern Greece and Macedonia.
A CNN team saw armored vehicles on the Macedonian side of the border, preventing
the men, women and children crammed up against the concertina wire that demarcates
the border from crossing.
As some started rushing the razor fence and opened up a section of it, Macedonian
military fired two stun grenades.
Overnight Friday to Saturday it rained for hours, adding to the woes of those caught in
the bottleneck.
Refugees who are soaking wet and hungry in makeshift camps, with only a few
nongovernmental organizations present to help, told the CNN team of sheer misery.
A Syrian man said he never imagined Europe would be like this.
"Look at her," he said, motioning to his 3-year-old daughter in his arms. "In Syria she
was a princess, now she is like a rag. They are treating us like animals."
He said that if someone could get him back to Syria, he would go. "Better to die from
bombs in my homeland than die out here," he said.
A pregnant woman who was begging Macedonian police for an answer as to whether
people would be allowed to cross was seen quivering and breaking down in tears.
An elderly man sitting at her feet pointed toward his heart. He has had two surgeries
and isn't well, he told CNN.
The desperate scenes come after Macedonia declared a state of emergency Thursday
in its southern and northern border regions as it struggles to deal with the flow of
migrants. The decision cleared the way for the country's army to help deal with the
crisis.

Police fired tear gas on Friday to stop the massed crowds of men, women and children
rushing across the border from Greece.
Macedonia is not a member of the European Union, but a favored transit country along
migrant routes toward Western and Northern Europe.
Closing of Macedonia would create a bottleneck in Greece, which is an EU state but is
already struggling to cope with a huge influx of migrants thanks to its ongoing economic
difficulties.
'Terrifying' conditions

Ivo Kotevski, a spokesman for Macedonia's Interior Ministry and the Macedonian police,
told CNN Saturday that the country is under great pressure from the Greeks to find a
solution.

Macedonia uses stun grenades, tear gas against migrants 01:41

Officials are letting a limited number of migrants in at designated checkpoints, Kotevski

said. But since Macedonia is not part of the European Union it does not have access to
additional assistance, and simply cannot accommodate large numbers of migrants in a
humane way, he said.
Kotevski urged the international community not only to help with transportation, housing
and handling of the current wave of migrants, but also to find a long-term solution to the
crisis.

Nawras, 25, who arrived at the Greece-Macedonia border three days ago from Syria,
described the standof with police as "terrifying" and said stun grenades and tear gas
were being used on women and children.
Some migrants were allowed across the border late Friday but many others were forced
to wait in a cold, heavy rain, Nawras said.
"I don't know what to do," he said by phone. "This is miserable."
Minister: Crisis beyond what Macedonia can handle

An estimated 44,000 migrants have arrived in Macedonia in the last two months,
including 33,461 Syrians, the Macedonian Interior Ministry said. The rest come from
Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and various African countries.
Migrants who express interest in applying for asylum gain the right to spend three days
in Macedonia until they apply for asylum. Most use that time to travel to the Serbian
border, according to the country's state-run Macedonian Information Agency.
For migrants, crossing through Macedonia is the most dangerous part of the journey
because of armed gangs and Mafia. The migrants often wait until they are in large
groups to cross safely.
Macedonia's Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki told CNN's "The World Right Now" on
Friday that there had been a dramatic increase in the number of illegal migrants trying to
enter Macedonia over the past few days.
"I think that probably the last couple of days have been the most dramatic ones, with
numbers around 3,000 to 4,000 migrants coming in to the Macedonian border on a daily
basis," he said.
"Obviously this was far beyond what the local authorities could have handled, and this
has caused a massive border queue which is now trying to be resolved and numbers
are decreasing."

He insisted his small country of 2 million people was doing what its best to handle the
influx of migrants.
"Obviously these are people that are not going on holidays, but are sufering
tremendously back home, mainly from Syria and Afghanistan and other countries," he
said.
There's no way to resolve the situation without a coordinated response from the
European Union, he added.
Wider crisis

The bottleneck in Macedonia is just one part of a wider crisis.

The U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR, said Tuesday that the number of refugees and
migrants arriving in Europe by sea this year stood at some 264,500 as of August 14,
including 158,456 to Greece, about 104,000 to Italy, 1,953 to Spain and 94 to Malta.
During the same period, 1,716 refugees and migrants entered Greece through its land
border with Turkey, UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said.
The majority of those arriving in Greece in recent days are Syrians, Afghans or Iraqis,
he added, so are likely to qualify for refugee status.
North, South Korea resume talks amid tension

Paju, South Korea (CNN)North and South Korea resumed talks at the historic
"truce village" Sunday in a bid to ease tensions and heated rhetoric that escalated last
week.
The talks, held inside the Demilitarized Zone, featured key players such as Hwang
Pyong So, who is the reclusive regime's leader's deputy and political director of North
Korea's army.
Also present was Kim Yang Gon, a veteran of negotiations with South Korea since Kim's
father, Kim Jong Il, ruled the secretive regime.

Korea watchers point to the seniority of the two men, particularly Hwang, as an
indication of the North's intentions.

The men who speak for North Korea 02:05

"He can speak with the authority of Kim Jong Un. This is as high as you can go. He has
the longest history, best idea of what Kim Jong Un and what he's hoping to get out of it,"
Professor David Kang of the University of Southern California's Korean Studies Institute
told CNN.
Kim Yang Gon's attendance may signal that the North really wants serious wide-ranging
negotiations.

55 photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military

From South Korea, Kim Kwan-jin, national security adviser to the president; and
Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo attended the meeting.
Mistrust lingers

The talks take place against a backdrop of mutual mistrust. A South Korean Defense
Ministry official told CNN that the North had doubled artillery forces on the front lines in
comparison to the level before talks were proposed.
During the same period, the official said, 70% of the North's submarine units have left
their bases. Local media put the number of subs on patrol at around 50, although their
movements are not currently traceable.
"They are showing two faces," the source, who was not named, added.
"The joint forces between South Korea and the U.S. are currently putting its best eforts
in responding to it."
From the North's perspective, previous language that had been seen as conciliatory -its state media, KCNA, had referred to its southern neighbor by its official title, the
Republic of Korea -- has reverted to a more typical, inflammatory style.

"The south Korean puppet warmongers ran amuck for confrontation, firing shells to the
area of the DPRK's side," read one line from an official KCNA report dated Sunday,
which used an acronym for North Korea's official title, the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea.
The meeting comes after days of threats and counter-threats, which saw a brief
exchange of artillery fire Thursday.
Hostilities escalated this month after South Korea resumed propaganda broadcasts
against the North, which was blamed for a landmine explosion in the DMZ that wounded
two South Korean soldiers. The North resumed its anti-South broadcasts.

9 photos: North Korea's verbal volleys

Propaganda loudspeakers, placed in 11 locations along the DMZ, are still "in operation,"
a South Korean Defense Ministry official told CNN.
The evacuation order to residents living near the DMZ is still in efect.

North Korea: Stop "provocations"

Kim Jong Un's regime Friday warned its southern neighbor to stop the "provocations"
and "psychological warfare" or pay the price.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said Saturday that its troops on the border areas were
on "regular position."
South Korea's pro-democracy broadcasts, via loud speakers across the border with the
North, restarted after the two South Korean soldiers were wounded by landmines.
Before the talks were announced, North Korean U.N. Ambassador An Myong Hun told
reporters: "If South Korea does not respond to our ultimatum ... our military
counteraction will be inevitable and that counteraction will be very strong."
As a result of the threats, residents in northern areas of South Korea, such as the district
of Yeoncheon, which neighbors the DMZ, were being urged to evacuate Saturday.
Threats almost normal, but this is pointed

Rare look inside Korea's demilitarized zone 02:40

North Korea's regime, known for being both thin-skinnedand fond of saber-rattling, has
made threats before, and when it does, South Koreans mostly just go about life as
usual.
Tensions have mounted since the two South Korean soldiers were seriously wounded by
landmines on August 4, including firing between the two sides.

U.S., South Korea exercises resume

One ongoing point of contention is South Korea's joint military exercises with the United
States -- a regular training event that An contends aims to "occupy Pyongyang."
Those exercises were suspended Thursday amid the war of words, U.S. Assistant
Secretary of Defense David Shear told reporters. But they're now back on.
"We suspended part of the exercise temporarily in order to allow our side to coordinate
with the ROK (Republic of Korea) side on the subject of the exchange fire across the
DMZ," Shear said. "And the exercise is being conducted now according to plan."
During such exercises in the past, Pyongyang has escalated posturing, propaganda and
threats.
North Korea calls broadcasts 'an open act of war'

South Korea and the U.S.-led U.N. Command in Korea concluded that North Korea
planted the mines that wounded the South Korean soldiers.
North Korea denied responsibility and refused demands for an apology.
Seoul has since resumed its cross-border propaganda broadcasts, which North Korea
called "an open act of war" and spurred it to threaten to blow up the speakers.
Korean crisis: What's behind the North-South divide?

(CNN)Here we go again.

After another war of words, and an exchange of fire across the world's most fortified
border, the two Koreas appear to be set on a collision course.
South Korea is angry at its unpredictable neighbor's provocations, while Kim Jong Un
has placed his front-line forces on a war footing. Though the two sides are now talking,
tensions remain high.
We look behind the scenes of this fractious relationship.
What happened this time?

On Thursday, the two sides traded artillery fire over the demilitarized zone -- though no
casualties were reported by either side.
READ: Korean rivals face of

55 photos: Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military

Pyongyang hasn't explained its part in the incident, but a statement last week from the
state-run KCNA new agency accused South Korea of committing a "military
provocation."
Seoul, meanwhile, has accused the North of planting landmines deliberately in the path
of its patrols in the demilitarized zone after two soldiers were seriously wounded earlier
this month. North Korea has denied the allegation.
And if this wasn't enough, a massive military exercise involving South Korea, the United
States and a host of other allies is underway, which North Korea says it views as a
prelude to an invasion. It has threatened to retaliate against the U.S. "with tremendous
muscle."
According to the U.S. military, the purpose of the multinational exercise -- named Ulchi
Freedom Guardian -- is "to enhance ... readiness, protect the region and maintain
stability on the Korean peninsula."

But since the weekend, the two neighbors have been locked in high-level talks inside the
DMZ in a bid to scale back the tensions. Pyongyang has sent senior officials such as
Hwang Pyong So, the reclusive regime's leader's deputy and political director of North
Korea's army, and Kim Yang Gon, a veteran of negotiations with South Korea since
Kim's late father, Kim Jong Il, was in charge. Analysts suggest the attendance of such
high-ranking officials may signal that the North really wants serious wide-ranging
negotiations.
Should we be worried about this latest escalation?

Relations between the two neighbors -- who are technically still at war -- ebb and flow.
Earlier this year, an annual exercise between South Korean and U.S. forces, involving
thousands of troops and state of the art military hardware, didn't go down well with
North Korea. It fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea, also known as
the Sea of Japan, after slamming the exercises as "dangerous nuclear war drills for
invading the DPRK."
Leader Kim Jong Un then called for full combat readiness and oversaw military facilities,
according to KCNA.
"The North Koreans, being paranoid in their own way, have always had this concern: 'If
there is going to be an invasion, this would be the time,'" said Philip Yun, executive
director of the Ploughshares Fund, a group that advocates nuclear disarmament. "But
that's not the intent on the U.S.-South Korean side."

Is N. Korea's threat to attack US just more bluster? 01:45

This time around, North Korea appeared to shoot at loudspeakers the South had set up
along the DMZ blaring out propaganda in the wake of the landmines incident, prompting
a retaliation from South Korean forces. Pyongyang had previously threatened to blow up
the speakers and warned of "indiscriminate strikes."
"North Korea is especially sensitive about propaganda from South Korea," explained
CNN's Seoul producer, KJ Kwon. "They've even shot at balloons carrying leaflets critical
of Pyongyang that activists have floated across the border."
So this isn't war then?

Unlikely. North Korea usually responds to "provocations" such as military drills with
angry rhetoric and perhaps a weapons test. Messages of impending doom and the firing
of short-range rockets or missiles into the sea tend to become routine as the military
exercises approach. "Their response is carefully calculated to convey a particular
message," said Kwon.

Tensions rising in Korean peninsula 02:01

And that message is not always intended for its enemies abroad.
According to Yun of the Ploughshares Fund, playing up the threat from the U.S. helps
the North Korean leadership's propaganda eforts to control the population of the
isolated nation.
For now, the North is unlikely to push things any further. "According to analysts in South
Korea, they might move massive numbers of troops closer to the border and then
retreat, just as a provocation," said Kwon.

What next?

Predicting the secretive North Korean regime's next move is a notoriously difficult game.
Though tensions may not reach 2013 levels when long-range rocket tests and its third
nuclear test earned it tougher United Nations sanctions. Pyongyang responded by
ramping up its threats of nuclear war against South Korea and the United States.
One North Korean government website even uploaded a YouTube video showing
an imaginary missile attack on Washington.
The U.S. decision to fly B-2 stealth bombers, which are capable of carrying nuclear
weapons, over the region only served to further antagonize North Korea amid the
annual military drills.
"That was a really bad escalation of the tensions in the Korean peninsula," Tong Kim, a
visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute, part of Johns Hopkins University, said of the
period.

Kim Jong Un regime: We're not Iran 01:52

But Pyongyang's decision to carry out the rocket launch and nuclear test were most
likely carefully timed, according to Yun, who was part of U.S. teams that negotiated with
North Korea under former President Bill Clinton.
"They game everything out. They don't do things of the cuf for the most part," he said
of the North Koreans. "If they're going to do something very provocative, they have an
extensive decision tree laying out many options."

The moves appeared to be aimed at advancing North Korea's technology and making
Kim, still a relatively new leader, look strong inside the country, Yun said. They also
coincided with political transitions in South Korea, China and Japan.
The 'Kim factor' -- more dangerous than his father?

Kim Jong Un is "similar in action but stronger in rhetoric" than his father, Tong Kim said.
"Except that North Korea under Kim Jong Un has newer and more formidable
weapons."
Some of the techniques seen under Kim certainly recall those employed during his
father's rule.
During the tensions in early 2013, North Korea declared that the armistice agreement
that halted the Korean War in 1953 was no longer valid.
The announcement sounded unsettling, but North Korea had already said in 2009 that
its military was no longer bound by the armistice because South Korea was joining a
U.S.-led anti-proliferation plan.
In 2013, the North also tried using the silent treatment, cutting of a military hotline with
the South. That was similar to an approach it had adopted in 2009 when it stopped
responding to calls after the military exercises started.
But during 14 years of Kim Jong Il's rule, the United States and South Korea "had a
track record of what North Korea would do and a sense of what to expect," Yun said.
"Kim Jong Un was new, you didn't know how far he would go, which added to the
uncertainty."
Troubled history?

After Japan's defeat in World War II, Korea became a divided nation, the capitalist South
supported by the United States and its Western allies and the communist North an ally
of the Soviet Union.

Korean War is 'the war with no end' 03:58

Cold War tensions erupted into war 1950, devastating the peninsula and taking the lives
of as many as two million people. The fighting ended with a truce, not a treaty, and
settled little.
Besides the border skirmishes, other incidents also have proved provocative. In 1968,
North Korea dispatched commandos in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate South
Korea's President.
In 1983, a bombing linked to Pyongyang killed 17 high-level South Korean officials on a
visit to Myanmar.
In 1987, the North was accused of bombing a South Korean airliner.
And in 2009, Seoul said a North Korean torpedo sent the warship Cheonan to the
bottom of the Yellow Sea of the South Korean-controlled island of Baengnyeong. The
sinking, also in the border area, killed 46 South Korean sailors.
What does China's shock yuan devaluation mean for Africa?

(CNN)China's development decisions are critically important for Africa. In Lagos, Addis
and Johannesburg, China's surprise yuan devaluation has African analysts scratching
their heads.
Obviously Chinese goods will be cheaper in Africa, and African exports more expensive
in China. So far, this decision is just a tremor, not a quake. Yet why did China devalue,
and what is this likely to mean for Africa?

Deborah Brautigam

To understand China's devaluation, we need to take a step back. Beijing has been trying
to manage China's enormous structural transformation ever since Chinese leaders
made their historic decision to move out of poverty by turning to the market in the late
1970s. Their supercharged development model depended on low wages, high levels of
foreign and public investment, and rapidly expanding, cheap exports.
Today, China is an upper middle income country with more expensive labor. Their
economy is increasingly based on domestic innovation, consumption, and exports of
high-tech products. Chinese firms have become significant foreign investors themselves
with interests outside China's borders.
This has been mainly good news for Africa. China's growing reserves were recycled into
large loans for infrastructure finance across Africa. Prices for African commodities rose
with Chinese demand, helping underpin a long period of sustained -- if unequal - African
growth. Trade between Africa and China skyrocketed to $220 billion in 2014, nearly
three times the U.S. level. Consumers benefited from low cost cell phones and other
goods. On the down side, African manufacturing sufered from the competition with
Chinese imports. Critics charge that China's embrace -- like that of other major powers
-- has not budged African economies away from high dependence on raw material
exports.
The devaluation is a step backward in China's strategy. Chinese authorities had
pressing, but short-term political and economic reasons to devalue. Beijing's policymakers need to avoid rocking China's political stability, while still pushing forward with

measures that might cause temporary pain as they transform into a high income
economy. Slower growth is now necessary, but this needs to be gradual, not dramatic.

What Africa can learn from China 06:18

In 2015, China's economy began to slow a bit too rapidly. The Chinese had been using
their foreign exchange reserves to prop up the yuan against the challenge of a strong
dollar. This pushed their currency to appreciate by 14% over the past twelve months.
The stronger yuan led to a drop in Chinese exports: 8.3% in July alone. That month,
China's factory sector experienced its largest contraction in two years, leading to layofs.
Combined with the recent stock market crash, this was too much change, too quickly.
Last week's decision allowed the market a greater role in setting the yuan's value, and it
promptly fell. This should lead to a modest export recovery but will do little for the long
term goal of continued transformation.
Long-term view

So far, China's devaluation has been fairly modest -- about 4% -- but how will this be felt
in Africa?
- Prices for African commodities will worsen, then improve. In recent years, China's
slower growth has pushed down prices for gold, crude oil, copper, platinum and iron ore.
South Africa's mining sector was expected to lose over 10,000 jobs due to lower
demand.[vi] In response to China's devaluation, global prices for crude oil and some
other African commodities fell further.

These goods have now become more expensive for Chinese buyers using yuan to buy
inside China,leading to even lower demand. Yet over the medium term, if growth in
China picks up as a result of the devaluation, demand for Africa's commodities will
increase, and prices should recover.
- Africa will import even more from China. Cheaper Chinese exports will please African
consumers while putting Africa's manufacturers at a further disadvantage. There will be
more pressure for tarif protections.

South African wine, made for China 06:01

Lower cost steel imported from China will hurt African steel producers, but will benefit
other manufacturers who use steel in their products. Chinese tourists will be more likely
to vacation at home as African safaris become relatively more expensive.
- China's African investments will be helped -- and hurt. The appreciation of the Chinese
yuan had eroded the value of profits from Chinese investments abroad when transmitted
back to China and exchanged into yuan. Now, Chinese investors will see their profits
from African investments automatically rise (in yuan terms) and this could lead them to
expand.
On the other hand, new investors will find that they have to pay more (in yuan) to buy
dollars for overseas investments. Furthermore, low wages in Ethiopia and elsewhere
had been attracting significant factory investment from China. With costs now relatively
lower in China, the push to relocate factories overseas will slow. This will save Chinese
jobs, but postpones Africa's own structural transformation.

In the short term it is hard to see how this devaluation can help Africa, notably its
productive and export sectors. But if this step backward works, China will bounce back
and Africans will benefit.

Tattoos no longer taboo in China

Beijing (CNN)Tattoos have a long history in China. But for most of that history they
were stigmatized, associated with prisoners, vagrants and the criminal underworld.
Thanks in part to the influence of celebrities and sports stars, tattoos have become
much more socially accepted in the past decade.
It's a trend driven by a younger generation that isn't afraid of standing out but also by the
sophisticated skills of China's tattoo artists.
"Ten years ago we still associated tattoos with bad people or gangsters. People who
wanted to get one were afraid of discrimination from society," says Liao Lijia, 28 a tattoo
artist at Creation Tattoo in Beijing.
"But tattoo culture is well accepted by Chinese people these days, especially in Beijing,
Shanghai or Guangzhou."
Scores of parlors are opening up in cities across China, and many are taking up the
tattoo gun hoping to get in on the increasingly lucrative trade.
"In the past three years, my custom has doubled every year," says Yu Haiyang, Liao's
boss. His studio takes on average around $10,500 a month.
"My income is 10 times more than six years ago," he adds.
Getting inked is one way for young people to forge their own identity and mark life
experiences -- bad or good.
"I think a tattoo is a sign of myself, like your name. It's the most special part of your
body, it makes you diferent. Shows your mind, your world," says Wang Zi, 28, a fashion
designer.

She has a tattoo of a hot air balloon on her shoulder blade, a design she drew herself to
cherish a childhood dream of flying in one.
Du Wei, 28, works in IT in Beijing. She has a tattoo of a butterfly on her chest -representing the memory of a baby she lost.
Just as Chinese characters are a popular choice in the West -- David Beckham
famously has a Chinese proverb tattooed on his torso -- in China some people like
tattoos of English words and phrases.

British football player David Beckham shows his tattoo to fans during his visit to Peking
University on March 24, 2013 in Beijing.

Popular words include "love,"and "forever." Others choose song lyrics such as lines from
the John Lennon's song "Imagine," or quotes from the Bible.

Tattoo artist Da Hua shows of a quote scrawled over the forearm of one client that
reads, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." He also takes inspiration from
Chinese legend, creating art that melds time and cultures.

An example of Da Hua's work. The design is based on a famous Chinese legend

Chinese flair

Asia has long had its own tattoo culture. Japan is famed for its bold and highly
developed style.
Hong Kong is also a bastion -- the port city catering to British sailors of old, giving rise to
a mixture of traditional western tattoos -- the rose, the anchor -- with oriental motifs such
as the dragon and the tiger.
China is starting to develop its own unique styles, drawing on both ancient and modern
inspiration.

Qiao Zhengfei is a 20-year-old tattoo artist who opened up her own studio in her native
Xiamen before moving her business to Beijing.
She specializes in "blackwork," an intricate form based on a style of embroidery. The
former art theory student likes the fact that tattoos are a living embodiment of her work.
"It's an aesthetic choice," she says. "I couldn't see myself doing traditionally Chinese
tattoos like dragons and fish. They don't resonate with me."

An example of Qiao Zhengfei's "blackwork" tattoos.

A trade or art?

In China, some parlors are cubicle afairs, a small square room with a curtain and
heavily tattooed proprietors.
Others boast large studios with grungy aesthetics and art adorning the walls.

The Chinese tattoo artists I spoke to shied away from calling their work an art form,
viewing it as a trade.
Eight years ago, Zhao Liang graduated from teaching college after majoring in art and
planned to find a teaching or civil service job.
"But they both were not well paid jobs. Since I have to support my family I thought I
should find a job that can earn a living."
One day, he saw a poster advertizing tattoos for 50 yuan ($8) each and thought about
giving it a go.
"Then I started doing (it). I just thought life is going to be better and better."

Woman says she secretly recorded Jared Fogle's conversations

(CNN)When Rochelle Herman first heard Jared Fogle's alleged of-color comments
about young girls, she was so disturbed, she knew she had to do something, she said.
She recorded conversations with him for the FBI.
Fogle, a pitchman for Subway at the time, was attending a health event at a school in
Florida in 2007 when the incident occurred, Herman said. She was covering the event
for a local station when Fogle made a random comment.
"He told me that he thought middle school girls were so hot," Herman said. "I was in
shock ... I actually was questioning, 'Did I really just hear what I think I heard?' I looked
over at my cameraman ... and he was just astounded," she said.
Years later, Fogle is planning to plead guilty to child pornography charges. His plea will
include crossing state lines to pay for sex with minors, prosecutors said this week.
The plea deal would see him serve between five and 12 years in prison in a stunning
downfall from a celebrated pitchman to a sex ofender.

'He talked about' sex with minors

Herman saw Fogle numerous times over the years, and his comments and admissions
got more brazen, she said.
"He talked about sex with underage children," she said. "It was just something that he
really, really enjoyed," she said.
Herman said she notified law enforcement authorities, and the FBI asked her to wear a
wire to record her conversations with Fogle.
For years, she said, she worked undercover with authorities to gather evidence against
Fogle.
"He trusted me for unknown reasons," Herman told CNN's "AC360." "He had said to me
numerous times over the course of years about having sex with minors."
He got so comfortable with Herman, she said, he included her children in their
conversations.
"I had two young children at the time, and he talked to me about installing hidden
cameras in their rooms and asked me if I would choose which child I would like him to
watch," she said.
'I had to play a role'

Although she was horrified by his suggestion, she focused on gathering evidence to put
him behind bars.
"During the time that I had with the FBI, I had to play a role. I had to play a certain part
in order for Jared to be able to trust me and talk further into detail," she said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Indianapolis, where Fogle was based, said Herman's
information was part of the federal investigation into the former pitchman.

Tim Horty of the U.S. Attorney's Office said authorities also connected Fogle to alleged
child pornography during their investigation into Russell Taylor.
Taylor, a former director of Fogle's charity that focuses on children's health, is facing
child pornography charges as well. Authorities allege he had images and videos of
minors engaging in sexual conduct that he shared with Fogle.
Fogle will plead guilty to possessing and distributing child porn and to traveling across
state lines to have sex with at least two teenage girls.
Attempting to make amends

Under the plea deal, the government will recommend less than 13 years in prison for
Fogle. And his lawyers agree to ask the judge for no less than five years in prison.
Fogle, 37, will also pay restitution to the 14 victims who were secretly photographed or
who he paid for sex. Each victim will get $100,000 to help with counseling, support and
other assistance.
By admitting to the crimes, Fogle is accepting responsibility and attempting to make
amends, his defense team said in a statement.
His lawyers said he is also undergoing examination by sexual conditions experts with a
goal of becoming healthy.
No date has been set for his next court date, where he will formally enter a plea.
Fogle became a household name 15 years ago after he lost more than 200 pounds on
what he described as the Subway diet. He became the face of the restaurant chain,
appearing in ads nationwide.
Tattoos last, but for 1 out of 10, so does the pain

(CNN)An estimated 25% of people in the United States have a permanent tattoo,
making it one of the most popular forms of body art. But those colorful etchings of birds
and symbols can sometimes cause ugly and painful skin problems. A new study

suggests that 10% of people who get inked experience infections, itching and other
adverse reactions, sometimes lasting more than four months.
Researchers at New York University asked people in Central Park whether they had a
tattoo, and if so, whether they had any reactions after getting tattooed that they thought
were out of the ordinary, such as redness and scarring.
Out of the 300 people the researchers surveyed, 31 (10.3%) said they developed
abnormal reactions. In 4% of these cases, the reactions, including pain, itching and
infection, went away within four months. Some required antibiotics. The other 6% had
itching, scaly skin and swelling around the tattoo site that lasted for more than four
months.
"I was totally surprised by these numbers," said Dr. Marie C. Leger, assistant professor
of dermatology at NYU Langone Medical Center and lead author of the study, which
was published Thursday in the journal Contact Dermatitis. "I see patients with
complaints about their tattoos, but I didn't have any idea how common it was," Leger
added.
However, as Leger pointed out, it is not clear if the numbers in her study are
representative of this large subset of the population. Researchers need to study bigger
groups of people, and follow up with physical exams and biopsies to confirm and
diagnose their conditions, she said.
Leger got motivated to study tattoo complications after treating a patient who developed
itching and raised, scaly skin around only the red parts of a tattoo on her arm. She had
the first tattoo for years but the symptoms started after getting a more recent tattoo on
her foot. In addition to the problems at the tattoo site, she developed a rash over her
whole body. "It was like her body decided after being exposed to red dye more than
once, that it just didn't like it," Leger said.
There are many questions over what is causing these undesirable side efects. Leger
said she suspects that allergic reactions to the dyes, especially red dye, are responsible
for some of the chronic reactions lasting more than four months.

In Leger's small survey, chronic reactions were more likely in people who had more
variety of colors, and red seemed to be particular problematic. Other small studies have
also reported lesions associated with red tattoos.
If chronic problems do arise, it is possible to remove the tattoo, Leger said. However in
the case of the patient who inspired the current study, the tattoos covered too much of
her body to easily excise.
Many of the problems that the survey captured, both the acute and chronic reactions,
"don't have anything to do with the tattoo parlor or the artist," Leger stressed. "It's not
anybody's fault, it's body meets ink and what happens," she said.
Nevertheless, some of the acute problems that occur in the days and weeks after body
and ink meet can be avoided. For example, people should make sure to clean the tattoo
site to reduce infection risk, and follow other instructions from the tattoo artist, Leger
said. The study found that acute problems were more likely among people who had
many tattoos and tattoos that covered a large part of their body.
If any signs of an infection develop, such as warmth, swelling and drainage at the tattoo,
people should go to an urgent care clinic or get some other medical help immediately,
Leger said.
Although the numbers in the New York survey seem high, they may underestimate the
complications linked with getting tatted. "Some of the skin reactions may be very subtle
and require a dermatologist to diagnose exactly what it is," said Dr. Jared Jagdeo,
assistant professor of dermatology at UC Davis, who was not involved in the current
research. Problems with tattoos on the back or other out-of-sight areas may go
unnoticed, too, he added.
Studies in Europe have found similar, and in some cases higher, rates of tattoo
complications.
"The findings [of the current study] highlight the importance of educating the general
public prior to tattooing," Jagdeo said. "Anytime you introduce a foreign substance into

the body, in this case the skin, there is the potential for adverse events [such as]
infection or something more serious like an allergic reaction," he said.
However, tattooing is a lot safer now that many states and cities inspect tattoo parlors to
make sure they are using safe practices and equipment such as single-use needles,
Jagdeo said.
There are no federal regulations on tattoo ink. "I think the composition of dyes is an area
that will be looked at in the future at the state and potentially federal level," Jagdeo said.
"This study is very important to bring attention to this important topic," he said.

Train your brain to stress

By Rhea Wessel

19 August 2015

It may sound a bit odd to have a chat with yourself every morning,
repeating phrases like, "My arms and legs are heavy. My arms
and legs are warm. My heart is calm and regular."
But these are precisely the kinds of statements repeated by
people who perform autogenic training, or the practice of autosuggestion to reduce stress and increase concentration.

We have a great potential to heal ourselves. We just have

to know how to tap and use it.
In 15-minute blocks, or sometimes less, people reflect on their
different body parts and instruct muscles, such as those in the
neck, arms and legs, to relax and re-oxygenate, using a predefined script. Experts believe if the person has been practicing
regularly for years, he or she can fall into deep relaxation within

seconds by concentrating on the area and saying, "My arms and

legs are heavy."
If you're looking for a way to counteract psychological stress,
shake-off feelings of uneasiness, or feel more in control of a hectic
schedule, then autogenic training might be for you, says Katja
Engelskirchen, who turned to autogenic training after a burnout
and now teaches the exercises and stress prevention near
Frankfurt.
First developed in the 1930s by Johannes Heinrich Schultz, a
German psychiatrist who studied clinical hypnosis and Far
Eastern meditation techniques, autogenic training helps people to
deeply relax within a short period of time because they have
conditioned themselves to respond to their own verbal cues.
These mind-over-body exercises are often recommended for
individuals coping with high stress, or for athletes looking to
improve their performance. In Germany, the method is well
-known and practiced, and children are even introduced to the
idea while still in kindergarten.
Simple to practice
If you're feeling stressed, you can perform self-suggestion
exercises at your desk, in a parked car or a quiet corner of your
workplace to help regenerate quickly and tank up on energy.
One fan of the method who lives near Frankfurt says she has
performed autogenic training several times a week for years. It
helps her cope calmly with multiple requests from too many
directions at work, she says.

Konstanze, who preferred not to give her last name, learned the
technique as a child growing up in eastern Germany. At 16, she
was having trouble breathing while playing sport. Her doctors
recommended an autogenic training course.
"I remember saying, 'This is nonsense.' We had to sit on the edge
of our chairs and plant our feet on the ground, our arms hanging
down. It was like sitting as a coach driver. The leader would then
tell us where to concentrate on our feet, toes, lower legs," she
said. Now after decades of practice, Konstanze has been won
over. "When I take this journey through my body, I notice that I'm
much more relaxed and take things easier. I am energetic until
late at night."
Leaving work behind
Another benefit Konstanze describes is being able to switch off
her thoughts about the office when she's not there. "When I leave
work, I'm not interested in my problems there. In autogenic
training and yoga, you learn to cut off the thoughts that fill a racing
mind by focusing on something banal, like your toes. If you're
thinking about your big toe, then your thoughts cannot race to the
undone laundry or shopping," she said.

Else Mueller, an author and specialist in

stress prevention, says the racing mind
has become part of everyday life, and
believes stress is a major public health
problem. These are issues she
addresses in the 17 books she has
written about relaxation methods. Early in
her career, Mueller developed her own

iteration of autogenic training based on

the techniques of Schulz, "modernising"
it and making it easier and faster to learn,
she says. Over the years, she has
trained people at companies from Nestle
to Robinson Club and S Fischer Verlag,
among others.
Her method, called Innovative Autogenic
Training (IAT), differs from the Schulz
approach because it combines visual
imagery with auto-suggestion, using
"classical" commands. The imagery fits
with the desired muscular effect. For
instance, when you want to feel heavy
while sitting, you imagine a mountain.
When you want warmth in your body, you
evoke an image of the sun. In the third
phase, when you want to create calm,
you imagine clouds carrying away your
thoughts.
"We send away our uneasy and racing
thoughts with a cloud," said Mueller, who
has successfully tested the method for
herself and applied it at universities, in

her own practice and at clinics. She

added, "We have a great potential to
heal ourselves. We just have to know
how to tap and use it."
Feelings want to be felt. Your body knows best how to
release tension.

Not everyone is convinced, though.

Isabel Bommer, a coach and motivational
speaker, says all meditative techniques
of which autogenic training is just one
do not give you the full freedom for
your body to respond with its inner
wisdom.
"All feelings are reflected physically, and
if you direct them with too many
meditative techniques, you don't
experience your true feelings," Bommer
said. "Feelings want to be felt. Your body
knows best how to release tension. It
does not need to be directed like you do
in autogenic training."
For instance, if you find yourself crossing
your legs in a meeting, standing on your
tiptoes, or clicking your pen, that is your

body intuitively performing compensating

movements, she said.
Still, academic research proves that
autogenic training can improve
performance. Helen Gibbons, a
psychologist and the founder of
the Autogenic Training Institute in
Australia, says autogenic training is
backed by multiple clinical studies and is
an accepted way to combat stress and
fatigue. She points to one study by NASA
that indicated that autogenic training may
improve pilot performance during
emergencies.
The benefits can be accurately
measured, for instance through neuroimaging and blood pressure readings,
Gibbons wrote in an article published last
year called The 6 Hour Solution to
Work Stress.
In the end, Gibbons and others believe
learning to self-regulate your psychophysiological responses can create

profound changes in the mind and body

that improve health and performance.
So the next time you overhear someone
talking to her arms and legs at the office,
dont be quick to judge, she may just
become your next CEO.
Worst office habits

By Michelle Goodman

10 April 2014

One person in particular spent a little too long in the nap

room. What gave him away was his snoring.
Last year, the technology start-upAskforTask.com set up a nap
room to help ease fatigue among its web developers who were
working long hours, sometimes as many as 70 per week.
It sounded like the perfect solution for a company that needed to
revamp its web platform fast and keep its developers sharp and
focused.
Unfortunately, the plan backfired.
It didnt take us long to figure out that naps were counterproductive, said Nabeel Mushtaq, chief operating officer and cofounder of the 15-person Toronto company.
Management put a 15-minute cap on power naps, but many
employees accidentally overslept, Mushtaq said. Awaking groggy,

a number of them then spent even more time refilling their coffee
mugs or splashing water on their faces in an attempt to snap back
to work form.
The whole process would waste anywhere from 30 minutes to an
hour-and-a-half, Mushtaq said.
Employee productivity took a hit, too. Six months into the nap
programme, the once-efficient team was reaching only 55% of its
weekly goals, down some 30 percentage points from before the
sleep experiment, Mushtaq explained.
Studies and productivity experts show that power naps and
relaxation breaks can restore energy and focus during the
workday, even during the dreaded mid-afternoon slump. A number
of leading companies, in an effort to keep employees engaged
and focused, now offer nap rooms or encourage an afternoon
break away from the desk. Among them: Apple, Nike and Procter
& Gamble in the US, and HootSuite and Intuit in Canada.
MetroNaps, a New York company that produces sleeping pods
that look like space-age lounge chairs, counts Google, Huffington
Post and Cisco Systems among its worldwide customers.
Managers eager to appeal to employees concerned with work-life
balance sing the praises of such programmes. But lurking behind
the lounge chairs and mood lighting are some surprising
drawbacks that are only now coming to the forefront.
Not everyone wakes up from a snooze able to bounce back to
their previous energy levels. And not all employees who leave
their workstation for a quick walk or game of table football or
table tennis return promptly. Managers whove instituted these
programmes then find themselves tasked with a job more akin to
that of a kindergarten teacher overseeing a room of toddlers

monitoring their (grown up) teams midday sleep and relaxation

habits.
The conundrum, said Nathan Schokker, whose company Talio
Group Pty Ltd added a one-person nap room last year, is
determining the best way to make them available and effective
without being excessive and complicated..
Recommended vs. required rest
For Schokker, director of Talio Group, striking the right balance
between encouraging weary workers to rest and allowing too
much time for slacking off has been the biggest challenge.
To simplify the process, the Brisbane, Australia facility
management company eschews any formal rules about when its
45 employees and contractors can nap and for how long,
Schokker said. However, managers suggest napping only when
absolutely necessary to help keep abuses down.
We feel it destructive to encourage daily naps, said Schokker,
who worries an unnecessary snooze will hamper productivity.
He speaks from experience. I found a few times I used [the nap
room] as a procrastination tool, destroying my productivity for a
few hours, he said.
Jacob Stewart strongly disagrees. The co-founder of The
Traveling Photo Booth, a US photo booth rental franchise
headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, orders staff to take a
short break away from their desk each afternoon.

We ask for at least 20 minutes a day, said Stewart, the

companys co-founder. Its a way to [stop] everyone from burning
out.
But practicing what you preach as a manager can prove difficult.
There are certain days when I feel like I need to keep ploughing
through work, said Stewart, who often spends his afternoon
break napping or meditating in a hammock in his office.
Calling out abusers
Of course, there are those employees who take napping on the
job too far.
I've had a few instances where one person in particular spent a
little too long in the nap room, particularly on a Monday morning,
said Talio Groups Schokker. What gave him away was his
snoring.
Although employee and manager shared a laugh over the
transgression, Schokker told the overzealous napper he needed
to spend more time sleeping in his own bed at night and less time
snoozing on the job.
Blue Soda Promo, a promotional products company in Vernon
Hills, Illinois, encourages its staff of more than 100 to take an
afternoon screen break away from their computers around 3:30 or
4 p.m.
As incentive, the office features a mini bowling alley, motorised
scooters, a putting green, basketball hoops, game tables and
even a low-lit serenity room with a couch, love seat and
massage chair.

The company doesnt have any hard and fast break rules, said
Matt Powers, Blue Sodas internet marketer. But, Powers said, he
and his co-workers know better than to abandon their
workstations at the expense of deadlines or linger too long in
relaxation-land.
An appreciation of the companys work hard, play hard culture
and a vigilance in meeting deadlines has been key to the
programmes success.
If [abuses] happen, its because they lost track of time or maybe
relaxation turned into a nap, Powers explained.
A gentle Where have you been? from a peer or manager is
usually all it takes to ensure a negligent break-taker doesnt do it
again, he said.
Relaxing more efficiently
Simon Hudson, founder and CEO of Brndstr, a social branding
start-up in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates trialled a nap room
on company premises for two months before scrapping the idea.
Having team members disappear in to a secluded room to doze
was simply too disruptive.
When youre in start-up stage, you need ideas and chats to
include everyone, Hudson said.
Instead, he set up a cluster of sofas, comfortable chairs, a 50-inch
television and a PlayStation console in a corner of his teams large
open office.
By being in the main room, a sense of guilt will always kick in,
Hudson said.

So far, so good, he said He hasnt set limits, but said employees

now tend to keep their breaks short.
Talia Beckett, managing director of Pink Pearl Public Relations,
pushes this notion of efficient relaxation a step further: she
encourages employees to take a 30- to 60-minute working break
around 3:30 each day. This entails grabbing a stack of fashion,
beauty and baby magazines (industries in which the Vancouver,
British Columbia, communications firm works), finding a comfy
chair (or when weather permits, heading outside) and flipping
through the pile.
Although this is still technically work, it doesn't feel like it,
Beckett said. It makes our small team feel much more relaxed
and we always come back to our desks with new ideas.
And at AskforTask, Mushtaq has transformed the companys
productivity-killing nap room into an innovation lounge featuring
reclining chairs, low lights, music and a television. The idea is for
employees to spend a few minutes relaxing and socialising as
needed, but not snoozing.
In just six weeks, he says employee productivity has been
restored to pre-nap-room levels.
Just by changing the name and theme of the room we were able
to see our employees achieving over 85% of their weekly goals,
Mushtaq said.
You can retire at age of 40

By Kate Ashford

7 April 2014

What if you didnt have to wait until you were in your mid-sixties to
retire? What about 50, or even just as you hit your 40th birthday?
Dont laugh with enough dedication, you could say goodbye to
your full-time job years sooner than you think.
We all dream of retiring early with a fantastic pension and no
money worries, said Victoria Lewis, a financial adviser with the
Spectrum IFA Group in Paris, France. You just have to put the
right plan in place.
What counts as early retirement? In the United States, the
average adult retires at 61, according to a Gallup poll. In Australia,
men retiring within the last five years were 61.5 to 63.3, on
average, and women were 59.6, according to the Australian
Bureau of Statistics. Whereas in Japan, the average worker retires
at 69.1, and in Luxembourg, the average retirement age is 57.6,
according to the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Based on those averages, financial experts consider an early
retirement age to be under 55, and typically between age 50 and
55. But in some countries, like India, for instance, where twothirds of the population is 35 or younger, this, more youthful
working population has its goal set to retire earlier at 45 or 50,
said Lovaii Navlakhi, founder and chief executive officer of
financial planning firm International Money Matters in Bangalore.
Here is some advice on making it happen:
What it will take: Dropping out of the workforce years before
everyone else, means you have to be completely debt free, with
savings equal to about 25 times the income you wish to achieve in
retirement, taking any government pensions or payments into
account.

A basic financial rule of thumb maintains that you can withdraw

about 4% from a retirement portfolio per year or 1/25th of the
balance. That means you should be able to safely withdraw about
$40,000 per year from a $1,000,000 retirement portfolio added
to whatever you might be receiving (or expecting to receive later)
from the government. Earnings and interest will presumably make
up the difference annually, making it possible to withdraw 4% a
year indefinitely. (Market fluctuations may affect this, of course.)
How long do you need to prepare: It depends on how dedicated
you are to your cause, and how quickly you can pay off any
outstanding debts (including paying off your mortgage) and accrue
the required savings. For Pete, a US blogger who writes at
MrMoneyMustache.com (and prefers not to give his last name to
protect his familys privacy), he and his wife were able to retire at
about age 30 after nine years of serious savings and low lifestyle
expenses.
Darrow Kirkpatrick, an engineer in New Mexico in the US who
writes at CanIRetireYet.com, decided to focus on retirement while
still working in his mid-30s and was able to retire at age 50. A
financial professional can help you determine what kind of timeline
is realistic.
Do it now: Start immediately. Early retirement becomes an
impossible dream for many people purely because they didnt plan
for it early enough.
People dont really start thinking about retirement until their 40s,
said Helen Hogan, an investment adviser with Sunset Financial
Services in Missouri in the US. The earlier you start, the better,
because of the power of compound interest.

Downsize your lifestyle. The mantra for early retirement should be

save more and spend less. The less you spend now on housing,
cars, and holidays, the more disposable income you have for debt
and savings. Consider whether you really need the fourth
bedroom, the luxury car, the deluxe TV package and dinner out
twice a week.
It is definitely all about reducing your living expenses, or as I like
to put it, living slightly less ridiculous-than-average lifestyles,
said Pete of MrMoneyMustache.com. (Part of the reason Pete and
his wife were able to retire so early was that they pared expenses
down to about $25,000 a year, he said.)
Pay off your home. Think about how much money youre spending
every month on your mortgage. On average, mortgage payments
take up 30% of your disposable income, said Brett Evans,
executive director of Atlas Wealth Management in Southport,
Australia. The sooner you make the last payment on your
property, the faster you can throw money into savingsand the
less youll need to live on in retirement.
Do it later: Work a little. For many early retirees, retirement
doesnt mean the total absence of employment. Its common for
people to quit a full-time position but maintain a small business on
the side or work part-time at something they love for supplemental
income.
Theyve racked up their years of service, and maybe they have
enough money to work part-time and just slow down, Hogan said.
The plan is that theyll work for another 10 to 15 years, but at a
much slower pace.
Dont forget about family. If you have a spreadsheet of expected
retirement expenses, make sure family expenses are included. I

remind people that grandchildren and children take a lot of

retirees money, Hogan said. I have told clients, You need to
stop giving the kids money because you cant afford it.
Do it smarter: Make sure youre ready. Do you have a plan for
your retirement? And are you really prepared to say goodbye to
your working life? Some people get depressed after retiring
because they miss the office, Hogan said. They really need to
think about what theyre going to do with their time.
Give it a test drive. Live on your proposed retirement salary for
12 months to make sure its manageablebefore you make the
leap. Youll be able to tell if your numbers are realistic, and you
can push even more cash into savings while youre doing so.
Make it a game, Hogan said. Save as much as you can.
Same job different salaries?

By Elizabeth Garone

17 August 2015

Are you in the exact same position? ... Did they get their
salary through seniority or performance bonuses?
It can happen to the best of us. You think that you have done a
stellar job of negotiating your compensation package only to find
out shortly after you start that your pay is substantially lower than
a colleague's in the same position.
Your first instinct might be to go running into your supervisors
office, screaming about the injustice of it all. But youll be sorry if
you take such a combative approach.
This is a tricky position to be in. On the one hand, you want to be
paid appropriately for the skills youre contributing to the business

 and rightly so, said Michael Bennett, managing director and

co-founder of London-based recruitment and talent management
consultancy Rethink Group in an email. However, you also dont
want to be the new person that comes in and starts rocking the
boat.
But the situation isnt hopeless. Try one of these less
confrontational approaches to renegotiating your salary after
youve started work.
What can you do?
You have a few options, according to Bennett. Depending on the
company set up, either speak directly to your line manager or go
through HR and highlight your concern, he said.
But before you do that, realise that there could be good reasons
why your colleague is being paid more than you.
They may even have simply joined the organisation at a time
when market rates were different than they currently are, meaning
they were able to secure a more lucrative deal, he said. So make
sure you find out all the facts first.
And rarely is it as simple as it might seem, so you really need to
make sure you are right, according to Benoit Vialle, the chief
operating officer of Northern California-based startup
NakedWines.com. Are you in the exact same position? Does that
person share a title but have more responsibilities? Did they get
their salary through seniority or performance bonuses?
Depending on the position, experience can trump equal pay. If
you drive the underground, it does not affect your performance if
you are holding a doctorate in archaeology, said Jorg Stegemann

who heads up Kennedy Executive Search with offices in

Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Milan, Paris and Prague. In others, it does
make a difference.
So, in the case of the subway driver, the pay should probably be
equal, but if I am regional manager for a company and my
regional manager colleague has more experience and a higher
salary, there is no reason to complain, he said.
Setting the stage
Youll want to be proactive and quantify your impact, according to
Vialle. Make sure that your contribution adds value to the
company and do your best to quantify the positive impact you are
having, he said in an email. It will make the discussion of asking
for more compensation if you hit incremental results much easier
and a no-brainer for your employer.
Set clear expectations for yourself. Once you're settled in and
you're sure youre being paid less than the other person for the
same job, and you know you want to be paid more, let the
decision makers know that you're hungry for more, Vialle said. It's
highly unlikely that an employer will give you a higher salary just
because you say it's the fair thing to do. Be ready to take on more
work or to hit certain benchmarks to unlock higher pay, he said.
And work to differentiate yourself. If you're in the exact same
position as somebody earning more than you, take on projects
that they don't do and over-perform, he said.
Is the law on your side?
Depending on where you live, you may legally have the right to
ask about pay discrepancy. For example, in both the US and

Canada, a company cannot legally punish you for questioning

your pay.
The right and legal thing to do is approach your manager with the
information and have a healthy dialogue to the reasons the
company is paying different, said Dane Atkinson, CEO of New
York-based marketing analytics company SumAll, in an email.
SumAll offers salary transparency for all its employees via a
shared Google doc its staff can access at any time (some people
check it regularly, others rarely or never, according to Atkinson).
You will be surprised at how smooth the conversation goes when
you are talking about the real issue at hand.
Just don't allow yourself to take a hostile approach to the
conversation, Atkinson said. Use the knowledge to find out what
you can do about it to bring your salary up, he said, and
understand that there are always outside factors at play.
Save it for later
If youre not interested in any confrontation so early in your new
job, one option would be to file the information away in your head
until your first salary review. Then, you can use it as a lever, said
Rethink Groups Bennett. Start by asking how you can increase
your salary or bonus. In other words, what do you need to achieve
to move up?
Obviously, this approach will take longer but sometimes it can be
effective to take a step back and review your options, said
Bennett. Theres nothing to be gained from kicking down your
bosss door and publicly demanding a salary increase.

(CNN)Does she really have a headache? And if not, could a little pink pill help?
For the most part, we know that for many women, the only "headache" that is causing
her to avoid sex is fatigue or relationship issues. (If it were George Clooney asking for
sex, that headache might miraculously disappear.)

'Female Viagra' gets FDA approval 02:16

But I don't believe that being tired or out of sorts are the only reasons women lose
desire.
Which is why the Food and Drug Administration announcing its approval this week of a
"female Viagra" is intriguing -- and appealing: the idea that a pill could restore libido in
women, just the way Viagra has improved the hydraulics for millions of men.

Pepper Schwartz

The move came after an organization recently launched a pressure campaign, backed
in part by the drug's developer, to push the FDA for approval, saying gender bias has
kept such a pill from women.

It's a complicated issue, no question. But some women are genuinely upset about their
loss of libido. They are searching for help and deserve to have it.
In so many sexuality and relationship workshops I have conducted with women, I have
heard the following lament: "I love my husband. I used to crave making love with him.
But now I feel nothing. I wish I could reclaim my sexual desire and sexual pleasure." In
these cases I don't think it's the relationship that's the issue, or having a partner who is
sexually inept, or the efect of memories from earlier sexual trauma. No, something else
is going on.

Will 'female Viagra' really help women? 03:43

That said, it is not clear what will help a woman who lacks desire and has little ability to
be aroused. Consider: Early clinical trials for Viagra to see if it would stimulate women's
sexual desire didn't do so well. One study by psychologists Andrea Bradford and Cindy
Meston found that if women thought they were taking a sexual arousal drug but were
instead taking a placebo, they still reported a rise in libido. These authors found an
almost uniform rise in libido, particularly if the women were in a long relationship.
The "placebo efect" is powerful -- so powerful that it is difficult to get the FDA to pass
any drug because, quite reasonably, a new medication needs to be more efective than
the results that occur in the placebo control group. This was initially believed to be the
case with flibanserin, the desire drug that will be sold as Addyi.
Furthermore, even some of the people on the FDA advisory committee who voted in
June to recommend the drug's approval were worried that the results were small and
side efects worrisome, although not huge (mostly nausea and fainting). Dr. Julia

Heiman, a respected psychologist and past head of the Kinsey Institute, once joked with
me that she sometimes wished it was possible to sell a placebo as the real thing
because then you could get the same results for a lot of people without any side efects.
But the fierce fight between advocates of a desire drug and doctors and psychologists
who believe that the approval of flibanserin creates a pathological condition where none
exists is no laughing matter. One side hopes for a pill to help solve desire problems; the
other looks to natural attenuation of desire or to psychological and relationship issues.

Viagra celebrates 15th anniversary 02:25

The fact remains that there is medical evidence that not all desire is impeded by
interpersonal or intrapersonal issues. We know, for example, that "stress hormones"
make sexual desire unlikely. We also know that many modern medications, for example
anti-depression drugs or drugs used to treat heart disease, cancer and diabetes, will
afect desire and sexual ability -- so why is it unthinkable that some women's current
physiological functioning impedes sexual response? And could be helped with
medicine?
I know this has become a feminist issue. But interestingly enough, there are feminists on
both sides of the debate: Some support the idea of a pill, and believe that women
deserve a desire drug, and others feel this is just another plot to label women as
dysfunctional when there is evidence that losing sexual desire over the life cycle may be
a natural consequence of hormonal change that doesn't need to be fixed.
I get both sides, but I have landed on the former. Even if loss of sexual desire is normal
in some women, it is not optimal. I am not, for example, as physically strong as I used to

be, but I know if I work out I can be stronger than if I don't. Am I rejecting nature?
Correct: I am. Nature may take us some places we don't want to go -- and if an exercise
regimen, a pill or even a tummy tuck (not done yet, but I would consider it!) help us
resist changes we do not want to accept, I'm all for it.
Up to a point. Any new regimen has to be safe and efective.
I presume that the FDA decided that the benefits were high enough, and the side efects
low enough, to approve the drug. The "pill" has to work better than a placebo, and the
side efects have to be reasonable and unlikely. I understand that there are some side
efects, but let's face it, nothing is cost-free and most women who yearn for their lost
desire would likely be happy to take on moderate costs to jump-start their sex lives.
For myself, the capacity for sexual desire is an important part of my identity and my
pleasure in life. If it were ever to go away spontaneously, I will be first in line for that little
pill.

Is there life on Jupiter's moons? Juice may

hold the key
London (CNN)Could the mysterious moons of Jupiter be hiding habitable zones
under their icy crusts?
The Rosetta mission's startling discovery that Comet 67P contains multiple organic
compounds that make up the building blocks of life adds weight to a theory that Earth
may have been seeded with those vital ingredients.
So could life exist elsewhere outside our own planet and, indeed, beyond our solar
system?
Attention is now focusing on the Jovian system.
NASA has included $30 million in its 2016 budget to plan a mission to Europa -- one of
the moons of Jupiter -- because there is some evidence of the presence of water there.

In 2012, the Hubble Space Telescope observed water vapor above the south polar
region of Europa.
And work begins this summer on a spacecraft that will explore the gas giant Jupiter and
several of its moons. Airbus Defence and Space in France was selected by the
European Space Agency to build the probe for a launch in 2022.
Called Juice (from JUpiter ICy Moons Explorer), the mission aims to study not only
Jupiter and Europa but two of its other moons: Ganymede and Callisto.
It will spend 3 years exploring the Jovian system after a journey of more than seven
years.
The project scientist for the Juice mission, Olivier Witasse, said there was no direct
proof, but there are hints that there could be oceans hidden below the moons' crusts.
"The mission aims to try to confirm this and find out how deep they are," he said.
Witasse said the project, which will cost about 900 million euros (about $993 million), is
very exciting because it will allow for "multiple flybys of diverse moons."
To date, most of the planets discovered beyond our own solar system -- so-called
exoplanets -- have been gas giants. If Juice could find evidence of habitable zones on
the moons of Jupiter, it gives hope to those looking for habitable environments in the
wider universe.

NASA finds 'Earth's bigger, older cousin' 01:18

The ESA says on its Juice website, "Understanding the Jovian system and unravelling
its history, from its origin to the possible emergence of habitable environments, will give
us a better insight into how gas giant planets and their satellites form and evolve. In
addition, new light should be shed on the potential for the emergence of life in Jupiterlike exoplanetary systems."
It's a possibility that fascinates Joanna Barstow, a researcher in planetary science at the
University of Oxford.
"Since long before we started our robotic exploration of the solar system, we wondered
if there was life on another world," she said.
"Some of the moons of Jupiter, even though their surfaces are covered with ice, might
have liquid water oceans hiding under the surface. Maybe they are sheltering bacterial
life as well? We'd love to find out.
"Finding rocky planets around other stars is tricky, because they are so small: The Earth
is less than a 10th the size of Jupiter. So finding Jupiter-sized planets is much easier,
and there's no reason why we wouldn't expect other Jupiters to have moons. But a
cautionary word: We have never found an exo-moon, and of course they are also small,
and small things are hard to see."
Eight new planets might be capable of hosting life
The Juice mission faces considerable challenges.
Didier Morancais, key account manager for science and exploration at Airbus Defence
and Space, explained that the solar panels have to be huge to be able to generate
enough power at Jupiter, where, he said, the sunlight energy is 25 times lower than on
Earth. The company says solar generators will cover 97 square meters, the largest built
for an interplanetary mission.

Jupiter's moon Europa is littered with huge cracks

The panels also have to be light but strong enough to withstand the forces of
deceleration when the probe is put into orbit.
Juice will tour the three moons, spending eight months orbiting Ganymede. It requires a
complex trajectory that Morancais described as "highly critical."
If that wasn't difficult enough, the instruments have to be shielded from the intense
magnetic field around Jupiter, which can interfere with the sensitive equipment.
So what does NASA say about the target moons on its website?
Europa: The moon stretches and flexes in its orbit, creating heat and possibly
explaining the cracks seen on its surface. It is thought that there could be a saltwater
ocean beneath a thin ice shell.
Callisto: NASA says it is the most heavily cratered object in the solar system. Its interior
is a rocky core surrounded by a large ice mantle.
Ganymede: Although a moon, it is larger than both Mercury and Pluto and has an iron
core surrounded by a shell of ice and rock.
Any discoveries from Juice are more than 15 years away, but in the meantime, the
search for more Earth-like planets goes on.
Barstow points to one particularly interesting discovery that is tantalizing scientists.

"Gliese 1214 b is a type of planet we call a Super-Earth: a bit bigger than Earth, a bit
smaller than Neptune. It's not dense enough to be rocky, so it's probably like a warm
mini-Neptune. There's nothing like it in our solar system, and we don't really know what
to expect," she said.
"On my wish list for the future is a telescope to study exoplanets like Gliese 1214 b in
more detail. I want to know what's going on beneath that cloud layer!"