Fears
of shortages grow in rebel-held Libyan city
BENGHAZI,
LIBYA, Feb 27: Euphoria was tinged with unease in
this rebel-held eastern Libyan city today as
residents worried about food supplies and basic
services looked to a hastily-formed town council
for reassurance.
The fear sown by
Muammar Gaddafi’s followers, blamed for
killing more than 200 in Benghazi during the
revolt against his autocratic rule, has gone for
now.
Thousands have
massed for days in the city centre to savour
freedom and urge on protesters in the capital
Tripoli to topple Gaddafi, who has ruled Libya
for more than 41 years.
But as the dust of
rebellion settles and a loosely-knit interim
administration of citizens’ committees takes
charge, some residents are wondering if they can
provide the basic necessities of life.
"If you talk
to young people, they are carefree since their
only goal is to get rid of him (Gaddafi),
regardless of what happens after that," said
52-year-old aircraft engineer Jalal Edwal,
sitting in Cafe Teekeh close to Benghazi’s
seafront.
"I am worried
about society, food, everything," he said.
"It’s going to be difficult for the
people to live."
Hundreds queued at
banks across the city. Many had heard from
Benghazi’s "liberated" radio
station that they could withdraw 200 Libyan
dinars (153 dollar) each as an advance on
salaries. An average state worker with a degree
makes about 350 dinars a month.
At one bank, men
in riot gear behind iron grills struggled to give
the 200 dinar loans to an unruly crowd outside.
"Right now,
the situation is OK, but the future is uncertain.
We don’t know what will happen. For state
workers it’s really hard as there is no
state," said Abu Yusef, 19, waiting at the
bank.
Many banks
including state-owned Wahda Bank have been cut
off from head offices in Tripoli.
"I have
20,000 dinars here, but I can’t take it
out," said one man queuing outside Wahda
Bank. "The people need to eat. We need
money."
NEW CITY
COUNCIL
Prominent Benghazi
activists, lawyers, academics and businessmen
announced the formation of their city council
late on Friday and said a first priority was to
show the public the city still functions.
Residents voiced
pride in a spontaneous wave of solidarity that
has kept hospitals, power stations and refuse
collection functioning throughout the chaos.
Sayed Mohamed, a
41-year-old university professor, said stores had
not raised prices and storekeepers were providing
goods for free to those without money.
Adolescent boys
direct traffic with a stern professionalism at
busy intersections. Unemployed men offer personal
security to the new council’s officials.
Some people have
received handouts of vegetables from charities,
and shopkeepers said they were comfortable as
long as the border with Egypt remained open.
Vans laden with
prepared meals and boxes of bread dash around the
city to supply rebel soldiers and the army of
volunteers working at the central courthouse that
houses Benghazi’s temporary administration.
"People are
not afraid about food as long as the eastern
border (with Egypt) is open," said Mohamed
Kabla, 30, a dentist working for the rebel
movement’s media section. "There are
lots of people, many millionaires, providing what
we need. We ask for it and they bring it to
us."
Kabla said people
running Benghazi’s grain stores had told the
movement there were enough supplies for four
months.
But many shops
remained closed. While some shopkeepers said
storehouses were well stocked, the reliability of
future supplies was increasingly doubtful as long
as turmoil in the country continued.
Benghazi residents
still basking in revolutionary fervour dismissed
any hardship caused by the uprising.
"Freedom is
more important than food ... Hopefully we’ll
get organised in the next few days," said
Hanan Awali, a sociologist, commenting on the
lack of formal leadership in the city.
Others were more
wary.
"Right now
there are shortages of everything. There’s a
lot of enthusiasm among the young who don’t
know better ... I think life should go back to
normal as soon as possible," said Mahmoud, a
middle-aged professional who declined to give his
family name.
($1=1.3
dinars)
(AGENCIES)
Mumbai
dabbawallas inspire Toronto start-up
TORONTO,
Feb 27: Renowned the world over for their
unique logistics model, the ubiquitous
dabbawallas of Mumbai are an attraction for
everyone from visiting dignitaries like Prince
Charles of the UK to students at premier
management institutes.
Now, they have
inspired a woman of Indian origin to become an
entrepreneur by replicating their model here in
the Canadian capital.
Seema Pabari, the
founder and chief executive of
Tiffinday—which delivers hot vegetarian
Indian meals to customers in downtown Toronto
through the year—was born in Africa and has
seen the famed dabbawallas in action.
"I got
inspired from the dabbawallas," Pabari says,
adding that the acumen with which the dabbawallas
deliver the meals in spite of the large numbers
is remarkable.
Pabari has made
one change to the dabbawallas’ model. She
also prepares the food herself and every morning
is a race against time.
Started nine
months back by Pabari, a former marketing
executive, Tiffinday now delivers around 200
meals a day and is growing fast. So fast that
Pabari is already thinking of buying an electric
autorickshaw to ferry the tiffins, which is quite
a departure from the rear seat of personal and
the bootspace employed currently.
Tiffinday, which
Pabari stresses is a for-profit social venture,
has tied up with an Udupi restaurant in the city,
whose infrastructure is used to prepare the food.
"Under local laws I can only cook at a
licensed place and anyways, the restaurant opens
only at 11 AM by which time I am done," she
says.
Pabari’s
company has tied up with an organisation for
people with disabilities, who deliver the food,
and she also employs needy women from the
diaspora for cooking.
Surprisingly, over
70 per cent of Tiffinday’s customers are
"young white males" mostly from the
financial services sector who prefer having meals
on their tables, though Pabari concedes the
business was started keeping in mind the nearly 1
lakh people of Indian-origin residing here.
Tiffinday is a
client at Mars Discovery District, which was
started with active help from the Ontario state
authorities to promote innovative start-ups.
Pabari is at the stage of developing her model
currently and may go for a round of angel or
venture capital funding, she says.
Located in the
heart of Toronto, the 7.5-lakh square feet Mars
district has clients across sectors spanning from
lifesciences to ICT to manufacturing. Apart from
budding entrepreneurs, it also houses other
critical elements which complete the start-up eco
system like law firms, angel/VC investors, etc.
Apart from
Tiffinday, Mars has many ventures of PIOs as
clients, all of them excelling in their own
field. Pushkar Kumar of GreenMantra, which offers
solutions to turn plastic into wax, greets you
with the customary namaste and surprisingly
enough, ends with a "Jai Hind".
The former hand at
Wipro, who helped the IT giant with mergers and
acquisitions, knows the potential his business
has back home in India and says he will return
some day.
Delhi-born Shahan
Panth, co-founder of a company called Bitstrips,
which allows web users to create cartoon strips
of their own, says his website is getting good
traffic from India and his next trip to India
could well be a pure business trip.
True to the spirit
of start-ups, where accidental discoveries make
you rich, Bitstrip realised that a number of
school teachers are using the medium for the
benefit of students. In India too, quite a good
number of schools are using the same service,
Panth says. (PTI)
Wen
promises steps to reduce income disparities
BEIJING,
Feb 27: Ahead of the call by overseas
dissident groups to launch Egyptian-style
protests in China, Premier Wen Jiabao held a live
chat with Chinese internet savvy
"netizens", promising steps to reduce
growing income disparities, bring down spiralling
prices and provide affordable housing.
Ensuring that fair
income distribution will be an important task of
the government as it has direct bearing on social
justice and fairness as well as social stability,
Wen said replying to questions today just few
hours before protest gatherings called by
dissidents abroad.
During the past
two years Wen began holding annual live chat with
netizens ahead of the session of the
country’s legislature, National
People’s Congress, (NPC), which is scheduled
to hold its session early next month.
This year’s
chat took place hours ahead of scheduled
"protests" called by overseas dissident
group on an internet website.
Similar calls last
week evoked gatherings of people in Beijing and
Shanghai and official media spoke of some
arrests.
The website
Buxon.Com called for "strolling"
protests in 18 cities today and Chinese police
have made elaborate security measures to deal
with them, including cautioning foreign media
about rules governing coverage in China.
Wen said the
government is striving to ensure that people lead
a comfortable life with security and confidence
in the new five year plan starting this year.
China’s
development blueprint for the coming five years
will place high emphasis on the efforts to
improve people’s livelihood, he said
speaking on the live chat conducted by official
Xinhua news agency.
To enhance
people’s living standards is "our
work’s starting point as well as the final
aim," he said.
Greater efforts
will be made to boost social development and
progress, especially in those key sectors and
aspects concerning national development and mass
interests, the premier said.
In order to focus
on livelihood issues, the government is going to
focus less on GDP and more on improving peoples
incomes, he said.
The government is
to set its annual gross domestic product (GDP)
growth target for the 2011-2015 period at seven
per cent, much below the last year’s GDP
growth rate of over 10 per cent.
This is to
highlight the need to raise the quality of growth
and improve the living standards of the people.
The target was
lower than the 7.5 percent for the previous five
years.
"We’ll
never seek high economic growth rate and big size
at the price of environment, as that would result
in unsustainable growth featuring industrial
overcapacity and intensive resource
consumption," Wen said.
The central
government would adopt new performance evaluation
criteria for local governments and give more
weightage to efficiency, environment protection
and the people’s living standards, he said.
China’s rise
lies in talents and education, not gross domestic
product (GDP), he said.
"The whole
world is talking about China’s rise, and
what the people talk about most is (China’s)
GDP. But I think China’s rise lies in
talents and education," he said.
He said he
attaches greater importance to two other figures:
the proportion of education expenditure in GDP
and the proportion of scientific RandD
expenditure in production.
"That
concerns our nation’s future," he said.
He also said an
important aspect for China’s higher-learning
education reform is to encourage students’
creative spirit and independent thinking, in a
bid to foster more high-calibre talents.
More than six
million students graduate from universities in
China every year.
He said the
country will build more high-quality rural
schools and take measures to make the nine-year
compulsory education in cities more accessible to
migrant workers’ children.
The Cabinet, would
discuss a plan to raise the threshold of personal
income tax.
The plan, if
implemented, would benefit China’s whole
medium and low-income groups, Wen said while
answering a netizen’ online question about
tax payment.
The plan would be
delivered later to the National People’s
Congress, the country’s top legislature, for
review, he said.
He reiterated his
determination to tame the country’s runaway
housing prices and promised to control the
inflation which during the previous months
reached 5.1 per cent.
According to
latest figures, the inflation was stated to be
around 4.9 per cent.
To curb the rising
inflation, China has announced to shift to
prudent monetary policy in 2011 from previous
moderately loose monetary policy.
He also promised
steps to reduce energy consumption per unit of
gross domestic product (GDP) by 16 to 17 per cent
by 2015 from 2011 levels. (PTI)
Security
concerns make India ‘extreme risk’
economy: Report
LONDON,
Feb 27: India and four other countries have
been bracketed as "extreme risk" growth
economies by global risks analysis firm
Maplecroft citing security concerns.
The UK-based
firm’s Global Risks Atlas 2011 has rated
security as a primary concern for investors in
high risk growth economies of India, Indonesia,
Nigeria, Philippines and Russia.
"India is
rated extreme risk for security as it faces
simultaneous threats of terrorist attacks from
militant Islamic extremists and Naxalite Maoist
insurgents," Maplecroft said.
The report,
covering 175 countries, focusses on seven key
global risk areas including security, governance,
climate change and societal resilience, including
human rights.
"... With the
Philippines (8), Russia (10) and India (11) rated
extreme risk and Nigeria (12) and Indonesia (28)
considered high risk in the ‘security risk
category, politically motivated violence and
terrorism must now be a primary concern for
investors in these territories," the firm
noted.
According to the
report, despite good growth, India has a poor
human rights record and large sections of the
population lack access to basic social
infrastructure such as education, healthcare and
sanitation.
"This reduces
the country’s resilience to global risks by
creating a less productive workforce, a
population susceptible to the spread of disease,
and potential instability due to risk of social
unrest," it said.
As per the report,
four countries—Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan
and DR Congo—are in the extreme risk
category. All these nations are characterised by
weak governance, internal conflicts and regional
instability, it added.
"Maplecroft
findings indicate that low external debt, energy
security, good governance and regime stability
are all factors that improve countries’
resilience to the conflation impacts of global
risks," Maplecroft’s CEO Alyson
Warhurst said. (PTI)
Jain added ‘billions of
dollars’ value to Berkshire: Buffett
NEW
YORK, Feb 27: Ajit Jain—long rumoured
contender to succeed Warren Buffett—has been
praised by the legendary investor himself for
having added "great many billions of
dollars" to the value of Berkshire Hathaway.
Jain, who has been
with the Buffett-led conglomerate for over 25
years, is in charge of Berkshire Hathaway
Reinsurance Group.
"Ajit (Jain)
insures risks that no one else has the desire or
the capital to take on. His operation combines
capacity, speed, decisiveness and, most
importantly, brains in a manner that is unique in
the insurance business," Buffett wrote in
his 2010 annual letter to shareholders.
One of the
wealthiest people in the world, Buffett’s
pointed out that Jain never exposes Berkshire to
risks, which are inappropriate to the
entity’s resources.
"By his
accomplishments, he has added a great many
billions of dollars to the value of Berkshire.
Even kryptonite bounces off Ajit," the
billionaire investor said.
According to the
letter, Jain has created an insurance business
with float of USD 30 billion and significant
underwriting profits, a feat that no CEO of any
other insurer has come close to matching.
"In the past
year, Ajit has significantly increased his life
reinsurance operation, developing annual premium
volume of about USD 2 billion that will repeat
for decades," Buffett noted.
Last year,
Buffett had described Jain as a
"superstar".
For the year ended
2010, Berkshire Hathaway’s profit jumped to
USD 7.9 billion from USD 5.19 billion in the
year-ago period.
Berkshire Hathaway
has business interests across diverse sectors
apart from significant stakes in global majors
including Coca-Cola and ConocoPhillips.
Going by reports,
Buffett is likely to explore opportunities in
India, during his visit this year as part of
philanthropic initiatives.
Buffett, whose
words on the economy are closely watched, said
that general business climate this year is
expected to be "somewhat better" than
that of 2010. (PTI)
Magnitude quake 5.2 hits
Japan, no damage reported
WASHINGTON,
Feb 27: A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck
the island of Honshu in Japan, the US. Geological
Survey reported, but there were no reports of
injuries or damage.
The quake,
centered 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Kanazawa,
occurred at 0208 IST last night (05:38 local time
Sunday) at a depth of 2.4 miles (3 km) the USGS
said.
Japan is one of
the world’s most earthquake-prone countries,
with a tremor occurring at least every five
minutes.
Located in the
"Ring of Fire" arc of volcanoes and
oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific
Basin, the country accounts for about 20 per cent
of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6.0
or greater.
(agencies)
Britain
threatens to quit UN food agency
LONDON,
Feb 27: Britain said on Saturday it could
leave one of the United Nations’ agencies
fighting hunger unless it improves its
"patchy" performance.
The threat to pull
out of the Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) follows a review of British overseas aid
ordered by the nine-month-old coalition
government, which administers one of the
world’s biggest aid budgets.
By contrast, the
Conservative-led government said it would step up
support for the FAO’s UN sister agency, the
World Food Programme (WFP), which it said had
performed strongly.
The WFP provides
emergency food aid after wars or natural
disasters whereas the FAO’s work is more
long term, helping countries improve farming
practice and nutrition.
The Department for
International Development (DFID) said it would
focus on tackling malnutrition and ensuring more
people in poor countries had enough to eat at a
time when soaring food prices are causing
hardship for millions.
Britain’s 6.5
billion pound (10.48 billion dollar) annual aid
budget is one of the few areas that have been
spared sharp public spending cuts aimed at
curbing the country’s record peacetime
budget deficit.
But the coalition
government of the Conservatives and their Liberal
Democrat allies is keen to show it is getting
value for money from its aid.
It spends about 4
billion pounds a year on bilateral aid and
another 2.5 billion through international
organisations like the FAO or the WFP and has
doubts about the FAO’s performance.
It has been
reviewing the effectiveness of both types of aid
and will announce its conclusions next Tuesday.
PATCHY
PERFORMANCE
"The review
found that FAO’s performance is patchy,
particularly at country level, and that reforms
need to be prioritised," DFID said
yesterday.
"If the
necessary actions are not implemented
satisfactorily and performance does not improve
then the UK will consider whether it should
continue to be a member of FAO," it said.
DFID said it would
give regular funding to the WFP in addition to
the funds it provides for specific humanitarian
disasters, although it did not say how much.
The new funding
would allow the WFP to prepare better for
emergencies, for example by getting food in place
before winter snows or monsoon rains made roads
impassable, it said.
WFP Executive
Director Josette Sheeran told Reuters Insider TV
this month the WFP was short of 39 million dollar
in funding for drought-hit Somalia and food
supplies to the country would stop at the end of
March unless the programme received more money.
DFID said it aimed
to push forward long-term initiatives to ensure
poor people could feed themselves. It said it
would back projects aimed at making war-torn
Afghanistan 80 per cent self sufficient in food
grains by 2016, but did not say what today’s
figure was.
The Rome-based FAO
has been the target of criticism from the United
States and others for years. In 2007, a review
concluded that the agency risked "terminal
decline" after being starved of cash by
member states and mismanaged. The agency put in
place a reform plan.
(agencies)
Berkshire
CEOs: Some are MBAs, some never completed college
NEW
YORK, Feb 27: Providing a sneak-peek into
Berkshire Hathaway’s management, legendary
investor Warren Buffett has said that his
group’s chief executive officers are
"volunteers" rather than mercenaries.
"Berkshire’s
CEOs come in many forms. Some have MBAs; others
never finished college. Some use budgets and are
by-the-book types; others operate by the seat of
their pants," Buffett said in his annual
letter.
According to him,
many of the CEOs work only because they love what
they do. "They are volunteers, not
mercenaries. Because no one can offer them a job
they would enjoy more, they can’t be lured
away," he added.
Berkshire Hathaway
is a holding company, owning subsidiaries that
are into various businesses including property
and casualty insurance and reinsurance, finance,
manufacturing, and retailing.
Each business
unit has a chief executive officer.
The billionaire
investor is the chairman of the conglomerate,
which he took control of in 1965.
Unlike many global
corporations, Berkshire Hathaway is known for its
unique management style, where there are no
frequent interactions between managers and
Buffett.
"At
Berkshire, managers can focus on running their
businesses: They are not subjected to meetings at
headquarters nor financing worries nor Wall
Street harassment.
"They simply
get a letter from me every two years and call me
when they wish. And their wishes do differ: There
are managers to whom I have not talked in the
last year, while there is one with whom I talk
almost daily," Buffett wrote in the letter.
(PTI)
UN unanimously slaps
sanctions on Libyan leaders
UNITED
NATIONS, Feb 27: The UN Security Council unanimously
imposed what Washington said were "biting
sanctions" in the form of travel bans and
asset freezes on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi
and his family.
The resolution
adopted by the 15-nation council also called for
the immediate referral of the deadly crackdown
against anti-government demonstrators in Libya to
the International Criminal Court in The Hague for
investigation and possible prosecution of anyone
responsible for killing civilians.
US Ambassador to
the United Nations Susan Rice said yesterday
measures imposed on Gaddafi and 15 other Libyans,
including members of his family, were
"biting sanctions." She added all those
who committed crimes would be held to account.
"Those who
slaughter civilians will be held personally
accountable," Rice told the council after
the vote. Speaking to reporters later, she
praised the council’s "unity of
purpose" in approving the resolution’s
"tough and binding measures."
Libya’s
deputy UN ambassador, Ibrahim Dabbashi, one of
the first Libyan diplomats to denounce Gaddafi
and defect to the opposition, said the
council’s move will provide "moral
support for our people who are resisting."
He added that it
"will help put an end to this fascist regime
which is still in existence in Tripoli."
British Ambassador
Mark Lyall Grant said the sanctions were "a
powerful expression of the deep concern, indeed
the anger, of the international community."
It had been
unclear whether China, a veto-wielding permanent
member of the 15-nation body, would join the
consensus on the resolution. The Chinese
delegation had been awaiting instructions from
Beijing on how to vote until shortly before the
vote, council diplomats said.
CHINA BACKS
SANCTIONS
Chinese Ambassador
Li Baodong told fellow council members concerns
about the many Chinese nationals in Libya, most
employed in the oil industry, had played a key
role in his decision to vote for the resolution.
French Ambassador
Gerard Araud spoke of a momentous transformation
underway in the Middle East and North Africa.
"A wind of
liberty and change is sweeping throughout the
Arab world and I think the Security Council
succeeded to respond to this new era of
international relations," he said.
Diplomats said
there was broad agreement on the council on the
need to punish long-time Libyan leader Gaddafi
and others in the North African country’s
ruling elite for attacks that have killed
thousands of civilians.
UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Dabbashi on
Friday urged the council to urgently impose
sanctions on Libya’s leadership. Ban said in
a speech to the council that "even bolder
action may become necessary" in coming days.
Council members
were initially divided over whether to
immediately refer the Libyan crackdown to the
permanent war crimes court in The Hague.
Diplomats said a number of council members,
including China, Brazil, India and Portugal, had
voiced reservations about the ICC language.
All of them
eventually dropped their resistance to an
immediate ICC referral, as called for in the
British-French-drafted resolution, the envoys
said.
The
deadlock-breaker, envoys said, was a letter from
Libya’s UN delegation, which has denounced
Gaddafi, to the president of the Security
Council, Brazilian UN Ambassador Maria Luiza
Ribeiro Viotti, confirming it backs ICC referral.
COUNCIL’S
SECOND ICC REFERRAL
Libyan UN
Ambassador Abdurrahman Shalgam wrote to Viotti
that his mission "supports the measures
proposed in the draft resolution to hold to
account those responsible for the armed attacks
against the Libyan civilians, including through
the International Criminal Court."
Human Rights
Watch’s Richard Dicker said in a statement
"the Security Council tonight rose to the
occasion and showed leaders worldwide that it
will not tolerate the vicious repression of
peaceful protesters."
The council has
referred only one other case to the ICC—the
conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
The court has indicted Sudanese President Omar
Hassan al-Bashir for genocide and other crimes
against humanity in Darfur.
The resolution
called for an end to the violence in Libya and
said "the widespread and systematic attacks
currently taking place in the Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya against the civilian population may
amount to crimes against humanity."
Earlier this week
Dabbashi urged the United Nations to impose a
no-fly zone over Libya to protect rebel enclaves
from forces loyal to Gaddafi. That proposal was
not in the resolution.
The five permanent
Security Council members are Britain, China,
France, Russia and the United States. The 10
rotating members are currently Bosnia, Brazil,
Colombia, Gabon, Germany, India, Lebanon,
Nigeria, Portugal and South Africa. (agencies)
Now Facebook plays part in
college admissions too
HOUSTON,
Feb 27: Perfect score is not the only
criteria for getting admission into a reputed
college now, but off late Facebook too has become
an important selection tool.
Four out of five
college admissions officers use Facebook to
recruit students, according to last year’s
survey by Kaplan Test Prep.
"We found
that 82 per cent of admissions officers reported
that their school is using Facebook to recruit
students," Russell Schaffer, Kaplan’s
Senior Communication Manager, told All Facebook.
The website
StudentAdvisor reports at least one case of an
applicant being rejected because of something in
his or her social media profile.
And one
interviewer has said she is
"absolutely" prejudiced by what she
sees online about candidates.
"I think
it’s always better to be safe than
sorry," Allison Otis, who conducts
interviews for Harvard College, posted in a
thread on the website Quora.
"When you
apply to college you spend such a long time
crafting an image through your applications and
essays that to be careless about your online data
is just silly".
Otis said she
regularly searches Google for students’
names and looks through their Facebook and
Twitter profiles.
The content of a
prospective student’s Facebook profile is
fast becoming more important than their grades,
extracurricular activities, or teacher
recommendations, but it’s not that huge of a
surprise that the social network is playing a
role in the admission process.
After all, if
recruiters check Facebook when hiring future
employees, there’s really no reason why
schools can’t do the same for students.
Sometimes your
online profile can be the tiebreaker.
It’s also
important to note that the high number likely
also includes college representatives finding
interesting students online and encouraging them
to apply to their school.
If you’re a
student, there are two ways to take advantage of
this information.
On the one hand,
you can try to make your Facebook profile as
exemplary as possible.
This is quite
difficult given that you have to stay on top of
what your Facebook friends tag you in and so on.
The other option
is to simply lock down your Facebook’s
privacy settings.
You should
probably already be doing this regardless of
whether you are applying to a college,
university, or new job.
Facebook is much
more of a private social network than competing
services: if you don’t want anyone but your
friends to see your Facebook posts, then change
your settings!.
A Facebook profile
obviously doesn’t hold as much weight as
grades, test scores, extracurricular activities,
teacher recommendations and essays.
But when
you’re looking at a tie between equally
talented students, social media content could be
the tiebreaker.
Dean Tsouvalas,
editor of StudentAdvisor, recommends in a recent
blog post that students use social media to their
advantage.
He suggests
following the school’s Twitter feed or
"liking" its Facebook fan page.
Students also can
post a video resume on YouTube or blog about
volunteering efforts or other extracurricular
activities and provide a link on their
applications. (PTI)
‘The Last
Airbender’ crowned worst film at Razzies
LOS
ANGELES, Feb 27: Action flick "The Last
Airbender" and comedy "Sex and the City
2" were the top movies last night to earn
the wrath of Razzie voters in the annual Oscar
spoof that spotlights Hollywood’s worst
performances.
"Valentine’s
Day" stars Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Alba
saw their performances turn sour and picked up
Golden Raspberry Awards for worst actor and
actress. They also were pilloried for two other
titles: he in "Killers" and she in
"Little Fockers."
But it was a worse
night for M. Night Shyamalan’s "The
Last Airbender." It "won" five
Razzies to eclipse all other 2010 movies.
Shyamalan was
named worst director for his flick, and to and to
his further discredit, the film was blinded by
this Raspberry: "worst eye-gouging mis-use
of 3-D."
"The Last
Airbender," which came out last summer, is a
fantasy action movie about a boy with the ability
to manipulate natural elements, who uses his
power to restore harmony to a world divided into
warring factions.
The film made
nearly 320 million dollar at global box offices,
but it received only a 6 per cent favorable
rating at review aggregating website
RottenTomatoes.Com.
Sarah Jessica
Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristen
Davis, the four principle stars of "Sex and
the City 2," were collectively named worst
actress at the Razzies.
The so-called
"winners" were determined by ballots
from some 657 voters in the United States and 17
foreign countries.
Following
is a list of 2010 Razzie winners:
Worst
picture: "The Last Airbender"
Worst
actor: Ashton Kutcher
("Killers" and
"Valentine’s Day")
Worst actress:
Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristen Davis
and Cynthia Nixon ("Sex and the City
2")
Worst supporting
actress: Jessica Alba ("The Killer Inside
Me," "Little Fockers,"
"Machete" and "Valentine’s
Day")
Worst supporting
actor: Jackson Rathbone ("The Last
Airbender" and "The Twilight Saga:
Eclipse")
Worst eye-gouging
mis-use of 3-D: "The Last Airbender"
Worse screen
couple/worst screen ensemble: The entire cast of
"Sex and the City 2"
Worst
director: M Night Shyamalan ("The
Last Airbender")
Worst
screenplay: "The Last
Airbender"
Worst
prequel, remake, rip-off or sequel:
"Sex and the City 2"
(agencies)
Discovery links with
International Space Station
HOUSTON,
Feb 27: NASA’s space shuttle Discovery
has docked with the International Space Station
in its final visit before hanging up its wings
for good at a museum.
The space shuttle
along with six astronauts docked with the space
station as both spacecraft flew 354 kms above
western Australia.
The crew’s
arrival marked the end of a two-day orbital chase
that began with the shuttle’s last launch on
Thursday.
"What took
you guys so long?" the space station’s
commander Scott Kelly joked with Discovery’s
crew as the shuttle drew near.
NASA had tried to
launch Discovery in November, but fuel tank
cracks held the mission up until repairs were
completed.
"Yeah, I
don’t know. We kind of waited until like the
last two seconds," Discovery’s
commander Steven Lindsey told Kelly. "You
guys look great, so we’re on our way."
Discovery is
flying an 11-day mission to deliver a new storage
room and a humanoid robot assistant called
Robonaut 2, along with supplies and spare parts,
to the space station.
Two spacewalks
are also planned during the mission.
Commander Steve
Lindsey floated onboard the space station at 4:36
pm EST (local time).
Lindsey was
followed by mission specialist Nicole Stott,
Steve Bowen, Mike Barratt and pilot Eric Boe and
mission specialist Alvin Drew.
After the welcome
ceremony and a safety briefing, the shuttle and
station crews will begin transferring cargo from
Discovery to the space station.
The arrival of
Discovery’s crew doubled the number of
people at the space station from six to 12. The
joint-crew includes astronauts from the US, Italy
and Russia.
The two space
crews will spend the next seven days working
together to move cargo between their two
vehicles.
Discovery’s
arrival also marked a historic space first: For
the first time since construction began on the
International Space Station in 1998, spacecraft
from four of the five major partners (the space
agencies of Russia, Japan, Europe and the US) are
docked at the orbiting laboratory.
The remaining
partner, Canada’s space agency, does not
have station-visiting spacecraft, but it did
build the outpost’s robotic arm and Dextre
maintenance robot.
Altogether, the
docked spacecraft and space station weigh 1.2
million pounds.
NASA and its
partners hope to stage a space photo session by
cosmonauts flying around the station in a Soyuz
spacecraft if time allows during Discovery’s
flight. (PTI)
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