Is It Time to Invade Burma?
The disaster in Burma presents the world with perhaps its most serious humanitarian crisis since the 2004 Asian tsunami. By most reliable estimates, close to 100,000 people are dead. Delays in delivering relief to the victims, the inaccessibility of the stricken areas and the poor state of Burma’s infrastructure and health systems mean that number is sure to rise. With as many as 1 million people still at risk, it is conceivable that the death toll will, within days, approach that of the entire number of civilians killed in the genocide in Darfur.
So what is the world doing about it? Not much. The military regime that runs Burma initially signaled it would accept outside relief, but has imposed so many conditions on those who would actually deliver it that barely a trickle has made it through. Aid workers have been held at airports. U.N. food shipments have been seized. U.S. naval ships packed with food and medicine idle in the Gulf of Thailand, waiting for an all-clear that may never come.
Burma’s rulers have relented slightly, agreeing Friday to let in supplies and perhaps even some foreign relief workers. The government says it will allow a US C-130 transport plane to land inside Burma Monday. But it’s hard to imagine a regime this insular and paranoid accepting robust aid from the U.S. military, let alone agreeing to the presence of U.S. Marines on Burmese soil — as Thailand and Indonesia did after the tsunami. The trouble is that the Burmese haven’t shown the ability or willingness to deploy the kind of assets needed to deal with a calamity of this scale — and the longer Burma resists offers of help, the more likely it is that the disaster will devolve beyond anyone’s control. “We’re in 2008, not 1908,” says Jan Egeland, the former U.N. emergency relief coordinator. “A lot is at stake here. If we let them get away with murder we may set a very dangerous precedent.”
Larry Page on how to change the world
Larry Page on how to change the world
Breakthrough ideas are around the corner, says the Google co-founder. But most of us are failing to take a chance on them.
As president of Google, Larry Page has pushed his people to take risks that have led to hot new applications like Gmail and Google Maps. Lately he has been thinking far outside the walls of his company. Page sees a world of opportunity - in areas ranging from energy to safer cars. But he also sees a world of timidity; not enough people, he worries, are willing to place the big bets that could make a difference in meeting humanity’s biggest challenges.
In these edited excerpts from an interview with Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer at Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Page offers his views on innovation, change, fear - and why he is, all things considered, an optimist.
Why people believe weird things about money
Why people believe weird things about money
Regret falls under a psychological effect known as loss aversion. Research shows that before we risk an investment, we need to feel assured that the potential gain is twice what the possible loss might be because a loss feels twice as bad as a gain feels good. That’s weird and irrational, but it’s the way it is.
Consider one more experimental example to prove the point: the ultimatum game. You are given $100 to split between yourself and your game partner. Whatever division of the money you propose, if your partner accepts it, you each get to keep your share. If, however, your partner rejects it, neither of you gets any money.
How much should you offer? Why not suggest a $90-$10 split? If your game partner is a rational, self-interested money-maximizer — the very embodiment of Homo economicus — he isn’t going to turn down a free 10 bucks, is he? He is. Research shows that proposals that offer much less than a $70-$30 split are usually rejected.
Brazil tourists meet drug dealers
Brazil tourists ‘meet drug dealers’
Police in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro are to investigate claims that tourists visiting some of the city’s shanty towns are being offered a chance to meet armed drug dealers.
The police say they want to establish if the lives of tourists are being put at risk, but the company involved has defended its policy.
For many years guided tours of favelas or shanty towns have been an option for people visiting Rio de Janeiro.
Pork, chicken prices may rise in next wave of food inflation
Pork, chicken prices may rise in next wave of food inflation
Americans may be getting another helping of food inflation, and it seems likely to come from higher prices for chicken and pork.
Overall food inflation could double this year, lifted by the rising costs of fuel, corn and soybeans, some analysts predict.
Food inflation hit 4 percent last year, up from 2.4 percent in 2006. While beef prices were already high, chicken and pork prices didn’t reflect record costs for feed and fuel. That’s poised to change as chicken and pig producers who have been losing money slaughter more animals to decrease the supply and raise the prices they can charge.
The Big Giveaway
International flights that don’t cost a thing? Books or music you don’t have to pay for? Even companies handing out cars? Traditional business is based on the certainty that everything has a price. But now US writer Chris Anderson believes we are at the dawn of a new consumerist era, governed by what he dubs ‘freeconomics’. He talks to Stuart Jeffries.
“The internet has revolutionised economics,” says Anderson down his cellphone as he drives to work in California. “On the web, the marginal costs of manufacturing and distribution are zero, or close to it. This means that you can now experiment with giving away one thing to sell something else much more than you could in the pre-internet era. Or you can experiment with third-party support, where you give away a product to sell attention to another. The traditional model is of giving 1% of goods away as samples in order to sell 99% of the product; on the web, you can give 99% away as free samples to sell 1%.” You’re kidding, I say to Anderson. And still make profit? “Sure. Why not?”
Worlds Largest Swimming Pool
If you like doing laps in the swimming pool, you might want to stock up on the energy drinks before diving in to this one.
It is more than 1,000 yards long, covers 20 acres, had a 115ft deep end and holds 66 million gallons of water.
Yesterday the Guinness Book of Records named the vast pool beside the sea in Chile as the biggest in the world.
Cart runs on horse power
Naturmobil: Cart runs on ‘horse power’
His plan was to create a vehicle which really does put the cart before the horse.
Unlike traditional horse-drawn vehicles, the horse rides inside, behind the driver, protected by an all-weather canopy.
And thanks to a lightweight polycarbonate frame and complex gearing, it can reach speeds of up to 80km/h – although its cruising speed is a more sedate 20km/h.
Microsoft ends Yahoo Bid
The software giant, Microsoft, has withdrawn its offer for internet services company Yahoo after the two failed to agree on a price.
The merger of the two companies was designed to tackle a common rival, internet search giant Google.
Now Microsoft says it will go it alone and take on Google all by itself.
Nevada judge accused of demanding royal treatment
Nevada judge accused of demanding royal treatment
Elizabeth Halverson is a judge. But the way courthouse staffers see it, she expects to be treated like a queen.
Her former bailiff, for example, says Halverson made him feel like a “houseboy.” He says the judge — who is obese and uses a motorized scooter to get around — made him put her shoes on her feet, massage her back, cover her with a blanket for naps and make sure her oxygen tank was filled. He says she asked him, “Do you want to worship me from near or afar?”
Halverson also surrounded herself with her own hired guards, saying she did not trust the courthouse security force to protect her. Another time, she allegedly had her husband sworn in so that she could ask him under oath if he had completed chores at home.