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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45083615#45083615
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Monday, October 31, 2011
Investing in your own portfolio!
What do you think about regular investments in your own Forex account?
Assuming I trade profitably, the last option will give me the best possible returns for my money right?
Regardless of profitability it also gives me complete control and responsibility for my own money.
Every month, I will have about $180 of risk capital. I have three options on what to do with the money:
- Put them in a savings account with a pathetic annual return.
- Invest them in funds. Variable risk/return and really long term 5y+ to see good returns.
- Put them in my Forex account to increase my risk/reward $values on my trades.
Assuming I trade profitably, the last option will give me the best possible returns for my money right?
Regardless of profitability it also gives me complete control and responsibility for my own money.
In the near future, I might be given a lump sum of risk capital, which could be anywhere from $10 to $8.000. I have the same options with this money, with the additional possibility to use it as a down payment on my students loan. The loan is really great with a less than 3% interest the next 3 years.
Additionally, every month I make regular down payments to my loan and I also invest about $90 in a retirement fund.
Answers I am expecting to this:
"Learn to trade profitably with practice accounts before considering using real money."
No thank you. I have played poker for several years. Poker and Forex trading shares a lot of the same
psychology and require largely the same mindset. So it is my firm belief that you will never become a poker pro playing with play-money, and you will never learn to trade Forex with a practice account. (I see the value of using practice accounts for testing grounds for new strategies.)
"It does not matter how much you start out with, if you are profitable, the end result is going to be the same."
Example: If my end result is financial independence, will I not reach it faster by capitalizing on my given opportunities?
What do you think? Let's discuss!
Source: http://forums.babypips.com/newbie-island/41363-investing-your-own-portfolio.html
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
Highly efficient oxygen catalyst found: Rechargeable batteries and hydrogen-fuel production could benefit
ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2011) ? A team of researchers at MIT has found one of the most effective catalysts ever discovered for splitting oxygen atoms from water molecules -- a key reaction for advanced energy-storage systems, including electrolyzers, to produce hydrogen fuel and rechargeable batteries. This new catalyst liberates oxygen at more than 10 times the rate of the best previously known catalyst of its type.
The new compound, composed of cobalt, iron and oxygen with other metals, splits oxygen from water (called the Oxygen Evolution Reaction, or OER) at a rate at least an order of magnitude higher than the compound currently considered the gold standard for such reactions, the team says. The compound's high level of activity was predicted from a systematic experimental study that looked at the catalytic activity of 10 known compounds.
The team, which includes materials science and engineering graduate student Jin Suntivich, mechanical engineering graduate student Kevin J. May and professor Yang Shao-Horn, published their results in Science on Oct. 28.
The scientists found that reactivity depended on a specific characteristic: the configuration of the outermost electron of transition metal ions. They were able to use this information to predict the high reactivity of the new compound -- which they then confirmed in lab tests.
"We not only identified a fundamental principle" that governs the OER activity of different compounds, "but also we actually found this new compound" based on that principle, says Shao-Horn, the Gail E. Kendall (1978) Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.
Many other groups have been searching for more efficient catalysts to speed the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen. This reaction is key to the production of hydrogen as a fuel to be used in cars; the operation of some rechargeable batteries, including zinc-air batteries; and to generate electricity in devices called fuel cells. Two catalysts are needed for such a reaction -- one that liberates the hydrogen atoms, and another for the oxygen atoms -- but the oxygen reaction has been the limiting factor in such systems.
Other groups, including one led by MIT's Daniel Nocera, have focused on similar catalysts that can operate -- in a so-called "artificial leaf" -- at low cost in ordinary water. But such reactions can occur with higher efficiency in alkaline solutions, which are required for the best previously known catalyst, iridium oxide, as well as for this new compound.
Shao-Horn and her collaborators are now working with Nocera, integrating their catalyst with his artificial leaf to produce a self-contained system to generate hydrogen and oxygen when placed in an alkaline solution. They will also be exploring different configurations of the catalyst material to better understand the mechanisms involved. Their initial tests used a powder form of the catalyst; now they plan to try thin films to better understand the reactions.
In addition, even though they have already found the highest rate of activity yet seen, they plan to continue searching for even more efficient catalyst materials. "It's our belief that there may be others with even higher activity," Shao-Horn says.
Jens Norskov, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University and director of the Suncat Center for Interface Science and Catalysis there, who was not involved in this work, says, "I find this an extremely interesting 'rational design' approach to finding new catalysts for a very important and demanding problem."
The research, which was done in collaboration with visiting professor Hubert A. Gasteiger (currently a professor at the Technische Universit?t M?nchen in Germany) and professor John B. Goodenough from the University of Texas at Austin, was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Hydrogen Initiative, the National Science Foundation, the Toyota Motor Corporation and the Chesonis Foundation.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The original article was written by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- J. Suntivich, K. J. May, H. A. Gasteiger, J. B. Goodenough, Y. Shao-Horn. A Perovskite Oxide Optimized for Oxygen Evolution Catalysis from Molecular Orbital Principles. Science, 2011; DOI: 10.1126/science.1212858
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111028105033.htm
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Occupy Europe: How a generation went from indifferent to indignant (The Christian Science Monitor)
Madrid ? The most significant current youth movement in Europe started with a tweet on Justin Bieber, the boyish Canadian crooner. On May 15, following a rally against education cuts at Madrid's main square, a cluster of 40 students stayed on, talking into the night. Spain, like Greece and Italy, faces huge public deficits. The government has been cutting outlays for basic services like schools, health care, and social welfare. While college attendance in Spain is a success story, youth unemployment has risen to a horrific 44 percent.
So on Puerta del Sol square, the kids were hashing it out. They wanted to bed down on the square, but the police had other ideas. About 4 a.m., the police pushed the makeshift campers off. A month before, students had slept there to buy tickets to a Bieber concert. No one is sure who sent the first "Bieber tweet," but it went instantly viral: "We can sleep on the square for Bieber tickets, but not to discuss our future."
The tweet distilled perfectly frustrations among youth that Europe, Spain, their politicians, the banks, the system, their lives ? all are in trouble and need to change. The Zapatero government, like governments across Europe, hews to a neoliberal model that stresses cutting deficits and using taxes to shore up banks. But it has said little about how to spur growth. Austerity is seen as the predominant answer to spiraling debt costs. But this offers no solace to an educated but unemployed generation that says it wants both work and meaning in life.
IN PICTURES: Europe protests
Yet some Rubicon was crossed on May 15. A Twitter call brought hundreds of youth to the square. The next day more than 1,000 came. By the end of the week 30,000 people, most of them young, had organized a system of tent camps, started seminars and teach-ins, and begun building a social networking site. "Yes, we camp," they coyly said. Their moniker became indignados, or the outraged.
Today, their idea has spread across southern Europe to Rome and Athens and the far corners of Spanish cyberspace, where the group has 70,000 participants. They are part of an increasingly global movement of young people that, while not directly connected, share some of the same frustrations over the inability of economies to create jobs, and the indifference of politicians or their impotence to do anything about it.
The youth of Puerta del Sol have taken some of their inspiration from the youth of the Arab Spring. Both groups have directly inspired young members of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests in America. Indeed, from Latin America to the Middle East to China, the issue of jobless youth has become a worrisome global trend ? what one British minister calls a "ticking time bomb."
Yet each of these revolts is also rooted in its own grievances, with consequences that will be similarly singular. Few are more important than the growing restiveness of Europe's young masses, both because of the size and breadth of the protests and because they come at a time when Europe's finances ? and collective identity ? is increasingly fragile.
In some 40 in-depth interviews with under-30 youth in Spain, Greece, Britain, and France, the single point of agreement was the youths' distrust of leaders. This is Europe's first generation since World War II to have fewer prospects than their parents, and for now, they blame the politicians. The most common word they used to describe their lives: complicated.
Yes, they want jobs. Of course. An emblematic banner of Spanish youth on Puerta del Sol read loudly to under-30s across Europe: "Without jobs, without housing, without a future, without fear."
One Spanish protest included a "physicists without jobs" group. Guillermo Ubieto, age 27, graduated with an advanced degree in international relations. "But there was no work. It's the problem of Spain," Mr. Ubieto says. "We are the best-educated generation in Spanish history, bar none. They told us study, push yourselves, you can have a good future. We haven't earned anything. We can't get a job.... Now we are saying something."
Yet the Puerta del Sol protest was about a lot more than jobs. Something more fundamental was at work. It was time to stop accepting the verdict of a diminished life. But the issues being raised seem bigger than any solutions. As the indignados see it, their extremity has forced questions about what it means to be human; what values and truths to accept; how people should be treated; how democracy should work; the role of free markets, money, the social contract, community.
"We are here to claim dignity ... [and] a new society that gives more priority to life than economic interest," states their informational flier.
It's pretty utopian. And whether the indignados can survive (they still fill the square on Sunday evenings) is unclear. But their pluck brought public sympathy in Spain and Greece, and they are seen as a bellwether among analysts: Europe and its nations have a debt crisis that is testing its unity and economics. But the youth protests point to an equally important crisis ??? of meaning, and of what kind of spirit the age will usher in.
"People came together around feelings and diagnoses that were very abstract but also very powerful," says Arturo Debonis, who recently attended an indignados seminar by US Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz on globalization and capitalism.
"When I saw the images from Puerta del Sol, the skin on my arms jumped off," adds Gaelle Simon, 29, an earnest, young Frenchwoman who moved home after losing her factory job and apartment in Switzerland. "I had been depressed. But after Tunisia and Egypt, I could see what the Spanish kids were doing. Something's not working in our system, but we don't need to accept it."
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Young Europeans for decades have identified with a historic joining of the Continent. They identified strongly with postwar visions: a high-minded model of civil society, ideals of justice, a robust monetary union, and a confident zone of business dealings and corporations that set global management standards.
Author Jeremy Rifkin in 2004 saw Europe as the path to the future. Young Europeans in college seminars spoke about being European, not Dutch, or French, or Spanish. A single Europe, as was said after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, "just makes sense."
Even in 2002, notes Paris intellectual Dominique Moisi, there was a "quasi-religious feeling" among students about creating solidarity with Czechs, Slovaks, Poles. Europe seemed a dazzling model of social cohesion ? wealthy, sustainable, green, and mostly postnational. The ghosts of Auschwitz were fading. "Never again!" still echoed prominently in the streets when Germany reunified.
Democratic values were ascendant, borders were falling, and old animosities were evaporating. Indeed, Europe was a cause, and with its enlightened youth, was preparing to lead the way.
The Bosnian war was an early reality check on how prepared Europe was to sacrifice in the name of its values. But the 1999 Kosovo intervention to halt ethnic cleansing and nationalism on Europe's doorstep, and a commitment by Brussels to keep the peace and integrate the Balkans (with the United States), helped restore the narrative. A war crimes tribunal at The Hague, the first since Nuremberg, prosecuted hundreds of officers and soldiers from those wars.
Yet the European dream is suddenly in question. Under-30s have more doubt than optimism. It is the first generation since the 1950s that feels few thrills about a Europe project. The 17-nation eurozone is debt-ridden. Ugly splits are manifest between northern- and southern-tier states. The cohesion brought by a Franco-German relationship bent on keeping Europe whole and vibrant has frayed or become exhausted.
"For a long time, I believed in Europe. I thought it was magnificent," says Olivier, 27, who studied philosophy but now works for France's National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies. "It was brilliant, especially in terms of its historical configuration. But today I am not satisfied.... I would love a strong Europe that speaks with one voice," but Europe is increasingly directed by Germany, says Olivier, who, like some of the others interviewed, would give only his first name.
The Germans built a competitive export economy and don't want to pay for what they see as the irresponsible fiscal policies of southern "siesta economies." Greece (twice), Ireland, and Portugal have needed bailouts, and it isn't over. Spain and Italy are not out of the red-ink woods. Youth riots in London this summer may have been a singular, compulsive event, but they hold a warning.
Europe's political elites are under attack from radical right populist parties that target Muslims and immigrants; mainstream politics accommodates views seen as extreme a few years ago. "Inward looking" is a popular phrase for Europe-watchers. New global powers like Brazil and China aren't necessarily taken with European models of international conduct. The broad vision of Europe's postwar leaders seems in short supply.
"We need a Franklin Roosevelt and what we've got are a bunch of Herbert Hoovers," says Karim Emile Bitar, at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations in Paris.
* * *
Anciently in Madrid, Puerta del Sol is where all roads led out to Europe. The square is framed by a pinkish town hall and the kind of 19th-century three-star hotels that guidebooks describe as having "character." Tourists and sun are plentiful. But until May 15, it was not a place of political symbolism, not a Tiananmen Square of Spain. That changed as Puerta del Sol, or "Sun's Gate," became a Tahrir Square for Spanish youth, who flew the Egyptian flag in solidarity with the Arab Spring.
Today their numbers and energy are still strong, though their focus is more diffuse. On Sept. 18, some 5,000 marched, wave after wave ? families, pregnant women, students, couples with baby strollers, and seniors. They shook their hands above their heads before entering the square, shouting, "It's not democracy," or "You don't represent us."
"You don't stage a revolution with the argument that things are complicated, and we need time to discuss it," says Jos? Ignacio Torreblanca of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. "But they see the political class as closed, opaque, corrupt, insensitive. All polls show a wide feeling among youth that the political class and elites are a problem."
Spanish youth, like those in other parts of the Continent, are divided over "Europe." Many don't see Brussels as a shining ideal but as an accounting house. Yet what's mostly complicated are their personal lives: In an age of austerity, college grads face short-term contracts and unpaid internships ? busy work that often doesn't train them.
In France, they are the "700 generation" ? earning ?700 a month (US$965). Affordable housing is in short supply, rents are expensive, and for many, getting a home loan seems as likely as changing the rings of Saturn. Without a work contract, it is often hard to sign a lease. Moving from flat to flat takes a toll, and living at home puts a strain on families.
Nadera is a young French Arab, 28. With black hair pulled back and fine features, she has a slightly glamorous look that belies her status as a member of the 700 generation who works seasonal jobs for cash. She's staying on the couch of friends in Paris. She comes from a family of nine. She left home at 14 and has held numerous jobs. One was caring for the handicapped, and she would like to one day own a home-care business; helping others is an ideal of hers. But she doesn't know what to do next, and struggles with a sense of "belonging." "I don't feel European or French, and when I go to Morocco, I don't feel Moroccan," she says. "What's my place and what is Europe's place in the world?"
Little things cost a lot for this generation: phones, train tickets, food. Twenty-five-year-olds compete with 40-year-olds for work. As Europe ages and budgets tighten, older generations want to keep their jobs. Politicians concoct "programs" to help youth, but they give concrete benefits to older generations who vote ? bus passes, optical help, winter fuel, pension breaks. The young are, well, young, and considered more adaptable.
* * *
Globally, only Southeast Asia has low youth unemployment. In Europe, figures show a rise in joblessness since the 2008 fiscal crisis began. In 2007, the overall jobless rate among youth was 14.4 percent, according to Eurostat, the statistical arm of the European Commission. But by 2010, it had risen to more than 20 percent. In Europe's southern tier it is higher. Spain's jobless rate rose from 18 percent to 41.6 percent among 18-to-24-year-olds. Only Germany saw a decline.
What's different in the US and Europe, from emerging economies, is a sharp lowering of expectations enjoyed by previous generations. Wendy Cunningham of the World Bank in Washington says the old social contract that college equals a job is fast disappearing. The days of "I have a degree in medieval studies, I deserve a job" are over, she says.
Whether the disillusionment will manifest itself in something more unruly is uncertain. Down the road, some do see trouble. In an off-the-record briefing, a senior analyst at Morgan Stanley told an under-35 audience that a generational clash in Europe ? more pensioners and fewer youth to support them ? is a "top" long-term worry at the firm.
In the May 2010 elections in Britain, Liberal Democrats captured student hearts with promises that university tuitions would not rise. The youth turned out. For many, it was the first time they had ever voted. But by December, the ruling coalition of Tory and Lib Dems raised tuition from ?3,000 to ?9,000 (US$4,700 to $14,000) a year. The shock ignited a massive student march through central London. Young protesters bused in from all parts of the country to demonstrate.
"Nations that have groomed a generation through a vast expense of higher education risk trouble if they can't deliver jobs and careers to that generation," something that dates back all the way to the French Revolution, says Jack Goldstone, professor of public policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who recently visited Athens and Cairo.
Yet unlike in the US in the 1980s, when edgy Generation Xers often blamed their granola-eating parents for their travails, Europe's youth don't fault their parents for their plight. Most see them as sympathetic and sacrificing. They point out that their parents are bewildered to find their offspring living at home at age 30 with a master's degree. (Studies show that 46 percent of Europeans under 34 live with at least one parent.)
In some ways, the proliferation of social media networks (Facebook, Twitter), YouTube, and blogs makes things more "complicated," simply because it opens so many windows on the world. Europe's cybergeneration is less trusting of traditional media. "We want the truth. I don't want to believe, I want to know," says John, a 26-year-old in Athens. "I like facts. I like proof. I'm a computer scientist. I am always online. When it comes to Greek politics and the debt crisis, I draw my own conclusions."
"We used to accept the authority of mainstream media, but we no longer do," adds Concepci?n Cort?s Zulueta, who heads a young researchers association at a Madrid university. "Now I say look at this link, and this link, at this website, or this video. There is a lot more information, and a lot more to challenge."
One thing youth resent is when elders caricature their generation. Early in the May 15 movement, with police surrounding the square, media dubbed the youth as "Ni-Nis" (neither this nor that), which in this context meant neither workers nor students. It was a derogatory slap. The protesters, highly educated but often unemployed, shot back that, yes, they were Ni-Nis ? they supported neither center-left Socialists, nor the center-right Popular Party, something akin in the US to a pox on both Democratic and Republican houses.
Later, after slurs that indignados were "lazy drinkers," the youths themselves banned alcohol on the square. Puerta del Sol was for years the site of an evening ritual called botell?n, in which bottles of beer were passed around liberally as the sun went down. This ended. A banner atop a building stated: "Esto no es un botell?n."
"We hear politicians describing a breakdown in youth responsibility, a moral collapse; we hear about feral children running wild, feckless youth. It is complete nonsense," says Ed Howker, coauthor of "Jilted Generation: How Britain Has Bankrupted Its Youth." "The description of the generation, not by their parents, but by politicians, and to some extent the mass media, is irresponsible and uninformed. We have TV shows called the 'Bank of Mom and Dad.' It's offensive," says Mr. Howker, who just turned 30. "All these different glib generalizations of youth bear no relation to the vulnerable situation they feel themselves in."
Not that youth are free from self-criticism. In Luton, a blue-collar city northwest of London, Michael Toms, 24, works the late shift at the train station. The last express to London is around midnight, and Mr. Toms walks the platform notifying stragglers of the timing. Luton is heavily ethnic, South Asian and Muslim, and proudly so, but it is also a home of the far right youth gang, the English Defense League. (Anders Behring Breivik, the man accused of mass murder in Norway in July, visited and approved of the EDL.)
Toms says that EDL members often kick up a fuss at the Luton station after football matches. But as he talks about his generation, and England, it isn't the brawling EDL kids but the general attitude of his peers that concerns Toms. "Too many of my friends don't work, have never worked, and don't know the value of work," he says. "They are into football and video games. They think about tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. They don't want to make decisions until they have to."
Toms, who says he is probably "too organized for my age," adds, "I think the internal drive to make something of yourself is disappearing in Britain.... We can't be great again. That's how people feel."
Alberto, a 24-year-old from Spain, doesn't like hearing excuses from his peers, either. Tall and burly, he wears a monogrammed oxford shirt and is about to start an internship with Price Waterhouse in Madrid. He stands in line outside the business school he graduated from, points inside to the office staff, and says that to get ahead one must avoid bureaucracy. "The people are lazy. That's the most basic problem.... The private sector is going to save Spain. It depends on us, no one else."
Alberto Canfran, 25, a biologist in Madrid who has a grant to work in the US, agrees with the indignados can-do spirit but faults his cohorts more broadly. "Other generations were living in good times, and we expected to take a ride on that," he says. "We saw bad times coming and did nothing. Our future is in our hands. You have to fight for it, just as our parents fought for their future" in emerging from the Franco regime that ended in 1983.
Yet parents don't completely escape criticism. "The older generations have not passed us a dream or hope," says Adrien, 24, a graduate student of energy and climate from Versailles, France. "I'm tired of baby boomers who don't understand anything anymore and who are frightened. Our political classes don't understand ecology; they don't think about the future."
But to paraphrase The Who, many of the kids are "all right" ? they work, engage in clubs and sports. They have families, meet with friends, watch a lot of film, live on the Internet, get along. An international Roman Catholic youth meeting in Madrid this summer drew more than a million participants. And not all young people reject the notion of a unified Continent. Polls show that Eastern European youth identify strongly with the idea of "Europe."
But there is also a lot of experimenting with ideas from the East, alternative medicine, art therapy. One young basketball trainer in Madrid is part of a "slow movement" ? to eat, speak, move, and live more deliberately. Many youth say an impending global catastrophe, whether economic or ecological, is not far off. There is a lot of "collapse talk."
In the long term, the most salient issue may be a mass distrust of leaders and the "system." And the malaise doesn't just surface among fresh-faced 18-year-olds; people in their 30s vent about it, too.
"We are apolitical because we think nothing can be done. We don't trust politicians. I don't blame or feel angry," says Laura Sanchez-Vizca?no Flys, a young award-winning cinematographer in Madrid who has become interested in acupuncture. "We just don't trust. We see how ... power corrupts, and our leaders all end up the same way, chasing money. My generation was raised to work hard, but there's a crisis of values and of what life means."
Europe's youth definitely drift leftward politically. A slightly anarchic spirit exists among many of them, and some political scientists see a shift toward a proliferation of small left parties, like the Pirate Party that recently captured many votes in local elections in Berlin. But not all youth fish from the port side.
Thierry Rassfestin, 21, joined the youth wing of the center-right French ruling party but was turned off, and moved further right. "There was nothing ... only gatherings to eat pizza and watch videos of [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy from time to time." He then joined the far-right National Front, now led by Marine Le Pen, daughter of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen. "Our leaders represent a huge incoherence," he says. "They don't know the definitions of the words they use. They don't understand the meaning of 'republic' or 'country' or 'nation-state.' "
Mr. Rassfestin, as an openly gay male, represents a change in the composition of the French far right. "We should concentrate locally, with town halls," he says. "We mustn't continue to blindly believe what we are told by politicians.... We must hand back the power to the people; give them the sovereignty."
* * *
Europe's dreams may have lost their shine. And the coming generation is the first in 60 years to harbor lower expectations than their parents' generation. But in recent months, with its young in mind, some of Europe's eldest statesmen are coming out of retirement, riding in on white horses to offer hope and vision.
These are no strangers to European complexities. Helmut Kohl, president of the German republic during reunification, recently chided his country for losing its ardor for Europe, for losing its "dependability" in the face of a debt crisis that could unhinge what he and others achieved. There's a "frightening lack of courage," he said in an oblique reference to current Chancellor Angela Merkel. "The great transformations in the world of today are no excuse for the lack of vision ... and the direction we want to take."
Then there is Jacques Delors, a main architect of the modern European Union. Since July, he has been giving interviews stating that Europe's founding values are being "destroyed ... day by day." Mr. Delors in the 1980s reconciled the left in France with a free market economy to integrate Europe, and was president of the European commission. He says the spirit of Europe is of a family, a community reliant on "mutual support," not an impersonal, cold "union," a term he dislikes.
Finally comes St?phane Hessel. The 93-year-old French resistance hero is also the last living author of the UN Declaration on Human Rights. Mr. Hessel was living quietly in Paris, reading the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and tending his garden. But the climate of antipathy and corruption he felt in France ? and the abandonment of ideals he believed were prevalent in the 1990s through UN summits on women, climate, and social development ? outraged him. He penned a booklet called "Get Indignant" ? from which the youth in Puerta del Sol took their name ? that became a No. 1 bestseller. His main message for Europe's youth is not to accept that idealism is dead.
"I tell youngsters," he says, "search.... The worst of attitudes is indifference or to think, 'I can do nothing about it; I manage.' By behaving in this way, you lose one of the essential components that makes you human."
IN PICTURES: Europe protests
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20111029/wl_csm/416927
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Qantas Airways grounds global fleet due to strikes
Stranded passengers line up at the Qantas Airways counter for asking information in Hong Kong International Airport Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011 as their flight to Sydney was cancelled. Qantas Airways grounded its global fleet indefinitely Saturday imposing an employee lockout after weeks of disruptive strikes, and the Australian government sought emergency arbitration. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Stranded passengers line up at the Qantas Airways counter for asking information in Hong Kong International Airport Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011 as their flight to Sydney was cancelled. Qantas Airways grounded its global fleet indefinitely Saturday imposing an employee lockout after weeks of disruptive strikes, and the Australian government sought emergency arbitration. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A Qantas Airbus A380 sit on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport, London Saturday Oct. 29, 2011 after Qantas Airways grounded its global fleet indefinitely after weeks of disruptive strikes. Flights in the air continued to their destinations, but others were stopped even taxiing on the runway, according to one flier. Booked passengers were being rescheduled at Qantas' expense, chief executive Alan Joyce said. The Australian government was seeking emergency arbitration to end the strikes. Qantas is the world's 10th largest airline and among the most profitable. (AP Photo) UK OUT, NO MAGAZINES, NO SALES
Brothers Kevin and Chris Crulley, sit on the floor at the Qantas check-in counter at Sydney Airport in Sydney, Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011, after they were removed from their flight home to England. Qantas Airways grounded its global fleet indefinitely Saturday in a lockout of workers whose strikes have disrupted airline operations for weeks, and the government said it would seek arbitration. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
FILE - In this April 21, 2010 file photo, Qantas Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce address the media in Sydney, Australia. Qantas Airways grounded its global fleet indefinitely Saturday in a lockout of workers whose strikes have disrupted airline operations for weeks, and the government said it would seek arbitration. Flights in the air were continuing to their destinations. Booked passengers were being rescheduled at Qantas' expense, chief executive Alan Joyce said. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, File)
FILE - In this June 12, 2011 file photo, Qantas jets sit on the tarmac at the international airport in Sydney, Australia. Qantas Airways grounded its global fleet indefinitely Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011, in a lockout of workers whose strikes have disrupted airline operations for weeks, and the government said it would seek arbitration. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, File)
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ? Qantas Airways has grounded its global fleet, suddenly locking out striking workers after weeks of flight disruptions that an executive said could close down the world's 10th-largest airline piece by piece.
Following Saturday's announcement by Qantas, the Australian government called for an emergency arbitration hearing, which was adjourned early Sunday morning after evidence was heard from the unions and airline. The hearing was to resume Sunday afternoon, when the government was expected to argue that the airline be ordered to fly in Australia's economic interests.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline could be flying again within hours if the three arbitration judges rule Sunday to permanently terminate the grounding and the unions' strike action.
The unions want the judges to rule for a suspension so that the strikes can be resumed if their negotiations with the airline fail.
"Within six hours, we can get the fleet flying again" after the aviation regulator provides a routine clearance, Joyce told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television Sunday.
"We have to wait and see what that process generates today," he said, referring to the court hearing.
Planes in the air when the grounding was announced continued to their destinations, and at least one taxiing flight stopped on the runway, a passenger said. Among the stranded passengers are 17 world leaders attending a Commonwealth summit in the western Australian city of Perth.
When the grounding was announced, 36 international and 28 domestic Australian flights were in the air, the airline said.
Qantas, which flies 70,000 passengers a day, said 108 airplanes were being grounded at 22 airports, but did not say how many flights were involved. Spokesman Tom Woodward said 13,000 passengers were booked to fly international flights to Australia within 24 hours of the grounding.
The lockout was expected to have little impact in the United States. Only about 1,000 people fly daily between the U.S. and Australia, said aviation consultant Michael Boyd. "It's not a big deal," he said. Qantas is "not a huge player here."
Los Angeles International Airport spokeswoman Diana Sanchez said Saturday that she was not aware of any passengers stranded at the airport because of the strike. Five Los Angeles-bound Qantas flights were already in the air when the lockout began and were expected to arrive as scheduled, she said.
Sanchez said Qantas indicated it planned to cancel the handful of flights scheduled to depart from Los Angeles on Saturday.
Douglas Phillips and his wife, Diane, were among about 400 travelers at Los Angeles International Airport who were scrambling to find another way to Australia after their Qantas flight to Melbourne was halted at the last minute.
Douglas Phillips said they were buckled in and awaiting takeoff early Saturday when the pilot informed passengers that all Qantas flights had been grounded due to a company-wide "industrial action."
"At first everyone thought they were kidding for some reason, but then we realized they were deadly serious," said Phillips, of Dover, Delaware.
After getting a few hours of sleep at a Los Angeles motel, the couple managed to secure a spot on a Saturday night Virgin Australia flight to Sydney. They expected an eight-hour layover there before finally getting to Melbourne, nearly three days late.
The real problems for travelers were more likely to be at far busier Qantas hubs in Singapore and London's Heathrow Airport, said another aviation consultant, Robert Mann.
Booked passengers were being rescheduled on a 24-hour basis, with Qantas handling any costs in transferring bookings to other airlines, said Woodward, the Qantas spokesman.
Bookings already had collapsed after unions warned travelers to fly other airlines through the busy Christmas-New Year period.
Joyce told a news conference in Sydney that the unions' actions had created a crisis for Qantas.
"They are trashing our strategy and our brand," Joyce said. "They are deliberately destabilizing the company, and there is no end in sight."
Union leaders criticized the action as extreme. Qantas is among the most profitable airlines in the world, but Joyce estimated that the grounding would cost Qantas $20 million a day.
Qantas already had reduced and rescheduled flights for weeks after union workers struck and refused to work overtime out of worries a restructuring plan would move some of Qantas' 35,000 jobs overseas.
The grounding of the largest of Australia's four national domestic airlines will take a major economic toll and could disrupt the national Parliament, due to resume in Canberra on Tuesday after a two-week recess. Qantas' budget subsidiary Jetstar continues to fly.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said her government would help the Commonwealth leaders fly home after 17 were due to fly out of Perth on Qantas planes over the next couple of days.
"They took it in good spirits when I briefed them about it," Gillard told reporters.
British tourist Chris Crulley, 25, said the pilot on his Qantas flight informed passengers while taxiing down a Sydney runway that he had to return to the terminal "to take an important phone call." The flight was then grounded.
"We're all set for the flight and settled in and the next thing ? I'm stunned. We're getting back off the plane," the firefighter told The Associated Press from Sydney Airport by phone.
Crulley was happy to be heading home to Newcastle after a five-week vacation when his flight was interrupted. "I've got to get back to the other side of the world by Wednesday for work. It's a nightmare," he said.
Qantas offered him up to 350 Australian dollars ($375) a day for food and accommodation, but Crulley expected to struggle to find a hotel at short notice in Sydney on a Saturday night.
Australians Len and Christie Dunlop were stranded at London's Heathrow Airport when their flight to Sydney was grounded.
The couple, who have lived in Leeds for four years, said they would have to catch up with fewer friends when they return to Perth for three weeks for a friend's wedding.
"We've got dinners and lunch booked every day, so now we've missed two or three days worth of catching up with friends," Len Dunlop told ABC television. "It just a lot of frustration."
Gillard said her center-left government, which is affiliated with the trade union movement, had "taken a rare decision" to seek an end to the strike action out of necessity.
"I believe it is warranted in the circumstances we now face with Qantas ... circumstances with this industrial dispute that could have implications for our national economy," Gillard said.
Transport Minister Anthony Albanese described the grounding as "disappointing" and "extraordinary." Albanese was angry that Qantas gave him only three hours' notice.
All 108 aircraft will be grounded until unions representing pilots, mechanics, baggage handlers and caterers reach agreements with Qantas over pay and conditions, Joyce said.
"We are locking out until the unions withdraw their extreme claim and reach agreement with us," the chief executive said, referring to shutting staff out of their work stations. Staff will not be paid starting Monday.
"This is a crisis for Qantas. If the action continues as the unions have promised, we will have no choice but to close down Qantas part by part," Joyce said.
Richard Woodward, vice president of the pilots' union, accused Qantas of "holding a knife to the nation's throat" and said Joyce had "gone mad."
Steve Purvinas, federal secretary of the mechanics' union, described the grounding as "an extreme measure."
Long-haul budget airline AirAsia tried stepping into the void with what it called "rescue fares" for Qantas passengers. The offer was valid for ticket-holders flying within 48 hours to AirAsia destinations, the airline said.
Malaysia-based AirAsia flies to three Australian destinations, as well as New Zealand.
The recent strike action, in which two unions have had rolling four-hour strikes on differing days, has most severely affected Qantas domestic flights.
In mid-October, Qantas grounded five jets and reduced domestic service by almost 100 flights a week because aircraft mechanics had reduced the hours they were prepared to work.
Qantas infuriated unions in August when it said it would improve its loss-making overseas business by creating an Asia-based airline with its own name and brand. The five-year restructure plan will cost 1,000 jobs.
Qantas also announced in August that it had more than doubled annual profit to AU$250 million, but warned that the business environment was too challenging to forecast earnings for the current fiscal year.
___
Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Katie Oyan in Phoenix and Associated Press Economics Writer Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this report.
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Pasadena police probe possible boot camp abuses
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) ? Police will investigate whether a crime occurred at a youth boot camp after videos surfaced showing instructors shouting at a boy wearing a tire around his neck and children being told to drink water until some vomited.
Investigators will question boot camp operator Kelvin "Sgt. Mac" McFarland, police Cmdr. Darryl Qualls told the Pasadena Star-News (http://bit.ly/vtQb7Q ) on Thursday.
"Looking at the video we can only see McFarland, so we will start the investigation with McFarland," Qualls said.
McFarland earlier denied to the newspaper that he appeared in the videos. A call left for him Friday was not immediately returned.
McFarland was charged earlier this year with child abuse, extortion and other crimes.
Prosecutors contend that he handcuffed a truant 14-year-old girl in May and told her family that she would be sent to juvenile detention unless she was enrolled in his camp. She was never enrolled.
The Star-News this week released short video clips it said were made in 2009.
On one, several instructors in military-style fatigues surround and shout at a boy who is wearing a heavy auto tire. At one point, the boy falls down crying but is ordered to stand again.
In the other, several girls and boys are repeatedly ordered to drink water from colored plastic bottles. Several youngsters vomit.
"I would certainly not subject my son or daughter or any child I know to this type of activity," City Council member Victor Gordo told the newspaper.
"The short clips that I reviewed appeared to be more of a situation of intimidation and humiliation appearing to be employed under the guise of physical activity and discipline," Gordo said.
The Star-News said the videos appear to have been made in Pasadena but did not indicate how it obtained them.
McFarland runs Family First Growth Camp in Pasadena, which like other boot camps uses military-style discipline and exercises with a goal of instilling character and keeping at-risk youngsters away from drugs, alcohol and crime.
The camp "doesn't believe in corporal punishment, nor will it be tolerated," according to a camp website.
"The young men/women who come to us are good kids who have begun to make some poor choices with friends, school, drugs, alcohol, attitude with peers and family members," the website said, adding that through the camp, "these kids seek out, find, then learn to love themselves so they can love their families and start to move in a positive direction."
The camp is funded through a combination of fees and charitable donations. Enrollment is through parents, although in some states juvenile justice systems send some offenders to boot camps.
However, some studies have shown that juvenile offenders sent to boot camps were no less likely to commit new crimes than those who were placed in juvenile detention or given probation.
The Star-News did not specify whether the videos were taken at a Family First training session and noted that some children seemed to be wearing T-shirts from another camp.
Keith "Sarge" Gibbs, who runs Sarge's Community Base/Commit II Achieve Boot Camp, said that some of the children appear to be wearing his camp T-shirts.
McFarland worked for him in 2009 but left to form his own camp after Gibbs learned that he had lied about taking a required background check, Gibbs said.
"He left and took 28 families and kids with him, with my shirts and some paperwork," Gibbs told The Associated Press on Friday.
Gibbs said he doubted that the video was shot during one of his camps.
"Those individuals (in the videos) belong to Sgt. McFarland's team. Those are his teammates," he said.
Although Gibbs uses some tire drills for strength training and does make youngsters drink a lot of water after long hikes, parents are always involved in the instruction and Gibbs said he has a policy against certain actions.
"You can't demean or haze the kid ... your goal is to motivate these kids, to inspire them, empower them," he said. "If that was the entire program, I don't see where the kids are learning anything."
"Do they need to be forced to drink water until they vomit? I don't think so," he said.
A bill introduced earlier this month by Rep. George Miller, D-Richmond, would require training for boot camp staff. It also would require boot camp instructors to report child abuse and create a federal database where parents can check the credentials of boot camp operators.
"This legislation will help put an end to these horrific abuses that put the lives of too many children in jeopardy," Miller said in a statement.
Associated Pressohio ohio john beck john beck mariska hargitay gmcr ohio news
Saturday, October 29, 2011
[OOC] Life in Horse Stables
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