Author: xaurav

Crunch vote looms

 
An Athens worker/graffiti announcing general strike, 20 Jun 11Graffiti announces “general strike”: Political instability threatens to add to Greece’s woes

ATHENS Plastered across the street lights, shop fronts, and graffiti-scarred walls are the posters announcing a demonstration outside parliament at 7pm tonight.

In reality everyone in Greece knows the country is heading for a parliamentary showdown. The government of Socialist leader George Papandreou is facing a confidence vote. If it loses there will be elections – with huge implications for Greece itself and the economies of the eurozone.

For the vote tonight is not just about the quality of a recently reshuffled government. It is a hurdle the prime minister must clear. If he does he will then put a package of austerity measures to parliament next week.

Approval of that mixture of spending cuts, tax increases and privatisations is needed for the EU and IMF to release new funds to Greece. Without extra funding Greece will run out of its cash reserves next month and will default on its debts.

From polls it seems that a majority of Greeks are not prepared to accept further austerity. They have already had a year of pain, particularly in the private sector.

Many have seen their wages drop by 15%. In the past year 400,000 people have lost their jobs. Unemployment stands at 16.2%.

Industrial production has slumped 11%. The government had promised them no more cuts but, under pressure from creditors, has returned with 6.5bn euros (£5.7bn; $9.3bn) of further savings this year and 28bn euros through 2015.

The cuts include 150,000 job losses in the bloated public sector. Many Greeks believe they are caught up in a cycle of decline, imposed by outsiders.

Both the government and the EU are involved in a game of “dare”. Europe’s leaders have made it clear that a Greek default would be a catastrophe, leading to banking losses elsewhere in Europe and threatening the European banking system. President Sarkozy has said – rather dramatically – that such a blow to the euro would threaten the entire European project. And yet they have served Greece with an ultimatum. If you want fresh funds both the government, the opposition and the Greek public must sign up to the austerity programme by 3 July.

“Almost no economist believes that Greece can escape defaulting sooner rather than later”

It is of course a bluff. Europe’s leaders are so determined to defend their single currency they will agreed to lend Greece more money whatever, rather than risk a default.

Mr Papandreou has told the Greek people that bankruptcy would be devastating for the country. Many appear to doubt him. The threat of bankruptcy may have lost its sting.

Many Greeks would choose default – and all its unknown consequences – over more years of austerity. Others believe that Greece is being forced to accept hardship to save the euro.

The first part of this drama will be played out today. A second round will follow next week.

The expectation must be that the government will survive today’s vote and push through its austerity measures. And then what? Will the programme be fully implemented? Will Greece deliver 50bn euros in privatisations? Will tax evasion be rooted out? Will growth return? There must be doubts about all these questions.

And then there is the long term. If Greece embraces this programme how will it reduce its debt mountain, currently standing at 340bn euros?

I met an economist in Greece the other day who had run a computer model on the economy. He had factored in a best-case scenario. Everything defied expectations. Growth at 3%. State assets fetching top dollar etc. At the end of it the debt-to-GDP ratio would still have gone up to reach 198% of GDP.

That is what is so curious about this crisis. Almost no economist believes that Greece can escape defaulting sooner rather than later.

The only advantage in managing a default in 2015 is that Europe’s banks might be healthier and stronger to withstand the shock. Curious.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Mexico reporter and family killed

This screen grab taken from the Notiver daily newspaper's website on 20 June carries the report of Mr Lopez Velasco's murderNotiver called for a swift investigation to catch those behind the murders
Related Stories

A Mexican journalist has been shot dead, along with his wife and 21-year-old son, by gunmen who burst into his home.

Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, who wrote about politics and crime, was killed in his house in the port city of Veracruz.

Authorities have not yet determined a motive for the murders, which they condemned as a “cowardly” attack.

Rights groups rank Mexico as one of the most dangerous countries in the Americas for journalists.

Armed men broke into Mr Lopez Velasco’s house in Veracruz early on Monday morning, killing him, his wife Agustina and his son, Misael.

Mr Lopez Velasco, 55, wrote for the daily newspaper Notiver, where he was also an editor. His columns focussed on crime, drug trafficking and political corruption.

In its coverage, Notiver called for a swift and transparent investigation to find those guilty of the three killings.

Those responsible “should be punished with the full weight of the law”, the newspaper said.

In a statement on Monday, Mexico’s National Commission on Human Rights said that, since 2000, 70 journalists had been killed and 13 were missing. There have also been 22 attacks on media organisations.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Rival Sudanese ‘to leave Abyei’

Armed men walk past burning houses in Abyei (28/05/11)Northern forces seized the disputed town of Abyei last month, raising fears of a new north-south war

Rival Sudanese leaders have signed a deal for their forces to withdraw from the disputed border town of Abyei, mediator Thabo Mbeki says.

Northern forces seized the town last month, raising fears of a new war, as South Sudan prepares for independence on 9 July.

Both northern and southern troops are to leave the area, to be replaced by Ethiopian soldiers, Mr Mbeki said.

This deal was first reported last week but details had not been confirmed.

However, two days after the deal was announced, a South Sudan spokesman said rival forces had clashed once more.

More than 100,000 people have fled the fighting in Abyei, the UN says.

Another 60,000 have fled violence between pro-south communities and northern forces in the neighbouring South Kordofan state.

Mr Mbeki, a former South African president, announced the deal in a video link to the UN Security Council.

map

South Sudan is due to gain independence under a peace deal that ended two decades of north-south conflict – a conflict war that left some 1.5 million people dead.

The war ended with a 2005 peace deal, under which the mainly Christian and animist south held a referendum in January on whether to secede from the largely Arabic-speaking, Muslim north.

Some 99% of voters opted for independence. President Bashir said he would accept the verdict of the south, where most of Sudan’s oil fields lie.

Sudan: A country divided
Geography Ethnic groups Infant mortality Water & sanitation Education Food insecurity Oil fields

Show regions

Satellite image showing geography of Sudan, source: Nasa

The great divide across Sudan is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. Southern Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest.

Map showing Ethnicity of Sudan, source:

Sudan’s arid northern regions are home mainly to Arabic-speaking Muslims. But in Southern Sudan there is no dominant culture. The Dinkas and the Nuers are the largest of more than 200 ethnic groups, each with its own traditional beliefs and languages.

Map showing infant Mortality in Sudan, source: Sudan household health survey 2006

The health inequalities in Sudan are illustrated by infant mortality rates. In Southern Sudan, one in 10 children die before their first birthday. Whereas in the more developed northern states, such as Gezira and White Nile, half of those children would be expected to survive.

Map showing percentage of households using improved water and sanitation in Sudan, source: Sudan household health survey 2006

The gulf in water resources between north and south is stark. In Khartoum, River Nile, and Gezira states, two-thirds of people have access to piped drinking water and pit latrines. In the south, boreholes and unprotected wells are the main drinking sources. More than 80% of southerners have no toilet facilities whatsoever.

Map showing percentage of who complete primary school education in Sudan, source: Sudan household health survey 2006

Throughout Sudan, access to primary school education is strongly linked to household earnings. In the poorest parts of the south, less than 1% of children finish primary school. Whereas in the wealthier north, up to 50% of children complete primary level education.

Map showing percentage of households with poor food consumption in Sudan, source: Sudan household health survey 2006

Conflict and poverty are the main causes of food insecurity in Sudan. The residents of war-affected Darfur and Southern Sudan are still greatly dependent on food aid. Far more than in northern states, which tend to be wealthier, more urbanised and less reliant on agriculture.

Map showing position of oilfileds in Sudan, source: Drilling info international

Sudan exports billions of dollars of oil per year. Southern states produce more than 80% of it, but receive only 50% of the revenue, exacerbating tensions with the north. The oil-producing region of Abyei was due to hold a separate vote on whether to join the north or the south, but it has been postponed indefinitely.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

North Russia plane crash kills 44

Map of Russia
Related Stories

At least 40 people have been killed in a plane crash in north-western Russia, local media report.

The aircraft tried to land on a road 2km (1.2 miles) from Petrozavodsk airport in the republic of Karelia, but crashed and caught fire, officials say.

The Tupolev Tu-134, belonging to RussAir, was carrying 43 passengers and five crew. One official said eight people were being treated in hospital.

The plane came down while flying from the capital, Moscow, to Petrozavodsk.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Tunisian ex-president sentenced in absence

File photo (2009) of then Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his wife Leila in Carthage, near TunisBen Ali, seen with his wife in this photo from 2009, ruled Tunisia for 23 years

A Tunisian court has sentenced ousted Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his wife Leila to 35 years in prison for theft and other charges.

The couple, who left Tunisia for Saudi Arabia after a popular uprising in January, were being tried in absentia.

The court also ordered them to pay a $66m (£41m) fine.

The trial began on Monday on accusations of theft, corruption and drug smuggling, which the former president had denied.

The presiding judge also said that a verdict on other charges – relating to illegal possession of drugs and weapons – would be announced on 30 June.

In a statement issued earlier on Monday, Ben Ali said he had taken his family to Saudi Arabia on 14 January for safety.

He said he had intended to return to Tunisia immediately, but the plane left without him, “disobeying my instructions”.

Ben Ali’s lawyers had argued that the trial was an attempt by Tunisia’s interim government to divert attention from their failure to restore stability in the country.

The Saudi authorities have yet to respond to an extradition request from Tunisia for the couple.

The second case – targeting Ben Ali only – involves weapons and drugs reportedly found in his presidential palace.

“Ben Ali can go to London and no court of justice can recognise this judgement”

Akram Azouri Ben Ali’s lawyer

Almost 2kg (4.4lb) of drugs, believed to be cannabis, and $27m (£16.4m; 18.7m euros) in cash were allegedly discovered.

Speaking from Beirut, Ben Ali’s lawyer Akram Azouri told the BBC the sentence was “a joke”.

“Don’t forget that the drug and the money were found three months after the president left his palace.

“And don’t forget that I am the lawyer for President Ben Ali, and I requested the Tunisian authority to allow me to defend him, and the authorisation was not given to me. So this is a joke, this is a continuation of the political judgement, that has already been issued and executed.

“And I’m very happy now I think that President Ben Ali can go to London and no court of justice can recognise this judgement,” Mr Azouri said.

Ben Ali is also being investigated on suspicion of murder, abuse of power, trafficking of archaeological artefacts and money laundering.

Speaking through his lawyers on Sunday, Ben Ali mounted a defence of his 23 years as president, which many Tunisians say was marked by autocratic rule, corruption and human rights abuses.

“He would like everyone to know this criminal prosecution is only a false and shameful image of victor’s justice,” a statement said.

“Is the purpose behind that [trial] to divert the attention of Tunisians from the turmoil that nobody can accuse him of or hold him responsible for?

“He knows that every new political authority wants to blame its predecessor and hold it responsible for difficulties it fails to resolve.”

The statement also appealed to Tunisians not to forget Ben Ali’s achievements.

“He hopes from his heart that Tunisia escapes chaos and darkness and continues on its path towards modernity,” the statement said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Young prisoners ‘often re-offend’

Teenagers on bikesA study found releasing young offenders without support was a “recipe for disaster”
Related Stories

One in six young offenders are back behind bars within a month, according to the chief inspector of prisons.

Nick Hardwick said just one in three young offenders had accommodation, education, training or an employment placement on their release.

The outcome for young offenders just out of prison was “very disappointing”, he said, while calling for more effort to stop them joining a “life of crime”.

The government said plans were in hand to “reform” youth justice.

In March this year a two-year study found releasing young offenders into the community without support was a “recipe for disaster”.

If criminals were released from secure accommodation and went to live in a flat without any supervision it was “inevitable” they would reoffend, it said.

As a result, a new review was ordered, based on the experiences of a small group of young men who were released from custody and checked up on a month later.

Only 13 of the 41 young offenders had suitable accommodation and education, training or employment prospects on their release.

Two were completely homeless and one in five were in “unsuitable” accommodation, according to the report.

One man spent the entire month in bed and breakfast accommodation.

Six of the 37 young offenders whose cases were followed up a month later had been sent back to custody and a seventh was on the run, the inspectors found.

Although one in three had education, training or an employment placement to go to on their release only half were still attending a month later.

“Where placements had fallen through, case supervisors felt this was due to unstable accommodation, a lack of family support, the young person’s lack of motivation or problems due to the timing of course start dates,” Mr Hardwick said.

Mr Hardwick said: “This report raises a key question – how effective is the resettlement work conducted in custody in terms of the actual outcomes for young people?

“This was not monitored by establishments and our follow-up information highlights the need to look beyond the gate in order to evaluate the effectiveness of resettlement work.”

He said social workers’ attendance at planning meetings for looked-after children was “poor”.

A joint approach between government and external agencies was necessary, he said, adding: “The starting point should be an acceptance that vulnerable young people released from custody are children in need.

“This would go some way towards focusing the joint effort that is needed to prevent them from returning to custody and becoming entrenched at an early age in a life of crime.”

In February this year a report by the children’s charity Barnardo’s said the government could save money if it put more effort into supporting young offenders leaving custody.

Barnardo’s says children as young as 13 were caught in a cycle of homelessness and reoffending.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said the government recognised young people in custody were “some of the most vulnerable young people in society and that effective resettlement and support is essential to breaking the cycle of offending”.

“Our plans to reform youth justice including proposals to incentivise local authorities to reduce offending and reoffending will be published as part of our sentencing reforms,” she said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Target migration cut ‘unlikely’

Official stamps a passportThe Migration Observatory said reforms will leave net migration at about 165,000 by 2015
Related Stories

Government plans to cut net migration to the “tens of thousands” by 2015 are likely to fail, a report has found.

Prime Minister David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May have pledged to reduce net migration from the current 242,000 to less than 100,000 people.

But immigration system reforms will leave net migration at about 165,000 by 2015, according to analysis by Oxford University’s Migration Observatory.

Immigration minister Damian Green repeated the government’s pledge.

The government is attempting to reduce the net immigration level in four ways: reducing labour immigration, student immigration and family immigration from outside the EU; and making it harder for migrants to settle in the UK – encouraging greater outflows, the Migration Observatory said.

It said government figures show changes to work and student visas are expected to cut net migration by a respective 11,000 and 56,000 people by 2015.

The Migration Observatory also found that changes to family visas will cut the numbers by 8,000 at most, while plans to make it harder for migrants to settle in the UK are unlikely to reduce migration flows until 2016.

Dr Scott Blinder, senior researcher at the observatory, said: “The government’s current policies only look likely to reduce net migration by about 75,000 at best, which would mean that further reductions of more than 67,000 would be needed to meet the ‘tens-of-thousands’ net migration target.”

“This government will tackle abuse of the system and get net migration reduced back down to the tens of thousands in the lifetime of this parliament”

Damian Green Immigration minister

To achieve the target, the government will either have to further tighten immigration rules or “reconsider the target or the timeframe in which they intend to deliver it”, Dr Blinder said.

The government could also hope that more British and EU nationals emigrate from the UK or that current assessments are “way off the mark”. But these two options are “pretty unlikely”, he added.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the report showed that the government has “no workable policies” to meet its promise and that its immigration policy was in “complete disarray”.

She went on: “Last week we learnt that their changes to the student visas system would cost the UK economy £2.4bn and would still only have half the impact on net migration that they promised.

“Recent reports also show the government is failing to ensure the UK Border Agency has the resources it needs to effectively enforce immigration rules, with 5,000 cuts in staff and no chief executive in place after five months.

“At the heart of their policies is chaos, confusion, rows between ministers and misleading measures which will fail to properly safeguard both the economy and the UK’s borders,” she said.

Responding to the report, Immigration minister Damian Green said the immigration system had been allowed to get out of control for too long.

“This government will tackle abuse of the system and get net migration reduced back down to the tens of thousands in the lifetime of this parliament,” he said.

On Monday, Mr Cameron said the Liberal Democrats were preventing the Tories from taking tougher action on immigration.

“We’ve all had to make compromises,” he told BBC Radio 2’s Steve Wright.

“If I was running a Conservative-only government I think we would be making further steps on things like immigration control or making sure that our welfare reforms were absolutely making sure that if you’re not prepared to work you can’t go on welfare.

“I think we’d be tougher than that. We make compromises, we make agreements, but as a government I think we’re delivering a lot of good things for the country,” he said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Crime mystery

Graph showing US crime levels

For 20 years, crime in the US has been falling and new figures from the FBI show a sharp drop in the last two years, despite the recession. Why?

Through Democrat and Republican administrations and through booms and busts, crime has been falling since 1991.

Car thiefThere is little evidence the recession has influenced crime rates

Murder and robbery rates nearly halved from 1991-98, a phenomenon that has saved millions of lives and spared many more potential victims of crime.

The pace of the reduction slowed in the late 90s but new FBI figures show the sharp drop in crime that began around 2008 continued last year, despite high unemployment.

No-one agrees on the reasons for this. Here are 10 possible theories.

1. The Obama effect could explain the increased pace of the reduction of the last few years, says one of the country’s top criminologists, Alfred Blumstein. “The prior expectation was that the recession would have the opposite effect. The question then is what distinctive event occurred in ’09?” The election of a black president could have inspired some young black men, who are disproportionately involved in arrests for robbery and homicide, says the professor. It’s very speculative, he adds, and probably only one factor of many, as one of the cities with a huge drop in crime is Phoenix, in Arizona, which does not have a large black population. “In the field of criminology, you don’t get consistent indicators as you would in physics. There are so many factors that could have contributed.” A separate study on school test scores supports the view that some black teenagers were motivated to try harder by the new presidency.

2. The fall in violent crime that began in the early 90s can be partly explained by the fall in demand for crack, says Prof Blumstein, co-author of The Crime Drop in America. Word got round about the dangers of crack use and – aided by aggressive policing – the gun violence associated with its supply decreased. The converse had happened in 1985, when the incarceration of dealers led to a spiral of violence, as younger and more reckless suppliers took their place.

Broken windows theory

Rudy Giuliani

In 1982, social scientists argued that repairing vandalism in urban areas prevented further crimeThe New York Subway adopted this premise in the late 80sAnd then Mayor Rudy Giuliani (above) used it as part of his “zero tolerance” policySupporters of the theory point to falling crime rates in cities like NY as evidenceBut sceptics say crime fell in many cities over that period and it’s hard to prove a link

3. Smarter policing helped the border city of Laredo in Texas to reduce car theft by 40% last year. Police spokesman Joe Baeza says they introduced a scheme whereby motorists could register their car number plates into a police database and this empowered patrol cars to stop these cars if they were spotted late at night, to verify the owners. Mr Baeza adds that they also targeted car theft networks, educated the community about prevention and promoted anti-theft devices.

4. Number crunching has also helped in Laredo, where overall crime fell 16% last year, says Mr Baeza. “CompStat is a crime mapping project that pinpoints crime peaks in different parts of the city. The police chief then sends a team of officers to reinforce hotspots for burglaries or thefts or robberies, and they hold steady the flow of criminality.” The CompStat methods began in New York City and featured heavily in gritty television drama The Wire, set in Baltimore.

5. There is a controversial theory put forward by economist Steven Levitt that the increased availability of legal abortion after the Supreme Court ruling in 1973 on Roe v Wade meant that fewer children were born to young, poor, single mothers. This, says the theory, stopped unwanted babies in the 1970s and 80s from becoming adolescent criminals in the decades that followed. But some of his peers have questioned whether the evidence really supports the theory.

6. A sociologist at Tufts University, John Conklin, says a significant factor behind the fall in crime in the 1990s was the fact that more criminals were behind bars and therefore unable to offend. In his book Why Crime Rates Fell, he says sentencing was lenient in the 60s and 70s, when crime rose, and then more prisons were built and more offenders were imprisoned. But others question why crime has continued to fall recently when budget constraints have kept the prison population relatively flat.

What’s happening in the UK?There are several sources of crime figures and they all point to a decline in violenceHospital admissions for violent injury have been falling for 10 yearsThe British Crime Survey indicates a 7% drop in 2010Violence falling for a decade

7. An economist at Amherst College in Massachusetts links the fall in violent crime to a decline in children’s exposure to lead in petrol. Jessica Wolpaw Reyes says: “Even low to moderate levels of exposure can lead to behavioural problems, reduced IQ, hyperactivity and juvenile delinquency. You can link the decline in lead between 1975 and 1985 to a decline in violent crime 20 years later.” About 90% of American children in the 1970s had blood levels that would today cause concern, she says. Her research also found a link at state level between the timing of laws banning lead and subsequent crime statistics.

8. The baby boomers grew up. With birth rates peaking between 1957 and 1961, the proportion of men in the US in their late teens and early 20s was highest the late 70s and early 80s. As time went on, the proportion of people at “criminal age” decreased.

9. A study released last month suggested video games were keeping young people off the streets and therefore away from crime. Researchers in Texas working with the Centre for European Economic Research said this “incapacitation effect” more than offset any direct impact the content of the games may have had in encouraging violent behaviour.

10. Some people have suggested to Professor Blumstein there is another technological deterrent and that is the proliferation of camera phones, which makes some criminals think twice before risking possible incrimination on film. The impact of other kinds of cameras is unclear. In the UK, the influence of CCTV on crime is disputed.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

DLT’s role in Burmese democracy movement revealed

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi says Dave Lee Travis’ BBC World Service music request show gave her a lifeline under house arrest.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Obama ‘nears Afghan troop move’

Afghanistan National Army (ANA) soldiers undergoing trainingAfghan forces are due to take over all security operations by 2014

US President Barack Obama is close to a decision on the size of his planned withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and is expected to speak on the issue on Wednesday.

“He’s finalising his decision. He’s reviewing his options,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

The US has about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and Mr Obama has said troop withdrawals will start in July.

But there are deep divisions in the US over the size and speed of the pullout.

News of Mr Obama’s deliberations comes a day after departing US Defence Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the US was holding “outreach” talks with members of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It was the first time the US had acknowledged such contact.

Mr Obama is expected to make a public speech on Afghanistan on Wednesday, unnamed senior White House officials told US media.

US military leaders are thought to favour a very gradual reduction in troops but other advisers advocate a more significant decrease in the coming months.

Attention is expected to focus on how many troops will leave Afghanistan in July, but analysts say Mr Obama’s plans for the future of the 30,000 surge forces he sent in 2009 in the country will also be closely scrutinised.

Earlier this month, Mr Gates said at Nato headquarters that “substantial progress” was being made on the ground in Afghanistan.

But he argued that “these gains could be threatened if we do not proceed with the transition to Afghan security lead in a deliberate, organised and co-ordinated manner”.

“Even as the United States begins to draw down in the next month, I assured my fellow ministers there will be no rush to the exits on our part.”

But some believe security gains mean a more rapid withdrawal of US forces is practical.

There is also growing political pressure for a significant withdrawal.

A bipartisan group of 27 US senators sent Mr Obama a letter last week pressing for a shift in strategy.

“Given our successes, it is the right moment to initiate a sizable and sustained reduction in forces, with the goal of steadily redeploying all regular combat troops,” the senators wrote. “The costs of prolonging the war far outweigh the benefits.”

While many Afghans accept that American troops are needed to defeat the Taliban, correspondents say that they resent their presence in the country.

The war is in its 10th year, civilian casualties are at an all-time high, and correspondents say the population has grown weary of the fighting. Insurgents are to blame for most of the deaths, but killings by foreign troops generate widespread outrage.

The US is due to start withdrawing its 97,000 troops from Afghanistan in July.

It aims to gradually hand over all security operations to Afghan security forces by 2014.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Court suspends Chile dam works

A court in Chile suspends construction work on a dam in the Aysen region of Patagonia, following objections by environmentalists.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Remains found of early Europeans

A human incisor (L.Crépin/CNRS)Teeth were among the ancient human remains found at the cave site
Related Stories

Ancient remains uncovered in Ukraine represent some of the oldest evidence of modern people in Europe, experts have claimed.

Archaeologists found human bones and teeth, tools, ivory ornaments and animal remains at the Buran-Kaya cave site.

The 32,000-year-old fossils bear cut marks suggesting they were defleshed as part of a post-mortem ritual.

Details have been published in the journal PLoS One.

Archaeologist Dr Alexander Yanevich from the National Ukrainian Academy of Science in Kiev discovered the four Buran-Kaya caves in the Crimean mountains in 1991.

Since then, roughly two hundred human bone fragments have been unearthed at the site.

Among the shards of human bones and teeth, archaeologists have found ornaments fashioned from ivory, along with the abundant remains of animals.

The artefacts made by humans at the site allowed archaeologists to tie the ancient people to a cultural tradition known as the Gravettian.

This culture came to span the entire European continent and is named after the site of La Gravette in France, where this stone age culture was first studied.

Researchers were able to directly date the human fossils using radiocarbon techniques. The shape and form of the remains told the the scientists they were dealing with modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens).

One thing that intrigued researchers was the scarcity of human long bones (bones from the limbs) in the caves.

The site yielded countless limb bones from antelope, foxes and hares.

Cut marks on human bone (L.Crépin/CNRS)Modern humans spread west as the European climate got cooler and drier

But the human remains consisted of vertebrae, teeth and skull bones no larger than 12cm.

What is more, the positions of cut marks found on the human fragments were distinct from those found on the animal bones.

And while the bone marrow had been removed from butchered animals, it had been left alone in the case of the human remains at the tsite, explained co-author Sandrine Prat from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris.

She suspects this demonstrates that human bones were processed differently from those of animals. Human flesh was removed as part of ritual “cleaning”, not to be eaten.

“These people had knives, lightweight tools, open air camps, they used mammoth bones to make tents”

Professor Clive Finlayson Director, Gibraltar Museum

The finds offer anthropologists a glimpse into a very early and important human culture, said Professor Clive Finlayson, an evolutionary ecologist and director of the Gibraltar Museum.

“Gravettian culture is theculture that defines modern humans.

“These people had knives, lightweight tools, open air camps, they used mammoth bones to make tents,” he said, adding that this was the earliest example of the Gravettian cultural tradition.

Professor Finlayson said that uncovering evidence of this culture in Ukraine gave weight to the idea that early modern people spread into Europe from the Russian plains, not north through the Balkans from the Middle East.

“What has excited me is that we have found evidence of humans where I would expect them to be, exploiting foods that I would expect them to be exploiting,” Professor Finlayson told BBC News.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Game it up!

Katia MoskvitchBy Katia Moskvitch

Digitalkoot

How Microtask’s Digitalkoot game helps weed mistakes out of the Finnish National Library’s e-archives

One more step, and a tiny creature will cross the bridge and get to safety.

Just one more step – but letters do not match, the fragile structure blows up and the brown mole falls into a digital abyss.

But as Juha Valtamo, a 21-year-old Finnish student, correctly types the next word that appears on the screen of his laptop, another mole happily reaches the destination.

Digitalkoot may sound like a typical online game – but there is more to it than just building bridges and saving moles.

Technology of Business

Special Report: The Technology of Business 3D: From cinema to cereal box Qatar ‘may become’ new tech hub Business discovers the ‘web of things’ Outdoor advertising goes digital Can anyone build their own app? Africa’s technology revolution Cloud computing: ready for primetime?

Every time players complete a level, they help with a real-life task – digitising huge archives of Finland’s National Library.

Developed by Finnish start-up business Microtask, Digitalkoot – which means digital volunteers in Finnish – combines two very hot trends in today’s business world: gamification and crowdsourcing.

Words that players need to type come from millions of pages of newspapers, magazines and journals, digitised by optical character recognition.

But since machines are prone to make mistakes, a human eye is necessary to weed them out.

While playing, gamers inadvertently cross-check each other, thus ensuring complete accuracy of the word before it gets the final approval.

“It’s fun and addictive as a game itself, just like many other mini-games online, but I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time because I know I’m doing something helpful,” says Mr Valtamo.

“At the university, I’ve noticed how useful e-archives are, so I can see the immediate advantage of the project.

“And I must admit that it’s always nice to see my name and face on the top score board.”

Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can play, he says, and don’t worry if you don’t speak Finnish – there is no need to understand the words.

According to research firm Gartner, 50% of companies that manage innovation and research will use gamification – the use of game-play mechanics for practical applications – by 2015.

“In Digitalkoot, we have people playing games – and as a side-effect they do useful work”

Ville Miettinen CEO, Microtask

One of the pioneers of the trend in its modern, digital-era shape is Luis Von Ahn, the man behind a tagging tool, ESP.

This online game was later bought by Google and became known as Image Labeler.

“It all started in 2002, when image-search used file names and html text – so if you searched for a picture of a dog on Google, you got lots of pictures that somebody named dog.jpg or dog.gif,” says Mr Van Ahn.

This was not very precise – and he decided to get people to add tags – brief one-word descriptions – to improve the search.

To motivate users to label millions of photos floating on the web, the young entrepreneur turned it into a game.

“It’s a two-player game. When you go on the website, you get randomly paired with another player,” explains Mr Von Ahn.

“The goal is to guess the exact same word as your partner, given that you both see the same image.

“Turns out that the best strategy is to type a lot of words related to the common image, until the words of player one are the same as the words of player two.

“Once that happens and the players agree, they get points.”

But Microtask’s founder and CEO, Ville Miettinen, says that his company’s approach is slightly different.

ESP gameWeb users played ESP to label pictures on the internet

While Image Labeler and crowdsourcing firms, such as CrowdFlower, use game mechanics to get users to do real work, “they are not playing games – they are completing fairly trivial web-based tasks”, he explains.

“In Digitalkoot, we have people playing actual computer games – and as a side-effect they do useful work.”

A similar example would be Fold.it – an online protein-folding game that lets you fold digital proteins.

By playing, you contribute to a remarkable collection of new protein structures – and help scientists get closer to curing diseases like Alzheimer’s and Aids.

But the concept of gamification is more than using the masses to complete simple tasks.

Essentially, it could be defined as applying a competitive game-like setting to any non-game business model to create loyalty, increase the value of the client or generate new ideas.

The word might be new, as well as its applications in today’s digital world – but people have been exploiting the notion of tackling a boring task with game mechanics for ages.

We all know it is always easier to get a child to do something through play.

“With Foursquare, you check in somewhere and get points – and participating companies offer you rewards for checking in”

Brian Burke Gartner

And it turns out that adults are keen on playing, too.

Real-world examples would be a supermarket or airline loyalty programme – the more money you spend, the more points and rewards you get.

Computers, the internet and mobile devices are the companies’ dearest friends when it comes to “gamifying” different situations to motivate people, or to change behaviours in a particular way.

Some firms use them internally – getting employees to generate and develop ideas through game-like applications, and rewarding them with virtual badges or prizes.

One example of success could be the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions’ Idea Street.

This social-collaboration platform is essentially an internal market game, inciting workers to invest in ideas – and develop them to the point they are ready to be implemented.

“It is different from age-old suggestion box,” says Gartner analyst Brian Burke.

“Here, people actively participate in idea development, self-select the ones that will get invested in the most and get the most collaboration on.”

And it works – according to Gartner, within the first 18 months, some 4,500 workers have used Idea Street – and have generated 1,400 ideas, 63 of which have got implemented.

There are also businesses that eye the concept in a much broader sense.

Luis Von AhnLuis Von Ahn is one of the pioneers of applying game mechanics to crowdsourcing

They go external – and aim either to interact with their existent client base, or get new customers.

One of the most famous examples is probably Foursquare, a location-based website that uses game mechanics to drive the site’s users to real-life merchants, Foursquare business partners.

“You check-in somewhere, get points, become a mayor – and participating companies offer you rewards for checking in,” says Gartner’s Brian Burke.

“For example, you can get free coffee when you check-in at a local coffee shop.”

Another famous site that successfully connects gamers with businesses is Stardoll – a teen-oriented web page where users create an avatar of themselves and then go shopping for virtual clothes with virtual money.

The catch is that although things they buy online are virtual, the brands are very much real.

Having dressed up the avatar into a cool-looking Miss Sixty mini-skirt, the player may be far more willing to go on a real shopping spree to the brand’s nearby store the next day.

Besides innovation, employee performance and marketing, Gartner outlines a number of other areas where gamification is likely to boom in the years to come: training, health and social change.

At the end of the day, we all like to have fun – and in our digital and increasingly mobile world, gamification is proving to be just the right tool to guide that fun down the right channels.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.