Facebook, Twitter face off ahead of Super Bowl

San Francisco - More than 100 million people will be glued to their TV screens on Sunday, when the Denver Broncos take on the Seattle Seahawks in America's premier sporting contest, the Super Bowl. But two fierce rivals, Facebook and Twitter, will also be clashing head-to-head on a "second screen" that TV viewers will tune in for the big game. The two social networks are jostling to be the venue of choice for fans to comment on big plays, the star-studded halftime show and of course the commercials - multi-million dollar productions by major brands that are often a draw in their own right. The Super Bowl is the biggest stage for a broader battle that has intensified over the past year between the two behemoths of social media. By dominating online chatter during events such as the American football game, each company hopes to attract users and advertisers and capture a slice of the $70bn spent annually on US television advertising. Aggressive moves Both companies can serve up new ads in real time and can target specific audiences. For years, the "second-screen" leader has been Twitter, which positioned its chatty, 140-character message platform as the go-to place for viewers to discuss events as they happen, from presidential debates to the Academy Awards. But Facebook, the world's largest social network with 1.2 billion users - roughly five times the size of Twitter - is now making aggressive moves to get into the real-time conversation itself. "Twitter is better at engaging in the real-time conversation," said Quinn Kilbury, the brand director for Newcastle Brown Ale. "But Facebook is catching up quickly - and you can't match their scale." This Super Bowl will be a major test for Facebook, which has spent the past year rolling out new features designed to close the gap with Twitter. The California-based company has hired a team, including former TV producers, to help broadcasters extract insights about the Facebook users watching their programming, such as how a team's fans breakdown by gender or geographic region. For the Super Bowl, Facebook will team directly with Fox Sports, the network owned by Twenty-First Century Fox, which is airing the game, to showcase pre-game chatter from Facebook and Instagram users alongside typical game stats. A specially created website will chart user data and comments in real time. The company has also actively encouraged athletes such as Carolina Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams to post commentary on the game to Facebook - athletes frequently use Twitter to sound off. Marketing "Facebook offers a really unique experience as a place where you can go to discover great content, but Facebook also offers a very personal aspect as well," said Justin Osofsky, Facebook's vice president of media partnerships and global operations, who is driving the company to be something of a virtual sports bar where fans banter and spar. During the 2013 Super Bowl, Twitter was mentioned in 26 of the 52 national TV commercials that aired during the game, according to a count by the blog Marketing Land. Facebook was mentioned in just four of those commercials. Twitter also has a partnership with the NFL, which will also be tweeting content - including game footage - before and after the game. As mobile adoption skyrocketed in the past three years, doubts about the effectiveness of reaching viewers via the "second screen" has gradually dissipated. According to a Nielsen study in June, nearly half of smartphone owners and tablet owners said they use their devices while watching TV every day. "This is probably the year where a critical mass of people have heard the term second screen," Pete Vlastelica, senior vice president of digital for Fox Sports Media Group. "I can't imagine many people watching this without a second device in their hand. We've been designing the Super Bowl experience with that in mind." For many marketers, the potential of reaching football viewers on social networks was driven home during last year's Super Bowl when the game was halted for 30 minutes in the third quarter due to a power outage at the stadium. Activity on Twitter surged, with tweets peaking at a rate of 231 500 per minute. Within minutes, the Oreo cookie brand quickly created a cheeky Twitter ad reminding users that they could still "dunk" a cookie in a glass of milk in the dark. The ad went viral, quickly garnering 15 000 retweets, and underscored the potential for nimble advertisers to make a splash without paying for a million-dollar 30-second TV spot. The lesson has not been lost on marketers, who with coaching from Twitter are setting up "war rooms" - physical or virtual - this year to monitor the game and seize on the right opportunity to make an impact. Source http://www.news24.com/Technology/News/Facebook-Twitter-face-off-ahead-of-Super-Bowl-20140131

Fans of China's 'Jade Rabbit' lunar rover await news of its status after mechanical problems

The Jade Rabbit did not go quietly into that long lunar night. Instead, China's troubled robotic moon rover -- given voice by a government news agency -- melodramatically pondered the meaning of its perhaps-fleeting existence, measured its contribution to humanity and, finally, said goodbye. Then it shut down for the lunar night, which lasts about 14 earth days -- its status unclear. The Jade Rabbit's fans in China sent Lunar New Year greetings to the robot Friday, wishing it a speedy recovery from a malfunction it reported before going into hibernation. "Chinese people have been worried about the Jade Rabbit," wrote a microblogger with the username Yang Huiyan. "Hope the New Year will bring good luck to him." The official Xinhua News Agency had carried what it described as a diary entry the rover "wrote" before it shut down. Despite being usually staid in their coverage of national events, Chinese state media tend to put a folksy touch on certain stories that help drum up national pride. State news outlets are especially fond of giving cutesy personalities to non-human actors playing key roles in propaganda efforts, whether they are pandas returning from zoos abroad or, in the Jade Rabbit's case, the stars of its military-backed space program. In the Xinhua diary entry, the Jade Rabbit takes on the tone of a heroic adventurer who has encountered an obstacle that might prove insurmountable, and who is trying to put on a brave face as it pens what might be its final farewell. "If this journey must come to an early end, I am not afraid," said the six-wheeled, solar-powered rover. "Whether or not the repairs are successful, I believe even my malfunctions will provide my masters with valuable information and experience." The personification of the rover has been a hit with the Chinese public. Parts of the Xinhua report were quoted by an unofficial Chinese microblog account written with the Jade Rabbit's voice, and the blog was flooded with tens of thousands of sympathetic comments. As for the rover's fate, a report Thursday by the state-run Science and Technology Daily newspaper said that would only be clear at the end of the lunar night. Calls to the space program rang unanswered Friday, a public holiday. On Sunday, the rover said its "masters" -- the space program's engineers, presumably -- had found an abnormality in its control mechanism and were working through the night to fix it. It provided no details on what the problem was, but hinted that it was serious. "Even so, I know I may not make it through this lunar night," it said, striking a somber note. The Jade Rabbit began operating last month after making the first soft landing on the moon by a space probe, Chang'e 3, in 37 years. The moon lander is named after Chang'e, a mythical goddess of the moon, and the rover, after Yutu, or "Jade Rabbit" in English, the goddess' pet. In the diary entry, the Jade Rabbit recounted its achievements in the 42 days it spent on the moon, saying it traveled more than 100 meters (110 yards) and collected a large amount of scientific data with a panoramic camera, radar and other equipment. But in a line clearly written with the aim of tugging at heartstrings, the Xinhua report had the Jade Rabbit appealing to its readers to take care of the space craft that brought it to the moon, Chang'e, in the rover's absence. "If I really cannot be fixed, when the time comes, I hope everyone will remember to help me comfort her," it said. The rover was designed to roam the lunar surface for three months while surveying for natural resources and sending back data. Then it ran into problems as it was shutting down in preparation for the lunar night when the temperature drops to minus 180 degrees Celsius (minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit). "The sun has already set here and the temperature is falling very quickly. I've said a lot today, yet still feel like it's not enough," the rover said in its concluding paragraphs. "I'll tell everyone a secret. Actually, I'm not feeling especially sad. Just like any other hero, I've only encountered a little problem while on my own adventure." "Good night, planet earth. Good night, humanity." Source http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/01/31/fans-china-jade-rabbit-lunar-rover-await-news/

Ukraine repeals tough laws, army calls for 'urgent steps'

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych scrapped controversial anti-protest laws on Friday but faced calls from the army to take "urgent steps" to end the ex-Soviet nation's worst crisis since independence. PHOTOS Opposition protesters gather near a barricade in Kiev. (AFP/ Vasily Maximov) Enlarge Caption KIEV: Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych scrapped controversial anti-protest laws on Friday but faced calls from the army to take "urgent steps" to end the ex-Soviet nation's worst crisis since independence. The United States and European Union meanwhile said they were "appalled" after a leading protester reappeared with his face swollen and caked in blood, saying he had been tortured and dumped in a forest after vanishing more than a week ago. Yanukovych, who has been on sick leave since Thursday, repealed draconian anti-protest laws passed earlier this month that had radicalised the two-month anti-government protest movement. He also signed an amnesty bill for jailed opposition activists, but it will only take effect if protesters vacate the public buildings they have occupied within 15 days. The manoeuvres came after opposition activist Dmytro Bulatov, who went missing more than a week ago, reappeared Thursday night, saying he was tortured by abductors who cut off his ear and drove nails through his hands before dumping him in a forest. "They crucified me, nailed me, cut my ear off, cut my face," Bulatov said in televised remarks. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the US was "appalled" -- the same word used by EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton -- at the "obvious signs of torture" inflicted on Bulatov. Amnesty International said the "barbaric" act should be immediately investigated. Bulatov was meanwhile placed on a police wanted list for allegedly organising mass unrest, sparking outrage among protesters. The protest movement's leaders claim that abuse and beatings of activists are widespread. A recent outbreak of violence in the protests saw several people shot dead and turned parts of the capital Kiev into a battle zone. Weighing in on the crisis for the first time, the Ukrainian armed forces called for Yanukovych to act urgently to stabilise the situation. The defence ministry, which previously said it would not interfere in the crisis, said the seizure of government buildings was unacceptable and warned that "further escalation of the confrontation threatens the country's territorial integrity". "Servicemen and employees of Ukraine's armed forces... have called on the commander-in-chief to take urgent steps within the limits of existing legislation with a view to stabilising the situation in the country and reaching consent in society," it said. NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he was "very concerned by attempts to involve the military in the crisis". "Ukraine's military is highly respected and must remain neutral," he said on Twitter. Political analyst Vadym Karasyov said the military's statement indicated it would side with the president. "It is a signal to the opposition that they need to find a compromise and vacate the occupied buildings," Karasyov said. The amnesty leaves open the possibility that protesters could be allowed to stay at their barricaded camp on Kiev's Independence Square. Opposition supporters are refusing to leave the camp despite a string of concessions from the authorities, including Yanukovych's acceptance of the resignation of prime minister Mykola Azarov and the entire cabinet. John Kerry to meet opposition leaders US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Berlin the measures pledged by Yanukovych did not go far enough. Opposition leaders including boxer-turned-politician Vitali Klitschko are due to meet Kerry for the first time on Saturday, a meeting sure to infuriate Russia, which has warned against foreign interference in Ukraine. The announcement of the meeting, on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, came as the White House said it was consulting with Congress over possible sanctions on Ukraine. On Friday, opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk of the Batkivshchyna party met German President Joachim Gauck and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, saying they had voiced support of his people's "fight for freedoms and liberties". Yatsenyuk also met the EU's Ashton separately. In November, Yanukovych scrapped an integration deal with the EU in favour of closer ties with Kiev's historical master Moscow, sparking huge protests. The unrest has since spiralled into an uprising demanding the president's removal. After ditching the EU deal, Yanukovych accepted a $15-billion bailout package for Ukraine, but Moscow now says it is on hold pending the formation of a new government. Yanukovych on Thursday attacked the "irresponsible" opposition for inflaming tensions but also admitted the authorities had made mistakes and that he needed to take more account of the country's mood. An advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Friday that the Ukrainian president would lose power if he did not "quash the rebellion". "The president has no choice," said Kremlin economic advisor Sergei Glazyev. "Either he defends Ukrainian statehood and quashes the rebellion provoked by financial and outside forces or he risks losing power, and mounting chaos and an internal conflict, from which no exit can be seen, await Ukraine." Source http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/ukraine-repeals-tough/975736.html

Six powers to hold new nuclear talks with Iran on February 18

EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton met and agreed on Friday with the Iranian foreign minister that the next international talks on Iran's contested nuclear programme will be held February 18, an EU official said. PHOTOS File picture from October, 2010, shows the reactor building at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran. (AFP/Majid Asgaripour) Enlarge Caption MUNICH: EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton met and agreed on Friday with the Iranian foreign minister that the next international talks on Iran's contested nuclear programme will be held February 18, an EU official said. "We had a really interesting meeting and the most important outcome at this stage is that we have agreed that we will start the talks between the E3+3 and Iran on 18 February ... in Vienna," Ashton said. "I very much look forward to working together with you then," said Ashton after meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. Ashton has led the international talks with Iran over its nuclear programme which resulted in an initial accord in November. Iran agreed then with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia, United States plus Germany (known as E3+3)-- that it would open up its nuclear programme so as to allay fears it was seeking atomic weapons. In return, the world powers agreed to a progressive lifting of tough sanctions which have caused immense damage to the Iranian economy. Earlier this month, the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, certified that Tehran had stuck to its side of the initial deal, giving access to key nuclear installations and cutting back its enriched uranium stockpile. Accordingly, on January 20, the European Union and the United States began lifting sanctions, laying the groundwork for the next, six-month stage of the process. During this period, the United States and the EU have promised to impose no new sanctions. Iran has insisted repeatedly that its nuclear programme is peaceful, but in an atmosphere of complete distrust the West applied ever tighter sanctions seriously impacting its economy. Despite the initial progress, the core of these sanctions remain in place. The accord provides for their ultimate removal if Iran lives up to all its commitments. Source http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/six-powers-to-hold-new/975618.html

Emergency declared as Serbia shivers under snow

Strong winds and snow drifts snarled traffic in Serbia on Friday, prompting local officials to declare a state of emergency and deploy military helicopters to rescue stranded travellers. BELGRADE: Strong winds and snow drifts snarled traffic in Serbia on Friday, prompting local officials to declare a state of emergency and deploy military helicopters to rescue stranded travellers. Heavy trucks were banned from the roads in northern Vojvodina province and the border with neighbouring Romania, Croatia and Hungary was closed to freight traffic. Predrag Maric, head of the emergency services, said bulldozers were deployed to clear a road leading out of Belgrade where more than 100 cars became stuck in snowdrifts So far, some 24 people have been evacuated, while another 20 were still awaiting rescue. Overnight, winds reaching speeds of more than 100 kilometres (60 miles) per hour hit the eastern and northeastern parts of Serbia. The strong winds were expected to continue over the weekend. Navigation was also suspended along the river Danube in Serbia due to heavy winds and ice on its waters. Source http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/emergency-declared-as/975676.html

Heavy snow strands scores of people in north Serbia

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Strong winds have created meters-high snow drifts in northern Serbia, trapping up to 60 people in cars and buses, the head of the emergency services said on Friday. Rescuers used bulldozers and heavy machinery to open a road near the northern town of Zrenjanin, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Serbia's capital Belgrade, after a column of cars got stuck overnight in the snow drifts, said Predrad Maric, head of the Interior Ministry's emergencies department. "It is very difficult, even for machinery. The rescuers are walking towards stranded cars," he told Reuters. Serbian authorities have imposed a state of emergency in Zrenjanin and several other towns in the northern province of Vojvodina after easterly winds with speeds of more than 150 kilometers per hour (90 miles per hour) hit the region. Border crossings with neighboring Croatia, Romania and Hungary have been closed to freight traffic and authorities warned people in northern Serbia to avoid unnecessary travel. Port authorities in Belgrade also imposed restrictions on Friday for navigation along the River Danube after a barge carrying gravel capsized near the Serbian capital. Source http://news.yahoo.com/heavy-snow-strands-scores-people-north-serbia-151329011--finance.html

Eliza Dushku's Untitled "Albania" Documentary.

With production complete; the next stage is Post-production, Editing and Delivery to non-profit public television networks. Thank you for visiting our page! With production complete and over 20+ hours of footage in our hands, we need YOU to help pay for the editing and delivery of the finished product. Our team is standing by and we are excited about launching this to an international audience. Please join us in showcasing the best of Albania! STORY: In the splendour of the Northern Mediterranean, I visited my homeland of Albania to discover both the old and the new. Alongside my brother Nate, photographer and my "Cheshire Cat" Fadil Berisha, my boyfriend Rick Fox, actor Blerim Destani, opera singer Inva Mula, dancer Tony Davolani, singer Aurela Gace, footballer Lorik Cana, opera singer Ermonela Jaho, artist Capitol T, and more, we blazed a trail from the capital city Tirana to the sexy beaches of the Albanian Riviera and the rugged villages of the Albanian Alps. I was also fortunate to experience the hospitality of Albania's leaders: Prime Minister Sali Berisha, President Bamir Topi and Tirana Mayor Lulzim Basha and to hear their messages of hope for a beautiful country. I experienced many Albanian customs; eating, dancing, exploring, balling, shopping, sporting, etc. I got to know the people, politics and economics of a young democracy in an ancient land, as I uncovered the Albania of today. It was eye-opening to discover how Albania lives in me, witnessing the pride of the country and receiving the key to Korce, the city of my family's origin, and my Albanian citizenship. I am hoping to reach as many people as possible, so please spread the word! Faleminderit! (Thank you!) With Love, Eliza Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1168918241/eliza-dushkus-untitled-albania-documentary

The Romantics Documentary

This documentary looks at a group of visionary writers who changed the way we see the world - the Romantics - and examines stories of bloodshed, political upheaval and poetry. Liberty. Peter Ackroyd reveals how the radical ideas of liberty that inspired the French Revolution opened up a world of possibility for great British writers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, inspiring some of the greatest works of literature in the English language. Their ideas are the foundations of our modern notions of freedom and their words are performed by David Tennant, Dudley Sutton and David Threlfall. Nature. Peter Ackroyd summons the ghosts of the Romantics to tell the story of man's escape from the shackles of industry and commerce to the freedom of nature. As the Industrial Revolution took hold of Britain during the late 18th Century, the Romantics embraced nature in search of sublime experience. But this was much more than just a walk in the country; it was a groundbreaking endeavour to understand what it means to be human. They forged poetry of radical protest against a dark world that was descending upon Britain. Eternity. Byron, Keats and Shelley lived short lives, but the radical way they lived them would change the world. At 19, Shelley wrote The Necessity of Atheism - it was banned and burned, but it freed the Romantics from religion. Through their search for meaning in a world without God, they pioneered the notions of free love, celebrity and secular idolatry that are at the centre of modern Western culture. Source:http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-romantics/

British documentary substantiates US-KLA collusion in provoking war with Serbia Related Sunday Times article alleges CIA role

British documentary substantiates US-KLA collusion in provoking war with Serbia Related Sunday Times article alleges CIA role By Chris Marsden 16 March 2000 On Sunday, March 12, Britain's BBC2 television channel ran a documentary by Alan Little entitled "Moral Combat: NATO At War". The program contained damning evidence of how the Clinton administration set out to create a pretext for declaring war against the Milosevic regime in Serbia by sponsoring the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), then pressed this decision on its European allies. The revelations in the documentary were reinforced by an accompanying article in the Sunday Times. Little conducted frank interviews with leading players in the Kosovo conflict, the most pertinent being those with US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin, US Envoy Richard Holbrooke, William Walker, head of the UN Verification Mission, and KLA leader Hashim Thaci. These were supplemented by many others. The documentary set out to explain how "a shared enmity towards Milosevic" made "allies of a shadowy band of guerrillas and the most powerful nations on earth”. Ever since the Bosnian war of 1995, the KLA, seeking to capitalise on popular resentment among Kosovan Albanians against the regime in Belgrade, had pursued a strategy of destabilising the Serbian province of Kosovo by acts of terrorism, in the hope that the US and NATO would intervene. They ambushed Serb patrols and killed policemen. "Any armed action we undertook would bring retaliation against civilians," KLA leader Thaci explained. "We knew we were endangering a great number of civilian lives." The benefits of this strategy were made plain by Dug Gorani, a Kosovo Albanian negotiator not tied to the KLA: "The more civilians were killed, the chances of international intervention became bigger, and the KLA of course realised that. There was this foreign diplomat who once told me, 'Look, unless you pass the quota of five thousand deaths you'll never have anybody permanently present in Kosovo from foreign diplomacy.'" Albright was receptive to the KLA's strategy because the US was anxious to stage a military conflict with Serbia. Her series of interviews began chillingly with the words: "I believed in the ultimate power, the goodness of the power of the allies and led by the United States." The KLA's campaign of provocations was seized upon as the vehicle through which the use of this power could be sanctioned. A March 5, 1998 attack by the Serbian army on the home in Prekaz of a leading KLA commander, Adem Jashari, in which 53 people died, became the occasion for a meeting of the Contact group of NATO powers four days later. Albright pushed for a tough anti-Serbian response. "I thought it behoved me to say to my colleagues that we could not repeat the kinds of mistakes that had happened over Bosnia, where there was a lot of talk and no action," she told Little. NATO threatened Belgrade with a military response for the first time. "The ambitions of the KLA, and the intentions of the NATO allies, were converging," Little commented. He then showed how a subsequent public meeting between US Envoy Richard Holbrooke and KLA personnel at Junik angered Belgrade and gave encouragement to the Albanian separatists. General Nebojsa Pavkovic, the commander of the Yugoslav army in Kosovo, states, "When the official ambassador of another country arrives here, ignores state officials, but holds a meeting with the Albanian terrorists, then it's quite clear they are getting support." Lirak Cejal, a KLA soldier, went further, "I knew that since then, that the USA, NATO, will put us in their hands. They were looking for the head of the KLA, and when they found it they will have it in their hand, and then they will control the KLA." By October 1998 NATO had succeeded in imposing a cease-fire agreement, partly by threat of force and partly because of Serbia's success in routing the KLA. A cease-fire monitoring force [the Kosovo Verification Mission] was sent into the province under the auspices of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and headed by William Walker. The interview with Cejal is the only reference to US control of the KLA in Little's documentary, and then it is only anecdotal. It seems that the BBC for its own reasons chose to back-pedal on this issue, given the article in the Sunday Times that ran the same day Little's documentary was aired. Times journalists Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty wrote: "Several Americans who were directly involved in CIA activities or close to them have spoken to the makers of Moral Combat, a documentary to be broadcast on BBC2 tonight, and to The Sunday Times about their clandestine roles ‘in giving covert assistance to the KLA' before NATO began its bombing campaign in Kosovo." The Sunday Times explained that the anonymous sources "admitted they helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army". They add that CIA officers were "cease-fire monitors in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, developing ties with the KLA and giving American military training manuals and field advice on fighting the Yugoslav army and Serbian police.” The Times article continued: "When the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which co-ordinated the monitoring, left Kosovo a week before airstrikes began a year ago, many of its satellite telephones and global positioning systems were secretly handed to the KLA, ensuring that guerrilla commanders could stay in touch with NATO and Washington. Several KLA leaders had the mobile phone number of General Wesley Clark, the NATO commander." The article goes on to cite unnamed "European diplomats then working for the OSCE" who "claim it was betrayed by an American policy that made air strikes inevitable." They cite a European envoy accusing OSCE head of mission Walker of running a CIA operation: "The American agenda consisted of their diplomatic observers, aka the CIA, operating on completely different terms to the rest of Europe and the OSCE." Walker was the American ambassador to El Salvador when the US was helping to suppress leftist rebels there and is widely suspected of being a CIA operative. He denies this, but admitted to the Sunday Times that the CIA was almost certainly involved in the countdown to air strikes: "Overnight we went from having a handful of people to 130 or more. Could the agency have put them in at that point? Sure they could. It's their job." The newspaper cites the more candid comments of its CIA sources: "It was a CIA front, gathering intelligence on the KLA's arms and leadership," one says. "I'd tell them [the KLA] which hill to avoid, which wood to go behind, that sort of thing," said another. To back up these claims, the Sunday Times notes that Shaban Shala, a KLA commander now active in the campaign to destabilise ethnic Albanian areas in Serbia, claims to have met British, American and Swiss agents in northern Albania in 1996. Little's BBC documentary makes no such explicit suggestion of CIA backing for the KLA, but it does put flesh on the bones of how the cease-fire became the occasion for strengthening the separatists' grip on Kosovo. He explains that wherever the Serbs withdrew their forces in compliance with the agreement, the KLA moved in. KLA military leader Agim Ceku says, "The cease-fire was very useful for us, it helped us to get organised, to consolidate and grow." Nothing was done to prevent this, despite Serbian protests. Little explains that the BBC has obtained confidential minutes of the North Atlantic Council or NAC, NATO's governing body, which state that the KLA was "the main initiator of the violence" and that privately Walker called its actions a "deliberate campaign of provocation". It was this covert backing for the KLA by the US which provoked Serbia into ending its cease-fire and sending the army back into Kosovo. The next major turn of events leading up to NATO's war against Serbia was the alleged massacre of ethnic Albanians at Racek on January 15, 1999. To this day, the issue of whether Serbian forces killed civilians in revenge attacks at Racek is hotly contested by Belgrade, which claims that the KLA staged the alleged massacre, using corpses from earlier fighting. It is certainly the case that when the Serb forces pulled out after announcing the killing of 15 KLA personnel, international monitors who entered the village reported nothing unusual. It was not until the following morning, after the KLA had retaken control of the village, that Walker made a visit and announced that a massacre by the Serbian police and the Yugoslav army had occurred. Little confirms that Walker had contacted both Holbrooke and General Clarke before making his announcement. Racek was to prove the final pretext for a declaration of war, but first Washington had to make sure that the European powers, which, aside from Britain, were still pushing for a diplomatic solution, would come on board. Talks were convened at Rambouillet, France backed by the threat of war. Little explains: "The Europeans, some reluctant converts to the threat of force, earnestly pressed for an agreement both the Serbs and the Albanians could accept. But the Americans were more sceptical. They had come to Rambouillet with an alternative outcome in mind." Both Albright and Rubin are extraordinarily candid about what they set out to accomplish at Rambouillet. They presented an ultimatum that the Serbian government could not possibly accept, because it demanded a NATO occupation of not just Kosovo, but unrestricted access to the whole of Serbia. As Serbian General Pavcovic comments: "They would have unlimited rights of movement and deployment, little short of occupation. Nobody could accept it." This was the US's intention. Albright told the BBC: "If the Serbs would not agree [to the Rambouillet ultimatum], and the Albanians would agree, then there was a very clear cause for using force." Rubin added, "Obviously, publicly, we had to make clear we were seeking an agreement, but privately we knew the chances of the Serbs agreeing were quite small." KLA leader Thaci was the only problem, because he was demanding the inclusion of a referendum on independence. So Albright was despatched on St. Valentines Day to take charge of winning him over. Veton Suroi, a political rival of the KLA involved in the talks, gives a candid description of Albright's message to Thaci: "She was saying, you sign, the Serbs don't sign, we bomb. You sign, the Serbs sign, you have NATO in. So it's up to you." After three weeks of discussions, Thaci finally agreed to sign the Rambouillet Accord. The path was cleared for the US to begin an open war against Serbia, a war that had been prepared with the aid of CIA dirty tricks and political manoeuvring with terrorist forces. Source: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/03/koso-m16.html

10 Best Documentaries About New York City

The 51st New York Film Festival begins this Friday, and ahead of our coverage of the event it would seem appropriate to list some of our most anticipated titles. But there really aren’t a lot of docs at NYFF, and what is there we are excited about entirely. Maybe some films are higher up than others (At Berkeley), but all together we are looking forward to every single nonfiction offering at this year’s fest. That includes some non docs, too, such as Paul Greengrass’s opening night entry Captain Phillips. In place of a NYFF preview, I thought it would be fun to still tie in this week’s list to the event by celebrating New York in nonfiction cinema. The city has been on my mind anyway, as I just visited over the weekend for the first time since moving away almost two years ago, and also thanks to Robert’s initial Shots From the Canon piece on News From Home. In that post, he reminds us of how almost all movies shot in NYC wind up being documentaries of a kind, capturing the place and its people and culture at points in time and offering a cinematic record of its history from the turn of the 20th century’s actuality films (like these) up through this year’s Now You See Me, among others. The following ten titles, though, are more truly documentaries, in part because I don’t need to be filling a Nonfics feature with such various fiction titles as King Kong and Quick Change. Each one of these docs does a phenomenal job of telling and/or showing us a lot about New York, and whether you’ve been there or not or love it or not, they should all impart on you an appreciation for the Big Apple via their distinct approaches to the subject. 10. The Cruise (Bennett Miller, 1998) What better place to begin than with a film about a Manhattan tour guide? In this debut from the future director of Capote, Moneyball and the upcoming Foxcatcher, we meet Timothy “Speed” Levitch, a poet and philosopher who was hosting tourists on double-decker Gray Line buses. When we follow along with him at work, we get a one-of-a-kind history of the city, sometimes with creative license and always with colorful verbiage (ironic since the doc itself is black and white). And when he’s off the bus he goes off on his deeper ideas, like that of the “anti-cruise.” There are a number of brilliant moments in the film, one of my favorites being when Levitch maddeningly describes New York as a “ludicrous” “explosion” and “experiment” that “can not last,” before pointing out a new Ann Taylor store, as seen excerpted in the trailer below. [Watch on Amazon or free on SnagFilms] Source:http://nonfics.com/10-best-documentaries-new-york-city/

The Truth about Human Aging

Antiaging products are big business, but the marketing of these products often misrepresents the science. Rather than let their silence imply their support, 51 leading scientists in the field of aging research collaborated on a position paper that sets out the current state of the science and separates fact from fiction. The entire report appears here May 13, 2002 aging Image: J. W. Stewart Antiaging products are big business--a multibillion-dollar industry. But the marketing of these products often misrepresents the science. Rather than let their silence imply compliance, 51 of the top researchers in the field of aging research collaborated to create a position paper that sets out the current state of the science. A shorter, more pointed essay, called "No Truth to the Fountain of Youth," by three of the position paper's signers, S. Jay Olshansky, Leonard Hayflick and Bruce A. Carnes, is in Scientific American's June 2002 issue; the position paper itself is here. --The Editors Position Statement on Human Aging Authors and Endorsers In the past century a combination of successful public health campaigns, changes in living environments and advances in medicine have led to a dramatic increase in human life expectancy. Long lives experienced by unprecedented numbers of people in developed countries are a triumph of human ingenuity. This remarkable achievement has produced economic, political and societal changes that are both positive and negative. Although there is every reason to be optimistic that continuing progress in public health and the biomedical sciences will contribute to even longer and healthier lives in the future, a disturbing and potentially dangerous trend has also emerged in recent years. There has been a resurgence and proliferation of health care providers and entrepreneurs who are promoting antiaging products and lifestyle changes that they claim will slow, stop or reverse the processes of aging. Even though in most cases there is little or no scientific basis for these claims,1 the public is spending vast sums of money on these products and lifestyle changes, some of which may be harmful.2 Scientists are unwittingly contributing to the proliferation of these pseudoscientific antiaging products by failing to participate in the public dialogue about the genuine science of aging research. The purpose of this document is to warn the public against the use of ineffective and potentially harmful antiaging interventions and to provide a brief but authoritative consensus statement from 51 internationally recognized scientists in the field about what we know and do not know about intervening in human aging. What follows is a list of issues related to aging that are prominent in both the lay and scientific literature, along with the consensus statements about these issues that grew out of debates and discussions among the 51 scientists associated with this paper. Life Span Life Expectancy Immortality Geriatric Medicine versus Aging Antiaging Medicine Antioxidants Telomeres Hormones Caloric Restriction Determining Biological Age Are There Genes That Govern Aging Processes? Can We Grow Younger? Genetic Engineering Replacing Body Parts Lifestyle Modification and Aging Concluding Remarks Related Links 1Workshop Report, Is There an Antiaging Medicine? International Longevity Center, Canyon Ranch Series; New York, 2001. 2U.S. General Accounting Office. "Antiaging Products Pose Potential for Physical and Economic Harm." Special Committee on Aging, GAO-01-1129. September 2001. Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-truth-about-human-agi/