'Taliban militants publicly flog Afghan woman' for going to visit a doctor with her brother-in-law - Times of India

'Taliban militants publicly flog Afghan woman' for going to visit a doctor with her brother-in-law - Times of India: "Afghan woman has been publicly flogged by Taliban militants for going to visit a doctor with her brother-in-law, it has been reported.
It is understood that attackers wrongly thought that the woman had left her home with a stranger who was not a male relative, which would be contrary to some strict interpretations of Islamic code in certain parts of rural Afghanistan.
The man was also reportedly flogged. It later emerged that he was her brother-in-law.
Local media outlet Tolo News reports that the attack was videoed and footage has circulated online. They say that the video appears to show the woman pleading with her attackers and explaining that she urgently needed to visit the doctor but that her husband was not available to accompany her."



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Many Asians Express Dismay and Frustration After Liang Verdict - The New York Times

Many Asians Express Dismay and Frustration After Liang Verdict - The New York Times:



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Israel’s Push to be a Global Security Leader — The Evident.io Blog

Israel’s Push to be a Global Security Leader — The Evident.io Blog:



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Karnataka Muslim girl tops Ramayana exam with 93% - Times of India

Karnataka Muslim girl tops Ramayana exam with 93% - Times of India: "ere's a good example of religious tolerance in a district often troubled by the lack of it -Fathimath Rahila of Puttur has secured the first place in the Ramayana Exam.
The class 9 student from a Muslim family got 93% to be the Puttur taluk topper in the examination, conducted by the Bharatha Sanskriti Prathisthan in November 2015.
A student of Sarvodaya High School, Sulliapadavu, located on the Karnataka-Kerala border, she was keen on pursuing a course in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata."Her uncle supported her in this," says her father, Ibrahim M, who works in a factory. Her mother is a homemaker. The couple wanted their daughter to top the state exam.
"She put in a lot of effort every day to top in Karnataka, but could not achieve it," says Ibrahim.
Fathimath developed an interest in epic Hindu literature in class 9. "I prepared from the beginning of the academic year with my uncle's help," she says, adding: "I want to appear for the Mahabharata exam too". Shivarama HD, principal of her school, and P Satyashankar Bhat, coordinator of the exam, said students appear for exams after self-study and none of them are forced to appear for it."



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Women Prefer Men with Stubble, Says Beard Study - HackCollege

Women Prefer Men with Stubble, Says Beard Study - HackCollege: "Gentlemen, put down your razors.

If you’re a college-aged man, chances are you’ve found shaving to be a task that’s just a bit too time consuming to fit in the five minutes you have between waking up and going to class. Thankfully, a new study from Australia says that your 10 o’clock shadow may actually help you land a date after finding that most women like men with heavy stubble over clean-shaven, lightly-stubbled or fully-bearded men.

Not only has the study found that women prefer men with stubble, the study also discovered that other straight men are partial to the heavily-stubbled as well, although they also ranked their peers with full-beards higher than most women.

The study, conducted by professors Barnaby J. Dixson and Rob C. Brooks of the University of New South Wales, involved 177 heterosexual men and 351 women who were shown photos of 10 men who were smiling. Each man was then shown at four stages of beard growth: first clean shaven, then lightly-stubbled after five days without shaving, then heavily-stubbled after 10 days of growth, and then with a full beard.

After being shown the photos, both the men and women were asked to rank the men in order of perceived attractiveness. Among women, heavy stubble edged out as the decisive winner. According to Dixson and Brooks, the reason why lies in how facial hair gives men a more mature, dominant, and aggressive appearance.

“Our findings confirm that beardedness affects judgments of male socio-sexual attributes and suggest that an intermediate level of beardedness is most attractive while full-bearded men may be perceived as better fathers who could protect and invest in offspring,” said the study.

But, why do straight men prefer the company of the fully-bearded to the clean shaven? Dixson and Brooks suggest that the suggestion of masculinity provided by a full-beard alerts other men of a potential “Alpha male,” something that women may actually seek to avoid for being overly-dominant.

“Men, judging other men, might be sensitive to the overall level of masculine threat and aggression signaled through full beards,” wrote the researchers. “Women, by contrast, may balance…a competitive masculine partner against the costs of mating with a too-masculine partner.”"



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The real estate technique fuelling Vancouver's housing market - The Globe and Mail

The real estate technique fuelling Vancouver's housing market - The Globe and Mail: "The Rappaports’ home, on Vancouver’s West Side, would net the couple $5.2-million last year. Jo and her husband had bought the stately Craftsman home in 1987 for $362,000. They raised their sons there and loved it. But the neighbourhood had changed. Investors were razing the houses and it was time to move on.

“It used to be the prettiest block,” Ms. Rappaport said. “And it has been a construction zone for the last two years.”

The couple suspected the house would be torn down, like so many others on their lush and lucrative street, but they stood to profit nicely. There was some toing and froing over details, then a slight change of plans. For reasons the Rappaports never quite grasped, they were no longer selling their property to the foreign businessman whose offer they had accepted. Instead, they were selling to his real estate agent, Wayne Du of Amex Broadway West Realty, who told the Rappaports that he and the businessman’s wife would be purchasing instead, as co-owners.

The Rappaports weren’t thrilled, but there was nothing they could do to prevent it. Their contract, after all, contained what’s called an “assignment clause,” which gave the businessman the option to sell or transfer his interest in the property before the closing date.

Three months after the deal closed, the new broker-owner relisted the house – which he then had a stake in – and resold it for $6.2-million, a substantial if not unusual price increase that works out to roughly $11,000 a day. Mr. Du is now advertising the house for sale again for $6.58-million. It’s all perfectly legal, even if it displeases the Rappaports"



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Record Number of U.S. Citizens, Green-Card Holders Cut Ties With U.S. in 2015 - Yahoo Finance

Record Number of U.S. Citizens, Green-Card Holders Cut Ties With U.S. in 2015 - Yahoo Finance: "A record 4,279 individuals renounced their U.S. citizenship or long-term residency in 2015, according to data released by the Treasury Department.

Last year was the third year in a row for record renunciations, according to Andrew Mitchel, an international lawyer in Centerbrook, Conn., who tallies and tracks renunciation data. The Treasury Department renunciation list for the fourth quarter, which contained 1,058 names, was released on Friday.

“An increasing number of Americans appear to believe that having a U.S. passport or long-term residency isn’t worth the hassle and cost of complying with U.S. tax laws,” Mr. Mitchel said.

Experts say the growing number of renunciations by citizens and long-term holders of green cards is related to an enforcement campaign by U.S. officials against undeclared offshore accounts. It intensified in 2009, after Swiss banking giant UBS AG admitted that it encouraged U.S. taxpayers to hide money abroad.

Since then, the U.S. has collected more than $13.5 billion from individuals and foreign financial firms in taxes and penalties due on such accounts. This week, Swiss bank Julius Baer Group AG admitted it encouraged U.S. taxpayers to hide money abroad and agreed to pay $547 million to settle potential charges.

However, the campaign by U.S. officials also has complicated the financial lives of an estimated 7 million or more Americans living abroad, leading growing numbers to sever their U.S. ties.

Unlike many countries, the U.S. taxes nonresident citizens on income they earn abroad. According to Philip Hodgen, an international tax lawyer who practices in Pasadena, Calif., the law provides only partial offsets for double taxation when taxes are owed to both the U.S. and a foreign country, and complying with the law is onerous.

Mr. Mitchel adds that since 1995, the penalties for noncompliance by Americans living abroad who didn’t intentionally avoid filing common IRS forms have increased dramatically—in some cases from as little as $2,000 to as much as $70,000 annually.

IRS scrutiny of Americans abroad is also intensifying because of a new law known as Fatca, which requires foreign financial institutions to report income information for their customers who are U.S. taxpayers to the IRS, or else face severe penalties. More than 180,000 foreign banks and other firms have signed up to comply with Fatca."



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Schoolgirls for Sale in Japan - YouTube

Schoolgirls for Sale in Japan - YouTube: "Published on Jul 20, 2015
This Thursday at 12pm EDT, Simon Ostrovsky and Jake Adelstein will join 'On The Line' to discuss this story. Ask your questions on Twitter @VICENews with #OnTheLine: http://bit.ly/1Sgvvn2

Japan’s obsession with cutesy culture has taken a dark turn, with schoolgirls now offering themselves for “walking dates” with adult men. Last year the US State Department, in its annual report on human trafficking, flagged so-called joshi-kosei osanpo dates (that’s Japanese for “high school walking”) as fronts for commercial sex run by sophisticated criminal networks.

In our exclusive investigation, VICE News host Simon Ostrovsky will bring you to one of Tokyo’s busiest neighborhoods, where girls solicit clients in their school uniforms, to a concert performed by a band of schoolgirls attended by adult men, and into a café, where teenage girls are available to hire by the hour. But the true revelations come behind closed doors, when schoolgirls involved in the rent-a-date industry reveal how they’ve been coerced into prostitution."



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Are doctors overcompensated in the U.S.? - Quora

Are doctors overcompensated in the U.S.? - Quora:



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Planting The Wrong Trees in Europe Made Climate Change Worse: Why Reforestation Isn't That Easy

Planting The Wrong Trees in Europe Made Climate Change Worse: Why Reforestation Isn't That Easy: "You’ve heard it before: Deforestation is a major contributor to climate change. To put it simply, trees store carbon, preventing it from entering the atmosphere—which means there are fewer greenhouse gases screwing with Earth’s climate. And, broadly speaking, that’s true. Planting trees is good for the planet. But it’s more complicated than that. Research published this week took a fine-toothed comb to the issue of forest management and reforestation. And the researchers found a major tangle: It turns out we’ve been planting the wrong trees, for a long time. And that choice of trees has actually been making climate change worse.

In a paper published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers looked at the history of reforestation in Europe. As of 2010, 85 percent of forests on the continent were managed by humans, they write. And for nearly 250 years, forest managers have tended to prefer reforesting with more “commercially valuable” and fast-growing species of trees, like Scots pines, Norway spruce and beech trees. Two of those three “preferred” species are conifers; more often than not, they’d be used to reforest an area where broad-leaved trees once stood. According to the researchers, almost 400,000 square miles of broadleaf forest have been replaced by conifers since roughly 1850.

The conifers have needles instead of leaves, and the pigment of their needles is much darker than leaves would be. That means they absorb more solar radiation, rather than reflecting it back up to space, than leaves would. That causes the temperatures in these forests to rise, ultimately adding to warming, rather than reducing it."



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9-Year-Old SUPERMODEL Causes Big Controversy Over Sexualized Pictures - YouTube

9-Year-Old SUPERMODEL Causes Big Controversy Over Sexualized Pictures - YouTube:



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Technology rout pushes Nasdaq to lowest close since 2014 - Yahoo Finance

Technology rout pushes Nasdaq to lowest close since 2014 - Yahoo Finance: "About 9.4 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, matching the daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 2,330 to 720, for a 3.24-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 2,288 issues fell and 509 advanced for a 4.50-to-1 ratio favoring decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 7 new 52-week highs and 26 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 3 new highs and 195 new lows"



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Social media sensation Breanna Youn’s parents convert to Islam and move to Dubai | The National

Social media sensation Breanna Youn’s parents convert to Islam and move to Dubai | The National: "Most of her followers in the region are from Saudi Arabia. Breanna has had invites to present on game shows and model everywhere from Bahrain to Indonesia, while her fanbase has spread as far afield as Malaysia, Kuwait and Singapore.

It was one such invitation that first brought the family to Dubai in May for a two-week holiday.

The trip had a profound and lasting impact as Mr and Mrs Youn – who were brought up Catholic and Mormon respectively, but decided to convert to Islam.

Mrs Youn began wearing an abaya and encouraged Breanna to learn Arabic from YouTube videos. Together with their new-found Arab friends, the four-year-old quickly picked up phrases such as “fideyt kum” (I’m dying for you), which have become a signature of her Instagram videos.

Mrs Youn thinks much of Breanna’s quick-spreading fame is down to her high-profile followers, from prominent Emiratis to celebrities like the singer Shamma Hamdan, who drove excitedly to pick up Breanna in her Mercedes Benz and took her for dinner at the Burj Al Arab."



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Brothers share one wife - Fraternal Polyandry - YouTube

Brothers share one wife - Fraternal Polyandry - YouTube: "Uploaded on Oct 24, 2008
Brothers share wife to secure family land

HIMACHAL PRADESH, India (CNN) -- Amar and Kundan Singh Pundir are brothers. Younger brother Amar breaks rocks in a mine for a living. Kundan farms their small piece of inherited land. They live in a beautiful but remote hillside village in the clouds of Himachal Pradesh, India.

Both aged in their forties, the two brothers have lived together nearly their whole lives. They are poor and share just about everything: Their home, their work and a wife.

"See we have a tradition from the beginning to have a family of five to 10 people. Two brothers and one wife." Kundan says.

They practice what is known as fraternal polyandry -- where the brothers of one family marry the same woman."



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'Daddies Date Babies' Documentary Features Sugar Babies On Their Own Terms

'Daddies Date Babies' Documentary Features Sugar Babies On Their Own Terms: "Stephany Xu, a 23-year-old entrepreneur (who, in the interest of disclosure, was a college classmate of the author) often dates older men and expects them to provide a credit card for her personal use. Xu joined Seeking Arrangement five years ago and still occasionally checks the site, and has also dated older men she met at airport lounges or through introductions from friends.

"The first person I ever met off [Seeking Arrangement], I had such an amazing experience with," Xu told The Huffington Post. "He turned out to be so nice and knowledgeable and supportive. He's still one of my very close mentors today."

Xu rejects the sugar baby label, and said the credit card arrangement is a perk rather than a requirement.

"I like credit cards because it gives you an amount of freedom," she said. "I can pay off the card myself if I want to, or he can choose not to pay it that month. It never has to be something that's discussed, it's something that's kind of there.""



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Are "Sugar Babies" Prostitutes? - YouTube

Are "Sugar Babies" Prostitutes? - YouTube: "Published on Sep 9, 2014
"Parinda Wanitwat was concerned about finances when she graduated from college this summer. After reading a Vanity Fair article about “sugar babies” -- young women who date older men in return for compensation -- she turned to the website SeekingArrangement.com to see what the fuss was about.

“I didn't think it was a safe place at all for me,” Wanitwat, a 23-year-old New York City resident, said of the site. The website, launched in 2006, matches wealthy "sugar daddies" with willing "babies." "But I wanted to do some research.""



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Canadian banks helping clients bend rules to move money out of China - The Globe and Mail

Canadian banks helping clients bend rules to move money out of China - The Globe and Mail: "Some Canadian banks allow wealthy Asian investors to skirt Chinese law by helping them bring in large amounts of money that is often used to buy real estate in Vancouver.

Financial institutions in the area have flagged more than 8,200 suspicious transactions since January, 2012, the year China began cracking down on citizens they suspect of corruption."



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Of debt & data

Of debt & data — Greater Fool – Authored by Garth Turner – The Troubled Future of Real Estate: "Now, Thailand, income tax on corporate ex pats is 15% flat, there is no other taxes at all. The cost of living is way cheap, and I go to a beach resort every weekend. A nice meal is $2 and my condo in BKK’s Manhattan is a grand a month, the beach condo is $600, and it’s prime waterfront, white sand for miles, 2 hrs drive from the city.

Thailand is expanding so fast that ex pat workers are in high demand and paying huige premiums for expertise. It’s like working in Saudi Arabia these days.”

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/thailand-13-straight-months-of-negative-inflation-2016-01-31"



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Chinese police swoop on HK$59 billion ‘record-breaking online Ponzi scheme’ | South China Morning Post

Chinese police swoop on HK$59 billion ‘record-breaking online Ponzi scheme’ | South China Morning Post: "Ezubao was launched in July 2014 and embarked on a massive advertising campaign to raise funds.

On the surface, it was a P2P website with various projects, offering investors annual returns ranging between 9 per cent and 14.6 per cent.

In reality, the website’s operators made up most of the projects listed on its website and used funds from new investors to pay old debts, Xinhua reported.

“Ezubao is a complete Ponzi scheme,” Zhang Min, the former president of Ezubao’s operating company and its public face, was quoted by Xinhua as saying from a police detention centre. Zhang reportedly said the company’s executives knew it was all a fake."



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Nearly one million investors may have been fleeced in China’s latest Ponzi scheme - Quartz

Nearly one million investors may have been fleeced in China’s latest Ponzi scheme - Quartz: "Twenty one executives from China’s largest peer-to-peer money lending platform have been arrested, on suspicion of fleecing investors of 50 billion yuan ($7.6 billion).
Police allege that the senior management of Ezubao stole that much from 900,000 investors nationwide, which would make it China’s largest-ever case of investor fraud, by both cash value and the number of victims. By number of victims, it would be the largest Ponzi scheme in the world.
At least two suspects have already confessed in police detention centers, according to a report by Xinhua (link in Chinese), China’s state-run news wire. Zhang Min, the former president of Yucheng Group, the lending scheme’s parent company, reportedly described the business as “a complete Ponzi scheme.”
Investor fraud has become a huge problem in China, where low bank deposit rates, shaky housing prices and a weak stock market have prompted citizens to look for alternate places to put their cash. Last year, financial scams raked in more than $24 billion in China, as Quartz reported earlier."



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