LinkedIn Today gets Facebook-esque commenting, liking and trending features

LinkedIn Today gets Facebook-esque commenting, liking and trending features:
Now that LinkedIn has gotten rid of all of the Twitter spam from its service, the company is now focusing on bubbling up great content via its “Today” product.
Today, the company announced some new social features for Today, including commenting, liking and trending. The hope is that your network of colleagues will be submitting interesting news, and you’ll trust their recommendations on what you’re going to read. Yes, sounds a bit Facebookish to me, but it’s not a network of your kinda-friends or family members, so LinkedIn gets a pass here.
Here’s a full rundown on the features, which should be expected for a product such as this:

Commenting & Liking: Sometimes the commentary about a news article can be just as insightful as the article itself. To that end, articles on LinkedIn Today will now include social gestures which will enable our 161 million member professionals to engage and create a dialogue around the news headlines that matter most to them, as well as learn what is currently trending online. This means, members will be able to see a snapshot of what’s top of mind among their professional networks.

Trending in Your Network: LinkedIn Today was built on the premise of providing a relevant, customizable news experience based on key news and updates trending in your industry and the other industries you choose to follow. Starting today, we will begin rolling a new tab called “Trending in Your Network.” By simply clicking on this tab, members will have yet another filter to sort through all of the professional news articles and industry updates, based on those articles that are currently the most popular among members of their professional networks, regardless of their industry.

I’ve personally gone back to using LinkedIn more since there isn’t as much noise. I like the fact that the company has dedicated a page to all of this content, as I simply need to pick and choose when I get a bunch of articles and links thrown in my face. The main LinkedIn feed needs to stay as quiet as possible, so that I can pick out important connections or events in my network.
There is definitely a possibility that you could build a stronger relationship with a connection based on the content that they share, since you’ll see their avatar popping up in comments and alongside the headlines themselves.

President Morsi of Egypt Is Undercut by State-Run Media

President Morsi of Egypt Is Undercut by State-Run Media: State broadcasters and newspapers have quickly allied with the Egypt’s generals over President Mohamed Morsi, making it clear who still holds the real power over Egypt’s bureaucracy.

The Saturday Profile: In Mexico, Father Solalinde Defends Migrant Rights

The Saturday Profile: In Mexico, Father Solalinde Defends Migrant Rights: The Rev. Alejandro Solalinde has raised Mexicans’ awareness of the plight of Central and South American migrants who face extortion, rape, kidnapping and murder en route to the United States.

Journeys: As Mongolia Changes, the Past Is Still Present

Journeys: As Mongolia Changes, the Past Is Still Present: A family meets at a tent camp in the Mongolian mountains, and catches glimpses of an ancient people.

Syrian Pilot’s Defection Signals Trouble for Government

Syrian Pilot’s Defection Signals Trouble for Government: While the ruling party is Alawite, much of Syria’s administration and its military ability depend on Sunni bureaucrats, soldiers and officers, who are increasingly disaffected.

Blog post about sexual assault in D.C. unleashes torrent of women’s stories

Blog post about sexual assault in D.C. unleashes torrent of women’s stories:
Liz Gorman did what the others didn’t.
After she was sexually assaulted on a D.C. street in the middle of the day, she not only called police, she also wrote a blog post about the way she was violated. The response was incredible.
Read full article >>

Editorial Board: The breaking point in Syria

Editorial Board: The breaking point in Syria:
SYRIA HAS SLIPPED deeper into the abyss. Perhaps as many as 220 people have been killed in a farming town, Tremseh, northwest of the city of Hama, by shelling and shooting from Syrian forces. Reports suggest that the town was first attacked from the air and then stormed by militiamen who slaughtered civilians. As bodies were grimly laid out in mass graves on Friday, the opposition called it a massacre, as did Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The assault appears to fit a pattern of ethnic cleansing in which government forces and militias from Alawite villages are laying siege to largely Sunni towns.
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Judges skeptical of Texas’s arguments on voter ID law

Judges skeptical of Texas’s arguments on voter ID law:
On Friday morning, Judge Robert L. Wilkins looked out across the packed courtroom at the lawyer for Texas and suggested that the state’s voter ID law would force some people to travel more than 100 miles to get the documents required for a photo identification.
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2012 campaign enters a new phase, as Obama and Romney rachet up their attacks on each other

2012 campaign enters a new phase, as Obama and Romney rachet up their attacks on each other:
President Obama’s campaign has spent many months trying to portray Mitt Romney as an unprincipled flip-flopper, a panderer to right-wing extremists and a greedy business executive. Then this week the ante was upped when one Obama aide suggested that Romney may be something worse: a potential felon.
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Clinton meets with new Egyptian president in Cairo amid persisting political uncertainty

Clinton meets with new Egyptian president in Cairo amid persisting political uncertainty:
CAIRO — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met for the first time Saturday with Egypt’s Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, whose country remains politically unsettled more than a year and a half after the chaotic fall of Hosni Mubarak.
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How D.C. became a District of Corruption

How D.C. became a District of Corruption:
Vincent C. Gray’s election as mayor in 2010 was the result in no small measure of his success in tapping a deep well of resentment in the black community over Adrian M. Fenty’s perceived aloofness. Gray was helped along in this effort by Marion Barry.
Read full article >>

Turkey, Poland to Get IMF Seats

Turkey, Poland to Get IMF Seats: Turkey and Poland will for the first time hold seats on the International Monetary Fund's executive board under a political agreement reached in recent weeks.

Afghan Officials Targeted in Attacks

Afghan Officials Targeted in Attacks: Several senior Afghan officials were killed in a wave of assassinations around Afghanistan, including a prominent ethnic Uzbek politician, a top police chief and a senior army commander.

Teenager Films Afghan Child Labor

Teenager Films Afghan Child Labor: A video shot by an 18-year-old Afghan in the claustrophobic passages of a coal mine casts new light on one of Afghanistan's most disturbing challenges.

In Egypt's Sinai desert, Islamic militants gaining new foothold - The Washington Post

In Egypt's Sinai desert, Islamic militants gaining new foothold - The Washington Post

Military Fails to Feed Itself

Military Fails to Feed Itself:
North Korea is trying to combat malnutrition among its soldiers by encouraging them to raise livestock and grow enough food for themselves but the effort has met with little success.

Individual units of the Korean People’s Army have been tasked with raising animals and growing their own crops since February 2011, when current North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—then vice chairman of the Central Military Commission— initiated a campaign to have them provide their own food.

The movement called for soldiers in the 1.2 million-strong army to wipe out malnutrition by breeding their own goats and rabbits.

But the program faced a stumbling block due to a lack of feed for the animals, a representative of a human rights organization that works in North Hamgyong province told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The source, who keeps in regular contact with servicemen in the North Korea-China border area, said they told him that most military units have failed to raise enough animals to eat.

“They are ordered to raise animals from rabbits to goats and dogs but they say that they can’t.  There’s nothing to feed the animals,” he said.

Goats and rabbits
After the units received the orders from the military’s General Political Bureau last year, each unit organized a side job team for raising animals and aimed to raise 100 goats, he said.

Units built special quarters for the job, and groups of men were given time off of work to travel to obtain goats and rabbits for the units to start breeding, he said.

But since they didn’t have any grass to graze on or other animal feed, the goats were undernourished, he said. 

As for the rabbits, the soldiers’ officers ate them without leaving enough to breed, the source said.

One unit in South Hamgyong province, the communications battalion of Training Center 108 located near the mountains, lacked suitable land for the goats to graze, so they let the animals run loose in nearby cornfields.

The roaming goats caused a furor among nearby residents, prompting them to blame Kim Jong Un for the campaign, saying he showed little concern for how the animals affected nearby civilians, the source said.

Looting

Another source said soldiers had trouble finding enough seeds and fertilizer to grow crops and vegetables.

Seung-chul Baek, a North Korean defector familiar with the situations of the Army Corps 9 in North Hamgyong province, said the unit had failed to grow adequate food.

“This year, they received Kim Jong Un’s order to farm. So each unit organized a team to find new land and focused on farming. But due to lack of seeds, fertilizers and other farming materials, they had no success in farming either.”

He said another group of soldiers in Kangwon province in the southern part of the country which was unable to grow enough of their own food had turned to looting nearby residents.

“Since raising animals became a life and death struggle for these military servicemen ... residents of Kangwon Province have given up on their own animals [for them],” he said.

Unable to endure the hunger, some of the servicemen turned to thievery, he said.

“In Kangwon province, the men suddenly turned into robbers and attacked people passing by and stole animals.”

Food shortages

In 2010, several international charities raised money to send giant rabbits to North Korea to boost the food supply. The aim was that North Koreans would use them to breed a cheap source of protein, but what happened to the rabbits after they reached the country was unknown.

North Korea has been reeling from persistent food shortages since a famine in the mid-1990s that resulted in several million deaths, and relies on foreign aid to feed its people.

The lack of food security in the nation has led to the proliferation of an underground market economy, which authorities have largely tolerated because of the failures of the public distribution system to sufficiently provide rations for the population.

In April, the U.S. suspended planned food shipments to North Korea in following a rocket launch Washington said breached a February deal, under which Pyongyang agreed to a partial nuclear freeze and a missile and nuclear test moratorium in return for 240,000 tons of U.S. food aid.

The aid package had been expected to target the neediest in North Korea, including malnourished young children and pregnant women.

Reported by Young Chung for RFA’s Korean service. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

Radical Islamists Wage Muslim Civil War in Africa - Wall Street Journal

Radical Islamists Wage Muslim Civil War in Africa - Wall Street Journal:

Wall Street Journal

Radical Islamists Wage Muslim Civil War in Africa Wall Street Journal In The Wall Street Journal, Melik Kaylan writes that extremist imams and jihadists infiltrate peaceful Muslim lands, uprooting religious customs that have existed for centuries.

US 'Outraged' By Continued Destruction Of Muslim Shrines In Timbuktu - RTT News

US 'Outraged' By Continued Destruction Of Muslim Shrines In Timbuktu - RTT News:

AFP

US 'Outraged' By Continued Destruction Of Muslim Shrines In Timbuktu RTT News The United States has strongly condemned destruction of Muslim shrines and other religious and historic sites in the ancient Mali city of Timbuktu by Islamist militants, including Ansar al-Dine. US Condemns Destruction of Ancient Muslim Shrines in MaliVoice of America (blog) Islamic extremists destroy Muslim tombs in MaliOrlando Sentinel (blog) Destruction of Muslim Shrines in TimbuktuImperial Valley News News24 -NPR -AFP all 454 news articles »

Christian and Muslim alliance commits to help solving tensions in Nigeria - PR Web (press release)

Christian and Muslim alliance commits to help solving tensions in Nigeria - PR Web (press release):

PR Web (press release)

Christian and Muslim alliance commits to help solving tensions in Nigeria PR Web (press release) The World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought (RABIIT) on 12 July issued a report on their joint commitment to help in resolving the tensions in Nigeria. The report reflects a new Christian-Muslim model of ... Jos and its Intractable ConflictNigeria Intel Interfaith report: Poverty and injustice drive Nigeria's sectarian violenceReuters Blogs (blog) Nigeria Violence Kills Over 100 ChristiansWorthy News The Nation Newspaper -Christian Science Monitor all 777 news articles »

Video: CAIR Urges U.S. Muslims to Share Ramadan with Neighbors - Sacramento Bee

Video: CAIR Urges U.S. Muslims to Share Ramadan with Neighbors - Sacramento Bee:

Onislam.net

Video: CAIR Urges U.S. Muslims to Share Ramadan with Neighbors Sacramento Bee Fast-breaking 'iftars' designed to enhance interfaith understanding. EU Muslims move to synchronize RamadanMuslimVillage.com Video: CAIR Urges US Muslims to Share Ramadan with NeighborsMarketWatch (press release) Europe's Muslims edge towards synchronizing RamadanReuters Onislam.net -Deseret News all 84 news articles »

Persecution of the Ahmadi Muslims continues in Pakistan - Examiner.com

Persecution of the Ahmadi Muslims continues in Pakistan - Examiner.com:

Examiner.com

Persecution of the Ahmadi Muslims continues in Pakistan Examiner.com Can a country progress when its government advocates the oppression of minorities? Here in the U.S. we never question our rights. In fact, we take everything fo. and more »

Saudi Arabia and the Brotherhood: What the New York Times Missed - The Nation. (blog)

Saudi Arabia and the Brotherhood: What the New York Times Missed - The Nation. (blog):

The Nation. (blog)

Saudi Arabia and the Brotherhood: What the New York Times Missed The Nation. (blog) The kleptocratic Saudi Arabian kingdom has long backed the Muslim Brotherhood. New Republic: What's Going On In Egypt?NPR Egypt's Mursi visits Saudi Arabia to mend tiesChicago Tribune Who Paid for Egypt's Gold Braid?Family Research Council (blog) MuslimVillage.com all 552 news articles »

More people are risking lives in the Caribbean to reach safety

More people are risking lives in the Caribbean to reach safety: UNHCR is very concerned by the loss of life we are seeing in maritime incidents in the Caribbean among people trying to escape difficult conditions in Haiti.
On Tuesday July 10, a woman drowned when a...

Daily Number: 80% - Most Mexicans Back Military Campaign against Drug Cartels

Daily Number: 80% - Most Mexicans Back Military Campaign against Drug Cartels: A majority of Mexicans continue to support the use of the country’s army to fight drug traffickers.

Pervasive Gloom About the World Economy

Pervasive Gloom About the World Economy:

Overview

The economic mood is exceedingly glum all around the world. A median of just 27 percent think their national economy is doing well, according to a survey in 21 countries by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project. Only in China (83%), Germany (73%), Brazil (65%) and Turkey (57%) do most people report that current national economic conditions are good.
The public mood about the economy has worsened since 2008 in eight of 15 countries for which there is comparable data, while it is essentially unchanged in four others. The Chinese are the lone exception. They have been positive about their economy for the past decade.
Less than a third of Americans (31%) say the U.S. economy is doing well. That figure is up 13 percentage points from 2011. (But it is down 19 points from 2007, the year before the financial crunch began.) A median of just 16% of Europeans surveyed think their economy is performing up to par. That includes just 2% of the Greeks and 6% of the Spanish and Italians. Among Europeans, only the Germans (73%) give their economy a thumbs up. And just 7% of Japanese believe their economy is doing well.
People are, however, generally far more positive about their personal economic condition than they are about their nation’s economic situation. A median of 52 percent in the 21 nations surveyed feel satisfied with their own circumstances. Americans are twice as likely to say their family finances are in good shape as they are to say that the national economic situation is good. There are larger differences in Britain and Japan, where those who rate their personal economic situation as good exceed the number who have positive views of the national economy by more than four-to-one. Only the Chinese are significantly more likely to say the national economy is doing better than their families’ finances.
And there is some optimism that things will improve in the next 12 months, especially in Brazil (84%), China (83%) and Tunisia (75%). Nevertheless, pessimism about young peoples’ ability to do better than their parents is rampant, particularly in Europe (a median of only 9% think it will be easy) and Japan (10%). Again, the lone exception is China, where 57% say it will be easy for their children to become wealthier or to get a better job.


There is a striking contrast between the economic outlook in four of the emerging markets surveyed – Brazil, China, India and Turkey – and the European Union and the U.S. People living in these economies are generally more likely than Americans or Europeans to say that they are doing better than their parents. They are twice as likely as Americans and more than three times as likely as Europeans to think economic conditions in their countries are good. They are three times more likely than Europeans and more than twice as likely as Americans to say that they are financially better off compared with five years ago. And, while people in emerging markets also worry about the economic mobility of their children, they are four times more optimistic about the future for their kids than the Europeans and twice as optimistic as Americans.
In contrast, economic attitudes are particularly gloomy in the four nations polled in the Arab world. Only a third of those surveyed think they are better off than their parents at the same age. A median of only 30% say they are doing well financially. And a median of only 16% believe their children will have an easy time becoming economically better off than themselves.
Tough times have undermined the work ethic in a number of countries among people who are suffering economically. Those who say their personal finances are a mess are far less likely than those who are doing well to believe that most people succeed if they work hard.
The global economic crisis has eroded support for capitalism. In 11 of the 21 nations surveyed, half or fewer now agree with the statement that people are better off in a free market economy even though some people are rich and some are poor. And such backing is down in 9 of 16 nations with comparable data since 2007, before the Great Recession began. Such disenchantment is particularly acute in Italy (where support for a free market economy is down 23 percentage points), Spain (20 points) and Poland (15 points).
These are among the key findings from a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, conducted in 21 countries among 26,210 respondents from March 17 to April 20, 2012.

SOMALIA: Tens of thousands need food aid in Somaliland

SOMALIA: Tens of thousands need food aid in Somaliland:

HARGEISA, 13 July 2012 (IRIN) - About 120,000 people in the coastal, mid- and far western regions of the self-declared republic of Somaliland require emergency food assistance after four years of failed rains, says Mohamed Mousa Awale, chairman of Somaliland's environment research and disaster preparedness agency.

SUDAN-CHAD: The strains of long-term displacement

SUDAN-CHAD: The strains of long-term displacement:

GOZ-BEIDA, 13 July 2012 (IRIN) - Djabal refugee camp in eastern Chad, where some residents have stayed for nearly a decade after fleeing violence in neighbouring Sudan, illustrates some of the family and social problems engendered by displacement and dependency.

DRC: Top officials warn against witch-hunts, hate speech

DRC: Top officials warn against witch-hunts, hate speech:

KINSHASA, 13 July 2012 (IRIN) - Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have assured leaders of the Tutsi community they are working to protect Tutsis across the country amid rising resentment sparked by a mutiny led mainly by Tutsi soldiers in the east.

Bodies in Timor Leste mass grave likely Chinese: police | East Timor Law and Justice Bulletin

Bodies in Timor Leste mass grave likely Chinese: police | East Timor Law and Justice Bulletin

Fundasaun Mahein: PNTL and F-FDTL do not read our reports | East Timor Law and Justice Bulletin

Fundasaun Mahein: PNTL and F-FDTL do not read our reports | East Timor Law and Justice Bulletin

Facebook Security 'Checkpoint' Hits Roadblock | PCWorld

Facebook Security 'Checkpoint' Hits Roadblock | PCWorld

Service to Israel Tugs at Arab Citizens’ Identity

Service to Israel Tugs at Arab Citizens’ Identity: The issue of Arab civilian service to Israel has revived the raw, decades-old conundrum of what it means to be both Arab and Israeli.

With influx of refugees, Syrian rebellion reaches deeper into heart of Damascus

With influx of refugees, Syrian rebellion reaches deeper into heart of Damascus:
DAMASCUS — The revolution that has engulfed much of Syria in bloodshed is now encroaching on the capital in ways that challenge long-held assumptions about President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power even in the city presumed to be his stronghold.
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Rep. Jesse Jackson’s political future in question

Rep. Jesse Jackson’s political future in question:
Hours before Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president at Invesco Field in Denver in 2008, Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) settled into the best seat in the house — front row, dead center. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) came along and sat next to him, and the entire arc of the American civil rights movement seemed contained in the moment.
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President Obama aware of alleged threat toward First Lady, spokesman says

President Obama aware of alleged threat toward First Lady, spokesman says:
President Obama has been notified of the threats a D.C. police officer is alleged to have made toward the first lady earlier this week, a spokesman for the president said Friday morning.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters traveling to Virginia with the president on Air Force One that Obama is “aware” that an officer, who worked as a motorcycle escort for White House officials and other dignitaries, had been moved to administrative duty Wednesday after he allegedly was overheard making threatening comments about Michelle Obama.
Read full article >>

News-Sharing Site Digg Sells for $500,000

News-Sharing Site Digg Sells for $500,000: Betaworks has agreed to buy news-sharing website Digg, in an attempt to revive a company that was early to social media but outmaneuvered by rivals.

James Taranto: Obama's Risky Campaign Strategy - WSJ.com

James Taranto: Obama's Risky Campaign Strategy - WSJ.com

Political Defectors Stir Activist Debate - WSJ.com

Political Defectors Stir Activist Debate - WSJ.com

Libya Liberal Bloc Closes In on Win - WSJ.com

Libya Liberal Bloc Closes In on Win - WSJ.com

Indonesians Back Local Politician in Vote - WSJ.com

Indonesians Back Local Politician in Vote - WSJ.com

Asean Summit Breaks Down Over South China Sea Disputes - WSJ.com

Asean Summit Breaks Down Over South China Sea Disputes - WSJ.com

Indonesian Islamic hardliners vow jihad for Rohingyas

Indonesian Islamic hardliners vow jihad for Rohingyas:

The hardliners called on Muslims to go to Myanmar and "carry out jihad for your Muslim brothers" (AFP, Romeo Gacad) 

JAKARTA — Hundreds of Islamic hardliners protested outside the Myanmar embassy in the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Friday to "stop the genocide" of Rohingya Muslims in the wake of deadly communal unrest.

Around 300 hardliners from organisations, including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT), threatened to storm the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta as some 50 police officers guarded the building.

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Comment - The Rohingya do not need friends like the FPI.  Highly counter-productive. - John

Mexico's Election: A Vote for Peace, a Plan for War | The Nation

Mexico's Election: A Vote for Peace, a Plan for War | The Nation

The Birthers are (Still) Back

The Birthers are (Still) Back

How the Mormons Make Money - Businessweek

How the Mormons Make Money - Businessweek

EXCLUSIVE: Romney Invested Millions in Chinese Firm That Profited on US Outsourcing | Mother Jones

EXCLUSIVE: Romney Invested Millions in Chinese Firm That Profited on US Outsourcing | Mother Jones

Mobile Money Most Popular in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda

Mobile Money Most Popular in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda: Many households in Africa send domestic remittances in cash. Mobile phone money transfers are filling this need in a few countries and prove better at reaching poor and rural residents than banks or standard money-transfer services.

Young U.S. Voters' Turnout Intentions Lagging

Young U.S. Voters' Turnout Intentions Lagging: The 58% of registered voters aged 18 to 29 who say they will definitely vote this fall is well below 2008 levels and is the lowest for any major subgroup. Black voter intentions are down from 2008 but are close to the national average.

"The Fear Never Leaves Me" | Human Rights Watch

"The Fear Never Leaves Me" | Human Rights Watch

Iraq’s Information Crimes Law | Human Rights Watch

Iraq’s Information Crimes Law | Human Rights Watch

Russia: Bring Natalia Estemirova’s Murderers to Justice

Russia: Bring Natalia Estemirova’s Murderers to Justice:

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The Russian authorities should finally bring to justice the killers of the leading Chechen right activist Natalia Estemirova, Human Rights Watch said today at a news conference in Moscow.

(Moscow) – The Russian authorities should finally bring to justice the killers of the leading Chechen right activist Natalia Estemirova, Human Rights Watch said today at a news conference in Moscow.
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China: Attempts to Seal Off Tibet from Outside Information

China: Attempts to Seal Off Tibet from Outside Information:

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Restrictions on news, media, and communications in Tibet have been stepped up by Chinese authorities in the lead-up to the 18th Party Congress, due to take place in late 2012. The measures appear to be an effort to cut off Tibetans in Chinafrom news not subjected to the government’s domestic monopoly on information. They are presented officially as an attempt to prevent the views of the exiled Dalai Lama and his followers from reaching Tibetans inside China, particularly those living in rural areas.

(New York) – Restrictions on news, media, and communications in Tibet have been stepped up by Chinese authorities in the lead-up to the 18th Party Congress, due to take place in late 2012.


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Potent Strain of Common Illness Deadly in Asia

Potent Strain of Common Illness Deadly in Asia:

Lesions caused by the hand, foot and mouth Virus on an 11-month-old boy. (Photo: MidgleyDJ / WikiMedia)

HANOI, Vietnam—Tran Minh Giang has spent more than a third of his young life in a Vietnamese hospital, and it could be many months more before he can go home. All for a disease that in Asia is as common as chicken pox, and usually about as severe.
The 20-month-old boy was sickened by a particularly menacing form of hand, foot and mouth disease that has killed hundreds of young children across the region. They sometimes suffer high fever, brain swelling, paralysis and respiratory shutdown, even though they may have been infected by people with few or no symptoms.
When the strain hit Cambodia recently, doctors there had no idea what it was, and even now experts do not fully understand why it can be so devastating. Seven months after becoming sick, Giang still breathes using a ventilator connected to a hole in his tiny throat.
“It may take time, maybe years, before he can recover. When he sleeps, his lungs don’t work,” his father, Tran Nam Trung, said on Thursday while fanning the toddler. “When he first got a high fever, I didn’t think that he would be in a situation like this.”
The enterovirus 71 strain, or EV-71, raised fears earlier this week when it was detected in some lab samples taken after 52 of 59 Cambodian children died suddenly from a mystery illness that sparked international alarm. The World Health Organization (WHO) said via Twitter on Thursday that its investigation has found most cases were caused by the disease.
An expert at the UN health agency earlier said it’s the first time EV-71 had been identified in the country, but it is a well-known pathogen elsewhere in Asia. In the first half of this year alone, 356 people in China and 33 in Vietnam died from it.
The scale of the disease was clear last week on the crowded ground floor of a hospital in China’s hard-hit central Hunan Province. Dozens of crying children were packed into two small rooms, sitting or lying on chairs with IV drips hooked to them. Hunan reported 33 hand, foot and mouth disease deaths in May, a quarter of the country’s total that month.
The disease has exploded across the region since 1997, when the first major outbreak was reported in Malaysia. Since then, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Mongolia, Taiwan and Australia have all wrangled with it.
EV-71 is one of a group of viruses that cause the disease, but it has become a more dominant strain over the past decade in Asia. Still, only a small percentage of children infected experience severe symptoms, and experts are not exactly sure why. There is no vaccine or specific treatment to cure it, but severe cases are given supportive care and blood proteins are also sometimes administered intravenously.
“There’s a buildup of that susceptible population, like many viruses, and this happens to be the children who have not been exposed to different types of enteroviruses before,” said Dr. Zarifah Hussain Reed, co-author of a WHO report on hand, foot and mouth disease and medical director at a Malaysia-based biotech company researching a vaccine for it. “Then this buildup somehow explodes in a way that suddenly you get severe cases of EV-71.”
She added that it is unclear why it remains largely confined to certain parts of Asia—India and Indonesia, for instance, have not reported large outbreaks—and it is not understood if EV-71 is more infectious or perhaps just better at invading the neurological system than other strains.
The disease is in the same family as polio and gets its name from the telltale symptoms it causes, including rash, mouth sores and blisters covering the hands and feet. It mainly affects children younger than five, and is difficult to control because it spreads easily through sneezing, coughing and contact with fluid from sores or infected feces.
In daycare centers and schools, it’s nearly impossible to keep little blistered hands from coming into contact with other children and everything they touch. Another problem is that many infected kids never get sick, but they can still transmit the virus to others. Frequent hand-washing and disinfection of toys and surfaces are advised, and sometimes schools are forced to close to help halt the spread.
The first EV-71 infection with neurological symptoms was reported in California in 1969. Outbreaks have since occurred periodically in the US and Europe, but the disease has been a stubborn menace in Asia, typically occurring in cycles.
Some experts have warned that if the virus is not controlled, it can jump borders and threaten other regions as well. In fact, some wonder if the recent Cambodia cases could have spread from Vietnam, where about 63,000 cases have been reported so far this year.
Dr. Pham Nhat An, vice-director of the National Hospital of Pediatrics in Hanoi, says he has dealt with the disease for three decades. But it did not start killing until two years ago, when the number of hospitalized cases started to spike.
“It’s worrying,” he said. “We need to think about a vaccine. It will help, especially for the EV-71.”
In a unit on the other side of the building, the dedicated father, Trung, sits on the edge of a bed fanning little Giang, who probably caught the disease from a mildly ill cousin who was staying with them at the time.
Giang was just 13 months old when he began burning hot with fever. He did not seem overly sick and continued to play, so his parents believed it was a bug that would quickly pass. By morning, the baby was purple and convulsing. His lungs were shutting down.
Now the chubby boy can sit, and he occasionally musters a quick smile. But he remains lethargic, with tubes running out of his nose and throat. Trung had to quit his job to help his wife care for the child 24 hours a day in the hospital, which is common in many parts of Asia where nursing staff is thin.
“This is a very serious disease, and it can result in very serious health consequences,” Trung said. “People need to be very cautious and they need to strengthen surveillance to try to prevent the disease.”

Greece: Migrants Describe Fear on the Streets | Human Rights Watch

Greece: Migrants Describe Fear on the Streets | Human Rights Watch

Yahoo Investigates Password Breach

Yahoo Investigates Password Breach: Yahoo is investigating reports of a security breach that may have exposed nearly half a million users' email addresses and passwords.

Asia Moves to Thwart Slowdown

Asia Moves to Thwart Slowdown: Asian governments have begun a wave of stimulus measures to try to block a potential downward spiral

Factionalism in Vietnam

Factionalism in Vietnam:

Today on ForeignPolicy.com, I published an article discussing the cracks in Vietnam’s socialist-market economy.  The main problem, I and others have argued, is the rotten politics and in-fighting within the Communist Party (kudos to Carl Thayer), which has helped foster the bad economics.
Top party leaders, along with rising provincial and local figures, have become too comfortable with the largesse gained from three decades of market liberalization. They seem to be increasingly in a deadlock over the pace of “reforms” that could take from their spoils (although the word “reform” doesn’t quite capture the breadth of what’s going on). Once a promising emerging market, Vietnam seems to be a hitting a plateau as each economic solution only brings about more problems. The regional slump is only partially to blame.
Which leads me to the deeper questions: To what extent does the central party hold real power anymore, compared to all the rising provincial and local elites thanks to decentralization? And could an attempt to rein in the new players  explain the very public humiliations of Vinalines, Vinashin, Dang Thi Hoan Yen, and the prime minister, all over the past few years?
In his book Vietnam: Rethinking the State, Martin Gainsborough offers a revealing explanation when looking at the increase in large corruption cases since the late 1990s . He argues that the central party-state is trying to reassert control over the periphery, undertaking “thrusts of recentralization.”
To the Hanoi-ologists out there, this might be old news. But what about Vietnam’s parallels to other Southeast Asian nations — Malaysia and its economy, perhaps?

Lao history: Don’t look back

Lao history: Don’t look back:

In a NM series he called ‘Starting Points’ Nicholas Farrelly attempted to prompt discussion about countries in Southeast Asia Asia by focusing on individual books, and he chose my Politics of Ritual and Remembrance: Laos Since 1975 (1988) for his ‘Starting points: Laos in 1975’. He kindly remarked that it “is still one of the crucial texts.” But he had “no doubt that even since Evans’ work in the 1990s the conceptualisation of the revolution and its pivotal year has changed significantly. There is still much to say about 1975 and all that.” Indeed, there is.
Oliver Tappe recently asked me if I had considered producing a revised edition of PR&R and I replied that he was doing a pretty good job himself in his various articles. And, I had no wish to. But if I did produce a new edition of this book about social and political memory it would now have a chapter called ‘Forgetting Socialism.’ As I remarked in the original book, by the mid-1990s almost half the Lao population had been born since the fall of the Royal Lao Government and they had no concrete memory of it. Today more-or-less half the population has grown up since the collapse of Stalinist communism around 1990, and they have no memory of restrictions on personal movement and calls to build socialism. There is no examination of this period inside the country and it has become a kind of blank space.
I have, however, revised my Short History of Laos: The Land Inbetween (2002) twice. First, for the editions that were translated into both Lao and Thai and published in 2006. Here the main revision involved splitting the chapter on the Lao PDR into two, with a new chapter called ‘post-socialism.’ The Lao translation did not endear me to at least some people in the foreign ministry and they refused my request for a research visa. Since 2009, however, I have had an expert’s visa through the Lao Institute for Social Sciences. (Short memories again?)

In 2011 a more thoroughly revised edition was published in Chinese by a Shanghai publisher, Orient Publishing Center, called simply Lao History.
In July 2012 the same text, plus or minus, appeared in English, published by Silkworm Books as a ‘Revised edition’. In it I have I tried to incorporate the insights I gleaned from Richard McGregor’s, The Party: The Secret World of Chinese Communism (2010) where he documents the pervasive control and influence of the communist party in China, despite liberalization. Much the same is true in Laos, and it would be nice to think that someone was working on a similar book about the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party.
Indeed, the recent reforms in Myanmar underline the differences between authoritarian and militaristic regimes and Marxist-Leninist ones. Aung Sang Suu Kyi would never have survived in Laos, Vietnam or China. It is something worth examining in depth.
Nicholas Farrelly invites further thoughts on post-1975 Laos, and in my revised edition I do just that in my final paragraph:

When the first edition of this book was written 10 years ago the collapse of global communism in the early 1990s was still fresh in my mind and it was not clear how the remaining socialist states, including Laos, would fare. In 2011 it is clear that they have fared very well, and they are likely to be with us for the next two or three decades. But one must quickly add, they are no longer recognizably socialist, while the one party state has become an instrument for the development of capitalism. People like me who were intellectually formed during the hey-day of the Cold War and at the end of almost a century of competition between revolutionary socialism and liberal democracies were unprepared for the transformation of Marxist-Leninist states into something more mainstream; merely another variant of the many paths that countries globally have taken into the modern world – for better or worse. Countries like Laos still carry baggage from the attempt to build socialism, but bit by bit it is being thrown overboard. The majority of the world’s and Laos’s population born since 1990 do not feel part of some global ideological struggle, but are simply swept along by an imperfect everyday reality. The hegemonic global mantra is ‘development,’ an often vague term promising a better future, and almost anything can be justified just by invoking it. It is a kind of modern magic, and it trumps any other card in the deck, including preservation of ‘a beautiful, ancient Lao culture,’ in the precious phrasing of the Lao Ministry of Information and Culture. Lao hope they can have their cake and eat it too; that they can have rapid all-round development that leaves their culture intact. This, however, is impossible. Lao culture and society is about to change much faster than anyone has anticipated, but just how much will remain of the culture that Lao now find so comforting and foreigners so charming, only time will tell.