President Obama Signs Executive Order Outlawing The Taliban

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Following on the heels of the establishment of Afghanistan as a gun-free zone, President Barack Obama has taken a bold step in ending the War on Terror by signing an executive order outlawing the Taliban.

“It’s a simple and straightforward approach that’ll solve the insurgency problem overnight,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney. “Frankly, it’s so profoundly obvious that we’re surprised the previous administration didn’t think of it.”


The order makes it illegal to belong to the Taliban, or to other insurgent groups, such as the Haqqani and the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin terrorist networks, which have partnered with the Taliban in the past. There are stiff penalties attached: Taliban fighters have thirty days to turn themselves in and serve five days’ incarceration, or be fined 50,000 Afghanis (about $10 USD), and must also register as a terror offender.


However, current and former Taliban fighters can pursue a “pathway to legality” by transitioning into the Afghan National Security Forces. After a two-week probationary period, these new recruits will be provided a monthly stipend and issued a refurbished M-16.


While the program’s critics call it “amnesty for terrorists,” the Obama administration dismissed the concerns, citing Taliban-furnished nonscientific anecdotal polling data which indicated that less than 3 percent of current and former fighters expressed interest in this program.


The order also establishes a gun-buyback program similar to those implemented by some American cities: villagers can turn in weapons, no questions asked, and receive a cash payment. The $500 million buyback program was funded primarily by scrapping development of improved body armor, which Carney called “a colossal waste of money anyway.”


“We need to put the suspicions and prejudices of the past behind us and move forward together with our Afghan partners,” President Obama said during a press conference. “This is a necessary step in proving a pathway to legality for the thousands of poor folks throughout Afghanistan who turned to insurgency simply because they had no other economic options. This plan helps provide that for these folks.”


“Let me be clear: What we’re talking about for these folks is not simple amnesty, as some folks have claimed,” President Obama reiterated. “Folks, this is not amnesty at all. We’re simply allowing these folks to start new lives without passing judgment on them or punishing them at all for the crimes they may have committed. I think there are too many folks out there in our country who are too quick to jump to a primitive, eye-for-an-eye view of retributive justice.”


The response among U.S. servicemembers was largely critical. “So, they’re gonna give these guys a pardon, give them guns, and let them go on patrols with us?” said PFC Richard Barnes, a soldier with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. “Who in the world could possibly think that’s a good idea?”


Barnes’ opinion is typical among U.S. combat soldiers deployed to Afghanistan, who are understandably skeptical of the President’s ambitious plan in light of the surge in “green-on-blue” attacks.


Some Taliban infiltrators have joined in the ranks of Afghan security forces, but the motive for the majority of these attacks remains unclear, with some studies currently assessing self-esteem levels among Afghan personnel to determine whether that may have been a factor.


“We’re confident that in their hearts, Taliban fighters respect the rule of law as much as we do,” Carney said. “We don’t anticipate any significant challenges implementing this new policy.”

A possible BJP agenda if it wins the general elections

A Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance might win the elections in 2014 or earlier. What will the new government's policies be? The BJP has, over the 10 years in opposition to the United Progressive Alliance, taken many positions against its policies. Many of these may not easily be reversed when the BJP is in power. Earlier, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was able to smooth over such inconsistencies. He did this to the great benefit of India, memorably on two major policies. He followed whole-heartedly the economic reforms track of the P.V. Narasimha Rao government. He extended the hand of friendship and peace to Pakistan in spite of its aggressive talk and actions. But Vajpayee is not available and no one of his shrewdness, few words, stature and statecraft is around. Narendra Modi, Yashwant Sinha, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj et al are lesser figures, with neither the same stature nor the articulation and clear objectives that put development and peace at the top. Among the BJP's old allies, perhaps Nitish Kumar might develop into a Vajapayee. But the BJP will not accept him, given the hostility between him and Modi.

The BJP has been very aggressive in its rhetoric in responding to Pakistani actions and what it calls the 'timid' responses of the UPA government. We must expect a more abrasive and aggressive stance in relation to Pakistan. Cross-border skirmishes will increase. The BJP will desperately look for muted military responses. Covert Indian operations might increase significantly within Pakistan. On the backburner will go a more relaxed visa regime, greater people-to-people contacts, more tourism and so on. Trade and investment are unlikely to grow. This is a pity since it could make for cheaper goods into Pakistan from India, greater access to natural resources from Baluchistan and other provinces and a share in the Iran gas pipeline. These non-events will hurt our economy.

Bangladesh has already become a tale of missed opportunities, thanks to the obduracy of Mamata Banerjee and the extremism of Begum Khaleda Zia. A secure border with Bangladesh could control the huge migration into India. It would open the river route to the Northeast and enable its development, especially in getting natural resources out at low cost, and also energy. The BJP will be unable to pursue these initiatives, especially if Begum Zia and her supporters come to power later this year. This is a pity, since it would have added to our resources, brought costs down and helped develop the Northeast.

Sri Lanka is one country regarding which the BJP has realized the inconsistency of fighting for Sri Lankan Tamils while wanting to safeguard our interests in Kashmir and elsewhere. Hopefully, it has grasped Vajpayee's understanding of the encircling India strategy of China. The UPA's need for Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam support makes it sympathetic to DMK demands for mercy to Rajiv Gandhi's assassins and for support to foreign nationals, which is how Tamils in Sri Lanka must be regarded. Vajpayee would not have allowed policies for the fractious relations with Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Maldives.

The benefits of good relations with our South Asian neighbours lie in improved trade and investment. The BJP can stimulate this if it is able to cover its hostility to Muslims and Muslim countries in our region. The BJP in office was as ineffective as the UPA in gathering, analysing, sharing and acting quickly upon intelligence in dealing with terrorism — from Maoists, militants in Jammu and Kasmir and the Northeast. The BJP is more likely to impose restrictions on our Muslim population. This will disturb law and order, the economy, and equality of treatment to all citizens. The resulting pall of fear in Muslim localities is detrimental to internal peace and stability.

Gujarat under Modi has shown that the Muslim bloodletting of 2002 cowed Muslim resistance to a Hindu-majority inclined government. It led to the absence of such law and order problems but no massive upsurge in Muslim wellbeing. This result could spread over the rest of India under a new BJP government.

Vajpayee's graciousness in dealing with the Gandhi family will be history. The BJP will now pursue its 'crimes'. The various scams in telecommunications, coal, arms purchases and so on will be vigorously prosecuted. Unlike earlier governments, which had interminable commissions of inquiry, it may go to the courts. Today's high-profile ministers, Congress partymen and bureaucrats will have to defend themselves. Some dirty linen will fall out and hurt the Congress further, even if few cases are proven.

This judicial hunt could lead to bureaucratic paralysis. The answer has been staring at us for decades — speedy administrative reforms. Detailed blueprints exist in the many reports of the administrative reforms commissions, especially those headed by Morarji Desai and Veerappa Moily. We must have bureaucratic accountability, speedy justice and administrative procedural reforms. The BJP has no ideological bias; unlike the Congress, whose close links to the bureaucracy prevented such reforms.

Given the BJP's parliamentary behaviour in the last few years, the Congress will ensure similar turbulence. Little fresh legislation will be passed. Better led state-governments will initiate their own reforms. The states are at the heart of the poor implementation and theft of public funds. New national leaderships will emerge from this.

In economic policies Vajpayee wisely continued Narasimha Rao's liberalization (tax reforms and reductions, delicensing and so on). He added the stimulus of large infrastructure expenditures. A BJP-led government will build on public private partnerships pioneered by the UPA. Vajpayee's innovative social welfare schemes, like mass education, went mad under the UPA, with huge corruption and fiscal deficits. The BJP might learn from this.

The BJP in power did little to stimulate foreign direct investment. Nor did it try to change foreign institutional investment in equity into direct investment in new manufacturing. It did not close the loopholes of investments routed (free of capital gains tax) through Mauritius and other small countries, nor the invidious participatory notes. Both have become instruments for money laundering and volatility in the stock markets and exchange rates. Given the vested interests of politicians and the bureaucracy, this preference for FIIs may continue. Perhaps, however, the BJP has less to lose than the Congress and its friendly bureaucrats who amassed vast wealth overseas by these routes. If the BJP clamps down, volatility in markets and exchange rates will ease. This will stimulate both domestic and foreign investment.

The BJP in Opposition was vociferously against FDI in retail and some other sectors. In office, it has to encourage and ease foreign fund inflows that are stable and not volatile, and in all sectors. But the party's attitudes for the last decade have to be reversed. A reversal is possible. After all, the BJP in earlier years was against foreign investment ("yes to computer chips, no to potato chips") but relaxed on this when in the National Democratic Alliance. It will, when in power, see the need for it.

The BJP will embark on a massive programme of privatization to release the resources locked into the public sector. It will also stimulate the economy as these dormant enterprises get fresh life and entrepreneurship from private ownership. As coal, oil and gas, power, steel, aluminum, tourism, perhaps even railways and airlines, become privatized we can expect a significant boost to the economy. These resources released from public enterprises must go into social expenditures on health, education, skills development, livelihoods enhancement, and not, as the Congress does, to bridge deficits. These social investments and infrastructure investments will stimulate the economy.

The BJP in power might have brittle relations with neighbours. But it could, in economic policies, make India more responsive to enterprise and less so to bureaucratic procedures.

the telegraph

Caroline Kennedy : He?

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of former President John F Kennedy, has been asked to serve as the US ambassador to Japan and is being vetted for the post, according to a media report today.    

Kennedy, 55, was a top backer of US President Barack Obama during both of his presidential campaigns. He served as the co-chair of his vice presidential search committee in 2008.

rediff

Pak in a state of institutional failure: Ex-US envoy:

Pakistan is in a state of institutional failure, even if it is not a
failed state now, a former US ambassador to Islamabad has said, noting
that the nation's powerful army is in no mood to usurp power.

"Pakistan is in a state of institutional failure. Its not a failed
state, but you could argue it is a failing state. So these elections
need to be well run and credible in their outcome," former US
Ambassador to Pakistan Ryan Crocker told reporters during a conference
call on Monday.

Crocker who was the US Ambassador to Pakistan from 2004 to 2007 said
that there are more extremist groups in Pakistan on Monday than when
he was there.

"They are targeting the Pakistani state, the military and civilians.
We've seen the press reports of the ascendancy of the Taliban in
Karachi, one of the world's largest cities," he said.

In response to a question, Crocker said that Pakistan would continue
to hedge its bets on the Taliban.
rediff

Saudi Arabia may block Skype, Viber, WhatsApp...:

Saudi Arabia may block access to popular Internet messaging applications like Skype, Viber and WhatsApp if telecommunication providers there don't comply with rules and regulatory conditions, according to the country's official news agency, SPA.

A statement from Saudi Arabia's Communications and Information Technology Commission released via SPA read, "The Commission emphasizes that it will take appropriate action regarding these applications and services in the event of failure to meet those conditions."

The statement did not address how the applications in question -- which allow Internet users to communicate with each other via text messages and voice calls -- were violating any rules, but it did highlight the need for service providers in the country to quickly "work with the developers of these applications to meet regulatory requirements."

---

rediff

No more topless models in 'The Sun'? :

The Sun, the United Kingdom's biggest newspaper, may be putting an end to the topless model on Page 3 that opponents see as sexist and outdated, according to a CNN report.  

Owner Rupert Murdoch -- in one tweet -- has raised the specter of a world without Page 3. Murdoch said: "@Kazipooh page three so last century! You maybe right, don't know but considering. Perhaps halfway house with glamorous fashionistas." 

Murdoch later tempered this, saying it was the editor's call.

The Sun's topless model on Page 3 has been a tradition since the 1970s.

Campaigners have been pushing for Page 3 cover up. The campaign was started by Lucy Holmes when she realised the day after Jessica Ennis won Olympic gold in the heptathlon for Great Britain last summer "the largest female image in The Sun was of a young woman showing her breasts."

Read the full report on CNN

rediff

Tamil women soldiers recruited to Sri Lankan Army

A batch of 95 Tamil women soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army held their passing out parade at the security force's headquarters in the former LTTE stronghold of Kilinochchi in the north.        

This was the first time the army saw such a large group of Tamil women joining the organisation en bloc, although the army has had a fair number of Tamil woman officers serving it ever since its founding, military officials said.

rediff

Diamonds Are A Sham And It's Time We Stop Getting Engaged With Them

Yeah, they say three years’ salary.” -- Michael Scott, The Office

American males enter adulthood through a peculiar rite of passage - they spend most of their savings on a shiny piece of rock.

They could invest the money in assets that will compound over time and someday provide a nest egg.

Instead, they trade that money for a diamond ring, which isn’t much of an asset at all. As soon as you leave the jeweler with a diamond, it loses over 50% of its value. 

Americans exchange diamond rings as part of the engagement process, because in 1938 De Beers decided that they would like us to. Prior to a stunningly successful marketing campaign 1938, Americans occasionally exchanged engagement rings, but wasn’t a pervasive occurrence. 

Not only is the demand for diamonds a marketing invention, but diamonds aren’t actually that rare. Only by carefully restricting the supply has De Beers kept the price of a diamond high.

Countless American dudes will attest that the societal obligation to furnish a diamond engagement ring is both stressful and expensive. But here’s the thing - this obligation only exists because the company that stands to profit from it willed it into existence.  

So here is a modest proposal: Let’s agree that diamonds are bullshit and reject their role in the marriage process. Let’s admit that as a society we got tricked for about century into coveting sparkling pieces of carbon, but it’s time to end the nonsense.

The Concept of Intrinsic Value

In finance, there is concept called intrinsic value. An asset’s value is essentially driven by the (discounted) value of the future cash that asset will generate. For example, when Hertz buys a car, its value is the profit they get from renting it out and selling the car at the end of its life (the “terminal value”). For Hertz, a car is an investment. When you buy a car, unless you make money from it somehow, its value corresponds to its resale value. Since a car is a depreciating asset, the amount of value that the car loses over its lifetime is a very real expense you pay.

A diamond is a depreciating asset masquerading as an investment. There is a common misconception that jewelry and precious metals are assets that can store value, appreciate, and hedge against inflation. That’s not wholly untrue.

Gold and silver are commodities that can be purchased on financial markets. They can appreciate and hold value in times of inflation. You can even hoard gold under your bed and buy gold coins and bullion (albeit at a ~10% premium to market rates). If you want to hoard gold jewelry however, there is  typically a 100-400% retail markup so that’s probably not a wise investment. 

But with that caveat in mind, the market for gold is fairly liquid and gold is fungible - you can trade one large piece of gold for ten smalls ones like you can a ten dollar bill for a ten one dollar bills. These characteristics make it a feasible potential investment.

Diamonds, however, are not an investment. The market for them is neither liquid nor are they fungible.

The first test of a liquid market is whether you can resell a diamond. In a famous piece published by The Atlantic in 1982, Edward Epstein explains why you can’t sell used diamonds for anything but a pittance:

Retail jewelers, especially the prestigious Fifth Avenue stores, prefer not to buy back diamonds from customers, because the offer they would make would most likely be considered ridiculously low. The “keystone,” or markup, on a diamond and its setting may range from 100 to 200 percent, depending on the policy of the store; if it bought diamonds back from customers, it would have to buy them back at wholesale prices. 

…

Most jewelers would prefer not to make a customer an offer that might be deemed insulting and also might undercut the widely held notion that diamonds go up in value. Moreover, since retailers generally receive their diamonds from wholesalers on consignment, and need not pay for them until they are sold, they would not readily risk their own cash to buy diamonds from customers.

When you buy a diamond, you buy it at retail, which is a 100% to 200% markup. If you want to resell it, you have to pay less than wholesale to incent a diamond buyer to risk their own capital on the purchase. Given the large markup, this will mean a substantial loss on your part. The same article puts some numbers around the dilemma:

Because of the steep markup on diamonds, individuals who buy retail and in effect sell wholesale often suffer enormous losses. For example, Brod estimates that a half-carat diamond ring, which might cost $2,000 at a retail jewelry store, could be sold for only $600 at Empire.

Some diamonds are perhaps investment grade, but you probably don’t own one, even if you spent a lot.

The appraisers at Empire Diamonds examine thousands of diamonds a month but rarely turn up a diamond of extraordinary quality. Almost all the diamonds they find are slightly flawed, off-color, commercial-grade diamonds. The chief appraiser says, “When most of these diamonds were purchased, American women were concerned with the size of the diamond, not its intrinsic quality.” He points out that the setting frequently conceals flaws, and adds, “The sort of flawless, investment-grade diamond one reads about is almost never found in jewelry.”

As with televisions and mattresses, the diamond classification scheme is extremely complicated. Diamonds are not fungible and can’t be easily exchanged with each other. Diamond professionals use the 4 C’s when classifying and pricing diamonds: carats, color, cut, and clarity. Due to the complexity of these 4 dimensions, it’s hard to make apples to apples comparisons between diamonds.

But even when looking at the value of one stone, professionals seem like they’re just making up diamond prices:

In 1977, for example, Jewelers’ Circular Keystone polled a large number of retail dealers and found a difference of over 100 percent in offers for the same quality of investment-grade diamonds.

So let’s be very clear, a diamond is not an investment. You might want one because it looks pretty or its status symbol to have a “massive rock”, but not because it will store value or appreciate in value.

But among all the pretty, shiny things out there - gold and silver, rubies and emeralds - why do Americans covet diamond engagement rings in the first place?

A Diamond is Forever a Measure of your Manhood

“The reason you haven’t felt it is because it doesn’t exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.” -- Don Draper, Madmen

We like diamonds because Gerold M. Lauck told us to. Until the mid 20th century, diamond engagement rings were a small and dying industry in America. Nor had the concept really taken hold in Europe. Moreover, with Europe on the verge of war, it didn’t seem like a promising place to invest. 

Not surprisingly, the American market for diamond engagement rings began to shrink during the Great Depression. Sales volume declined and the buyers that remained purchased increasingly smaller stones. But the US market for engagement rings was still 75% of De Beers’ sales. If De Beers was going to grow, it had to reverse the trend.

And so, in 1938, De Beers turned to Madison Avenue for help. They hired Gerold Lauck and the N. W. Ayer advertising agency, who commissioned a study with some astute observations. Men were the key to the market:

Since “young men buy over 90% of all engagement rings” it would be crucial to inculcate in them the idea that diamonds were a gift of love: the larger and finer the diamond, the greater the expression of love. Similarly, young women had to be encouraged to view diamonds as an integral part of any romantic courtship.

However, there was a dilemma. Many smart and prosperous women didn’t want diamond engagement rings. They wanted to be different.

The millions of brides and brides-to-be are subjected to at least two important pressures that work against the diamond engagement ring. Among the more prosperous, there is the sophisticated urge to be different as a means of being smart…. the lower-income groups would like to show more for the money than they can find in the diamond they can afford…

Lauck needed to sell a product that people either did not want or could not afford. His solution would haunt men for generations. He advised that De Beers market diamonds as a status symbol:

"The substantial diamond gift can be made a more widely sought symbol of personal and family success — an expression of socio-economic achievement.”

…

“Promote the diamond as one material object which can reflect, in a very personal way, a man’s … success in life.”

The next time you look at a diamond, consider this. Nearly every American marriage begins with a diamond because a bunch of rich white men in the 1940s convinced everyone that its size determines your self worth. They created this convention - that unless a man purchases (an intrinsically useless) diamond, his life is a failure - while sitting in a room, racking their brains on how to sell diamonds that no one wanted. 

With this insight, they began marketing diamonds as a symbol of status and love:Movie idols, the paragons of romance for the mass audience, would be given diamonds to use as their symbols of indestructible love. In addition, the agency suggested offering stories and society photographs to selected magazines and newspapers which would reinforce the link between diamonds and romance. Stories would stress the size of diamonds that celebrities presented to their loved ones, and photographs would conspicuously show the glittering stone on the hand of a well-known woman. 

Fashion designers would talk on radio programs about the “trend towards diamonds” that Ayer planned to start. The Ayer plan also envisioned using the British royal family to help foster the romantic allure of diamonds. 

Even the royal family was in on the hoax! The campaign paid immediate dividends. Within 3 years, despite the Great Depression, diamond sales in the US increased 55%! Twenty years later, an entire generation believed that an expensive diamond ring was a necessary step in the marriage process. 

The De Beers marketing machine continued to churn out the hits. They circulated marketing materials suggesting, apropos of nothing, that a man should spend one month’s salary on a diamond ring. It worked so well that De Beers arbitrarily decided to increase the suggestion to two months salary. That’s why you think that you need to spend two month’s salary on a ring - because the suppliers of the product said so.

Today, over 80% of women in the US receive diamond rings when they get engaged. The domination is complete.

A History of Market Manipulation

What, you might ask, could top institutionalizing demand for a useless product out of thin air? Monopolizing the supply of diamonds for over a century to make that useless product extremely expensive. You see, diamonds aren’t really even that rare.

Before 1870, diamonds were very rare. They typically ended up in a Maharaja’s crown or a royal necklace. In 1870, enormous deposits of diamonds were discovered in Kimberley, South Africa. As diamonds flooded the market, the financiers of the mines realized they were making their own investments worthless. As they mined more and more diamonds, they became less scarce and their price dropped.

The diamond market may have bottomed out were it not for an enterprising individual by the name of Cecil Rhodes. He began buying up mines in order to control the output and keep the price of diamonds high. By 1888, Rhodes controlled the entire South African diamond supply, and in turn, essentially the entire world supply. One of the companies he acquired was eponymously named after its founders, the De Beers brothers.

Building a diamond monopoly isn’t easy work. It requires a balance of ruthlessly punishing and cooperating with competitors, as well as a very long term view. For example, in 1902, prospectors discovered a massive mine in South Africa that contained as many diamonds as all of De Beers’ mines combined. The owners initially refused to join the De Beers cartel, joining three years later after new owner Ernest Oppenheimer recognized that a competitive market for diamonds would be disastrous for the industry:

Common sense tells us that the only way to increase the value of diamonds is to make them scarce, that is to reduce production.

Here’s how De Beers has controlled the diamond supply chain for most of the last century. De Beers owns most of the diamond mines. For mines that they don’t own, they have historically bought out all the diamonds, intimidating or co-opting any that think of resisting their monopoly. They then transfer all the diamonds over to the Central Selling Organization (CSO), which they own. 

The CSO sorts through the diamonds, puts them in boxes and presents them to the 250 partners that they sell to. The price of the diamonds and quantity of diamonds are non-negotiable - it’s take it or leave it. Refuse your boxes and you’re out of the diamond industry.

For most of the 20th century, this system has controlled 90% of the diamond trade and been solely responsible for the inflated price of diamonds. However, as Oppenheimer took over leadership at De Beers, he keenly assessed the primary operational risk that the company faced:

Our only risk is the sudden discovery of new mines, which human nature will work recklessly to the detriment of us all.

Because diamonds are “valuable”, there will always be the risk of entrepreneurs finding new sources of diamonds. Although controlling the discoverers of new mines often actually meant working with communists. In 1957, the Soviet Union discovered a massive deposit of diamonds in Siberia. Though the diamonds were a bit on the smallish side, De Beers still had to swoop in and buy all of them from the Soviets, lest they risk the supply being unleashed on the world market.

Later, in Australia, a large supply of colored diamonds was discovered. When the mine refused to join the syndicate, De Beers retaliated by unloading massive amounts of colored diamonds that were similar to the Australian ones to drive down their price. Similarly, in the 1970s, some Israeli members of the CSO started stockpiling the diamonds they were allocated rather than reselling them. This made it difficult for De Beers to control the market price and would eventually cause a deflation in diamond prices when the hoarders released their stockpile. Eventually, these offending members were banned from the CSO, essentially shutting them out from the diamond business.

In 2000, De Beers announced that they were relinquishing their monopoly on the diamond business. They even settled a US Antitrust lawsuit related to price fixing industrial diamonds to the tune of $10 million (How generous! What is that, the price of one investment banker’s engagement ring?). 

Today, De Beers hold on the industry supply chain is less strong. And yet, price continue to rise as new deposits haven’t been found recently and demand for diamonds is increasing in India and China. For now, it’s less necessary that the company monopolize the supply chain because its lie that a diamond is a proxy for a man’s worth in life has infected the rest of the world.

Conclusion

“I didn’t get a bathroom door that looks like a wall by being bad at business” -- Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock

We covet diamonds in America for a simple reason: the company that stands to profit from diamond sales decided that we should. De Beers’ marketing campaign single handedly made diamond rings the measure of one’s success in America. Despite its complete lack of inherent value, the company manufactured an image of diamonds as a status symbol. And to keep the price of diamonds high, despite the abundance of new diamond finds, De Beers executed the most effective monopoly of the 20th century. Okay, we get it De Beers, you guys are really good at business! 

The purpose of this post was to point out that diamond engagement rings are a lie - they’re an invention of Madison Avenue and De Beers. This post has completely glossed over the sheer amount of human suffering that we’ve caused by believing this lie: conflict diamonds funding wars, supporting apartheid for decades with our money, and pillaging the earth to find shiny carbon. And while we’re on the subject, why is it that women need to be asked and presented with a ring in order to get married? Why can’t they ask and do the presenting?

Diamonds are not actually scarce, make a terrible investment, and are purely valuable as a status symbol.

Diamonds, to put it delicately, are bullshit.

This post was written by Rohin Dhar. He has a very patient wife. Follow him on Twitter here or Google.

businessinsider

Why Cyprus is facing a grave economic crisis

Cyprus has escaped from the verge of bankruptcy. The collapse of Cyprus's banking system has been averted as European Union leaders on Monday agreed on a bailout package to keep Cyprus in the euro zone.

Cyprus will receive the first installment of the bailout package worth $13 billion in early May. Banks in Cyprus have been closed for more than a week and restrictions have been imposed on ATM withdrawal limit.

Click NEXT to read more...

Once a high-income economy, Cyprus has been facing a severe economic crisis. 

Hit by the Eurozone financial and banking crisis, in June 2012, the Cypriot government announced it would need 1.8 billion euros of foreign aid to support the Cyprus Popular Bank.

This was followed by Fitch down-grading Cypus's credit rating to junk status.

Fitch said Cyprus would need an additional 4 billion euros to support its banks and the downgrade was mainly due to the exposure of Bank of Cyprus, Cyprus Popular Bank and Hellenic Bank (Cyprus's 3 largest banks) to the Greek financial crisis.

Cyprus has been sought as a base for several offshore businesses for its highly developed infrastructure. Tourism, financial services, and shipping are money spinners for the economy.

Despite its low population and small size, Cyprus has a large off-shore banking industry.

With a total nominal GDP of $24 billion the country was unable to stabilise its banks, which had amassed 22 billion euros of Greek private sector debt.

The announcement that Cyprus would impose a tax on bank accounts as part of a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout broke with previous practice that depositors' savings were sacrosanct and sent a shiver across the bloc, causing the euro to tumble and stock markets to dive last week.

Locals sit at a kebab restaurant in central Nicosia.

A man walks in front of shops in central Nicosia.

Two girls talk sitting at the Venetian Walls surrounding the old town of capital Nicosia.

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Workers are seen on a construction site in central Nicosia.

A girl waits at a bus station in Nicosia.

A man walks out of the Presidential palace in Nicosia.

A youth skates in front of the Orthodox Faneromeni church in central Nicosia.

.

Turkish Cypriot men, with a flag breakaway Turkish Cypriot state on the wall, pray at a mosque during Friday prayers in Famagusta's Tatlisu village, in the Turkish-administered northern part of Cyprus.

Turkish Cypriot children enjoy the mild weather in a park near an empty U.N. watchtower on the Greenline dividing the Turkish and Greek Cypriot sides of Nicosia.

A man kitesurfs near a beach at Limassol town in southern Cyprus.

 

Cyclists look at boats in a marina near Limassol, a coastal town in southern Cyprus.

A Turkish-Cypriot and a Turkish flags are seen on Pentadaktylos mountain in the northern part of Nicosia.

...

A group of tourists stand in an amphitheatre in the ancient Salamis bay ruins near Famagusta in north Cyprus.

An orchestra performs during an official ceremony marking the assumption of Cyprus' six-monthly presidency of the European Union at the ancient Curium amphitheatre, near Limassol.

Flags of Northern Cyprus (2nd R) and Turkey (R) are seen in front of an Orthodox church (L) and a mosque, in the main square of Dipkarpaz, Riso Karpaso, some 150 km (93 miles) east of Nicosia, in the Turkish administered northern part of Cyprus.

rediff

The Little that Hugo Chávez Got Right

There was a time when the world spoke of “Venezuelan Exceptionalism.” For nearly half a century—while Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay were military dictatorships, the Andean nations were trapped in a carousel of coups d’état, and violent civil insurgency seemed ubiquitous—Venezuela was South America’s only stable and functional democracy. Today that exceptionalism cuts the other way. As Latin America rises, Venezuela is a backwater, starkly divided on social and political grounds and wantonly violent: a world leader in kidnappings, murders, and prison riots. It is a country with a broken heart.

And now, with President Hugo Chávez dead from an unspecified cancer at just 58 years of age, things look bleaker than ever. There were times when I—long an unapologetic opponent of Chávez and his revolution—dreamed that an early death for El Comandante might save Venezuela. No such luck. In his short time in charge, Nicolás Maduro, the successor, has already proven himself to be as erratic as Chávez, a bit meaner, and far more insecure.

Yet I find myself traipsing into the backwoods of my own conviction. What if, in rejecting Chávez, I unwittingly placed myself on the wrong side of history? In the few days since the announcement of his death, I have found myself returning to this question often. Am I simply feeling compassion for a fellow person suffering and dying from terrible illness? Is it empathy for the millions who have responded to Chávez’s death with earnest sadness? Or perhaps, having so often spoken ill of the now dead, I have guilt on my conscience.

In 1992, when Chávez first rose to fame following a failed coup attempt against President Carlos Andrés Pérez, I was ten years old. I remember watching the footage of his surrender, but little else of the bereted man on TV.

I certainly knew who he was by the time he ran for president in 1998. Venezuela was in a deep, multi-decade recession, with international crude selling at around $8 per barrel and the Latin American debt crisis front and center. The pact that until then had seen the two major parties trade off turns at the helm was largely discredited. And suddenly this energetic and charismatic soldier, recently freed from prison, was flush with talk of equality and a fresh start. Many saw him as a way out of the malaise, and even among those who did not support him, including much of my family, there was a sense that Chávez highlighted the flaws in the status quo. He was a sign of the changes that needed to come, if not the change itself. And, at the very least, he was entertaining.

How wrong they were. It did not take long for me to realize that, to Chávez, the country’s future did not have much use for its current middle class: hard-working men and women who were treated increasingly like enemies of the state. Much of my family started to leave Venezuela. The first wave was seeking greener pastures; later they would leave out of fear.

Yet while I may have disagreed with Chávez and disliked the direction he was steering the country, my real, personal struggle against the Venezuelan regime began with the demonstrations of May 2007. Chávez had closed down Radio Caracas Television, thereby silencing the sole remaining national broadcaster critical of his government. I joined thousands of protestors, mostly students, who descended on Caracas’s Plaza Brión. While government loudspeakers warned us to remain calm, police fired teargas, rubber bullets, and water cannons into the crowd.

I staggered away from the chaos. Although a vinegar-soaked rag covering my mouth and nose staved off total physical collapse, the mixture of teargas and sweat had caused me to expel my contact lenses. Once the twin adrenaline shots of fear and indignation subsided, I faced a long, largely blind, walk home. Squinting, crying, and filthy, I was reborn. At that moment, I hated Hugo Chávez. He wasn’t misguided, he wasn’t a comical buffoon, and he wasn’t a sign of change. He was horrifying: a violent and cruel despot who ruthlessly crushed dissent, even from unarmed students, and threatened the human rights of anyone who disagreed with his policies.

Six years later I remain dedicated to this conviction. In that time I have written op-eds and long analytical articles, appeared on foreign television and NPR, and spent countless hours blogging, networking, and commiserating with other dissidents. I write a weekly political column in one of the highest-circulating independent Venezuelan newspapers that is consistently critical of the Chavista government. For nearly a year heading into legislative elections, I worked for an opposition-led municipal government that presided over Petare, a large and dangerous slum. I submitted myself to the daily perils of the barrios in hopes that I might be able to knock a new kink into that tired trope: “The poor love Chávez, with good reason.”

Not that there isn’t a grain of truth to the clichés. Chávez took advantage of a huge rise in the price of crude oil to pay for social programs. While much of this bonanza has gone into flashy and unnecessary displays of international largesse—such as procuring submarines and giving away oil as far afield as Boston—extreme poverty has fallen domestically, and the most basic health services, food, and shelter are more accessible than they were before. Community sports and music programs likewise have more funding and offer new paths out of poverty. At the same time, other opportunities have disappeared with the wholesale flight of the middle class, and thanks to price controls and expropriation that harm the private sector.

Whether some other government—similarly blessed with an extended oil windfall yet less determined to retain power at any cost—could have made the same social investments will forever remain an open question. The Chavista government was not the first in Venezuela to place the poor at the center of the national conversation, and it won’t be the last. Despite the occasional neoliberal flare up, Caracas always returns to its roots: a large, paternalistic state dedicated to turning petrodollars into popularity through redistribution and social assistance.

My own re-assessment of Chávez has been excruciating—but it is also vital.

It’s also not clear if Chávez was genuinely concerned about improving the lives of the poor or merely set on reinforcing their dependence on him. He was surely not one to eschew the luxuries of office for himself or his family. Reportedly, his once-humble parents accumulated around 3,500 acres of property and $16 million in cash during his reign. Expensive oil diplomacy and giveaways to neighbors such as Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina translated into an unprecedented degree of international clout for Venezuela and her president, but also meant prioritizing prestige over domestic needs.

However, what cannot be denied, what gives me pause as I consider my own resistance to Chavismo, is that the regime did make a large segment of the population feel empowered and relevant for the first time in recent memory. In a few cases these priorities even translated into real results. For instance, it is now easier for poor Venezuelans to obtain the national IDs and passports that give them access to government services and full standing as citizens. And Chávez publicly championed a great many progressive causes even if the end results have been mixed.

In terms of ethnicity, gender, and class composition, Chávez’s government seemed far more representative of the country as a whole than were many precursor governments. Under Chávez indigenous religions, hybrids such as Santeria, non-Catholic Christian sects, and Islam saw their status and visibility upgraded as the traditionally dominant Catholic Church was undermined by the ever-expanding state. Special missions have been set up to care for unwed teenage mothers. And abortion, while still illegal, has in some cases become more accessible and is more openly discussed.

I believe these were small but positive steps, although not many others in the anti-Chavismo camp agree with me.

Having been born in the United States to Venezuelan parents and hopped back and forth between the two countries my whole life, I’ve become accustomed to a certain amount of contextual recalibration. In the United States I am a moderate liberal, a bit suspicious of expansive government but consistently supportive of Democrats thanks to their stances on social issues that are important to me. In 2008 I was a volunteer for the Obama campaign in Miami, where I targeted prospective Cuban and Venezuelan American voters: folks like me.

In Venezuela I’m reactionary. I have always felt that it is the spectrum of political views itself that changes, not me. Thus I was sometimes uncomfortable during my time with the opposition in Caracas, particularly when it came to views on LGBT rights, women’s health, and the proper place for religious and ethnic minorities within society. In these areas, segments of the opposition have it backwards. They are far less progressive than either me or the regime we were fighting against.

Chávez’s sense of social justice and equality were by no means universal, though. Those who disagreed with him politically were left out of the system. Thousands were blacklisted as political enemies, and many were imprisoned on pretense. Others had their livelihoods or property seized without compensation.

Venezuela’s Jewish population in particular came under fire from the regime. In 2004 a Hebrew school in the capital was raided by government forces ostensibly seeking contraband; the children were left locked in a room for several hours, incommunicado. The search found nothing. Similar incidents also took place in 2007 and 2009. Chávez’s bad relations with Israel—diplomatic contact was severed entirely in 2009—and his close relationship with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have likewise contributed to a climate of fear and intimidation. He leveled accusations of disloyalty against Venezuelan Jews who did not renounce Israel, and recent reports suggest that government forces have been systematically monitoring the Jewish population for years.

Contradictions such as these—professing, on the one hand, support for marginalized people, while, on the other hand, harassing and intimidating political opponents and specific minorities—are common in modern Venezuela. What are we to think of them? One must always prioritize among competing issues to determine for oneself if the whole is desirable, palatable, or disastrous.

Taking stock in this way is a sobering exercise—my own re-assessment of Chávez has been excruciating—but it is also vital. In Latin America, with its history of drastic over-corrections from far right to far left, we must discipline ourselves to see the good in the bad, if only to avoid perpetuating the vicious cycle. Indeed, this lesson transcends Venezuela and Latin America. It is readily applicable to the nascent republics of the Arab Spring and even to the increasingly contentious and polarized United States.

I suspect that history will remember Chávez’s fourteen years in power as a time of great missed opportunity. Enormous wealth and a historic personality intersected in a way that seemed to hold great promise—promise that will remain forever unfulfilled, frozen in contrast to bleak reality. The Venezuela Chávez leaves behind is in most ways worse off than the one that was first entrusted to him.

And yet opponents would do well to remember what it was about Chávez—or, more so, what he sought to represent—that did have value. The little piece of the revolution that might have been worthwhile, were it not for all the rest.

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