Syria hopes rise as Russia hands weapons plan to US
The move came a day after threatened US-led strikes against President Bashar al-Assad's regime were put on ice in response to Russia's offer to oversee Syria giving up its arsenal after Washington accused Damascus of using deadly sarin gas against its own people last month.
US secretary of state John Kerry is to meet Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on Thursday for talks on the disarmament process that are expected to run until Friday at least.
"They handed over to the Americans a plan to place chemical weapons in Syria under international control. they expect to discuss it in Geneva," Russian news agencies quoted a source in the Russian delegation to the talks as saying.
Russian officials provided no details of the plan which has effectively pushed military action off the table for the time being, although both the US and France stressed it remains an option if Syria is seen to be stalling.
With the risk of an attack having receded considerably for now, Assad — who turned 48 on Wednesday — was free to pursue his battle with a rebel coalition that has been left dismayed by the West's retreat from intervention.
US President Barack Obama has expressed optimism that the Russian initiative can lead to the removal of Syria's chemical weapons without the use of force.
The switch to diplomacy was welcomed on Wednesday by China, which also praised Syria's offer to sign an international treaty banning chemical weapons.
"To hope all relevant sides can grasp this opportunity to solve the Syria problem through diplomatic and political means,"
France insisted military action remained an option. "France will remain, in permanent contact with its partners, mobilised to punish the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime and to deter them from using them again," President Francois Hollande said after talks with his military chiefs.
Amongst Western leaders, Hollande has been the leading advocate of intervention in Syria, although, like Obama, he has been unable to convince a majority of his electorate of the case for action.
Obama said US cruise missile destroyers would remain in place within striking distance of Syria, warning that "the US military doesn't do pinpricks."
Israel's President Shimon Peres said he believed Obama would not back away from airstrikes if Syria is shown to be acting in bad faith.
"If there will be a crack in Syria's integrity I have no doubt that the US will act militarily,"
Syria was threatened with strikes in response to the use of sarin gas in an August 21 attack on rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. The US says the attack killed more than 1,400 people and was carried out by Assad's forces, a claim the regime denies.
Syria announced on Tuesday that it would join an international convention banning chemical weapons and hand over control of current stocks — effectively admitting for the first time that it has them.
Signatories are supposed to destroy any chemical weapons under their control and to allow UN inspectors access to their sites. Russia has offered to oversee this process and talks with the Syrians on how to go about it are already under way.
The path to a peaceful resolution of the crisis remains littered with obstacles however with the US, France and Britain still at odds with the Russians over the next steps.
France and Britain are pushing for a UN Security Council resolution authorising military action in the event of Syria failing to act on its disarmament promises. Russia has made it clear it will veto any ultimatum of that kind and is likely to be able to count on backing from China, a fellow permanent member of the Security Council.
Syrian opponents of the Assad regime have warned that the chemical weapons negotiations will do nothing to end a conflict in which over 110,000 people have died in more than two years of fighting.
UN human rights investigators on Wednesday reported that the conflict had been characterised by widespread war crimes committed by both sides. The team was unable to reach any conclusions on the use of chemical weapons, which is being investigated by a different group of experts.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the failure to stem the bloodshed would leave a lasting stain on the reputation of the world body.
"Our collective failure to prevent atrocity crimes in Syria of the past two-and-a-half years will remain a heavy burden on the standing of the United Nations and its member states," Ban told a UN meeting on preventing genocide.
The image of Assad's opponents in Syria meanwhile suffered a blow with reports emerging of an incident in which one Christian resident of Maalula had been forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint after the ancient town was overrun by Islamist fighters last week.
The Islamist wing of the opposition was also blamed for the apparently sectarian killing of 12 civilians from the minority Alawite community — to which Assad belongs — during attacks on villages near Homs on Tuesday.
Group and Group Processes
Central to many organizations, and of increasing importance
to others, is the existence and operation of groups. Project groups, task groups, task groups or
teams are a normal feature of the working life of engineers, whether students
or fully qualified professional engineers. We shall use the terms “groups” and “terms”
and “task” and “project” interchangeably.
The definition of a team, how they form, how they work
successfully and what causes them to be unsuccessful. As the main purpose of
teams is to make decisions, there will be a discussion of decision-making and
then an examination of the processes within teams when they are making
decisions. What happens within teams is
called group process, the interactions of individuals that make up the team. Understand this idea of groups being different than the
sum of the individuals is crucial to
being a successful member of a team, and is crucial to knowing how to set up
and manage teams so that they make a contribution on the organization that is
better than any single individual, or group of individuals who simply have
their individual contributions summed.
What is a group?
A different way of defining has been to say that a group
could be defined in terms of face to face interaction. Yours project group
certainly has face – to – face interaction, unless it is a virtual group that
only meets electronically via the
Internet.
The project group that leads you to define it as a group? It
is a small group of people who meet
regularly and who know, or get to know, one another. An added criteria might be that
as the group evolves there is an emerging setoff relationships that develop
begin to adopt certain roles within the group; perhaps there is a chair, a
secretary and a social worker who looks after the pattern of relating in order to prevent or resolve interpersonal conflicts.
There may also be an element of a group existing because its members say that
the group – exists and that we are members of it.
A neat definition of a group is “ A group exists when two or
more people define themselves as members of is and when its existence is recognized
by at least one other”.
The definition has a minimum size of two, but there is no
reference to a maximum size. The group tends to break up into subgroups as the
difficulty of maintaining a face – to – face discussion with more tha eight people
grows. Once a group divides, then we have two groups, with the complications
that brings in terms of the relating of the two groups. The size of groups that
we can observe that the groups larger than eight or nine rarely seem to exist-
they cannot survive in the interpersonal environment – they die or self
destruct.
An economist’s perspective on group would suggest that they
exist because the benefits of groups outweigh the costs of groups, and that the value of the net
output of groups is normally greater than the sum of the net outputs of the
individuals if they were not members of the group. There are net benefits for
the organization from combining individuals into groups.
‘Display warning mandatory for tobacco vendors’
Shops or kiosks selling cigarettes or tobacco products will have to
display warnings such as “tobacco causes cancer” or “tobacco kills”
prominently on their advertisement boards.
On Monday, the Supreme Court quashed an eight-year-old Bombay High
Court order staying the implementation of Centre’s Point of Sale rules
to regulate advertisement of tobacco products. The vendors would now
have to display such ads on billboards of 60cm by 45cm size at their
shops. A vendor would also be responsible for ensuring that no tobacco
products are sold to anyone less than 18 years.
The issue of whether the rules are unconstitutional would, however,
be decided by the HC, the top court said. The order came on an appeal
filed by the NGO Health For Millions.
A bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice Gopal Gowda came down
heavily on the Centre for not appealing against the HC order. It said
the government was “conniving” with the tobacco lobby. As per a survey
report by health and family welfare department, 85 lakh persons would
die due to oral and lung cancer by 2015. Government statistics,
presented before the court, revealed that 10 lakh persons died in India
due to tobacco use. Surveys also disclose that 35% of adults, including
15 years and above, used tobacco in India.
Earth photographed by Nasa Saturn probe
The image shows Earth as a very small,
blue-tinged dot – paler and tinier than in other photos – overshadowed by the
giant Saturn's rings in foreground.
"We can't see individual continents or
people in this portrait of Earth, but this pale blue dot is a succinct summary
of who we were on July 19," Linda Spilker, Cassini spacecraft lead
scientist at the Jet Propulsion
Earth and the moon take up less than a pixel, but appear large because
they are overexposed.
"That images of our planet have been
acquired on a single day from two distant solar system outposts reminds us of this
nation's stunning technical accomplishments in planetary exploration,"
"The whole event underscores for me our
'coming of age' as planetary explorers," added astronomer Carolyn Porco,
who oversees the Cassini imaging team at the Space Science Institute in
Boulder, Colorado.
Usually, spacecraft in the far reaches of the
solar system do not look back towards Earth to avoid damaging their instruments
by direct sunlight. Last week, the sun was temporarily blocked relative to
Cassini's line of sight, allowing the US space agency to take the picture.
AURUS, SIR JI Idea tweak and improves the Aurus
Idea cellular has launched an
improved version of the Aurus. Called the idea Aurus II, it comes with enhanced
features, including a dual camera. It is still targeted at the affordable smart
phone segment, will consumers bite?
Look: Decent enough
It is not the sleekest phone
around. But the Idea AURUS II still manages to look simple and stylish. It is a
bit on the thicker side and comes with a rubberized plastic back cover, while
the front is dominated by a 3.2 inch, 320X480 capacitive touch screen display.
Unlike its predecessor, the Idea AURUS II does not have any hard button on the screen. Below the
display are three soft keys for Back. Home and Options, while above it is a
0.3-megapixel camera. The power and camera button are oddly placed and take
some getting used to the former is placed towards the left side on the top, whereas the camera button is
placed on the upper part of the right side. On the back is a 3.2-megapixel
camera and the speaker grille.
Hardware: Ordinary
The Idea AURUs II is powered by I
GHz processor which works fine, with not too many lags. It is a 3G Smartphone
and comes with dual SIM functionality (GSM+GSM)
- both SIMs and the microSD card are not hot swappable and one has to
remove its battery to insert them. The phone comes with 512MB RAM and 4GB of
internal memory which can be further expanded to 32GB via microSD card. On the
connectivity front, it offers 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Software: Nothing exceptional
The idea AURUS II runs on Android
4.1, Jelly Bean. There are five shortcuts on the main screen for
calling,camera, main menu, internet and messaging. There are also five
customisable homescreens, which can be used to place app shortcuts and widgets.
The smartphone also offers some pre-loaded apps like Facebook, Twitteer,
YouTube, and Gmail.
Multimedia : Good Camera and Sound
The IDEA AURUA II offers a 3.2 –
megapixel rear camera with no flash. The camera takes decent shots in daylight,
although we would not recommend using it in low light condition. There is also
a 0.3-megapixel front facing camera, which is best suited for video chats. The
sound quality of the phone was good both on the loudspeakers and on the hand
free, and FM played very well too. Voice quality over calls was good as well.
User experience: Satisfactory
The phone in general works well
without many lags. Internet browsing is also fast and hassle-free. We found the
battery backup good and display decent enough for the price point.
Conclusion
The Idea AURUS II is priced at
Rs.6490. Those looking for alternatives can go for the Samsung Galaxy Y Plus,
which runs on Android 4.0 and comes with a price tag of Rs.6400/-. They can
also consider the Nokia Asha 311 which is priced at Rs.6375/- and has a
2.0-megapixel camera.
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