Overcome Sports Competition's Stress

29 October 2008 - Competing against yourself
I lost in a men's double table tennis match. We won the first set but lost 2 sets after that. After communicating with my other friend which is a good table tennis player, I agree to him that the table tennis game is actually a mind game. I was not feeling very nervous during the game but I was too anxious. I think I have played too carefully which caused me to many hesitations/doubts. This has coused me lost many points to the opponents.

Besides, I was too egoistics as well. Supposingly, it should be another student playing the men's double instead of me. However, I requested to play and somehow I got to play. Maybe this was also another factor that caused me lost the game. Anyway, the other student who should have played is much stable and consistent that me.

After lossing, many feelings and thoughts within me which was not under my control. Definately these feeling are negetive like doubts, blames, anger, sad, confuse...

Amazingly, I prayed to God about all these things and my faithful led me to a positive understanding. That's the biggest competitor is actually youself. If I have a mind set that I am competing with myself instead of others, then I should have played better which may reach my traning standard. I would have be more relax because I am competing to myself to perform the best!!!


30 October 2008 - Obedience
This was the second and last day of our competition. So I got myself prepared for the match as usual. However, I was carrying along the feeling of confusion although it’s at a minimal level compared to yesterday. Although I still have a little of negative feeling but I tried to get my mind set correct that was: Today I am going to compete to myself and I am going to perform the best!

Fortunately and unfortunately, I did not get a chance to play even a single match. Fortunate in the sense that my team was good to get 3 wins (3/5) before my last match which was the mixed double. Unfortunately, I could not apply what I have learned yesterday. Anyway, we won in the final and our team became the champion. You know what? My excitement was overflowing from within me even it’s has covered my negative feelings yesterday.

I was so excited and happy that my team won. I have obeyed and followed the original plan which was to play in mixed double. Although I did not get a chance to play but I still feel very happy for everything. So, today God has thought me another lesson of obedience.

On my journey of Christian life, I will have to rely and believe on God . Many times I doubt that God’s plan is not as good as mine. But I will continually believe that if I chose to obey and follow the end result will be full of joyfulness and satisfaction that is beyond my imagination!

Earth on course for eco 'crunch'

The planet is headed for an ecological "credit crunch", according to a report issued by conservation groups.

The document contends that our demands on natural resources overreach what the Earth can sustain by almost a third.

The Living Planet Report is the work of WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network.

It says that more than three quarters of the world's population lives in countries where consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal.

This makes them "ecological debtors", meaning that they are drawing - and often overdrawing - on the agricultural land, forests, seas and resources of other countries to sustain them.


WWF's David Norman says the world will need two planets by 2030
The report concludes that the reckless consumption of "natural capital" is endangering the world's future prosperity, with clear economic impacts including high costs for food, water and energy.

Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy at the conservation group's Scotland arm, added: "While the media headlines continue to be dominated by the economic turmoil, the world is hurtling further into an ecological credit crunch."

The countries with the biggest impact on the planet are the US and China, together accounting for some 40% of the global footprint.

The report shows the US and United Arab Emirates have the largest ecological footprint per person, while Malawi and Afghanistan have the smallest.


The map shows hectares' worth consumed in goods and services



"If our demands on the planet continue to increase at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles," said WWF International director-general James Leape.

In the UK, the "ecological footprint" - the amount of the Earth's land and sea needed to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste - is 5.3 hectares per person.


Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'

This is more than twice the 2.1 hectares per person actually available for the global population.

The UK's national ecological footprint is the 15th biggest in the world, and is the same size as that of 33 African countries put together, WWF said.

"The events in the last few months have served to show us how it's foolish in the extreme to live beyond our means," said WWF's international president, Chief Emeka Anyaoku.

"Devastating though the financial credit crunch has been, it's nothing as compared to the ecological recession that we are facing."

He said the more than $2 trillion (£1.2 trillion) lost on stocks and shares was dwarfed by the up to $4.5 trillion worth of resources destroyed forever each year.


The index tracks population trends in 1,161 populations of 355 mammal species
It shows an average 19% decrease, with the most serious declines in the tropics

The report's Living Planet Index, which is an attempt to measure the health of worldwide biodiversity, showed an average decline of about 30% from 1970 to 2005 in 3,309 populations of 1,235 species.

An index for the tropics shows an average 51% decline over the same period in 1,333 populations of 585 species.

A new index for water consumption showed that for countries such as the UK, the average "water footprint" was far greater than people realised, with thousands of litres used to produce goods such as beef, sugar and cotton shirts.

"In Britain, almost two thirds [62%] of the average water footprint comes from use abroad to produce goods we consume," said Mr Leape.

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7696197.stm

4 Abilities Neede by Employment (Tips to survive in this flat world)

1) Learn how to learn
2) Curiosity and passion (CQ + PQ > IQ)
3) Skills to manage and interacting with PEOPLE (realtionships)
4) More developed right brain - artistry, empathy, seeing big picture

Source : http://decideforyourself.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/left_right_brain_xp.jpg

Source : THE WORLD IS FLAT, Thomas L. Friedman, 2005

Future Job's Demand (Tips to survive in this flat world)

1) Collaborators and orchestrators – global supply chains,
2) Synthesizer (to form (a material or abstract entity) by combining parts)- search engines
3) Explainers – see the complexity but explain it with simplicity
4) Leveragers (杠杆作用)-work smarter and faster, rather than cheaper and harder
5) Adapters – constantly adapting and constantly learning and growing
6) Green people – sustainable and renewable environmental system
7) Passionate personalizers – human interactive skills
8) Localizers – tailor global capabilities to meet the needs of local community

Source : THE WORLD IS FLAT, Thomas L. Friedman, 2005

Eye Illusion (8/8)

Eye Illusion (7/8)

Eye Illusion (6/8)

If you take a look at the following picture , let me tell you .... it is not animated. Your eyes are making it move. To test this, stare at one spot for a couple seconds and everything will stop moving. Or loo k at the black center of each circle and it will stop moving. But move your eyes to the next black center and the previous will move after you take your eyes away from it.... Weird

Eye Illusion (5/8)

You should see a man's face and also a word...
Hint: Try tilting your head to the right, the world begins with 'L'

Eye Illusion (4/8)

Do you see gray areas in between the squares?
Now where did they come from?

Eye Illusion (3/8)

Are the purple lines straight or bent?

Eye Illusion (2/8)

Eye Illusion (1/8)

Is this possible?

Distribution of Global Wealth

The world distribution of wealth and income is highly unequal. The richest 10% of households in the world have as much yearly income as the bottom 90%.

Wealth - total assets rather than yearly income – is even more unequal. The rich are concentrated in the US, Europe and Japan, with the richest 1% alone owning 40% of the world's wealth.

Poverty, on the other hand, is widespread across the developing countries - which have five-sixths of the world's population. But it has fallen sharply in China.

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457022/html/nn5page1.stm

Global Hunger Index in full

The 2008 Global Hunger Index of developing and transitional countries has been published.

The annual survey, by the International Food Policy Research Institute in conjunction with Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide, ranks 88 countries on under-nourishment, prevalence of child malnutrition and rates of child mortality.

The higher the index score, the worse the performance.


Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7670229.stm

So how hard are people being hit by the world food crisis?

Official statistics can be weeks or months out of date, so BBC World Service is calling on its global network of reporters to keep you in the picture week by week.


The graph
The price index is tracking food prices in eight major cities. Each week our reporters head to the shops and record the prices for five of that country's staple foods. Every basket of goods has been normalised to a cost of 100 in the first week of this experiment.

How much it would cost to buy the same basket in later weeks is then reflected in the rise or dip above or below 100. Check the individual city pages for details of each food 'basket'.

Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2008/08/080804_food_overview.shtml

2007-2008 Impact of Projected Food Price Increases on Trade Balances

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7435439.stm

Expedition set for 'ghost peaks'

It is perhaps the last great Antarctic expedition - to find an explanation for why there is a great mountain range buried under the White Continent.

The Gamburtsevs match the Alps in scale but no-one has ever seen them because they are covered by up to 4km of ice.

Geologists struggle to understand how such a massif could have formed and persisted in the middle of Antarctica.

Now, an international team is setting out on a deep-field survey to try to get some answers.

The group comprises scientists, engineers, pilots and support staff from the UK, the US, Germany, Australia, China and Japan. It's rather like being an archaeologist and opening up a tomb in a pyramid and finding an astronaut sitting inside. It shouldn't be there

Dr Robin Bell, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

The ambitious nature of the project - working in Antarctica's far interior - has required an exceptional level of co-ordination and co-operation.

"You can almost think about it as exploring another planet - but on Earth," said Dr Fausto Ferraccioli from the British Antarctic Survey.

"This region is a complete enigma. It's in the middle of the continent. Most mountain ranges are on the edges of continents, and we really can't understand what these mountains are doing in the centre."

The AGAP (Antarctica's Gamburtsev Province) project will establish two camps from where the team will map the subglacial range using surface and airborne instruments.

EXPLORING THE SUBGLACIAL GAMBURTSEV MOUNTAINS

1. Aircraft will use radar to detect ice thickness and layering, and to map the shape of the deeply buried bedrock
2. The planes will also conduct gravity and magnetic surveys to glean more information about the mountains' structure
3. By listening to seismic waves passing through the range, scientists can probe rock properties deep in the Earth




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Dr Fausto Ferraccioli describes the equipment onboard the aircraft

The Gamburtsevs were discovered by a Soviet team making a traverse across the ice in the late 1950s. The rocky prominence was totally unexpected; scientists thought the interior of the continent would be relatively flat.

"There are two easy ways to make mountains," explained Dr Robin Bell, from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who is a lead US researcher on the expedition.

"One is colliding continents, but after they collide they tend to erode; and the last collision was 500-million-plus years ago. They shouldn't be there.

"The other way is a hotspot, [with volcanoes punching through the crust] like in Hawaii; but there's no good evidence for underneath the ice sheet being that hot.

"I like to say it's rather like being an archaeologist and opening up a tomb in a pyramid and finding an astronaut sitting inside. It shouldn't be there."


Dr Robin Bell says the team will perform an x-ray of the ice sheet
The mountains are believed to have been a key nucleation point for the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

It is thought that as Earth's climate cooled just over 30 million years ago, the snows that fell on the mountains produced mighty glaciers, which then merged to form one giant spreading ice-mass.

A better understanding of these events could give clues as to how Antarctica might evolve in the coming centuries if, as expected, the Earth continues its current warming trend.

The aerogeophysical survey of Antarctica's Gamburtsev Province (AGAP) is a flagship endeavour of International Polar Year - the global science community's concerted push to try to answer the big questions about the Earth's northern and southern extremes.

The challenging nature of the expedition has required that expertise be drawn from across polar community. Supplying such remote camps is a major logistical exercise; working in them - at temperatures 30-40 degrees below zero Celsius - is bound to be physically demanding.

Two survey aircraft will sweep back and forth across the ice to map the shape of the mountains. The planes will be equipped with ice-penetrating radar and instruments to measure the local gravitational and magnetic fields.
Air bubbles trapped in old ices record environmental conditions

Information on the deeper structure of the Gamburtsevs will come from a network of seismometers that will listen to earthquake signals passing through the rock from the other side of the globe.

"We'll map everything from the detailed ripples on the surface of the ice sheet down to the temperature structure hundreds of kilometres in the Earth, so we'll have everything from the layering in the ice to what the nature of the rocks are," said Dr Bell.

Another important aim of the project is to find a place to drill for ancient ices. By examining bubbles of air trapped in compacted snow, it is possible for researchers to glean details about past environmental conditions.

Not only can they see concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane - the two principal human-produced gases now blamed for global warming - but they can also gauge past temperatures from the samples.

Somewhere in the Gamburtsev region there could be a location were it is possible to drill down to ices that are more than a million years old. This is at least 200,000 years older than the most ancient ices currently in the possession of scientists.

The expedition gets under way in the next few weeks and will take some two-and-a-half months to complete.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7668070.stm, 15 Oct 2008, by Jonathan Amos

'New pathway' for African exodus

Researchers have found a possible new route taken by early modern humans as they expanded out of Africa to colonise the rest of the world.

A study published in the journal PNAS proposes a "wet corridor" through Libya for ancient human migrations.

Rivers once flowed from the central Saharan watershed all the way to the Mediterranean, the team explains.

This might have enabled modern humans to spread beyond their ancestral homeland about 120,000 years ago.

The Sahara then covered most of North Africa, as it does now. So it would have presented a formidable obstacle for early modern humans wishing to cross from the south to the north of the continent.

Researchers had previously focused on the Nile Valley as the principal route of dispersal into other continents by early representatives of our species.

Previous data show there was increased rainfall across the southern part of the Sahara between 130,000 and 170,000 years ago; in a gap between Ice Ages known as the last interglacial period.


The researchers, from the universities of Bristol, Southampton, Oxford, Hull and Tripoli in Libya, investigated whether these wetter conditions had reached a lot further north than previously thought.

Radar images from space revealed fossil river channels crossing the Sahara in Libya, flowing north from the central Saharan watershed to the Mediterranean coast.

Using geochemical tests, the scientists showed the channels were active during the last interglacial. This would have created vital water courses across an otherwise arid region, the researchers write in PNAS.

It's a possible route that the early modern humans could have taken

Anne Osborne, University of Bristol
The central Saharan watershed is a range of volcanic mountains formerly considered to be the limit of this wetter region.

Researchers analysed the forms, or isotopes, of different chemical elements in snail shells from two sites in the fossil river channels and from the shells of planktonic microfossils in the Mediterranean.

Despite being hundreds of kilometres from the volcanic rocks of the Saharan watershed, the tests revealed a distinct volcanic signature to these shells, which was quite different to rocks from surrounding sites.

The scientists concluded that water flowing from the volcanic mountains of the central Sahara was the only possible source of this signature.

"It's a possible route that the early modern humans could have taken," lead author Anne Osborne, from the earth sciences group at Bristol, told BBC News.

Similarities in the style of stone tools being made in Chad and Sudan with those manufactured in Libya during this key period, lend the theory some support, say the scientists.

"We now need to focus archaeological fieldwork around the large drainage channels an palaeo-lakes to test these ideas," said co-author Dr Nick Barton, from the University of Oxford.

Although it is unclear which routes they took to get there, Homo sapiens had reached the Levant by around 100,000 years ago, where their remains are known from Es Skhul and Qafzeh in Israel.

However, this appears to have been an early, failed foray outside Africa by modern humans. By 75,000 years ago, Neanderthals had replaced our species in the region.

Then, about 45,000 years ago, modern humans reoccupied the area.

Genetic evidence suggests that populations living outside Africa today are the descendents of a migration which originated in the east of the continent between 60-70,000 years ago.

Some of these pioneers probably crossed the Red Sea at the Bab-el-Mandab straits, taking them from the Horn of Africa across to the Arabian Peninsula.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7668250.stm, 14 Oct 2008, by Paul Rincon

The 1929 Stock Market Crash

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7656949.stm, 09 October 2008

Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.

It has been discussed during many sessions here at the World Conservation Congress.

Some conservationists see it as a new way of persuading policymakers to fund nature protection rather than allowing the decline in ecosystems and species, highlighted in the release on Monday of the Red List of Threatened Species, to continue.

Capital losses

Speaking to BBC News on the fringes of the congress, study leader Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the financial markets.

"It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year after year," he told BBC News.

Teeb will... show the risks we run by not valuing [nature] adequately."

Andrew Mitchell
Global Canopy Programme

"So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year."

The review that Mr Sukhdev leads, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), was initiated by Germany under its recent EU presidency, with the European Commission providing funding.

The first phase concluded in May when the team released its finding that forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP. The second phase will expand the scope to other natural systems.

Stern message

Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free.

So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.

Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.

The Teeb calculations show that the cost falls disproportionately on the poor, because a greater part of their livelihood depends directly on the forest, especially in tropical regions.

The greatest cost to western nations would initially come through losing a natural absorber of the most important greenhouse gas.

Just as the Stern Review brought the economics of climate change into the political arena and helped politicians see the consequences of their policy choices, many in the conservation community believe the Teeb review will lay open the economic consequences of halting or not halting the slide in biodiversity.

"The numbers in the Stern Review enabled politicians to wake up to reality," said Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme, an organisation concerned with directing financial resources into forest preservation.

"Teeb will do the same for the value of nature, and show the risks we run by not valuing it adequately."

A number of nations, businesses and global organisations are beginning to direct funds into forest conservation, and there are signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the carbon trade, although it is clearly very early days.

Some have ethical concerns over the valuing of nature purely in terms of the services it provides humanity; but the counter-argument is that decades of trying to halt biodiversity decline by arguing for the intrinsic worth of nature have not worked, so something different must be tried.

Whether Mr Sukhdev's arguments will find political traction in an era of financial constraint is an open question, even though many of the governments that would presumably be called on to fund forest protection are the ones directly or indirectly paying for the review.

But, he said, governments and businesses are getting the point.

"Times have changed. Almost three years ago, even two years ago, their eyes would glaze over.

"Today, when I say this, they listen. In fact I get questions asked - so how do you calculate this, how can we monetize it, what can we do about it, why don't you speak with so and so politician or such and such business."

The aim is to complete the Teeb review by the middle of 2010, the date by which governments are committed under the Convention of Biological Diversity to have begun slowing the rate of biodiversity loss.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7662565.stm, 10 October 2008, by Richard Black

GDP Growth by Advanced Economy and Developing Economies

Source : IMF (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7659086.stm, 08 Oct 2008)

Commodity Prices

Source : IMF (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7659086.stm, 08 Oct 2008)

World Annual GDP Growth

Source : IMF (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7659086.stm, 08 Oct 2008)

'Major global downturn' says IMF

The world economy is entering a major downturn in the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a hard-hitting report, the IMF warned the global economy was facing its most dangerous crisis for 70 years.

World economic growth will slow substantially this year, and only pick up modestly later in 2009, it said.

It warned the challenge for governments would be to stabilise economies while keeping a lid on inflation.

In its latest bi-annual World Economic Outlook report, the IMF said global economic growth would slow to 3.9% this year and then to just 3% in 2009 - its lowest level since 2002.

Growth slows



The IMF said the global financial crisis, which started with the collapse in US sub-prime mortgages in August 2007, had worsened in the past six months - and had entered a "tumultuous new phase" in September.

In its report, the IMF said that after four years of strong global growth led by emerging and developed economies, the world's economy was now heading into a major downturn led by leading industrialised nations.

Overall growth in the US, Europe, Japan and Canada would drop to 1.5% this year - and was set to fall even lower to just 0.5% next year, it said.

Conversely it has been developing countries in Africa and Asia which had seen the greatest expansion in growth in recent years - and where economic output was set to suffer the least.

Growth in emerging and developing countries would still be 6.9% this year, and 6.1% in 2009 - while growth in China would be still be an impressive 9.3% next year - the IMF forecast.

At the same time the impact of surging oil and food prices had led to rates of inflation not seen for 10 years, it warned.

The IMF's latest World Economic Outlook report has come out just ahead of the annual IMF-World Bank meeting in the US.

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7659086.stm, 08 October 2008

(Newspaper) Israel's Ultra-Orthodox Jewish

Source : The Star, 06 October 208

UK University Ranking Webiste

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education

Israel's booming hi-tech industry

There is more to Israel than the "Guns 'n Moses" message on tourist T-shirts for sale in Jerusalem's old city bazaar. Not far from the Western Wall - and the security barrier that separates Israel from the occupied territory of the West Bank - is the largest hi-tech industry outside of Silicon Valley, California.


Yossi Vardi believes political isolation has paradoxically brought benefits.
Israel's hi-tech industry contributes around 7% to the country's GDP, but its success is no accident. Like much in the state of Israel, it was born out of adversity.

Yossi Vardi, known as the Godfather of Israeli hi-tech, highlights the significance of events after the 1967 war, when the French placed an arms embargo on the Middle East.

"The two real fathers of Israeli hi-tech are the Arab boycott and Charles de Gaulle, because they forced on us the need to go and develop an industry," he said.

Another key factor is the military service which all Israelis - with the exception of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arab-Israeli muslims - are expected to do. Women serve two years, men three.

Rear Admiral Ophir Shoham, head of the information technology (IT) division in the Israeli Defence Force, is not surprised that many of them subsequently gravitate towards a career in IT.

"We're used to giving comprehensive and very big responsibility on young guys because we are counting on them and therefore they are afraid of nothing when they get out of here," he said.

Golden eggs

Since the 1970s, momentum has been sustained by an innovative and high-risk programme initiated by the government which funds 24 technological incubators.

The programme provides monetary backing for two to three years to help develop bright ideas into viable business propositions. But it also offers vital managerial and marketing support to enable the start-ups to attract private investment.


Acceptance of failure is the name of the game here...in order to get to the golden eggs you have to hatch as many eggs as possible

Rina Pridor
The incubators were created partly to direct the brainpower and ideas of the large number of Russian scientists and engineers who emigrated to Israel after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The idea was conceived by Rina Pridor.

Formerly a corporate lawyer, she is now the government minister in charge of the initiative. In her office in Tel Aviv, she points to the logo which adorns all the programme's materials for an explanation of its philosophy.

"Acceptance of failure is the name of the game here, because if you look at these three golden eggs, you see that we want to get to the golden eggs.

"But in order to get to the golden eggs you have to hatch as many eggs as possible; there's no other way."

She believes the government support - and cash - is essential.

"Israel cannot afford that such good ideas will just disappear because they are not given enough chance to prove themselves.

"We take the risk for two to three years, and enable them to prove themselves and help them to get to their first significant private money."

Seventeen years later, she can point to an impressive success rate. Almost half (45%) of the companies which have benefited from the programme are still flourishing, rising to 60% of those helped in the last five years.

Geographical bias

Most of the hi-tech industry has developed around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, meaning that towns in the south of the country and, crucially the north - where many Arabs live - have struggled to share in the success.

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New Generation Technology (NGT), based in Nazareth, is the only Arab-Israeli incubator and aims to change that.

Its entrepreneurs tend to excel in life sciences, medicine and pharmaceutical studies, areas which attract large numbers of Arab Israeli students.

NGT chief executive Yosi Turkaspa argues Arab entrepreneurs are just as innovative as their Jewish counterparts, but acknowledges they sometimes lack managerial experience.

One solution is to bring together Arab entrepreneurs and Jewish businessmen "to manage the company", a solution which he insists creates "no problem" for those in such partnerships.

Collaboration

You can find further evidence of fruitful collaboration on the outskirts of Jerusalem, home to a joint Israeli-Palestinian company, G.ho.st.

The brainchild of serial entrepreneur, Zvi Schreiber, G.ho.st stands for Global Hosted Operating System, a free web-based virtual computer which, as the company puts it, offer users a personal desktop, files and applications "available from any browser, anywhere".


Israel began building its controversial 670km West Bank barrier in 2002.
Uniquely the company operates across the physical and psychological barriers that divide the country, with 40 employees based in Ramallah, and six in Jerusalem. This is not about outsourcing - the employees on both sides are shareholders in the company and are paid competitive salaries.

Despite the logistical challenges - the only full company meeting so far took place in a petrol station restaurant on the Dead Sea - Ori Weinroth from G.ho.st's Jerusalem office believes the business model "seems to be working smashingly".

And some believe this is exactly the kind of creative innovation that could make a contribution towards helping to resolve the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

With economists identifying key challenges including the soaring cost of occupation and a growing "brain drain", companies like G.h.ost that can bring the two communities together are being watched closely by leaders the world over.

A hi-tech boom that was itself born out of adversity may have an even more important role to play in the months and years ahead.

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7654780.stm, 06 Oct 2008, Julie Ball

(Newspaper) Finland's Education

Source : Sin Chew Jit Poh, 30 Sept 2008