New Zealand is voted as the least corrupt nation on earth

New Zealand is voted as the least corrupt nation on earth, and Somalia is seen as the most corrupt, a German organization, Transparency International said in a report released this week.
Overall, the top spots are occupied mostly by European countries, with the exception of New Zealand, Singapore at No. 5 and Australia, which is tied for eighth with Switzerland.
In addition to Somalia and North Korea, which are tied for last at No. 182, the bottom of the list includes Myanmar, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Sudan, Iraq, Haiti and Venezuela.
The report was prepared by the independent, nonpartisan Transparency International organization, which says it drew its conclusions based "on different assessments and business opinion surveys carried out by independent and reputable institutions."
The information used to compile the index includes "questions relating to the bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, embezzlement of public funds and questions that probe the strength and effectiveness of public-sector and anti-corruption efforts," Transparency International said.

The complete report can be seen at www.transparency.org.

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UN says 307 children killed during Syrian crackdown

Syrian families and their children carry pictures of Syrian boy Hamza al-Khatib, who anti-government activists say was tortured and killed by Syrian security forces. (Jamal Saidi/Reuters)

Syrian authorities killed at least 307 children in their crackdown on opposition protesters, the UN human rights chief said Friday, urging world powers to refer these and other allegations of Syrian "crimes against humanity" to the International Criminal Court.
Syria's President Bashar Assad — trying to defeat an 8-month-old revolt challenging his autocratic rule — faces widespread international condemnation and sanctions over the bloody crackdown. The UN says more than 4,000 people have died.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said new reports of violence in Syria reinforce the need for the Security Council to submit the situation in the country to the Hague-based court.
"In light of the manifest failure of the Syrian authorities to protect their citizens, the international community needs to take urgent and effective measures to protect the Syrian people," Pillay told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The 47-nation rights council responded by passing a resolution backed by 37 African, European, Asian, Arab and American members chiding Syria for "gross and systematic violations of human rights."
4 countries opposed motion
Russia and China were among four countries to vote against the motion. The two permanent members of the Security Council have condemned the bloodshed, but are resisting further international pressure on Syria. Six countries abstained.
The resolution also established the post of a special human rights investigator to probe abuses in Syria. But the final draft removed direct references to the Security Council, and to "international accountability mechanisms" like the ICC.

Syria's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Fayssal al-Hamwi, said the U.N. action would "not in any way be in the interest of the people of Syria and will not help it put an end to its crisis."
The council's third emergency meeting on Syria came amid mounting international pressure on the Assad regime. The U.N. says the nation is on the verge of civil war, and the Arab League, European Union, Turkey and the United States have all approved measures to sanction the Syrian economy, which relies on oil and tourism.

Pillay said her office had received reliable information that the death toll since the start of the eight-month uprising was now "much more" than 4,000.
"The Syrian authorities' continual ruthless repression, if not stopped now, can drive the country into a full-fledged civil war," she said.

An independent panel's report to the Human Rights Council this week said it found widespread evidence of "crimes against humanity" and use of excessive force against civilians.
The chairman of the international commission of inquiry, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, a Brazilian professor, told the council Friday that the 307 children killed included 262 boys and 45 girls. He said November was the deadliest month so far — with 56 children killed.
© The Associated Press, 2011

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China military accepts heavier, tattooed recruits

China's military is accepting heavier recruits and will no longer reject people for sporting prominent tattoos as it steps up a drive to attract young, new entrants, state media said on Wednesday.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) – already 2.3 million-strong – is on a major charm offensive to attract recruits, particularly from a booming student population that has become more wealthy and fashionable.
As such, the army has relaxed some of the stringent standards governing health examinations for this year's winter army conscripts, according to a Beijing News report posted on the defence ministry's website.
It said that men sporting tattoos less than two centimetres (0.8 inches) in diameter on their faces or necks would now be allowed into the army.
The report added that male soldiers would be accepted if they weighed up to 25 per cent more than the "standard weight" compared to last year's 20 per cent.
According to Contemporary Medicine, a medical journal managed by China's health ministry, a person's standard weight in kilos is calculated by subtracting 110 from his or her height in centimetres.
The changes come as the PLA targets young people – and particularly educated graduates – to bring skills the army needs to modernise.
As the Chinese grow more and more affluent, their waistlines have also expanded with richer diets. Many of the nation's youth, meanwhile, have grown more fashion-conscious and trendy.
Highlighting its drive to attract qualified youth, the ministry has also decided to pay up to 6,000 yuan (£590) every year to university students who enrol in the army, to help them pay off their education, the report said.
The number of graduates in China has grown from 3.38 million in 2005 to 6.3 million in 2010, Colonel Jiang Jiping – in charge of recruitment in the PLA – told reporters in September.

CNN NEWS

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Gaddafi slept with 4-5 women daily says his close aide

Former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was a sex addict who had a penchant for young women -- many of whom were his bodyguards, his close aide has revealed.

"There were four or sometimes five women each day. They had just become a habit to Gaddafi. They would go into his bedroom, he would have his way with them and then he would come out like he had just blown his nose.
"They all had sex with Gaddafi. The more canny of them became wealthy from his gifts of villas or large sums of cash," Faisal, Gaddafi's chef of seven years, told 'The Sunday Times' newspaper.
Faisal claimed that some of the women his former master bedded suffered so badly that "they went immediately from his bedroom to the hospital" to be treated for internal injuries.
In fact, Gaddafi, who once bedded at least four women just hours before meeting Britain's Prince Andrew for trade talks in Tripoli, was so addicted to anti-impotence pills that his Ukrainian nurse urged to him to reduce the number of drugs he swallowed every day, the 29-year-old chef said.
The former Libyan despot even picked up victims at his former alma mater, Tripoli University, where he gave lectures and then led the young women to a nearby room whose only furniture was a double bed, he said.

Faisal claimed that another aide was once sent to a sex district of Paris, to buy a machine that Gaddafi used to apparently lengthen his penis.
Gaddafi was particular about his looks and used make- ups and treatments with green tea to hide his wrinkles, said Faisal, who was captured along with his former master by the National Transitional Council forces Sirte last month.Gaddafi was killed after his capture.
PTI

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Where Did the Dangerous Alaska Storm Come From?

An extremely dangerous storm is slicing toward northwestern Alaska and is expected to bring blizzard conditions and hurricane-strength winds to the state's west coast. The storm, which formed from a mix of air masses over an area of ocean prone to spinning up strong storms, could be bigger than anything ever seen in the 49th state, the National Weather Service warned.

Severe weather warnings in Alaska. CREDIT: NWS

This morning (Nov. 8) the storm was about 600 miles (965 kilometers) southwest of St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. According to the forecast from the NWS office in Fairbanks, Alaska, it was to sweep into Russia's Chukotsk Peninsula tonight and move into the northwestern Chukchi Sea.

"This will be extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm of an epic magnitude rarely experienced," read a statement from the NWS. "All people in the area should take precautions to safeguard their lives and property."
The storm could be one of the most severe Bering Sea storms in nearly 40 years. The strong winds are expected up and down the entire west coast of the state.

"Something that's kind of unusual in this case is that all of our computer models were in agreement of this being an extremely strong storm," said Jim Brader, a meteorologist at the Fairbanks NWS office.
How it formed
The storm is the product of warm air in the Pacific Ocean tapping into the cold air off Siberia, picking up speed in a jet stream near there and then intensifying as it moved into the Bering Sea  –  "a place where storms typically intensify," Brader told OurAmazingPlanet.

The weird storm has an unusually long fetch length, which is the length of the wind blowing in a single direction over water. In this case it's maybe 1,000 miles (1,600 km), Brader said.
To envision what a long fetch length will do, think about blowing wind with your mouth over a bowl of water; the water piles up at the opposite end. The same thing happens over the ocean. The stronger and longer the fetch length, the bigger the waves it will create.

The winds from the current storm will push high waves ashore and create widespread coastal flooding and severe erosion of the coastline, the NWS warns. Sea levels could rise as much as 10 feet (3 meters) above normal in the Norton Sound and along the Bering Strait coast.

Alaska in the bull's-eye
Wind speeds are expected to reach hurricane strength — 75 mph (120 kph) — with gusts up to 100 mph (160 kph) across the Bering Strait coast and St. Lawrence Island. That's bad news from a winter storm.
"Cold air impacts the water more and can push the momentum of the wind into the water more," Brader said.
In the storm's bull's-eye are some of the harshest inhabited areas of Alaska. Severe flooding and winds are predicted to strike areas already hit hard by coastal erosion, reported the Climate Central blog.
Kivalina Island, a barrier island home to about 400 people, is perhaps 5 feet (1.5 m) above sea level. "It doesn't take a lot to wash waves into where people are," Brader said.

The storm could be similar to a 1974 Alaska storm, but sea ice is lower in today's warmer world, providing no protection along the coast, according to the NWS. Some areas in the north do have some winter sea ice, and it could become a hazard if pushed ashore, Brader said.

Via Our Amazing Planet

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How Has Magic Johnson Survived 20 Years with HIV?

On Nov. 7, 1991, Los Angeles Lakers point guard Earvin "Magic" Johnson shocked the world when he announced that he had contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. After the press conference, the perception was that Johnson had just pronounced his own death sentence.

Yet, 20 years later, the now-52-year-old Johnson is going as strong as ever in his roles as a sports analyst, businessman and HIV activist. In 1991, when most of what people knew about HIV/AIDS was that it lead to death at a young age, this outcome might have seemed impossible.

So why is Johnson still alive?
The answer to Johnson's survival is far from "magic." According to reports, he takes the same kinds of drugs that are available to other HIV patients in the developed world, and increasingly in impoverished nations in Africa and Asia, where the disease still runs rampant. Many people have lived with HIV even longer than Johnson.

"There is nothing unique about Magic," said Spencer Lieb, senior epidemiologist and HIV/AIDS research coordinator for the Florida Consortium for HIV/AIDS Research. "There are still people alive and kicking and doing very well 20 and 30 years after infection."

Lieb said that in the state of Florida alone, hundreds of patients have hung on since becoming infected with HIV in the early 1980s, when the first confirmed AIDS cases turned up in the United States. But Johnson and these people are still in the minority: According to research and estimates by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1.2 million Americans have HIV, and 20 percent of them are undiagnosed. Approximately 50,000 people become infected each year, and more than 18,000 die annually.

Stopping HIV in the back court
The key with Johnson and others has been preventing their incurable disease from progressing into full-blown AIDS.
Upon infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a person's immune system kills off nearly all of the virus and infected cells. But some small number remain, and over time, those HIV cells replicate, and replicate, and replicate. Then, usually 10 years after the initial infection, the viral load reaches a critical count, and the virus begins killing off the vital immune cells that protect us against infections.

At that critical count, a person is considered to have acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS); with the body’s immunological defenses destroyed, it's usually only a matter of months before a range of opportunistic infections and cancers complete their lethal work.

Researchers have developed a number of powerful drugs to help people like Johnson avoid this fate. The key weapon has been a regimen of three or four antiretroviral drugs, collectively known as highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART.
According to a Newsweek story from last spring, one of Johnson's doctors who helped pioneer the treatment placed him on the then-experimental drug cocktail in 1994, about a year and a half before it came into widespread use in 1996.

"Magic got a jumpstart on experimental drugs before they were released to the general public," Lieb told Life's Little Mysteries, "but there were many people in clinical trials benefitting at the same time."

The meds that slam dunk HIV
HIV spreads by hijacking a subset of white blood cells called T cells, which are the body's first line of defense against foreign invaders, and using the cells' DNA to make copies of itself or replicate; in this process, these T cells get destroyed. The most common drugs in the HAART regimen target two of the enzymes that HIV uses to replicate itself.

The first enzyme, called reverse transcriptase, turns the virus' genetic instructions encoded in a single RNA strand into double-stranded DNA. (In scientific terms, this mode of replication classifies HIV as a retrovirus, hence "antiretroviral" drugs.)

The second enzyme, known as protease, creates new, functional HIV virus particles by cutting up the proteins cranked out by our hijacked cellular machinery.
Medication can disrupt these processes, and to that end, Johnson is currently taking reverse transcriptase inhibitor and protease inhibitor drugs, which are contained in the pharmaceuticals Trizivir and Kaletra, respectively, as reported by Newsweek.

Although these and other HIV-fighting drugs are "hideously expensive," Lieb noted, so are a substantial number of prescription drugs for much more everyday diseases.

Public and private medical insurance, as well as various assistance programs, make the medicines affordable and available to the vast majority of patients in the United States and other parts of the world. It is a "myth," said Lieb, that Johnson, who is wealthy, is buying himself special treatments.

Staying in the game
By taking the right regimen every day, most HIV patients can see the number of virus particles in a sample of their blood, or viral load, become undetectably low.
Not only does a low viral count stave off symptoms of HIV and AIDS, but it also slashes the odds of a randomly mutated copy of the virus emerging that can prove resistant to the therapy. Furthermore, a low viral load severely reduces the risk of transmitting the virus to others.

Yet even without modern drugs, in rare instances an HIV-positive person can manage on their own to keep AIDS at bay. These "long-term nonprogressors" or "elite controllers," estimated at as few as one in 500, have lived for decades with HIV, despite not being on antiretroviral therapy.

It is not known if Johnson is among this "scarce breed," as Lieb called them, but more than likely "without medications, he'd be progressing."

Researchers continue to study long-term nonprogressors for get insights on HIV resistance that could help the 33 million people battling the virus.
As Johnson has prominently shown, however, those with HIV can still live productive lives. Lieb has seen many such promising cases in person. "We have very buff-looking, healthy-looking HIV patients who have been infected for ages," Lieb said. "You can't tell the difference between them and you and me."

LiveScience.com

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Carlos the Jackal: Who is the man behind the nickname?

The terrorist Carlos the Jackal went on trial today for his role in four bombings in the 1980s that targeted trains and a newspaper office, killing 11 people. 

The native-born Venezuelan was once the most sought-after fugitive in Europe, a mysterious figure who killed two French secret police and an informant before being apprehended in Sudan in 1994.

The Jackal’s real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. He first gained headlines and notoriety for an attack on an OPEC meeting in 1975 on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in which he took some 60 hostages, including 11 oil ministers. His current trial follows the discovery of evidence against him in communist-era files from Hungary, Germany, and Romania. He is suspected in a dozen other cases for terrorism spanning three decades.
Today in a Paris court, Ramirez said he was a “professional revolutionary,” according to the Associated Press. He claims involvement in some 100 terrorist attacks. What is the Jackal's story?
How he got his nickname
Ramirez was first codenamed “Johnny” but is said to have been dubbed “Carlos” on a trip to Jordan. The name “Carlos” showed up on a false passport discovered by the French police.
The nickname "Carlos the Jackal" was coined after the Guardian reported that Fredrick Forsythe’s novel “The Day of the Jackal” was found among his alleged possessions in a London apartment occupied by a Basque separatist named Maria Angela Otaola Baranca. Ms. Baranca's boyfriend found a bag of weapons in the flat and contacted the Guardian. Two reporters found a copy of the Forsyth novel about a hit-man hired to assassinate General Charles de Gaulle, and the nickname was born, though the Guardian later reported the book was simply found on a shelf in the apartment.
Jackal film biopic
While “The Day of the Jackal” is a famed Hollywood film based on the Forsyth novel, Mr. Ramirez’s exploits have also been captured on the silver screen. A French television series by director Olivier Assayas has been released as a 165-minute biopic named “Carlos” that won a Golden Globe award. In it, the Carlos figure plays out as a kind of alter-ego of James Bond.
The director was a student in the Paris Left Bank at the time Ramirez shot two police and an informer and disappeared. The director later said in an interview, “Nobody seemed to be able to catch him or even locate him. Things like that fire the imagination. It's all about the mystery. Of course, once you start to find out the truth – after the end of the cold war – you realize how disconnected the myth is from the reality."

His latest wife
The Jackal is married to his lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre. Ms. Peyre has defended mostly radical leftists, including Khmer Rouge leaders, but she has also represented people accused of anti-Semitism and Zacarias Moussaoui, whom the US government accused of being a 9/11 plotter.
Sanchez is a converted Muslim and Ms. Coutant-Peyre was brought up Catholic. They met in 1982 when Coutant-Peyre was working for Jacques Verges, a lawyer who defended Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie. At the time, Mr. Verges was defending the Jackal’s first wife, Magdalena Kopp, who was sentenced for a planned bombing in Paris. Coutant-Peyre and Mr. Verges initially defended the Jackal, but the Jackal sacked Verges in 1997 and made Peyre his chief lawyer. In 2001 the two were married in a French prison. Peyre is his third wife.
Other crimes
In addition to the attack on OPEC in 1975 that left three dead, the killing of the French police, and the alleged bombings he is on trial for, the Jackal is suspected of crimes in a half dozen European nations. These include:

• A possible lead role in the attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic games
• Bomb attacks in Paris, including a 1982 explosion that killed one and injured 63
• A grenade attack on an Israeli-owned bank in London
• Wounding the president of the department store Marks and Spencer in London,   Edward Sieff

Source: Christian Science Monitor

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Canadians to set clocks back this weekend

This weekend, Canadians will set their clocks back one hour to mark the conclusion of daylight time, which ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 6.

Daylight time was first enacted in Germany in 1915, then quickly adopted by Britain and much of Europe and Canada.
Because the sun shone for a time while most people were still asleep in the morning, it was reasoned that light could be better used during the day. The solution was to push the clocks ahead one hour in springtime, forcing people to wake an hour earlier. They would therefore expend less energy trying to light their homes, for instance, if time were adjusted to suit their daily patterns.
When the days started getting shorter in the fall and people awoke to increasing darkness, the clocks were turned back an hour to get more light in the morning.
History
Although first instituted in 1915, the idea of daylight time had been batted around for a more than a century. Benjamin Franklin suggested the idea more than once in the 1770s while he was an emissary to France. But it wasn't until more than a century later that the idea of daylight time was taken seriously.
William Willett, an English builder, revived the idea in 1907, and eight years later Germany was the first nation to adopt daylight time. The reason: energy conservation. Britain quickly followed suit and instituted British Summer Time in 1916.
Several areas, including parts of Europe, Canada and the United States, followed suit during the First World War. In most cases, daylight time ended with the armistice.
During the Second World War, a different form of daylight time was reinstated by Britain and clocks were set two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time during the summer. It was known as Double Summer Time.
The time shift didn't end with the summer, as clocks were rolled back to be one hour ahead of GMT through the winter. The Uniform Time Act, enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1966, established a system of uniform (within each time zone) daylight time throughout most of the U.S. and its possessions, exempting only those states in which the legislatures voted to keep the entire state on standard time.
Schedule changed to save energy
In Canada, it's up to each province to decide whether to use daylight time, and not all do. Most — but not all — jurisdictions in Canada and the U.S. have been moving their clocks ahead by one hour on the second Sunday in March and back by one hour on the first Sunday in November.
Legislation in the United States in 2007 moved the start of daylight time three weeks earlier in the spring and the return to standard time a week later in the fall. The change was aimed at trying to help save energy, since people aren't expected to need their lights on as early in the evening. But there is still some debate about whether the change reduces energy consumption.
A 2006 report from the U.S. Department of Energy anticipated electricity savings of four-tenths of a per cent per day of extended daylight time, totalling 0.03 per cent of annual electricity consumption.
As to the environmental impact, the non-profit group American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy estimated the prolonged period of daylight time would cut carbon emissions by 10.8 million tonnes.
Exceptions
Canada followed suit, saying it was essential to co-ordinate with the U.S. and that not doing so would create too many headaches for trade and travel.
"We're not anxious to have a disconnect between us and our chief trading partner," Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said.
Most of Saskatchewan has not observed daylight time since 1966 and stays on central standard time all year round. Some border towns follow the time schemes of their neighbours in Manitoba or Alberta.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall had promised a referendum on daylight time in the 2007 election. But in March 2011 he said one wasn't needed.
In Canada, areas of Quebec east of 63 degrees west longitude do not change to daylight time and remain on Atlantic standard time year round. Pockets of Ontario and British Columbia do not use daylight time.
Daylight time is observed in most of the United States. Just two states — Arizona and Hawaii — and three territories — American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands — do not participate.
Some parts of Australia have adopted daylight time. Of course, it's done a little differently than in the Northern Hemisphere, where seasons are opposite. So, when daylight time starts in Canada, it comes to an end in Australia and vice versa.
When Canadians are waxing their skis in December, Australians are waxing their surfboards because it's summer there. In Britain, the government may consider long-touted proposals for the U.K. to switch to Central European Time, a move advocates insist would bring lighter evenings and possibly offer the country's sluggish economy a boost. Supporters say the switch, which would see British clocks synchronized with those in continental Europe, would extend the tourism season, cut road deaths and help promote outdoor activities. But opponents insist that northern regions would be badly affected. Some critics claim that the sunrise in Scotland could come as late as 10 a.m. during some winter months.
Health benefits, pitfalls
The end of daylight time may signal that Canada's long, cold winter is just around the corner. But the omens aren't all bad. You do pick up that extra hour of sleep that you lost when the clocks moved ahead in March.
Swedish researchers say there may be some health benefits to turning your clock back. They studied 20 years of records and found that the number of heart attacks dipped on the Monday after clocks moved back an hour.
Moving clocks ahead in the spring had the opposite effect. There were more heart attacks in the week after springing forward — especially during the first three days of the week.
In 2007, Dr. Till Roenneberg of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, tracked the sleeping patterns of Europeans to explore the effects of moving from daylight time to standard time. The study found that while both late and early risers adjusted to the time switch in the fall, night owls had a particularly difficult time adjusting to the time shift in the spring. Researchers said the night owls are likely to feel sleep-deprived for weeks.
For pedestrians, though, the story's a little different. A study by U.S. researchers found there were more pedestrian deaths during the evening rush hour in November than October as drivers and pedestrians adjusted to the earlier darkness. They said the risk for pedestrians drops in the spring when clocks are set back and daylight comes earlier.

CBC News

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American who joined Libyan rebels returns to US

Matthew VanDyke, who spent months in Libyan prisons before joining rebel forces who opposed dictator Moammar Gadhafi, speaks with reporters after his flight arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Linthicum, Md., Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

LINTHICUM, Md. (AP) — An American writer who went missing in Libya for months returned to the United States on Saturday night, telling reporters he went to the north African nation to participate in the uprising against dictator Moammar Gadhafi and was on a reconnaissance mission when he was captured.

But Matthew VanDyke, 32, said his mother and girlfriend didn't know when he set off from Baltimore for Libya that his goal was to support the revolution.

"You don't tell your mother that you're going to go fight in a war," he said. "When I got out of (a Libyan) prison, I was going to finish what I came to do. So the past several weeks I've been in combat on the front lines in Sirte fighting Gadhafi's forces."

VanDyke, dressed in his military uniform with a scarf tied around his head, held up a Libyan flag as he walked out of the concourse at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport into his mother's arms. He was also met by friends and family waving American flags and holding up signs. Some had waited for hours after he was detained by Homeland Security officials when he entered the country in New York and missed his flight to Baltimore.

Later, as VanDyke addressed the media, his girlfriend, Lauren Fischer, arrived and planted a big kiss on his lips. The two stood hand in hand for the rest of the time he spoke.

Earlier this year, VanDyke was in Baltimore working on a book and film about a motorcycle trip across the Middle East and southeast Asia when he began to hear from friends in Libya about their relatives disappearing.

"I wasn't going to sit back and let this happen to people I care about and not do anything about it," he said. "I see how people are suffering under regimes like this and it's time for it to end."

VanDyke said he was on a reconnaissance mission in Brega with three other fighters with weapons in a truck when he was captured by Gadhafi forces. He was questioned once, he said.

VanDyke spent more than five months in solitary confinement in Libyan prisons. He said he sang Guns n' Roses songs to himself and tried to name all of the "Star Trek" characters to pass the time. He said he also suffered from the psychological effects of solitary confinement.

Fischer and VanDyke's mother, Sharon, held strong to their belief that VanDyke would return. Sharon VanDyke even traveled to Turkey with photos of her son in hopes of speaking to Libyan diplomats in hopes they could work to free him.

The two women enlisted U.S. Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersburger, a Maryland Democrat and ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, who held a news conference in May to call attention to the situation. Libyan officials initially denied VanDyke was being held, but in July they acknowledged he was in custody.

When the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli was bombed in August, fellow prisoners broke open VanDyke's cell and he escaped. The fleeing prisoners made their way to a compound, where he was able to borrow a phone to call home.

Matthew VanDyke, in camouflage, who spent more than five months in Libyan prisons before joining rebel forces who opposed dictator Moammar Gadhafi, kisses his girlfriend Lauren Fischer after arriving on a flight at Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Linthicum, Md., Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

He was pressured — by Fischer, the State Department and Human Rights Watch — to return home, but he wanted to finish what he went to Libya to do.

"I felt appreciative that they spent time and resources to try to help me and by keeping my story alive they did prevent the regime from executing me and I'm very grateful for that," he said. "If they had actually gotten me released then, yes, I probably would have come home. I broke out and I ran for my life with other prisoners. I freed myself and I come home when I wanted."

He said everything he did was on the side of U.S. policy and in keeping with the ideals of the United States.

It was tough for Fischer to learn that he had planned from the beginning to fight in the revolution, she said.

"I knew that he went there to help his friends, not to fight, but to help his friends," she said. "It was not what I thought, but especially after five and a half months of not even knowing for sure where he was, I thought that was what was really more important to me was knowing that he was safe and OK."

Publicly, VanDyke said that he'd remain in Libya until Gadhafi fell from power and that he wanted to look for friends who might have been captured or killed in the fighting. He said he didn't want to stir up controversy over an American fighter in the middle of the fight. Then he formally joined the Ali Hassan al-Jaber Brigade of the National Liberation Army of Libya. He displayed an identity card and award he said he was given to him by his commander.

Gadhafi was captured and killed last month. VanDyke went to Tripoli for the celebrations and felt that he could return home.

"It's good to be home. I'm glad to be home," he said. "I'm glad that the job was finished. I wasn't going to leave until Gadhafi was out of power. He's gone, so I'm home."

Sharon VanDyke was happy to have her son back.

"A lot of time of his life has been given to another country. I know Libyans appreciate it," she said. "I'm very proud of that he followed his commitment. I never once tried to make him come home. I told him all along that I would support his decisions."

Matthew VanDyke plans to go to church Sunday morning and spend time with his mother and girlfriend now that he is back. But then he might start training for other revolutions elsewhere in the Arab world.

"There's a lot more to be done" he said. "This is spreading."

 Source: Associated Press

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How Shanghai’s students stunned the world

They beat every other country on international exams, but Chinese educators say their success is no fluke

SHANGHAI, China — Students in this booming Chinese city shocked the world last year when they beat every other country on international exams, but Chinese educators say their success is no fluke.

“If you are a hard-working, diligent student you will succeed," said Qiu Ying Li, who has been teaching English for 20 years. "This is the secret for all Chinese students.”
At Shanghai’s Yucai High School, students put in 12-hour days – nine hours before dinner plus three after they eat. Homework is assigned every evening, even for weekends, as an essential part of students’ learning activities. And kids study during summer and winter breaks to get ready for high-stakes college entrance tests.
With all of this hard work comes stress. To help students cope, time is set aside for workouts and even eye massages.
“It’s a test-oriented education system, which means students are taught from a very early age how to beat tests,” said Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal of Peking University High School.
Students are even tested in English, which they start learning at six years old. The approach seems to be paying off.
In the last worldwide evaluation of students’ performance, administered by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Shanghai pupils’ scores topped the charts across the board in math, science and reading. Shanghai was the only site in China where the tests were administered.
In the same test, American students ranked 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading.
China has a long tradition of valuing education, seen as the major path to climb the country’s social ladder. But just a couple of decades ago, Shanghai schools were struggling, so officials launched a reform effort hinged on making the curriculum much more rigorous, and they invested heavily to do so.
“Culture may well be an asset,” Andreas Schleicher, OECD education expert, said, “but you also need to enable your asset.”
Today, this international business hub of 23 million people pours vast resources into its schools, and its teachers are among the highest paid in the nation.
When asked if student discipline is ever an issue, Luo Jian Jun, an English teacher, shot back a confused look.
“You just give your lesson and students just listen to you, maybe write down, sometimes they ask questions. No discipline problem,” Luo said.
In English class, a young man nicknamed Bill said his life revolves around school. “It’s all about studying,” he said, laughing. “I got to make money, I got to make a living.”
Another student said he pushes himself to work hard in school so he can achieve his goal of working in an organization that protects ocean creatures.
Schleicher, of the OECD, believes the most impressive result of Shanghai’s performance is not just its high average score, but the low variability of test scores between schools, even those in poorer districts.
A determined effort to convert weaker schools into stronger schools produced these results, as high-performing teachers and school managers were transferred to low-performing schools, either temporarily or permanently, Schleicher said.  School officials also share lesson plans, curricula, teaching methods and effective practices.
Schleicher said U.S. schools could benefit by making high-performing teachers more mobile, so disadvantaged schools could also benefit from their expertise.
Shanghai is proud of how it performed on the international tests, but experts say there is a downside to the emphasis on test taking.
Jiang believes test taking is damaging to students’ creativity, critical thinking skills and, in general, China’s ability to compete in the world.
“It can make students very narrow minded,” he said, adding that, in the 21st century, China needs the creative types its education system isn’t producing.
Jiang also points out that Shanghai, the country’s wealthiest city is the exception in China. Only 24 percent of rural Chinese kids go to college versus 80 percent in Shanghai and 64 percent in the United States. Many children walk miles every day to rundown schools – if they’re among the lucky ones who have access to a school.
“Shanghai is definitely an outlier in China,” he said.
But one quality that all Chinese students share, Jiang said, is their love of learning – a positive attitude he thinks American students should emulate.
“Chinese students love learning. They go to class and they have a real attitude that ‘education can change my life.’”

By NBC, msnbc

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