Epoch Times, Singapore Edition (Issue 501)

December 19, 2014 – January 1, 2015 • MCI (P) 100/09/2014 • SINGAPORE EDITION • theepochtimes.com

Asia & China Perspectives

Straying Too Close to China Not Wisest Move STORY ON PAGE 14

This election has taught the CCP a hard lesson.

Yuan Hongbing, former Beijing University professor, on the Taiwan local elections SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images

‘Optimise Your Positive Energy’ with Selina Seah

Beyond GDP: Are There Better Ways to Measure Well-Being?

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World Perspectives 10

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contents Quote of the week

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian leader A FREE CHINA

187,293,715 people have renounced the Chinese Communist Party.

See Page 23 for Details

A man dressed as Santa Claus helps families choose their trees at Sydney Christmas Tree Farm in Sydney, Australia, on Dec. 13, 2014.

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e believe that the media has a social responsibility to inform and facilitate social harmony and progress. In 2000, our media was started by overseas Chinese in the United States to provide truthful news coverage of events in China, where previously only propaganda and censorship existed.

We also want to revive traditional cultures that have inculcated universally good

OUR STORY values that form the fabric of a harmonious society. While technological and economic developments propel a country forward, good values in people make a home out of a country.

Our first edition was in Chinese.

The English edition followed in 2003. We now publish in 35 countries and 21 languages with our headquarters in Manhattan, New York.

Our Singapore office offers local readers ground-level

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Christmas On A Great Street All photos by Alan Lee & Epoch Times Staff

These days, Orchard Road transforms into a dreamy

fairyland and wintry wonderland as night falls.

Twinkling stars, shimmering reindeers, crystalline snowflakes, glittering Christmas trees, peaceful angels, lovely fairies, legendary unicorns and playful elves have appeared on the busy stretch of Orchard Road from Tanglin Mall, Paragon, Orchard Central to Plaza Singapura.

Experience the magical Christmas On A Great Street from now till early January. It is a wonderful sight not to be missed.

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This is Singapore

‘Optimise Your Positive Energy’ with Selina Seah

By Li Yen Epoch Times Staff

lp s to ho Co ur tes yo f se lin a se ah

What is the invisible power you have mentioned in your book?

Since ancient times, human beings have always craved for power. I strongly believe that energy = power. The noted genius, Albert Einstein once made a statement that every living entity is actually moving energy. That is so true!

Another respected and esteemed person is Dr David Hawkins, who, like Einstein, also believed in the power versus force theory. They believed that the laws of vibration can lead to success if properly controlled and manoeuvred. This literally means that any energy within your body can be “redesigned” according to the amount of control you are able to exercise over it.

Dr Wayne Dyer has always reiterated that we, as human beings, do not attract what we want and instead we attract what we are! Therefore, if you want to be able to attract positive things into your life, you have to learn how to master channelling positive energy into everything, from your thoughts to your actions. Positive energy comes from positive emotions.

Keeping this basic concept in mind, my aim is to help everyone understand that there is a link in our energy blueprint and the way our lives unfold.

I hope for everyone to understand that through conscious manipulation of auras and chakras, it is possible to live happy and fulfilled lives.

Thus, in my book, the Invisible Power is referring to our energy fields around and within us which are really our aura and chakras.

Selina Seah, energy alchemist, author, publisher and success consultant

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“Auras and Chakras are not magic and there aren’t new discoveries,” says energy alchemist Selina Seah, who teaches people to optimise their ‘energy’ using chakras and auras, in order to gain more success in their life.

Auras are fields of luminous energy that surround a person and they contain various colours. The auras of our body can be visible with an aura scanning technology known as an aura video station, which aids in our exploration of the ‘invisible’ energies.

In Hindu tradition, it is believed that there are seven chakras (energy points) located at the crown (top of the head), brow (between the eyes), throat, heart, solar plexus, spleen or navel and root (at the end of the spine).

By studying colours of the auras on each of the chakras, Selina will then advise her clients on the areas of their life – whether it is their emotional, intellectual, physical and/or spiritual level(s) – which need to be improved.

“By understanding what is holding them back, people will be able to unblock the obstacles that is blocking their success.

Having mastery of our energies will motivate us to reveal some highlights in our future life and take us on a more complete journey to a more fulfilling life,” she shares.

“My works have given me amazing experiences and added inspirations to help and share with more people about the energy inside them. I am honoured to have received many testimonials and positive feedback from people in Singapore and around the globe about their success stories,” she adds.

A mother of two daughters, Selina hopes that through The Aura Chakra Company, she can educate people to understand their energy or emotion blueprint. She believes that by creating positive and good energies, the people around us will benefit and in turn be influenced, thus making this world a better place where positivity is a way of life.

“The Aura and Chakras have nothing to do with magic except that maybe it can work magic in your life,” she enthuses.

Besides providing Aura Chakra advice, the sought-after consultant and speaker is also an author of the popular energy alchemy book ‘The Invisible Power – The 9 Powerful Laws of Highly Successful People’. She is also the publisher of the ‘Alchemy Abundance’ magazine.

How did you come about starting your Aura Chakra Consultation and business?

Co-founder of ‘The Aura Chakra Company’, Vincent Oh, and myself have the honour of bringing to Singapore and Asia the ground breaking technology of an aura scanning technology from the United States and share this technology with thousands of satisfied clients worldwide.

The aura scanning works in a simple and non-invasive way by using bio-feedback technology, which transfers your natural body temperature into the bio-sensor of the aura scanner.

Within seconds, you will be amazed by the ‘live’ images of your aura energy and your very own chakra system and the journey begins…

By reading a person’s aura and chakras, we can determine areas where they are suffering from energy deficiencies and blockages that are leading them to feel disconnected from themselves.

The Aura and Chakras have nothing to do with magic except that maybe it can work magic in your life.

Singapore’s Energy Alchemist, Selina Seah

For yourself, how do you remain motivated everyday?

By having the ‘attitude of gratitude’. Being human, it would be superficial to say that I’d always have 24/7 abilities of motivation day in day out. There are times, I’d also feel stretched and tired.

Times like that, my gratitude list is the biggest ‘inspire me’ power tool.

As we rush through our life, our success and even our issues…it is so easy to forget what we ‘already’ have in our life. We take them for granted – our parents, partners, children, friends and more so, our time.

When we spend time pursuing our goals and success, we should also be smiling and celebrating the ‘now’ that we’ve got.

I’m very grateful for my wonderful family support and love. Seeing my daugthers Victoria and Vera grow up healthy and happy is simply a gift.

It’s important to make our gratitude greater than our success! This way, one gets more than motivation…it’s become inspired living!

You transform your clients and boost their motivation and inspiration, and lead them to success and happiness.

Who taught you all that?

I’ve experienced my fair share of ups and downs, and I guess the saying “when going gets tough, the tough gets going” has its truth. To me, what you respect will move towards you; what you disrespect will move away from you. It is very important to respect our self-worth.

During my personal difficult times, I had the amazing good fortune to have incredible people who have helped me.

Without them, I would not be where I am today. It was their motivation, their good advice and emotional support that was really priceless. I have learnt a great deal of humility, gratitude and the power of belief from the people who have helped me.

And over the years, I had great mentors and have the privilege to be guided by amazing books that have constantly shaped my thoughts.

In recent years, I had the good fortune to have been guided and taught by great ‘gurus’ who have enriched my spiritual growth. As an intuitive and an energy sensitive, I try my best to transform the knowledge of ancient wisdom into modern science. I’ve been blessed to be able to reach out and successfully connect with

Epoch Times

many people, especially the younger generation.

I believe we are all work in progress, and with my clients, they have also been my biggest teachers.

I thank them for trusting me enough to share and consult with me their life issues. And by helping them, I have learnt that knowledge remains just facts until it’s applied.

Seeing my clients improve and overcome their difficulties gives me more motivation and confidence to continue to learn more, share more and serve more.

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What is the aura? The chakra? What is its relationship with energy and success?

Some people refer to the aura as a halo surrounding an individual, maybe something like an invisible cloud. In actual fact, auras are energy fields that surround a person.

Most people can’t see their aura or the auras of others but there is usually an intuitive feeling that can give you an idea of a person’s general aura. Take for example a happy person. His or her aura will be bright and welcoming, which is usually clearly seen in the way they behave, interact with

others, the colours they favour, and so on.

Every colour that is found in auras depicts a different meaning. For example, a bright yellow aura could be interpreted as the individual being highly inquisitive and pretty smart, with a logical mind. A green and purple aura, on the other hand, would usually mean a spiritual and compassionate person.

Auras are rather fascinating as these energy fields are intertwined and can be affected by circumstances, other stronger auras, emotions, and your general health.

If you are in the company of someone with a very strong aura, the energy field this aura is creating will cause other auras to shrink, which is probably why people who are charismatic usually find themselves almost always in control of their surroundings and others. They seem to naturally attract others, but this is really the work of the strong and powerful aura that they possess.

By understanding the aura colours, you will have a much greater understanding of your connections with your friends, family, and most importantly, yourself.

It’s self-discovery of a very powerful personality blueprint that you will eventually achieve when you learn how to manipulate your aura by injecting colours into it as and when needed. Your aura can work as a positive influence over a particular situation or in your everyday endeavours, according to your intentions and desires.

Inside everyone’s body is an energy field which anchors itself in one particular and specific place. This is called the chakras.

Different aspects of your life are represented by different coloured chakras.

December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015

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Chakras have different colours representing different aspects of an individual’s life.

When your chakras are in harmony, you would naturally be harnessing the ‘Invisible Power to attract Success’.

In order to understand the complexities of success, you must first accept that your well-being is not something that is only related to your physical form or manner.

Holistically speaking, success is harnessed and magnified when all levels work in harmony, meaning the physical, the mental, emotional, and the spiritual aspects of your life.

What are the secrets for living life to the fullest?

To me, to ‘LIVE is to GIVE, to GIVE is to LIVE’: Give more Love, Give more Imagination, Give more Value, Give more Energy. Live with Gratitude, Live with Integrity, Live with Vitality, Live with Empathy.

Life is a Gift, when we master the balance created between yourself and the universe.

Balance creates wholeness and stability.

We have to understand that our birthright is Happiness and to give Happiness is our purpose. That’s when we live life 200%: 100% physical life (material, wealth, etc) and 100% spiritual life (mental aspect of life, love, gratitude, etc).

For more information about Selina Seah, please visit her website at http://www.selinaseah.com. This Is Singapore is a fortnightly feature that delves into the life of an inspiring and talented individual in Singapore. Read all our interviews here: http://bit.do/thisissingapore

Courtesy of ntdtv.com

SG50 Baby Jubilee Gift Set Epoch Times Staff

Golden Horse Award-Winning Director Anthony Chen’s Next Film Project Epoch Times Staff Local Director Anthony Chen of awardwinning film ‘Ilo Ilo’ announced on Dec 12 his new production company ‘Giraffe Pictures’. The company is set up with ‘Ilo Ilo’ associate producer Huang Wenhong.

The company has a vision to groom budding film-making talents in the region, aiming to produce one or two films each year.

Chen will be the Executive Producer of all the film projects and his upcoming project ‘Distance’ is a movie consisting of three short stories crafted by China director Xin Yukun, Thailand’s Sivaroj Kongsakul and Singapore’s Tan Shijie.

Taiwanese actor Chen Bolin plays the lead actor in all three short stories that explore the universal themes of love, friendship and family.

The film is scheduled to be filmed in China, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore.

To commemorate Singapore’s 50th birthday, an SG50 Baby Jubilee Gift Set will be given to every Singaporean baby born in 2015. This is a community initiative led by the National Population and Talent Division and supported by REACH, the Ministry of Social and Family Development, Families for Life, NTUC U Family, and I Love Children.

The special gift set consists of a commemorative medallion, a multi-functional shawl with orange lion prints, a baby sling made from 100% cotton, a multi-compartment and functional diaper bag, a precious keepsake scrapbook, a beautiful wall-mounted or displayed standing family photo frame, five baby books writ-

ten by local children’s book author Ruth Wan-Lau with illustrations by Eliz Ong, as well as a set of cute baby clothes which includes two rompers, a toddler T-shirt and matching shorts with baby animal prints.

The Official Vendor of the gift set Noel Gifts International said 10,000 gift sets will be rolled out in the first quarter of 2015.

To register for the gift, parents of Singaporean babies born in 2015 can simply log in to www.nptd.gov.sg/sg50baby.

Alternatively, you can email your queries to SG50baby@msf.gov.sg or visit http:// www.heybaby.sg/sg50baby.

The public can catch a glimpse of the special gift items at Suntec City (East Atrium Level 2 and West Atrium Level 1) from Dec 1 to March 31.

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Café with A Story Courtesy of The RICE Company Limited

By Ting Ting Epoch Times Staff Happy Pancakes Café, which brings together Tokyo’s signature fluffy pancakes and authentic Straits Asian coffee, was officially launched by his Excellency Mr Haruhisa Takeuchi, Ambassador of Japan to Singapore, on November 25, 2014 in Orchard Central.

The Story Behind Happy Pancakes Café A collaboration between The RICE Company Limited and Little Creators from Japan, Happy Pancakes Café carries the intent to support socially and financially disadvantaged young people in Singapore and Japan. It also trains youth beneficiaries of The Business Times Budding Artists Fund, equipping them with hospitality and service skills.

Its establishment was made possible by a S$100,000 sponsorship from OWL, and the youth will also have the chance to learn how to brew OWL coffee. The partnership behind Happy Pancakes Café is also “the beginning of a series of celebrations to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations between Singapore and Japan in 2016” by Mr Colin Goh, Chief Executive Officer for The RICE Company Limited.

Pancake with a Japanese Heart The type of fluffy pancakes that Happy Pancakes Café serves is very popular in Japan. In Harajuku, Tokyo, people would queue for hours to buy such pancakes.

In summer, police officers may even tell these pancake stores not to let their customers wait too long as they could get sick. Besides Tokyo, other cities like Shinjuku and Osaka also have such pancake stores. It makes people wonder what is so special about these pancakes.

“It is the kind of the Japanese heart, the Japanese way of service,” says Mr Tomoyuki Tsuge, a chef at Happy Pancake Café and the creator of the popular fluffy

Very interesting to know that. I hardly relate science to pancakes.

Tomoyuki: Yes, very few people thought about that. I hope to help promote delicious pancakes in Singapore and I hope by having the youth here learn how to make them, the delicious pancakes can even be promoted to other parts of Asia. I hope this delicious food made from what I’ve learned and the experiences gained from these youth can last.

So you also teach the youth here to make pancakes. How is their training like?

Tomoyuki: The training consists of the teaching of cooking method and how to provide good service. The training of service is very important. Omotenashi is very important.

Mr Tomoyuki Tsuge (L), a chef at Happy Pancake Café, teaching a disadvantaged youth in Singapore how to make Japanese pancakes.

pancake in Harajuku.

Mr Tomoyuki shares with Epoch Times the secret of making delicious pancakes and his belief in providing good service.

To nurture budding home-grown talent in the arts from financially-disadvantaged families, a car park space on Level 10 of Orchard Central has been transformed into a 13,000 square feet space for the creative arts.

This dedicated space – 10 Square @ Orchard Central (10sq) – is managed by non-profit arts and cultural organisation, The RICE Company Limited (RICE). It features a theatre-auditorium, three music studios, a visual arts studio, a dance

perature, etc. to make good pancakes.

This is something both easy and difficult.

Is the pancake here the same as the one in Harajuku?

Tomoyuki: The taste is a bit different and the cooking method is also changed.

I tried the pancake just now. It was very delicious and quite special, very fluffy.

Tomoyuki: In order to cater to Singaporeans, I tried to remake the pancakes.

Trials after trials, I made this pancake. It took like six months.

Is it difficult to make good pancakes?

Tomoyuki: I’ve been making pancakes for five years. It is not difficult, but you have to understand the weight, the tem-

What is the recipe behind the success of this pancake and the pancake in Harajuku?

Tomoyuki: Science.

From Car Park to Arts Space at Orchard Central Epoch Times Staff

Science?

Tomoyuki: You know, milk, and egg, and the baking powder. The question is how to get them to ‘work’ and what to add to the baking powder to make it ‘work’ better and to produce fluffier pancake.

I tried to make pancakes after studying that.

studio, an arena, seminar and conference rooms, as well as a service-training café called Happy Pancakes.

Ms Low Yen Ling, Parliamentary Secretary for Ministry of Social and Family Development and Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, was present at the official opening of the arts space.

She said, “I am happy to know that 10Sq is designed for this purpose. It will provide youth with access to the arts, right in the heart of our city. It is the training ground for youth from financially-challenged families, who are pursuing performing and visual arts training.”

‘Omotenashi’?

Tomoyuki: It’s the Japanese service. In addition to teaching them how to make pancakes, I also teach the youth here the Japanese way of service.

Besides delivering dishes to the customers or talking to the customers, ‘omotenashi’ is also about always wanting to know more about the customers and always wanting to provide more for the customers. It is the kind of the Japanese heart, the Japanese way of service.

Happy Pancakes Café is located on the tenth floor of Orchard Central, and is open to the public the week leading to Christmas. Come and taste the specially made pancakes yourself and experience the heart-warming ‘omotenashi’ the café provides.

Courtesy of The RICE Company Limited

December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015

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WORLD PERSPECTIVES

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The World Is on the Verge of Another Financial Crisis The sum total of the world’s debts can never be repaid MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images

By Mark Anielski Paul Moore came to broad public attention as a whistleblower during the banking crisis of late 2008. Four years before, he had been dismissed from his position as head of HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) financial risk management after warning the bank—the largest mortgage bank in the UK at the time— that it was taking excessive risks.

Paul originally blew his “riskalert” whistle because he saw that HBOS was in danger of collapse. It was ultimately forced into a merger with RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) in 2008, which in turn was itself bailed out by a multi-billion-pound infusion of capital from the UK Treasury.

During a trip to London last October, I asked Paul if he believed anything had changed in terms of financial risk since the 2008 crisis. He answered unequivocally no, explaining that, since the 2008 crisis, the debt risk both in the UK and the US has only grown worse.

Let me explain.

Most people don’t comprehend that we are living in a protracted debt crisis with no possible solution, because the majority of money (about 98 percent) in today’s economies in the US, the UK, Canada and Europe is debt-money, primarily generated by private banks when they issue loans.

The problem is that the sum total of these debts—which can never be repaid no matter how much the economy grows—has grown exponentially since the end of the Second World War. In the US, the total amount of outstanding debt is nearing $60 trillion.

There are only two ways out of this dead-end debt street: a

The sum total of debts has grown exponentially since the end of the Second World War.

catastrophic global financial collapse or a courageous act declaring an international debt jubilee, that is, the forgiveness of all outstanding debts and the

the effect of compounding interest on ever-larger amounts of outstanding debts. In the US, the amount of total outstanding debt has been doubling rough-

Unfortunately, no one has a clue what to do next about the current situation or how to defuse the ticking debt time bomb. rebuilding of a global money system not based on debt.

The problem with our debtbased money system is that debt accumulates over time through

ly every seven years since the 1950s. In 1950, the amount of total outstanding debt was $425 billion ($2,792 per capita); by the end of 2012, it had reached

$58.8 trillion ($187,371 per capita). This represents a whopping 13,731 percent increase over 62 years. In contrast, the US economy only grew 5,142 percent over the same period.

The debt situation in Canada is not much better. In the second quarter of 2014, total outstanding debts (personal, government, business, financial institutions) in Canada were $5.64 trillion or $158,695 per capita. Equifax Canada recently released new figures that show Canadians are more in debt than ever—a staggering $1.513 trillion in personal debts. Excluding mortgages, average debt held by Canadians has increased 2.7 percent to $20,891.

What’s worse is that this growing mountain of debt demands increasingly higher in-

terest payments to service the previous outstanding debts. Interest payments suck life-energy from the economy by taking up a significant portion of every dollar we make. I’ve estimated that interest payments on the total amount of US debt of $58 trillion is approximately $0.36 on every dollar an American spends on goods and services in the economy. This means that the average American will spend about a third of their working life working just to repay interest payments on debt that is fundamentally unrepayable.

At the heart of this crisis is the level of ignorance amongst the vast majority of people about the nature of money. Most people assume that the government produces the majority of our money supply by printing money. Not true. Private chartered banks create 98 percent of the money supply in the US, Canada, and the UK. Private banks use a moneycreation process called “fractional reserve banking” to issue brand new money (at virtually no cost) in the form of debt (loans) many times greater than funds on deposit. For every one dollar on deposit at a bank, roughly $100 dollars (or more in Canada) of brand-new debt money is created. Banks literally have a monopoly on the creation of money.

Unfortunately, no one has a clue what to do next about the current situation or how to defuse the ticking debt time bomb.

Mark Anielski is a Canadian economist and author of The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth. This article was previously published on TroyMedia.com.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Epoch Times.

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World PERSPECTIVES

December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015

Epoch Times

How Terrorists Use Twitter to Become ‘Brand Ambassadors’

GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images/Edited by Epoch Times

By Alfred Hermida University of British Columbia On an overcast afternoon in London in May 2013, an off-duty soldier named Lee Rigby was murdered near his barracks in Woolwich, southeast London.

Rigby’s killers were two young British men of Nigerian descent, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. What people didn’t know at the time is that six months earlier, Adebowale had talked on Facebook about his desire to slaughter a soldier.

The authors of the official report into the killing chastised Facebook for not picking up on the threat, arguing there was a “significant possibility” that the attack could have been prevented if the technology company had alerted the

It’s hardly surprising that according to some estimates, 90% of terrorist activity on the internet takes place on social media sites.

authorities. Politicians turned on social networks for not doing enough to stop extremists, accusing Facebook and the like of providing a safe haven for terrorists and of not living up to their social responsibility.

It’s too easy to use social networks as scapegoats, especially when it distracts attention from the failings of the security services – who had previously had Adebolajo under surveillance. Extremists have always used whatever technology they could to get their message out, from printed propaganda to broadcasting over the airwaves. The smartphone is today’s printing press, and social media a ready-made distribution network.

So it’s hardly surprising that according to some estimates, 90% of terrorist activity on the internet takes place on social media sites. The real issue is about power: social media shifts the balance of power away from governments, police and the armed forces in favour of loosely organised groups of activists, dissidents and extremists too.

Twitter Guerrillas Social media inherently favours guerrilla warfare, where a small, nimble

force can successfully take on a larger, more unwieldy one. To understand how to combat extremism on the internet, we need to understand how it works.

Social media is generally free, open to anyone who can get online, and messages can be more visible than ever before, with a global reach. Instead of relying on the press or other intermediaries, extremist groups reach people directly and tailor the message accordingly. The Islamic State (IS) skillfully targets messages designed to spread terror among Western audiences while recruiting followers with tweets aimed at the Muslim world.

Since social media operates as a network, it is much easier to spread hate from one person to another – each follower becomes a broadcaster – and the cost to reach 100, 1,000 or 10,000 people is essentially the same.

This distributed and decentralised model favours guerrilla tactics.

Groups and individuals can operate independently, yet remain loosely connected. By contrast, messages from institutions tend to operate on a command and control structure, whose layers of bureaucracy make it hard to respond quickly.

Brand Ambassador or Terrorist?

It is much harder to shut down the propaganda channels of extremist groups when no one, and everyone, is in charge. Security comes through obscurity. Unofficial Twitter or Facebook accounts run by sympathisers are hard to track down as they can blend into the volume of stuff on social media. One study from earlier this year found 27,000 Twitter accounts that were positive about IS, yet none were officially run by the group.

Instead, these people become what in the business world are called “brand ambassadors”. In effect, extremists spreading hate are using the same tactics used by Hollywood studios to get fans buzzing about an upcoming film.

Twitter encourages us to live in the moment, to react rather than reflect.

When news breaks, Twitter comes alive with a jumble of facts, speculation, rumour and emotion. The uncertainty that follows something like the Ottawa shooting provides fertile ground for an atmosphere of fear.

The real-time nature of social media offers a tactical propaganda advantage to terror groups. They can try to seize the news agenda by sending immediate reports and photos from the scene of an attack, before the media or the authorities even have time to evaluate what has happened.

The real-time nature of social media offers a tactical propaganda advantage to terror groups.

The Public Domain The irony is how much of this activity happens in public, on networks that can be monitored by the security forces. As businesses have discovered, people are freely providing a wealth of information about their actions, intentions and beliefs on social media. Smart companies have learned to monitor in real time and respond rapidly to a consumer backlash on social media. There is a lesson here for the fight against terror.

Traditional, hierarchical institutions are slow moving beasts that are ill equipped to fight in a propaganda battleground that favours the guerrilla tactics of the nimble.

The same qualities of social media that can help people to come together and protest about income inequality or contribute to the overthrow of a dictator can also be harnessed for evil. At the core of the debate is the fact that social media is a contested space, where the power of institutions and elites can be challenged and neutralised by those on the edges – for good or evil.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Epoch Times.

World PERSPECTIVES

Epoch Times

December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015

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Sydney Siege Shows Social Media Is a Risky Business

By Amy Grubb Coventry University As the hostage crisis in Sydney came to a dramatic, deadly end, people were flooded with information.

The siege at the building in the city’s Central Business District is over and the gunman is dead. The apparent storming came after a day of high tension in the city, but details regarding the outcome remain unclear.

While traditional news outlets were briefed about what they should and should not report, it is much harder to keep tabs on social media. Speculation was rife on Twitter, photographs were posted from near the scene and people were sharing videos online of hostages held inside the Lindt cafe.

Police negotiators have the option to use social media to try to engage with both hostage takers and individuals in such crises.

They might, for example, try to contact a missing person via their Facebook page. But engaging with hostages in this way could also be a hindrance in highly volatile situations. Social media might enable police to locate a hostage taker, which is useful for tactical teams, but that is done at the risk of putting hostages in danger. There is also the danger that information tweeted by hostages or individuals within the local area could be used to aid a hostage taker’s situation.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the involvement of the media within hostage-taking situations can at times be detrimental.

During the Manila bus siege in 2010, for example, a media helicopter broadcast images of the police tactical operation being set up around the bus. The broadcast was available inside the bus and the hostage taker was provided with important information about the tactical interventions being organised by the Philippine National

By Dr Robert Zembroski

S

imply put, body fat is created by the types of foods we eat and the hormones they make us produce.

If you eat high-calorie, nutrientdeprived foods, you will increase hormones that make you fat.

Changing your diet is essential for weight loss. Drinking plenty of water throughout the day will also help you lose weight—and fat—for several reasons.

For one, by replacing high-calorie, sweetened beverages like sodas, Gatorade, and Sobe teas with water, you will reduce the calories you take in. Eating high-calorie foods and drinking beverages loaded with refined sugars is a sure way to increase your body fat in a short period of time.

By replacing unhealthful beverages with water, you will consume fewer calories and reduce the fat-making hormones, which is a great first step.

Drinking water throughout the day, especially right before a meal, can also make you feel full, thus reducing the amount of calories you take in. However, I don’t suggest that you go on a “water diet” in hopes of slimming down.

Eating foods high in nutrition and low in calories, along with drinking plenty of water, is a good way to stay satiated, so

Police. The police thus lost an advantage as they no longer had the element of surprise on their side.

Caution about spreading information is absolutely fundamental in cases such as Manila and Sydney, particularly now that hostage takers are more likely to have easy access to that information. Much of the established media is aware of this problem and outlets generally seek guidance from the police in charge of operations before sharing information with the public. But less caution is used online by people who aren’t professionals.

News From Inside It is, of course, understandable that hostages may want to reassure loved ones by tweeting about their experience. However, this goes against the concept of maintaining a sterile environment, whereby traditionally, police try to ensure that communication only occurs between the hostage

taker and the negotiators. This is a central tenet of hostage and crisis negotiation.

But this type of interaction may also prove beneficial. Intelligence can be gathered on the conditions inside and on the welfare of the hostages.

Indeed, now that the Sydney siege is over, the police may find useful information on the gunman’s social media pages.

If in Doubt, Don’t Tweet Social media is something of a double-edged sword. It can prove beneficial in certain scenarios, but could also make a potentially lethal scenario more fraught.

Third party involvement, even by bystanders, brings in an element of communication which is completely out of the control of the police. The police have been trained to deal with such situations, but their role can be compromised by an information flow that they are not privy to and may

not in fact be accurate.

An innocent or well-intentioned tweet or Facebook comment posted by a bystander could misinform a hostage taker. It might suggest that the incident is being portrayed to the outside world in a particular way or provide information that the hostage taker does not want to release. That could aggravate or escalate a crisis situation.

Social media needs to be used with extreme care in cases such as the one in Sydney. Police negotiators need to be able to perform the role for which they have been stringently trained, without input from amateur onlookers, however well-meaning their tweets might be.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Epoch Times.

Drinking Water Can Help You Lose Weight you won’t eat processed junk foods. Nutrient-rich foods such as dark-green and rainbow-coloured vegetables, along with low-sugar fruits, also provide water and fibre, which curbs the appetite by making you feel full.

Benefits of Water

Water transports oxygen and nutrients to the cells, detoxifies them, helps to regulate body temperature, boosts metabolism, and moisturises joints.

Most of us walk around dehydrated. We lose water constantly throughout the day, especially during the warmer months due to sweating. You can’t replace it by downing coffee or a beer. Alcoholic and caffeinated drinks are diuretics and cause you to lose more water.

If you feel thirsty, you are already dehydrated.

In the journals Metabolism, The Lancet, and European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers reported that hydrating the body increases fat burning, as well as the number of enzymes that

cause fat-burning.

The researchers also found that proper hydration preserves muscle. They concluded that drinking water is definitely a must for sustainable fat loss and a healthy body composition.

So, how much water is enough?

Different factors play a role in the need for water. The amount you need depends on the climate, your diet, your height and weight, how much exercise you get, and the medications you take. It also depends on the health conditions you have.

While individual needs may vary, for the average adult, drinking 2–3 litres (8–13 cups) of water a day is a good place to start.

Drinking water improves detoxifica-

fotolia

tion and digestion. If you are looking to shed those extra pounds, drinking water is not only imperative for your health, but also a must for your fat-loss efforts.

Dr Robert Zembroski, DC, DACNB, MS, is a chiropractic physician, functional neurologist, clinical nutritionist, and author of ‘Rebuild’. He is the founder of Cancer Victor—Beyond Survival and Darien Centre for Functional Medicine in Connecticut. For more information, visit: DrZembroski.com

10 December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015

World PERSPECTIVES

Epoch Times

Beyond GDP: Are There Better Ways to Measure Well-Being?

Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

By Ida Kubiszewski “At present, we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP,” says Paul Hawken, environmentalist and author.

Imagine if a corporation used gross domestic product (GDP) accounting to do its books: it would be adding all its income and expenses together to get a final number. Nobody would think that’s a very good indication of how well that business was doing. Herman Daly, a former senior economist at the World Bank, said, “The current national accounting system treats the earth as a business in liquidation.” He also noted that we are now in a period of “uneconomic growth”, where GDP is growing but societal welfare is not.

The good news is that there are several alternatives to GDP being actively developed, discussed, and used. One of these is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI).

GPI starts with personal consumption expenditures—a major component of GDP—and adjusts it using 25 components. These adjustments include incorporating the negative effects of income inequality on welfare; adding positive elements not considered in GDP, such as the benefits of household work, volunteer work, and higher education; and subtracting environmental costs and social costs like the costs of crime, unemployment, and pollution. In doing so, it paints a more accurate picture of how far we have come over the last three decades.

Regional Level In the United States, the states of Maryland and Vermont officially report their GPI annually.

In 2010, Maryland was the first state to officially adopt the GPI as an alternative to GDP. The state’s goal was “to measure whether or not economic progress results in

Young monks in the Temple of the Divine Madman in the Bhutanese town of Punakha

sustainable prosperity”.

Since its beginning, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has actively implemented policies to encourage the increase of GPI. The media has also taken up the challenge of shedding light on the true picture of societal welfare, with media coverage now regularly reporting on changes in GPI. In 2012, the state of Vermont passed legislation mandating the calculation of GPI. Since then, GPI has been estimated for other states including Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, and Utah, while 10 others have expressed interest in developing their own studies.

This movement toward GPI is part of an international trend, and GPI has been calculated in around 20 countries worldwide.

The international research community has begun to develop what is being called “GPI 2.0”.

GPI 2.0 seeks to improve standardisation and robustness of the current GPI.

National Level GPI is not the only new measure of societal welfare being adopted around the world. The Kingdom of Bhutan began using Gross National Happiness (GNH) as an alternative to GDP in 1972 after fourth King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, stated, “Gross National Happiness is more important

also established the GNH Commission to assess all new policies for their impact on the “happiness” or well-being of the population.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics also began moving in this direction with the Measures of Australia’s Progress (MAP) initiative. MAP was established to

At present, we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP. Paul Hawken, environmentalist and author than Gross National Product.”

GNH is estimated using a survey that takes approximately seven hours per person. In 2013, it was taken by more than 10 percent of the Bhutanese population. The Bhutanese government

address the question, “Is life in Australia getting better?” MAP provides Australians with 26 indicators related to society, economy, environment, and governance. Unlike the GPI, it does not aggregate the indicators into one

overall measure, but allows viewers to make their own assessment regarding the well-being of the Australian population based on the individual indicators. However, funding was discontinued for MAP in early 2014.

Global Effort Currently, no global consensus exists regarding alternatives to GDP. However, there is growing agreement that the continued use of GDP as a proxy for overall well-being is not appropriate. A range of national indicators exist that are being used around the world.

The Millennium Development Goals, which are ending in 2015, look primarily at health, poverty, and education. To replace them, a UN-led initiative has developed a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These new goals have a broader agenda that includes the environment, inequality, and sustainable and equitable economic growth, among other aspects.

Although metrics are being developed for each of the 17 goals and their sub-goals, as of yet, no overall indicator has been developed to assess the overall success of the SDGs. Robert F. Kennedy once said that a country’s GDP measures “everything except that which makes life worthwhile”. The only way to dethrone GDP from its current role is to start measuring all those things that do “make life worthwhile”.

Dr Ida Kubiszewski is a senior lecturer at Crawford School of Public Policy at Australian National University. This article is part of an ongoing series, Beyond GDP, which looks at the dominance of GDP in economic thinking and how that might change.

This article was previously published on TheConversation.com.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Epoch Times.

Advertorial

Epoch Times

December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015 11

all photos from Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur Hotel

Irresistible

MAMMA MIA!

Package at Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur Hotel

By Epoch Times Staff

M

issed MAMMA MIA!’s run in Singapore, or simply can’t get

enough of it?

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MAMMA MIA!, which features timeless songs by the ’70s Swedish group ABBA, has been delighting crowds on Broadway, London’s West End, Australia, and everywhere in between for the past 15 years. Over 50 million people in 400 cities have seen this celebratory, buoyant musical – a true global phenomenon.

Experience the enchanting tale of romance, laughter and friendship in this “Abba-solutely” fabulous show, and enjoy ABBA’s classic hits including ‘I Have a Dream’, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Money, Money, Money’ and more. The musical is expected to be sold out with tickets priced at RM190, RM290, RM390, RM490 and RM590 (S$74, S$112, S$151, S$190, and S$228).

The performance schedule for MAMMA MIA! at Plenary Hall, KLCC is as follows: • Thursday 18 Dec 8.00 p.m.

• Friday 19 Dec 3.00 p.m. and 8.00 p.m.

Celestial Court Chinese Restaurant

The perfect ticket for a feel-good night out!

Daily Telegraph

Quite simply, a phenomenon!

Associated Press

The most fun I’ve had in a theatre in years!

Toronto Star • Saturday 20 Dec 3.00 p.m. and 8.00 p.m.

• Sunday 21 Dec 3.00 p.m. and 8.00 p.m.

Enjoy MAMMA MIA! with Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur’s Exclusive Packages As the official hotel partner of the smash-hit show, Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur is pleased to present a range of tempting food and beverages offers together with an irresistible MAMMA MIA! room package. Details are as follows: 1) Special MAMMA MIA! room

Mamma Mia

package starting from RM590++ to RM1090++ (S$228++ to S$422++) per night, complete with an array of extra perks.

The package includes two tickets to the show valued between RM390 and RM590 (S$151 and S$228) each, a 30% discount off food and beverages (excluding alcoholic drinks and in-room dining), and late check-out until 3:00 p.m. (subject to availability).

In addition, guests can take advantage of an equally generous 30% off soothing spa treatments at Mandara Spa (excluding manicures and pedicures), and complimentary daily breakfast for two persons.

The package offer is valid till 21 December 2014 for stays from 15 December to 28 December 2014.

Maybank card members and SPG members will receive a 30% discount off this special room package.

2) Dine at Sheraton Imperial’s Celestial Court or Villa Danieli, and receive a free ticket to MAMMA MIA! Diners at Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur can enjoy this musical extravaganza for free, whilst sampling classic Chinese dishes with a contemporary twist at Celestial Court or true Italian cooking trattoria-style at Villa Danieli.

Guests at Celestial Court or Villa Danieli will receive one ticket to the MAMMA MIA! show valued at RM390 (S$151) when spending a minimum of RM398++ (S$154++) on the total bill.

Spend a minimum of RM498++ (S$193++) and one ticket to the value of RM490 (S$190) is offered free of charge, while a minimum spend of RM598++ (S$214++) will be presented with one free MAMMA MIA! show ticket worth RM590 (S$228).

Furthermore, simply present a valid ticket for MAMMA MIA! and enjoy a substantial 30% off total food and beverage bill at the hotel’s F&B venues - Essence, Villa Danieli or Celestial Court. Relish the sensory pleasure of interactive dining at eclectic Essence.

These F&B promotions are available from now till 31 January 2015. These offers are not valid on public holidays or eve of public holidays. Terms and conditions apply.

To reserve a room, please call 03-2717 9900 or e-mail reservations.imperial@sheraton. com. For restaurant enquiries or to reserve a table, please call 03-2717 9900 or e-mail restaurants.imperial@sheraton. com or alternatively visit www. sheratonimperialkualalumpur. com to learn more.

12 December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015

World PERSPECTIVES

Epoch Times

How Germany Managed to Abolish University Tuition Fees

By Barbara Kehm University of Glasgow If Germany has done it, why can’t we? That’s the question being asked by many students around the world in countries that charge tuition fees for university. From this semester, all higher education will be free for both Germans and international students at universities across the country, after Lower Saxony became the final state to abolish tuition fees.

It is important to be aware of two things when it comes to understanding how German higher education is funded and how the country got to this point. First, Germany is a federal country with 16 autonomous states responsible for education, higher education and cultural affairs.

Second, the German higher education system – comprising 379 higher education institutions with about 2.4 million students – is a public system which is publicly funded. There are a number of small private institutions but they enroll less than 5% of the total student body.

Continued on next page Heidelberg University Jan Beckendorf, CC BY-SA

Epoch Times

Back and Forth With Fees Until 1970-71, West German higher education students had to pay tuition fees at the level of about 120 to 150 German Marks per semester. There were needsbased exceptions, but basically these fees had to be paid by every student.

When they came to power in the late 1960s, Germany’s Social Democrats supported higher education expansion by promoting widening participation and equal opportunities and by increasing the number of higher education institutions. From 1971 onwards, a system of state financial assistance for students was established and tuition fees were abolished. The assistance came first as a grant, later as a mix of half repayableloan and half grant.

During the peak period of higher education expansion in the late 1960s, exclusive funding of higher education by the states became too much of a burden.

New provisions were introduced for a framework law laying down the general principles governing higher education across West Germany. The first law, introduced in 1976, included a prohibition of tuition fees.

Despite a flirtation with the idea of re-introducing tuition fees under the conservative-liberal coalition government in the 1980s, a stalemate ensued over whether tuition fees would lead state governments to reduce their regular funding to universities.

Fees Win Out in Late 1990s The fall of the Berlin Wall and German Unification put all reform plans on hold for several years until the whole East German system of higher education institutions and academies had been evaluated and reformed. A new discussion about tuition fees then started around the mid-1990s, with their re-introduction seen as a solution to a number of existing problems in the higher education system.

Around the end of the 1990s, the dam of resistance broke by allowing the introduction of fees for so-called longterm students: students who had been enrolled several semesters past the regular duration of their study programme and had not finished.

Those states with a conservative government filed a law suit in 2002 against the framework law of higher education, arguing that its prohibition of tuition fees was an illegitimate intervention into the legal authority for educational matters of the states. The Federal Constitutional Court upheld the complaint in 2005; immediately, seven states introduced tuition fees.

In 2006, the framework law was abolished under wider reforms of German federalism. Tuition fees were capped at 500 Euros per semester, but Berlin and all East-German states refused to introduce them.

Excellence and Crisis However, the same reform of federalism led the states to reclaim complete authority and responsibility for their

World PERSPECTIVES Higher education institutions in the poorer states (mainly in the east of Germany) receive less money while those in the richer states (typically in the south) are better funded. higher education. This led the Federal Ministry for Education and Research to refuse any further co-funding with states on higher education. And it left the federal ministry with a lot of spare money. A large part of this was eventually invested into the German Excellence Initiative, a competitive funding programme launched in 2005 to support a group of universities to become global players.

But this also meant that the poorer states faced a funding crisis for their higher education institutions. The problem was aggravated by the fact that a number of the poorer states were located in East Germany, where all states had decided not to introduce tuition fees in the hopes to attract more students.

Gradual Abolition In successive years, as soon as state government elections have elected social democratic or green party governments, tuition fees have been abolished.

The state of Hesse, for example, had tuition fees for only a single year. In the end only two states were left with tuition fees: Bavaria and Lower Saxony.

The conservative government of Bavaria gave in to the mainstream and abolished tuition fees in the winter semester 2013-14, with Lower Saxony abolishing fees in the winter semester 2014-15.

But the heads of higher education institutions negotiated with their ministries, arguing that they could not properly do their job of offering high-quality student experience if the loss of income from tuition fees was not compensated one way or another.

So most states have agreed to compensate their higher education institutions with extra money – not quite covering the loss in fees though – which was to be invested exclusively into the improvement of the quality of studies and teaching. Most ministries decreed that students had to be involved in decisions about how and for what purposes the money was going to be spent.

How Funding Works Now The present situation is that all higher education institutions receive a budget from the responsible ministry of the state in which they are located, based on annual or biennial negotiations. This basic budget is complemented by addi-

tional agreements between higher education institutions and the state concerning the intake of additional numbers of students and the money to compensate the loss of income from tuition fees.

There are additional funding programmes – some funded jointly by the states and the federal ministry – for supporting and promoting research, in the competition for excellence.

Of course, most higher education institutions continue to feel underfunded. The pressure on academic staff to attract external research funding has increased, as has competition for such grants. Still, compared to other countries in Europe, German higher education institutions continue to be rather generously funded by their states – an estimated 80% of their overall budgetary needs. There are also ample opportunities and considerable amounts of external research funding available.

Publicly Funded, but for How Long?

Despite the fact that competition for funding and accountability has increased in German higher education, there is still a general consensus that it is a public system and should be state-funded. The abolition of tuition fees, even by conservative state governments, reflects this consensus too. In fact, the new Federal Minister for Education and Research, a member of the Conservative Party, recently announced a major increase in the levels of needs-based state financial assistance to students that will start in

December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015 13

the 2016-17 academic year.

But funding varies considerably depending on different institutional and regional factors.

The winners of the German Excellence Initiative have received and are receiving considerable amounts of additional funding in the hope that more German universities will be able to achieve better positions on world university rankings. There were 12 German universities in the 2014-15 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, up from 10 the year before.

Higher education institutions in the poorer states (most of them in the east of Germany) receive less money and academic staff are being paid lower salaries while higher education institutions in the richer states (typically in the south) are better funded.

The debate about tuition fees – though dead for the moment – can easily be revived in the future. It has not been dropped from the agenda once and for all. Government policies continue to be in favour of tuition fees and most representatives of institutional leadership are as well, though for different reasons. But there is currently a lack of general public support. Once this has changed – and influential advisory bodies and think tanks are working towards such a change – the idea of tuition fees will be introduced again.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

14

December 19, 2014 – January 1, 2015

Asia & china perspectives

www.TheEpochTimes.com

Taiwan Says

‘No’ to Close

China Ties

By Matthew Robertson Epoch Times Staff The ruling Nationalist Party, or KMT (国民党), of Taiwan was delivered a crushing defeat in local elections across the country recently. The gripes of the average Taiwanese against the KMT are many—a perception that it is elitist, out of touch, and not responsive to the public—but for many, a major message of the election loss was that many Taiwanese are not happy with how close the country has been steered to China.

Closer ties with the People’s Republic of China have been a cornerstone of President Ma Ying-jeou’s ( 马英九) government; the election defeat— of 22 counties, the KMT won six, lost 13 to the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, and three to independents— has thus been seen as a response to those policies, and an expression of public concern.

Crucially, this was the first election in Gerrit van der Wees, Taiwan after the Suneditor of Taiwan flower Movement, where thousands of Communique young people overran the country’s legislature in March and April, demanding that a trade deal with China be given more scrutiny.

Many thought a KMT legislator had attempted to ram it through the assembly, circumventing due process.

The election results are to quite an extent a repudiation of Ma’s China policies.

“The result of this election is the whole of Taiwan saying to both the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party: ‘No!’” said Chinese columnist and author Cao Changqing (曹长青), in an interview with Sound of Hope Radio.

Cao referred to a common phrase among politicians in Taiwan recently, which said that if the KMT continues to dominate politics, “Taiwan will become another Hong Kong”.

“This phrase is absolutely precise,” Cao said in the interview.

Hong Kong is nominally autonomous, but exists under a One Country, Two Systems model, where it is ultimately beholden to the Chinese Communist Party.

It was the exercise of the Party’s control over Hong Kong’s electoral process that drove tens of thousands of students to the streets in September, boycotting class and then occupying main roads to make their demands for free elections heard.

Chen Weijian, a scholar writing in the pro-democracy political journal Beijing Spring, remarked that the family members of many KMT officials are doing business in China. “They’ve already become a powerful interest group,” he wrote. “They’ve been bought off.”

“Taiwanese people aren’t idiots,” Chen writes. “When the Chinese communists confer benefits on Taiwan, they know that it’s a case of ‘the weasel coming to wish happy New Year’. The purpose is to integrate Taiwan into the Chinese dictatorship.” (Chen shortened the traditional Chinese saying, “when the weasel goes to wish the chicken Happy New Year, it’s not from the

kindness of his heart”, meaning the weasel’s intention is to eat the chicken.)

He added that continued KMT rule would eventually result in that outcome. Indeed, many in Taiwan have for a long time feared not so much the military threat posed by China—there are still over 1,000 ballistic missiles on China’s coast, pointed at the tiny island—but the vast economic power that the Party is able to bring to bear.

By making Taiwan’s economy dependent on that of China, for example, or managing to control important parts of Taiwan’s own economy, a de facto form of political control could be achieved, many in Taiwan have feared.

“This election wasn’t just a defeat for the Nationalist Party,” Cao Changqing said in the interview, “it was a huge defeat for the Communist Party as well.”

Gerrit van der Wees, editor of Taiwan Communiqué, published by the pro-independence Formosan Association for Public Affairs, said in a telephone interview that “the election results are to quite an extent a repudiation of Ma’s China policies”.

He added that what he sees as poor governance in general, as well as what he described as President Ma’s attempts to turn the legislature into a “‘Yes man’ operation”, also contributed to the defeat.

Ma Ying-jeou appears to be

Epoch Times

Asia & china perspectives SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images

December 19, 2014 – January 1, 2015 15

Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou bows during a press conference announcing his resignation as chairman of the Kuomintang on December 3, 2014 in Taipei, Taiwan. President Ma steps down as the chairman of the ruling party following a historic defeat in the nationwide local government elections.

SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images

Sean Lien, a mayor candidate from the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) speaks during an election campaign in Taipei on November 28, 2014.

The result of this election is the whole of Taiwan saying to both the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party: ‘No!’ Cao Changqing, columnist and author

aware of the concerns about his policies toward China. In a surprising public display in October, he expressed support for Hong Kong’s proper democratisation in a public address.

“China would simply be making good on a pledge made 17 years ago, when they said that for 50 years they would allow rule of Hong Kong by the people of Hong Kong, a high degree of autonomy, and election of the chief executive through universal suffrage,” he said in the speech.

“Now that the 1.3 billion people on the mainland have become moderately wealthy, they will of course wish to enjoy greater democracy and rule of law,” he continued.

This apparently more enlightened attitude to the matter had not yet manifested in a major policy shift by his government on the Chinese question. Whether it will be enough to salvage the fortunes of the KMT in the 2016 elections is unclear.

Van Der Wees called Ma’s gesture “too little, too late”.

He continued: “By the time he said that, he had already been going on and on and on about good relations with China, and totally overlooking a number of things that China was doing that was aggravating the situation in Asia… adding up to a very pro-China posture, by the time he got around to raising his finger about Hong Kong.”

Many in Taiwan have for a long time feared not so much the military threat posed

by China, but the vast economic power that the Party is able to bring to bear.

16 December 19, 2014 – January 1, 2015

Asia & china perspectives

Epoch Times

Experts Speculate About Chinese Security Czar’s Secrets

By Li Xia Epoch Times Staff Former Chinese security czar Zhou Yongkang (周永康) has been accused of leaking secrets, and China experts are speculating what that privileged information might be.

At midnight on Dec. 5 the state-mouthpiece Xinhua announced that Zhou was being expelled from the Chinese Communist Party for a number of crimes including violating Party discipline, gaining illegal profits through his position, taking bribes, abusing power, causing the loss of state assets, and “leaking Party and state secrets.”

Zhou was recently one of the most powerful men in China. He headed up the omnibus Party organization that had authority over almost all parts of the domestic security system, including the 1.5 million strong People’s Armed Police. As a former member of Politburo Standing Committee, the Party’s top decision-making body, Zhou is the highest level communist official sacked since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.

Given his former power and position, Zhou had access to many state secrets. Different China experts have speculated what secrets he is being charged with leaking.

The leaking of financial information was likely used by Zhou Yongkang as a strategy for attacking other leaders.

Financial Information The well-known Germanybased scholar of totalitarianism Zhong Weiguang told Epoch Times that the “secrets” are likely to be the financial information of other CCP leaders that was leaked to media outside China.

In June 2012 Bloomberg published an article detailing the wealth of the family of Xi Jinping—then the vice chair of the CCP and expected in November to become head of the Party.

In October 2012, the New York Times ran an exposé of the wealth of then-Premier Wen Jiabao’s family, for which David Barboza won a Pulitzer Prize.

Zhong said the leaking of financial information was likely used by Zhou as a strategy for attacking other leaders in a power struggle inside the CCP. Zhou was a top figure in the faction loyal to former Party head Jiang Zemin.

Wen and Xi would both have appeared in the summer and fall of 2012 to be enemies of the Jiang faction. Wen Jiabao had taken the lead in urging that Jiang faction member Bo Xilai be investigated. Xi, as the next in succession to the Party leadership, was an obstacle to the Jiang faction holding onto power inside the Party.

The wealth of Party leaders is considered highly sensitive information—the Party understands very well the intense resentment such information may provoke among the Chinese people. The New York Times and Bloomberg stories were seen by China analysts as stories that weakened Wen and Xi. In January 2014, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed leaked documents about close relatives of China’s top leaders owning secretive offshore companies in tax havens. Among the records are information about families of China’s most powerful elites, such as Xi Jinping, former CCP general secretary Hu Jintao, former Premier Wen Jiabao, and so on.

Many media outlets have pointed out that none of the family of former CCP leader Jiang Zemin and his allies Zhou Yongkang and Zeng Qinghong were mentioned

Zhou had the ability to delete the information related to families of Jiang Zemin, Zeng Qinghong and himself, and then leaked the information out.

Chinese economist He Qinglian in the leaked document, although they have the reputation of having gained extraordinary wealth through corruption.

Well-known Chinese economist He Qinglian published an opinion article in Voice of America, indicating that it’s a possibility that Zhou leaked the information in the ICIJ document to media outside China.

“Zhou had the ability to delete the information related to families of Jiang Zemin, Zeng Qinghong and himself, and then leaked the information out.” He Qinglian wrote.

Warning Bo Xilai Wen Zhao, a political commentator for the New Yorkbased New Tang Dynasty television, has opined that the “leaked secrets” may also be that Zhou leaked high level Party decisions to the disgraced Chongqing Communist Party Secretary Bo Xilai, after Bo’s right-hand man, the Chongqing vice mayor Wang Lijun, fled to the United States Consulate in Chengdu in February 2012 attempting to defect. Wen believes Zhou ordered Bo to take Wang back.

Wang, while he was in the

custody of the U.S. Consulate and then in the custody of Beijing disciplinary officials, is believed to have provided evidence Bo Xilai’s wife murdered British businessman Neil Heywood, along with other information implicating Bo in crimes.

The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun quoted a staff member at the Chinese Ministry of Justice who indicated that Zhou, who was Bo’s biggest supporter, leaked secret information involved in the case first of Wang and then of Bo, to Bo. Bo was dismissed following the Wang Lijun incident. Later, he went on trial, and was sentenced in September 2013 to life in prison for accepting bribes and abuse of power.

“Bo Xilai also admitted during trial that he received higher level instruction [when dealing with Wang Lijun incident], which is probably from Zhou Yongkang.

The CCP wants to connect Bo and Zhou’s cases together through this clue. The official actually has asserted that Bo and Zhou are partners,” Wen said.

Epoch Times has previously reported, citing sources inside the CCP that Bo and Zhou had conspired to remove Xi Jinping from power after he was named general secretary.

Signal to Jiang Zemin The U.S.-based political commentator Zhang Tianliang believes that the accusation of “leaking party and state secrets” reveals a division at the highest levels of the CCP. While the Party decided to publicize this accusation, it is not expected to bring it up in court.

“It’s state secrets after all,” Zhang said. “If it is brought to court, it would expose more and more scandals. Thus, I don’t think it would be mentioned in court.”

Zhang believes that publicizing this accusation serves to warn Zhou’s group that his

case is not the end, and more people could be taken down.

“Now that Zhou Yongkang has fallen, targeting [former CCP leader] Jiang Zemin and [his political ally] Zeng Qinghong is getting closer,” Zhang said.

“They definitely would try their best to fight back.”

Mainland Chinese lawyer Sui Muqing told Epoch Times that the accusation of “leaking state secrets” against Zhou is part of an ongoing power struggle.

Sui said such accusations are sometimes used as a means of revenge. For instance, senior Chinese Journalist Zhou Yu was detained this April for “leaking state secrets to overseas.” Such an accusation used on a high level official is more obvious, Sui said.

With translation and rewriting

by Lu Chen.

By Leo Timm Epoch Times Staff When top Chinese communist officials wage political warfare against one another, they don’t take kindly to the nosy intrusions and interpretations of the media.

Just a few days before regime mouthpiece Xinhua announced on Dec. 5 that Zhou Yongkang, the former boss of China’s powerful security forces, had been charged with crimes ranging from multiple counts of adultery to disclosure of state secrets, hackers, suspected of acting on behalf of Chinese authorities, orchestrated a barrage of cyberattacks against the Chinese website of the Epoch Times.

The cyberattacks, which began on Dec. 1 and lasted nearly a week, are the latest in a long list of hacking operations mounted by the Chinese regime against the Epoch Times Chinese edition since it was founded in 2000, according to technical staff.

Similarly, when the Chinese authorities publicly announced Zhou Yongkang’s investigation in late July this year, the Chinese publication of the Epoch Times was hacked and

Asia & china perspectives

Epoch Times

What Caused the KMT’s Defeat in the Taiwanese Elections?

By Leo Timm Epoch Times Staff Straying too close to communist mainland China may not have been the wisest move for the Republic of China’s Nationalist Party (KMT - 国民党), which handily lost Taiwan’s latest round of regional elections held on Nov 29. Of 22 regions, the KMT only won six, while 13 went to the Democratic Progressive Party. Even the capital of Taipei, historically a KMT political stronghold, was lost to an independent candidate.

The KMT, once a sworn enemy of the Chinese communist regime, was driven out of the mainland to the island of Taiwan in 1949. At the end of the Cold War, the KMT stepped down from absolute power, ushering in a new democratic age for the island’s 20-over million inhabitants.

In recent years, the KMT went to great lengths to build good relations with Beijing, but these policies

The CCP is sure to adjust its policy towards Taiwan.

However, I believe that the CCP will never give up its desire to gobble up Taiwan.

Former Beijing University professor and Chinese dissident Yuan Hongbing seem to have backfired.

Many Taiwanese are concerned about the future of their country in the face of the mainland regime, their biggest trading partner — and also their biggest threat.

The Chinese Commu-

December 19, 2014 – January 1, 2015 17

nist Party (CCP - 中国共 产党) does not recognise Taiwan as an independent country, nor does it recognise the democratic principles by which the island is governed. And even as hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese live and work in cities like Shanghai, 1,000 Chinese missiles remain deployed against Taiwan.

Xu Sijian, a scholar of Chinese politics at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, said the voters in Taiwan sent a strong signal to both the KMT and Beijing. “Especially after seeing the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong, voters in Taiwan are more wary about the implications increased cross-strait relations could bring,” he said.

The CCP has long attempted to subvert Taiwanese politics by means of its “united front” strategy, in which organisations or individuals who are not part of the CCP are used to advance the CCP’s goals. This has not been lost on the part the Taiwanese people.

According to a report by

the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “many Taiwanese are concerned that the influence of China on Taiwan will increase exponentially in the near future”, and “many Taiwanese fear that Ma Ying-jeou’s policies will make Taiwan dependent on China”.

During the 2012 Taiwanese presidential elections, the Chinese regime slashed prices of flights to Taiwan in half, hoping that more expats would travel home to vote for the KMT, the report said.

According to former Beijing University professor and Chinese dissident Yuan Hongbing, the Taiwanese electorate, by turning out the KMT, has expressed its dissatisfaction towards the administration’s relations with China.

“This election has taught the CCP a hard lesson,” Yuan said. “The CCP is sure to adjust its policy towards Taiwan. However, I believe that the CCP will never give up its desire to gobble up Taiwan.”

With Cyberattacks Against Epoch Times, the Party ‘Sends Its Regards’ Web service was intermittent for several days.

While precise attribution of cyberattacks can be difficult, the newspaper’s technical staff and executive editors believe that the attacks, which aim at preventing access to the epochtimes.com website by the public, have all the hallmarks of a Chinese state-led cyberoperation, they said in interviews.

In particular, the timing of the attacks is often predictable: they spike during periods of Chinese Communist Party infighting, when readers in China are looking for uncensored and unvarnished reportage, commentary, explanation, and interpretation of events as they are unfolding.

An article titled “Unmasking Zhou Yongkang’s Brutality—A Bloody History,” may have been part of the catalyst for the attack.

The piece, which details the former

security czar’s links to the harvesting of organs from living prisoners of conscience, was popular on the Chinese version of the website, and likely strikes a nerve for Party leaders. Even as they purge Zhou for allegations of corruption, the worst crimes he carried out in his position are never mentioned. This is a common pattern in Chinese communist political history: the system is able to exact revenge against guilty individuals, but the Party’s systemic abuses are not addressed, nor is its political persecution of groups deemed to be enemies.

One of these “enemies” is Falun Gong, a spiritual practice rooted in Chinese traditional beliefs that became enormously popular in the 1990s and was targeted in 1999 by then-leader Jiang Zemin. Fearful that the revival of Chinese spirituality would render the Party’s ideology irrelevant, Jiang poured

They [the cyberattacks] spike during periods of Chinese Communist Party infighting. massive political and financial resources in what became the brutal and ongoing campaign to exterminate Falun Gong.

In early 2012, during the purge of Bo Xilai, a charismatic official and ally of Zhou Yongkang, denial-ofservice attacks from China again hit the Epoch Times. Like Zhou, Bo was heavily involved not just in the run-of-the-mill corruption and womanizing that is now get-

ting thousands of Party officials in deep trouble, but he was also an enthusiastic soldier in Jiang Zemin’s (and the Party’s) war against Falun Gong.

Once posted in China’s northeastern province of Liaoning, where the spiritual group is persecuted especially brutally, Bo is believed to have enabled and facilitated the harvesting of organs of Falun Gong practitioners, and even the use of their bodies to be plastinated and sold to human biology shows, according to the research of American investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann, documented in his new book “The Slaughter.”

Even as the present communist administration, wishing to diminish the power of the deeply rooted political clique set up by Jiang Zemin in the 1990s and 2000s, purges high-ranking figures such as Zhou Yongkang, the leadership

has shown little appetite for thoroughgoing reform, or exposing the extent of the violence of the Party’s political campaigns. Such revelations would likely undermine the remaining legitimacy of the Party, and so its political control.

When it is not the subject of cyberattacks, the Epoch Times Chinese website’s coverage of communist political intrigue generates strong interest, both in the Chinese diaspora and inside China, where Internet users employ Internet circumvention software to access the website. Traffic often doubles around periods of political struggle.

Epoch Times technical staff has by now become accustomed to the intrusions. As one member of the technical staff remarked wryly after the recent attacks, “The Communist Party has come to send its regards.”

18 December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015

ASIA & CHINA PERSPECTIVES

Epoch Times

Faced With Communism, Hong Kong Should Remind Us of the Value of Democracy

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

By Joshua Philipp Epoch Times Staff The greatest killers in the known history of the world never faced justice, and in the void left by their unpunished crimes, the world risks slipping backward into the mistakes of history. That is the message delivered by Marion Smith, the executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, in an interview with Epoch Times.

Communism has claimed the lives of more than 100 million people in the less than 100 years since Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, according to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Its death toll is higher than that of World War I and World War II combined.

Communism began a wave of famine and killing that swept through Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. In every country it touched, totalitarian regimes took power or violent guerrilla movements launched campaigns of terror and tyranny.

“The appalling ignorance of many Americans about the evils of communism is a great disservice to the memories of the millions who died under communist regimes,” said Smith in a phone interview.

“It is also making it much harder to combat those communist regimes still in existence who are tormenting citizens, clamping down on free speech, and posing a danger to the rest of the free world,” Smith said.

The US-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is a non-profit organisation formed in 1994 by an Act of Congress to memorialise the victims of communism, educate younger generations about the nature of communism, and document evidence of its crimes.

Smith said education on the nature of communism is important, not only because of its crimes—many of which have still not seen justice—but also because it still exists in today’s world. And in countries including China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba, it is continuing its abusive legacy.

Hong Kong Smith recently returned from a month-long trip to Hong Kong where activists have been protesting for democratic, free elections under threat of mainland China’s communist rule. He met with business leaders, human rights campaigners and leaders, student leaders and protesters, academics, and even police officers to gain a better understanding of the situation.

“The people of Hong Kong have a culture of liberty that they think is being threatened,” he said, adding that the protesters believe if they do not take a stand for free elections, “they’re afraid they may not be able to have another opportunity.”

Communism is the deadliest ideology in history.

Marion Smith, executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation At its core, Smith said, what is now unfolding in Hong Kong is just another case of a Communist regime attacking the freedom of a democratic state. He said that “it is China trying to curtail the freedoms of Hong Kong, which has been for decades a free society”.

Historically, communism has always created systems where choice and morality are governed by the state.

“The simple fact is that communism, [once they took power] in the more than 40 countries that

it was tried, outlawed religion, outlawed free speech, [outlawed] every other political party. [They] became totalitarian states, and they as a matter of policy targeted and killed significant portions of their own population in pursuit of ideological goals,” Smith said.

“The history is very clear on this,” he said. “Communism is the deadliest ideology in history.

Communism is an enabling ideology for totalitarianism. In no case has communism come to power and instigated human dignity and flourishing.”

It is also an ideology that has taken deep roots in the modern world—and in countries like China, the Party elite has created new state-approved versions of religions, and set in place staterun educational systems to regulate political thought.

Dangers of Forgetting A facade has been set in place over the ruins of religion and free thought, and through the masquerade of Communist state-run news outlets, the world has been fooled.

Smith said that many people today are forgetting that China is still ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, and behind its projection of a growing economy is the same form of totalitarianism that has existed in every other communist regime—includ-

ing its suppression of dissidents, forced labour, and tight regulation of free information from newspapers to the Internet.

What the Chinese regime is using, he said, is “state capitalism”, under which “you have no civic or political rights, but you have economic freedom—and people think that makes perfect sense”.

“This inability to see totalitarianism for what it is comes from an inability to recognise what is necessary for freedom and prosperity and a government that respects the basic rights of its citizens,” he said.

Smith is concerned that despite the well-documented history of communism, and its totalitarian systems that still hold power in many countries of the world, people are forgetting its nature— and some, particularly among youth, are again promoting its ideologies.

“Our understanding of the history of the communist regime is very important for us maintaining a free society in the future,” Smith said.

“It’s a very odd thing that here in the United States, we could go from fighting a decade-long Cold War where tens of thousands of American soldiers died protecting freedoms around the world,” he said. “We could go from all of that to forgetting that communism ever really existed.”

Epoch Times

ASIA & CHINA PERSPECTIVES

December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015 19

Elmo Chung Courtesy of Crystal Time

Epoch Times Staff

E

lmo Chung fell in love with Tai O, a quiet fishing town located on the western side of Lantau Island in 2011.

Since then, she has resigned from her job as a manicurist and beautician in the city, and moved to the tranquil Tai O, which is surrounded by traditional fishing stilt houses and is close to nature and the sea.

In 2012, she painted on her first seashell as a Valentine’s Day gift for her boyfriend Benny. With encouragement from Benny to continue painting and making seashell accessories, the self-taught seashell artist started her own brand SheSawSeashells.

The seashells are collected from Tai O, and through these miniature art pieces, the 25-year-old hopes to remind people of the peacefulness of this picturesque fishing village.

Tell us more about yourself.

I am Elmo Chung, a self-taught seashell artist from Tai O in Hong Kong. I specialise in miniature paintings of marine life and various motifs inspired by nature on seashells, and transforming them into wearable art, such as necklaces, bag charms, earrings and bracelets, under my own accessories brand, ‘She Saw Seashells’. These

hand-painted seashell accessories are retailed online and at EARTH.er, boutiques in Tai O and Causeway Bay that retail eco-friendly clothes designed by my boyfriend, Hong Kong high street fashion designer, Benny Yuen. I also work as a shopkeeper at the EARTH.er boutique in Tai O. Benny and I are active environmentalists. To us, being responsible about the Earth also means helping people who are in need. EARTH.er gives five to 10 percent of profits to sponsor six children through World Vision International.

Yes, I took part in the ‘Umbrella Revolution’ demonstrations in Hong Kong in Sept 2014. My advice is: “Stick to your values, listen to your instincts, make the choices that your heart tells you to. And always believe in yourself.”

You are courageous to quit your day job and choose to be a dessert chef in Tai O. Why did you make that choice?

Before I started ‘She Saw Seashells’, I was working in the city as a manicurist and beautician.

The pace in Hong Kong City is vastly different – very frenetic and focused on profit maximisation. Yes, it was an exciting life, but very competitive and stressful as well. Even during holidays, I never completely felt rested…my mind was constantly on what was happening at the parlour. Stepping into Tai O was like literally stepping into a different world. In the city, we are hardly close to nature. But when I visited Tai O back in 2011 during a weekend getaway, I suddenly felt a peace that I had never felt when I was Courtesy of Elmo Chung

Elmo Chung, Hong Kong’s miniature artist Elmo Chung

in the city, being so close to the sea, surrounded by traditional fishing stilt houses. From then on, I made a decision that this was the kind of life I wanted to lead.

Why did you start painting on seashells?

My family loved to travel to beach resorts since I was a child, and I have always been fascinated by the unique textures of seashells. I painted on my first seashell in 2012 as a Valentine’s Day pendant gift for Benny. From then on, he encouraged me to keep on painting and start an accessories line of seashell art.

Tell us about your life in Tai O on Lantau Island.

Just staying close to the sea and nature gives me inner peace and joy in life. In Tai O, as I run the EARTH.er boutique for Benny, I do have a schedule to abide by, but unlike the city, I feel more at peace working in the shop as I am so close to nature. Even if I work all week without any day off, I still feel the peace I never felt when I was in the city, so it never feels like work at all.

Also, the values and mission of

EARTH.er is one that is close to my heart – respect and a deep appreciation for the environment.

Is living in Tai O an inspiration to your work on seashells?

Yes, definitely. The sound of the waves beating against the harbour has a calming effect on me, as well as the sight of the clear skies, chirping of sea birds and the general old fishing village charm of Tai O – all these sights and sounds inspire creativity as I paint on the seashells. I also imagine myself wearing these seashells as necklaces, earrings or wrist bands as I walk around Tai O.

Tell us more about your inspiration for the Arbutus Watches.

For the Arbutus Singapore Heritage Timepieces, I did substantial research on traditional batik art and the old architecture of Singapore, and was struck by the bright colours of conserved shophouses in and around the city. I have never seen such imaginative use of colours for conserved buildings elsewhere in the world. I also studied the

artistic style of Peranakan porcelain as well as the flora and fauna of Singapore.

What will your future or dream project be?

My dream project will be one that will have an impactful contribution towards raising environmental awareness and activism amongst young people. I am in discussion with Arbutus for a future series of watches featuring endangered animals in China which are often illegally poached, such as the Panda, the Siberian Tiger, the Pangolin and the Asiatic Black Bear. I hope to activate young people to put an end to the cruelty of bear bile and tiger farming through such a project.

As a Hong Konger, you support the ‘Umbrella Revolution’. Do you have any words of encouragement for the students?

Yes, I took part in the ‘Umbrella Revolution’ demonstrations in Hong Kong in September 2014.

My advice is: “Stick to your values, listen to your instincts, make the choices that your heart tells you to. And always believe in yourself.”

20 December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015

ASIA & CHINA PERSPECTIVES

Epoch Times

Jiang Faction-Related Real Estate Companies in Hot Water PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images

By Liang Zhen Epoch Times Staff Real estate companies are not safe from Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s anticorruption campaign, which is aimed at investigating his rival Jiang Zemin’s supporters and purging them from the Party.

More than 50 provincial and ministerial level officials have been sacked in Xi’s campaign, most of them belonging to the faction of former Party leader Jiang Zemin. A number of real estate companies associated with the Jiang faction have also gotten in trouble lately.

After Xi’s campaign took down former security czar Zhou Yongkang, one of Jiang’s top supporters, mainland Chinese real estate companies with connections to Zhou began to run into problems.

According to sources familiar with the situation, many senior officials’ downfalls have been connected with real estate business. Xi’s cleanup of the Jiang faction has extended to the economic sphere, and it is expected that there will be major economic policy adjustments and the wealth will be reshuffled, the sources said.

Companies and officials that are affiliated with Jiang’s faction will be gradually cleaned up, and contracts signed by the Jiang faction with foreign governments and companies might well become useless in the future, the sources said.

Kaisa Listings Suspended On Dec 3, Hong Kong-based Kaisa Group Holdings declared out of the blue that its stock trading would be suspended. The reason for the suspension is not yet disclosed, but the company is suspected to have been closely involved with Zhou Yongkang.

The day before, Kaisa’s more than 2,000 real estate listings in China’s Shenzhen city were “locked”, or forced to stop selling, by Shenzhen authorities. Analysts said it was almost unheardof in mainland China for real estate listings of listed companies to be put in sale suspension by local authorities. Kaisa’s share price

A view of downtown Shanghai on September 30, 2013 shows commercial and residential property.

dropped 8.54 percent that day.

By the evening of Dec 3, about 900 listings near Kaisa Holiday Plaza were restored for normal sales, but the remaining 1,300 listings are still locked.

The Shenzhen Land Planning Commission said it was not convenient to disclose the reason and timing for the locking.

However, the mainland media China Times quoted inside news from the Longgang District Land Bureau, saying that the Shenzhen Land Planning Commission asked Longgang District in early December to lock unsold Kaisa real estate listings.

The inside source said it was not due to a specific project problem.

“Otherwise they would not ask us to lock all of them,” he said. “Our analysis is that Kaisa has some irregularities, and the temporarily locking is to prevent the transfer of assets.”

Chinese media have reported that Kaisa was involved in a real estate project with Zhongxu Investment Corporation, a company under the control of Zhou Yongkang’s son, Zhou Bin. Other Companies Agile Property Holdings board chairman Chen Zhuolin, widely

rumoured to be Zhou Yongkang’s godson, was put under residential surveillance on Sept 30. Agile’s stock trading was suddenly suspended on Oct 3 just before the opening of share trading.

When its trading was restored on Oct 13, its share price suffered a serious setback, and its market

Companies and officials that are affiliated with Jiang’s faction will be gradually cleaned up. value evaporated by HK$3.4 billion (S$575 million) in one day.

Its business in mainland China has also been heavily affected.

Fantasia Holdings, another company connected with Zhou Bin, is a family business of former Party vice president and Jiang supporter Zeng Qinghong.

Its founder, Zeng Qinghong’s

niece Zeng Baobao, is also under investigation.

Wu Xu, the chairman of real estate company Hyupshin Group, was arrested for being involved in the case of China Resources chairman Song Lin, another official who was ousted for corruption.

Wang Shi, chairman of leading Chinese real estate company Vanke, said: “Mainland Chinese real estate businessmen can easily be put into prison; bribery conviction is very easy. Because I do not pay bribes, I cannot get land in good locations.”

The Jiang faction and its affiliated interest groups have controlled much of China’s economic field. They have accumulated a large amount of wealth through real estate business and land corruption operations.

The website of the Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection stated in October that real estate is the area hardest-hit by official corruption. Collusion between government officials and businessmen to occupy extra residential house and office space is a widespread phenomenon, and 20 of the 21 inspected provinces have been found to have real estate corruption.

Risk for Investors Lawrence Ye, the vice president of MSCI’s real estate investment resource company IPD, said that for the mainland Chinese real estate market situation, “political risk will be the most important factor for foreign investors to consider”.

Ye said that the mainland real estate industry involves land and requires government approval, so the real estate businessmen and government officials are closely related. Therefore, real estate corruption rumours abound.

Because foreign investors do not understand the Chinese market, they often need to work with mainland companies in order to enter the mainland market.

However, they are increasingly realising that if they do not understand China’s political environment, they might incur losses if they choose the wrong working partners.

Ye said that political uncertainty, economic slowdown in China, heavily reduced profits, and other factors have led to the slowdown of foreign investment in mainland China.

Translated by Susan Wang. Written in English by Sally Appert.

ASIA & CHINA PERSPECTIVES

Epoch Times

December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015 21

Umbrella Protests Not Hurting Hong Kong’s Economy

By Larry Ong Epoch Times Staff Naysayers who predict that the Occupy movement will adversely impact Hong Kong’s economy have it wrong for the first month of protests.

The latest retail and tourism numbers for the month of October instead saw positive figures, effectively disproving Hong Kong and Beijing officials’ grave warnings.

Retail sales by value grew 1.4 percent from the previous year, according to the Hong Kong census and statistics department. The figure is slightly higher than the median estimate for a 1.2 percent increase from economists Bloomberg polled.

The good sales numbers have been attributed to Apple launching the iPhone 6, which helped boost electronic equipment sales by 23.6 percent and cover up for the 11.6 percent fall in sales of luxury items, watches, and jewellery.

Some economists blame the Umbrella

Movement protests for the flagging sales of some retail items, while others feel that such an analysis is “overly pessimistic”.

Raymond Yeung, economist at ANZ, told the Financial Times: “I just don’t find sufficient evidence that it affects people’s sentiment. The protests only affect a small area.”

Instead, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive is the more crucial factor in explaining Hong Kong’s lacklustre retail environment, Yeung notes.

Chinese politicians, military officers, and civil servants have stopped splurging on luxury goods to offer as “gifts” for favours as they fear being caught and arrested.

Meanwhile, tourism figures increased 12.6 percent in October from a year ago, according to the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Despite the Chinese regime’s threat to ban package tours in Hong Kong when the protests began, there was an 18.3 percent increase in mainland visitors to the semi-autonomous city from last year, or over 4 million Chinese tourists.

There was also a 7.1 percent increase in

tourists from North Asia, which includes South Korea and Japan, and a slight drop of visitors from the Americas, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Foreign investors will not be deterred from coming to Hong Kong because of the Occupy protests, a top property executive notes.

Martin Cubbon, chief executive of Swire Properties Ltd., told Radio Television Hong Kong: “The incident has much less impact than the Asian financial crisis and the 2008 financial crisis, and the city has gone through good times and bad ones.”

Investors have confidence in the local property markets, and there have been strong sales of medium to high-end units during the nearly three-month-long protests.

Cubbon predicts that watch and highend garment retailers could take a hit for the next half-year to nine months, but Hong Kong “remains an attractive place for investors and tourists, and we expect the business environment to improve later next year”.

I just don’t find sufficient evidence that it affects people’s sentiment. The protests only affect a small area.

Raymond Yeung, ANZ economist

fotolia

By Sayer Ji www.greenmedinfo.com

D

ramatic reversal of skin ageing has been seen in smokers who stopped for at least nine months. This does not mean, however, non-smokers will not also experience similar improvements by eliminating avoidable chemical exposures, detoxifying, as well as changing their diet to include longevity-promoting nutrients and phytocompounds, such as blueberry, zinc, and chocolate.

In fact, a wide range of natural substances have been studied to contribute to restoring youthfulness, elasticity and health to the skin, as you shall soon see.

Skin Age Reversed 13 Years in Just 9 Months by Doing This •

•

healthy female subjects over the age of 45.

Pine Bark: A 2012 study on women, published in the journal Clinical Interventions in Ageing, found that oral administration of 40 mg or 100 mg of French maritime pine bark (pycnogenol), daily for 12 weeks improved clinical symptoms in photoaged facial skin.

Chocolate: A 2006 study on women, published in the Journal of Nutrition, found that long-term ingestion of high flavanol cocoa Before

A number of clinical studies have been performed in order to ascertain the value of natural compounds in improving signs of ageing, including the following: • Aloe: A 2009 study on women, published in the Annals of Dermatology, found that the daily ingestion of between 1.2 and 3.6 grams of aloe gel, taken daily for 90 days, significantly improved wrinkles and elasticity in photoaged skin in

Shutterstock

Natural Substances That Pack A Powerful, Age Defying Punch

•

•

provides photoprotection against UV-induced redness (erythema) and improves skin condition.

Green Tea: A 2005 study on women, published in the journal Dermatologic Surgery, found that a combination of topical and oral green tea supplementation resulted in improvement in skin elasticity following exposure to ultraviolet light.

Multi-Nutrient Mixtures: In 2004, a study published in the Journal of Dermatological Treatment found After

Aloe

that a multi-nutrient m i xture of vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenoids, selenium, zinc, amino acids and glycosaminoglycans, blueberry extract and pycnogenol improved visible signs of ageing in women 4573 years of age after only six weeks of treatment. In 2005, a study published in the Journal of International Medical Research found that a multi-nutrient mixture of marine proteins, alpha-lipoic acid, pine bark extract, vitamins and minerals is safe and efficacious in the treatment of ageing symptoms of the skin in women, after six months.

Finally, a 2006 study, published in European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that a multi-nutrient mixture of soy extract, fish protein polysaccharides, extracts from white tea, grape seed and tomato, vitamins C and E as well as zinc and chamomile extract improves signs of skin ageing in post-menopausal women, after six months.

This article was originally published on www.GreenMedInfo.com. Join their free GreenMedInfo.com newsletter.

22 december 19, 2014 – january 1, 2015

asia & china perspectives

Epoch Times

epoch times

Passersby sign the petition calling for an end to the atrocity of forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China, on Dec 10, 2014. epoch times

Calling an End to Forced Organ Harvesting on International Human Rights Day

By Claire Ong Epoch Times Staff SINGAPORE – Many passers-by at Hong Lim Park on International Human Rights Day signed a petition calling for an end to the forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China, on December 10, 2014.

The signatures collected would be part of the millions from across the world presented to the United Nations.

Starting in early 2014, the petition drive has been led by volunteers, mainly Falun Gong practitioners. This grassroots movement is a continuation of last year’s petition drive initiated by Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, an organisation founded by medical doctors from all over the world. In 2013, close to 1.5 million people from 53 countries signed the petition.

The petition asks the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to call for “an immediate end of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China”, to initiate investigations that will lead to the prosecution of those responsible for this crime against

Numerous Singaporeans have stepped forth to raise awareness about this issue and sign the petition.

humanity, and to call upon the Chinese government to end the persecution of Falun Gong.

Drawn by the scene of peaceful meditation and the display of banners and exhibits, many local Singaporeans and foreign nationals came forth to learn more about the issue and sign the petition.

Kristian Goodchild, communications officer of Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, said, “I am absolutely shocked to hear that the organs of Falun Gong practitioners are being harvested. It’s absurd to me that the Chinese government [is persecuting] Falun Gong practitioners. “ He added, “People need to educate themselves about what is happening behind the Chinese borders. (The) Chinese government is doing a great job in whitewashing its reputation, masking its human rights abuses.”

Goodchild, who believes more people should know about this atrocity, said, “We live in a shrinking world. What is happening in other countries does affect us. If you turn a blind eye on the suffering of someone, then you are also the accomplice. It is up to us to stand up for others and ourselves.”

Local Support from the Ground Numerous Singaporeans have stepped forth to raise awareness about this

issue and sign the petition.

Mrs Soh, who is in the fitness retail business, volunteered to distribute newsletters about organ harvesting.

She said forced organ harvesting is “very cruel and completely unacceptable”. She believes that when others get to learn about this atrocity, they would feel the same.

Nancy Heng, a legal secretary; Shantanu Singh, an engineer; and Madam Yong, a sales representative, all said that they signed the petition to help out.

“It’s inhumane!” Sakianh Cheothman, a 22-year-old store manager, said after she signed the petition. She learnt about the forced organ harvesting from Facebook and said that the media should report more about the atrocity.

More than 13,000 signatures have been collected in the past few months in Singapore.

Support from Foreign Professionals “It’s horrible! It’s terrible!” said Gonzalo Sanchez-Jara, a 34-yearold lawyer who used to practise law in Spain and is currently working in Singapore. He signed the petition to show his support.

Adriano Iannetti, an engineer, and Marilyn Cloutier, working in the field of communications, were shocked to hear about forced organ harvesting

in China. Both Canadians signed the petition.

Paul Westesson, a banker from Sweden, stumbled upon the petitionsigning event during his three-day business trip in Singapore. He took photos of the exhibits hoping to bring the information back home. He feels that raising public awareness would help stop the persecution. Likewise, Victor Garcia, an electrical engineer from the United States, signed the petition while in Singapore on a business trip.

Many Indian nationals also signed the petition that day.

This was the first time Rajkumar Muthusamy, a researcher, and Vinoth Venkatdsan, an engineering undergraduate, heard of organ harvesting. They described organ harvesting as an “evil” that “should be exposed” and made known to more people.

Anwesha Sharma, a consultant for public affairs and public relations in Deli, feels that the event was a peaceful approach to the problem, saying, “As it is non-violent, it attracts the attention of more people, getting more support.”

She signed the petition because she objects to forced organ harvesting, saying it is unacceptable especially when it is being done on a large scale.

She believes organ donation should be voluntary.

Epoch Times

(The) Chinese government is doing a great job in whitewashing its reputation, masking its human rights abuses.

Kristian Goodchild, Communications officer of Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics Many Indian IT professionals supported the petition. Puneet Ghai, a 28-year-old engineer, signed the petition out of “good cause”. Vinu Nair and Kiran Hima, both computer engineers from Chennai, were shocked to hear that organs are being forcefully removed from people. Dilip

asia & china perspectives Kumar, a computer engineer from India, also said it was the first time he learnt about organ harvesting. He felt that the event helped raise awareness about incidents happening in China.

Behind the Closed Iron Doors The information in the petition letter first came to the world’s attention in March 2006, after an investigative reporter for a Japanese TV station and the wife of an eye surgeon fled China for the United States, where they told a gruesome story.

They provided credible details about a camp near a hospital in northeastern China in which Falun Gong practitioners were held as a kind of live organ bank.

When the hospital needed an organ for transplantation, they would check the records of individuals in that camp, and if one matched, pluck that person out and harvest all of his or her salable organs, killing the practitioner in the process.

After this story broke, international human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour began investigating the

december 19, 2014 – january 1, 2015 23

allegations that forced organ harvesting was taking place on a massive scale in China. Both of them have been nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

In the report ‘Bloody Harvest’, which later became a book, they concluded the allegations were true. They estimated that in the years 2000–2005, Falun Gong practitioners had provided organs for 41,500 transplantations. China expert Ethan Gutmann’s new book, ‘The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem’, corroborates Kilgour and Matas’ findings with extensive field research over seven years.

Among other pieces of evidence, Kilgour and Matas pointed to the following: unexplained blood tests and medical exams given to detained Falun Gong practitioners, but not to other prisoners; phone admissions by doctors in China in 2006 that they had or could get access to “fresh organs” from Falun Gong practitioners; the sharp increase of the number of transplants done in

China after the persecution of Falun Gong began; and the absence of any other source other than Falun Gong practitioners that could provide the organs for this rapid increase.

‘Bloody Harvest’ understands the forced organ harvesting to be part of the persecution of Falun Gong launched by then-paramount leader Jiang Zemin in 1999.

Falun Gong involves practising meditative exercises and living according to the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. After first being publicly taught in 1992, it rapidly became very popular. According to official Chinese state reports at the time, at least 70 million people had taken up the practice. Practitioners say the true number was over 100 million.

Jiang feared how popular Falun Gong had become—more were practising it than were members of the Chinese Communist Party. He also feared that the traditional moral teachings of Falun Gong would erode the authority of the Communist Party’s atheist ideology.

NINE COMMENTARIES Pew Trust

To gain political capital, the Chinese Communist Party enacts policies that heavily sacrifice environmental wellbeing in exchange for rapid economic growth.

These policies compromise the general health of the population and deprive the future generations of their resource and opportunities. They create results on the data sheet but a pyrrhic victory in reality.

For instance, desertification, a process of land degradation that transforms habitable territories to barren wasteland, has thus far claimed 30% of China’s total land mass. The Gobi Desert in the north currently expands by about 950 square miles per year. In a country that feeds 22 percent of the world’s population on seven percent of the world’s tillable land, desertification will lead to horrendous consequences in the long run.

At the same time, the rate of wastewater discharge in China is 43.95 billion tons per year, exceeding the environmental capacity by 82 percent. As a result, 40.9 percent of the fresh water in China is not suitable for drinking. 75 percent of the lakes are so polluted as to produce eutrophication – the enrichment of an ecosystem with chemical nutrients that produce massive amounts of algae which then decompose and cause ruination to the ecosystem.

Industrial pollution also corrupts the

187,293,715

people have renounced the CCP as of December 17, 2014.

atmosphere. In January 2013, fine airborne particulates rose as high as 993 micrograms per cubic metre in Beijing, compared with World Health Organisation guidelines of no more than 25. At present, the World Bank estimates that 16 of the world’s mostpolluted cities are located in China.

While some environmental damage such as air pollution are more readily perceived and felt, other aspects of environmental

damage are more insidious yet more devastating. In a country with virtually no limiting and accountability mechanisms to control the exercise of political power, the poor formulation and execution of policies will perpetrate and cause an ecological crisis in the near future.

It was famously said that Communist regimes turned mass crime into a full blown system of government. Each of them has received its just verdict in history – all but the Communist Party of China which has persisted to this day.

The “Nine Commentaries” is an award winning editorial series that offers a vivid and perceptive account of the CCP from its inception to the present.

By unmasking its perversion, Nine Commentaries seek to recall the Chinese people and the world from the slumber of ignorance and inaction.

Thus far, the series first published in November 2004 has led more than 170 million Chinese to renounce the CCP and its affiliations, trailblazing a massive yet peaceful movement for China’s transformation and change.

Read more of this groundbreaking editorial series at: http://goo.gl/yQ2Jox

Adapted from Commentary 9, on the unscrupulous nature of CCP

Quitting the Chinese Communist Party www.NineCommentaries.com

Thousands of Chinese people are quitting the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliate organisations every day through a special website established by The Epoch Times. Others are quitting by calling an international hotline, posting statements

on public walls and poles, or writing on banknotes.

Read the full “Nine Commentaries” book, as well as recent statements from Chinese people who have quit the Party, at www.theepochtimes.com

24

December 19, 2014 – January 1, 2015

Technology & science

www.TheEpochTimes.com

Remember This: You Can Still Think Deeply in the Digital Age Francisco Osorio, CC-BY

Should memorising information still be a priority?

By Joanne Orlando University of Western Sydney Two people walk into a seminar: one takes photos, video and an audio recording of the presentation, while the other takes handwritten notes. Which person do you think will better recall the information?

The former can use their digital notes to create something new that builds on the topic, the latter—not so easy.

Yet we still keep reading reports, such as one recently in New Scientist, which suggest that writing notes on paper gives a person a definite advantage in terms of remembering content.

That report was based in part on an article in Psychological Science on the advantages written notes have over those typed on laptops.

The argument has been around for many years and is usually based on the idea that handwriting is slow and deliberate which allows the reader a deeper understanding of ideas and information, and therefore a better ability to remember it.

That, so the argument goes, is at odds with digitally recording ideas which typically is a quick, haphazard action that limits understanding and therefore recall.

Similar arguments are made over our ability to remember things that we read from a screen, such as a smartphone,

Take note: how does a typing on a laptop stack up to handwriting?

tablet or e-reader, as opposed to a paper-printed form.

My question, though, is should memorising information still be a priority?

Remember Back When…

Time shapes knowledge and how we work with it. If it didn’t, we’d still be waiting on those handwritten books produced at the monastery. Important changes have emerged regarding the ideas and information available to us, and the ways we can engage with them that are worth considering.

We now have more information available to us than ever.

There’s almost an infinite number of ideas and resources available at the tip of our keyboard, and the information is not just presented in writing.

Digital technology allows a range of visual, audio and word based information and ideas.

On a daily basis we can access podcasts, vlogs, videos, audio recordings and animations to name just a few.

In addition, the interactive aspect of screen-based content means that we can do more with the information and ideas than just read them. We are reading more than ever (three times more since the 1980s) but interactive components allow us to work with and develop information in many different ways.

It’s common for children today to be able to create a multimodal presentation for a school project which has writing, images, video, sound, animation features and hyperlinks to websites. The

days of photocopying information for a project and gluing it to cardboard are long gone.

Against this backdrop, the question of whether we should be expected to, or even need to remember large amounts of information to develop knowledge becomes more complex.

Deciding What We Need to Remember There are of course times when we need to remember information but there are many more times when we do not—our smartphone usually helps us with whatever we need. Both standpoints have their value depending on the circumstance.

We need to remember things such as mum’s birthday, things that are beneficial to our health

and well being and those things that can cause us harm such as certain poisonous things, or how to get from home to work (although in all cases we can let technology remind us). At times we also need to understand some ideas deeply and have a very good memory of them, such as, knowing how to drive a car or how to do our job.

Most professions expect you know and remember what to do.

On the other hand there are many more times we need to use pieces of information for only a while—we don’t need to remember them but they help us to learn at the time: details of an event, how to cook a recipe or finding out the breadth of changes in a recent government policy change.

Continued on the next page

Epoch Times

Continued from Page 24 Today’s school curriculum focuses on 21st century skills which are about processes of applying information, problem solving and collaborating.

A key skill in our current era is the ability to draw on lots of different types of information and bring them together to work out a solution, to gain a new perspective on a situation or to develop our knowledge of something.

Is it important to remember all the research you did for your trip to Hawaii? Probably not. As long as you can access, organise and use the information while you’re there is what most people would need.

We also all have different learning styles. The availability of a range of platforms to create information and from which we can access information is important for all. Handwriting and reading text doesn’t necessarily suit everyone.

Deep Thought If remembering and understanding are linked to deliberate action then editing some footage or composing a script for a YouTube clip needs to be well thought through. It’s not about if it was written on paper first but just that deep thought has been given to it.

Also if the argument for turning back to books is about not being distracted by online ads or checking our social media or email accounts, then it’s important that we learn to work well in our e-society.

Technology is not going away.

The shift away from pen on paper has been driven by: • convenience—our devices are always close by • cost, as cloud-based content eliminates expensive printing costs • the thrill of the latest innovation.

These are important factors and suggest screens will become an even greater part of our lives in the future.

Some may suggest that we are losing opportunities to learn because of our love affair with our screens but our era today is about understanding and managing information and then developing knowledge from that. A turn back to focusing on remembering information is simply not important now.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Technology & science

December 19, 2014 – January 1, 2015

25

Bicycles are essential to urban living.

Unfortunately, they aren’t convenient...

Check Out Innovative Electric Bike That Folds Into a Bag

By Michael Cheng Thegadgetflow.com Bicycles are essential to urban living. Unfortunately, they aren’t convenient. Those who rely on bikes to get around are forced to purchase heavy locks, expensive frames and bulky tracking systems in order to match one’s busy lifestyle. Now there’s a complete solution for all your city transportation needs.

aspect of the Impossible electric bike is the folding process. In just 4 easy steps, users can hit the road after work or school. The only piece that comes off is the seat.

This means you won’t have to worry about losing any random parts. The modern bicycle automatically locks as each part is set in place. Again, you don’t have to think about screwing any parts in, which can reduce wear and tear.

Compact, Sturdy And Reliable The Impossible electric bike is a foldable bicycle that runs on 10 2,900mAh batteries. It is the most compact electric bike to date, measuring an astonishing 17 inches when stored. It can travel up to 12.5mph for 45 minutes on a single charge. There are no pedals, gears or strange knobs. Just go when you need to go and stop to avoid pedestrians and other cars.

There are other foldable bikes in the market today. But none of them are electric, nor can they be stored down to minuscule measurements.

Why Do I Need This?

City living requires innovative solutions for comfort and accessibility. You probably won’t be taking the Impossible electric bike camping or on dirt trailsthat’s not what this is designed for. Instead, imagine not having to look for a place to lock your bike because you can always carry it with you.

Furthermore, think about cutting your commute time in half just by cruising on this modern bicycle. That could mean more time with your friends, family or more time for you to catch up on sleep after a long day.

Ready To Go All The Time Perhaps the most interesting

Republished with permission from TheGadgetFlow.

TECH BRIEFS Samsung Prepares 2 New MidRange Smartphones Samsung is going to release two new mid-range and budget-oriented smartphones called Galaxy E7 and Galaxy E5. The new Galaxy E7 is based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor running at 1.2 GHz. The phone includes a 5.5-inch sensor display at 720p resolution, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal memory, and two cameras – one rear at 13 MP and one front at 5 MP. The Galaxy E5 is a slim and light device at just 6.9 mm of thickness and weighs just 140 grams. It packs a 5-inch sensor display at 720p resolution, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal

memory, one rear camera at 8 MP, and one front camera at 5 MP. Both models run the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop OS. Original article from HiTechReview.

Microsoft Sets January 21 for the Next Windows 10 Day Microsoft is going to unveil the new Windows 10 features aimed at regular users on Wednesday, January 21, 2015. The event will likely be a big one as several Microsoft directors will be speaking at it including the current CEO Satya Nadella. The event will be broadcasted live on the Internet so the general public will be able to see in real time what happens at the Microsoft event.

Windows 10 is the next generation of Windows designed to bring Microsoft back to its days of glory and repair the damage caused by Windows 8. The new OS will have many new features including a new touch interface called Continuum, a redesigned Start Menu, flexibility allowing it to run on all kinds of digital devices and much more.

Original article from HiTechReview. iPhone 7 Rumours: Better Drop Protection with 4-Inch Screen The iPhone 7 or iPhone 6S– or whatever next year’s Apple smartphone is called–might be a bit more durable than previous models. Apple Insider reported

that Apple has got a patent for active fall protection that shifts the iPhone in midair. According to Apple Insider, the newly patented mechanism will safeguard computer hardware from accidental drops. The system will rely on sensors to monitor for device activity and positioning.

Over the past week or so, there’s been more and more rumours and speculation indicating that Apple’s next phone will be called the “iPhone 6S” and not iPhone 7.

According to a BGR report, Apple will look to make a smaller, 4-inch model for the second half of 2015.

Another report from GottabeMobile indicated that there would be a “iPhone 6C” model, which would have the 4-inch screen.

26 December 19, 2014 – January 1, 2015

Technology & Science

Epoch Times

Brilliant Ancient Battle Tactics With Modern Daily Life Applications

I

By Tara MacIsaac Epoch Times Staff

t’s not that we should necessarily treat the obstacles we encounter in daily life as enemies that must be annihilated—but sometimes ancient battle strategies have a wisdom about them that can inspire people facing the challenges of work or family life. The tactics can be seen in a philosophical light.

Wikimedia Commons

1. Like Nibbling Around the Edges of a Chapati

Kautilya was the advisor of Chandra Gupta, who ruled over a significant portion of northeastern India in the 4th century A.D. According to National Geographic, legend holds that “Kautilya devised a way to defeat the Nanda kingdom after seeing a young boy eat his chapati by nibbling around the edges. Thereafter, Chandra Gupta began to wear away at the Nanda [the rulers of the previous dynasty] by first vanquishing their dependent kingdoms.”

An artist’s impression of Kautilya.

• Modern, daily life application: Whether it’s a given task that seems insurmountable, or a key

person you want to make contact with (maybe a hard-to-access big-wig who could further your career or a pop star you really want to meet), or a seemingly impenetrable market you want your business to enter, you can gain inspiration from Kautilya’s strategy.

Look at the smaller-scale tasks you can more easily accomplish that will make the “insurmountable” one easier; work your way toward it, picking away at the little tasks around the edges.

Make contact with people who may know people who know the person you want to meet; work your way up to that inaccessible person through networking.

www.1.bp.blogspot.com and fotolia/ photo Illustration

By Epoch Times

Kautilya devised a way to defeat the Nanda kingdom after seeing a young boy eat his chapati by nibbling around the edges.

Jamie Rodgers/iStock/Thinkstock

Chapati.

Technology & Science

Epoch Times

December 19, 2014 – January 1, 2015

27

Rolf Müller/Wikimedia Commons

The painting “The Battle of Zhuxian County”, depicting a battle in which Yue Fei distinguished himself.

Wikimedia Commons

the tasks so that the fast-workers can’t do anything until the slow-workers complete their work, you can have the fast-workers doing the groundwork and the slow-workers can put on the finishing touches.

3. Yue Fei’s Way of Simple and Virtuous Strength

A depiction of Xenophon.

2. Xenophon and the Importance of Sticking Together

Xenophon (ca. 430–354 B.C.) led an army of 10,000 Greek mercenaries in retreat from deep within Persia. The purpose of their campaign in Persia—to seize the throne of Persia in the name of Cyrus the Younger—evaporated when Cyrus the Younger died. Xenophon’s retreat was a treacherous one across desert land and mountain passes pursued by the enemy.

He found that if he put the fast-moving soldiers in front and the slow-moving soldiers behind, gaps would soon form, spreading the soldiers out into pockets and making them vulnerable. Putting the slow-moving soldiers in front and the fast-moving ones behind helped him keep the army united in a strong mass with the agile soldiers in the rear able to manoeuvre quickly to defend the main body from attack.

• Modern, daily life application: Balance the strengths and weaknesses across a team or partnership to the advantage of all. It could be that you’re a teacher leading a group of kindergarten children on an outing, and to keep them together so you can see them all better, you put the slow-moving ones in front.

It could be that you’re leading a work project and you have to keep the team members on pace; instead of organising

While many military tactics throughout history that have been hailed as brilliant have focused on deception, thus relying on the element of surprise, a renowned Chinese general took a different course.

His tactics were flexible.

For example, in fighting the strong Jurchen army, he chose the course of attack that would require the least amount of fighting for the greatest impact.

His soldiers would engage in irregular small-scale nighttime skirmishes. The enemy became frightened and retreated. Yue also sowed discord among his enemies.

His moral strength led him to gain the unshakable support of his soldiers and the Chinese people, he was thus a strong leader. A saying in his army was: “I would rather freeze to death than pull down people’s houses; I would rather starve to death than rob the people.” Interfering with farmers’ crops would be punished with beheading in his army.

Yue lived modestly himself and made sure his soldiers and their families were all well provided for. He personally comforted ailing soldiers and looked after the families of fallen generals.

• Modern, daily life application: Be flexible, choose the options for tackling a problem that will incur the least losses on either side. Taking care of others and maintaining loyalties will keep you strong because you will have the support of many behind you. Lead by example.

I would rather freeze to death than pull down people’s houses; I would rather starve to death than rob the people.

• Modern, daily life application: It’s probably best not to implement the lesson here in full force, but sometimes you may have to sacrifice something you cherish to get something you’ll cherish more. Maybe you have to accept a pay cut to take a job you’ll enjoy more, or maybe you’ll have to be daring and move to a foreign land to take a great opportunity there.

5. Sit Back and Relax

Yue Fei Wi

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Zhuge Liang was responsible for defending the Chinese city of Hsi in the 3rd century A.D. from an invasion of soldiers from the Wei kingdom. He left the gates to the city wide open and told his people to continue about their daily lives as usual. Zhuge went so far as to play the lute and enjoy a cup of tea on the ramparts of the surrounding wall. The approaching army didn’t trust it. It was too easy. They skirted around the town, suspecting a trap within it. They ran right into Zhuge’s soldiers, however, behind the city, in the mountains.

• Modern, daily life application: If you’re always up-in-arms and ready for a fight, maybe you’ll get one. If you take it easy and let go of the stress, maybe the hostility will skirt right around you.

Wikimedia Commons

Zopyrus, a Persian nobleman mentioned in Herodotus’s Histories.

4. Persian Cuts Off His Own Nose

The Persian army of Darius the Great faced a tenacious Babylon around 500 B.C. The army surrounded Babylon for a year and a half, but could not penetrate it. Persian noble Zopyrus came to the Babylonian gates one day with his ears and nose cut off and whip marks cut into his body. He said Darius had mutilated him for his failure to capture Babylon and he wished to revenge himself on Darius by helping the Babylonians defeat the Persian army.

The crazy thing is, Zopyrus did it to himself just to gain the trust of the Babylonians. He won.

Zhuge Liang.

Dear Reader

28 December 19, 2014 – january 1, 2015

Epoch Times

Why Bad Things Happen to Good People Explained

By Tara MacIsaac

S

ometimes people wonder why good people suffer so much, and if there’s such a thing as divine justice. Here’s a rendition of a Chinese folk story explaining this age-old question—a question that’s been asked across all lands. This is one perspective, from the ancient Chinese culture, on why bad things may happen to good people.

The story goes that a handicapped orphan boy, about 10 years old, once lived as a beggar in a certain village.

Near the village was a river the villagers often needed to cross, but it didn’t have a bridge and

crossing was quite difficult, especially for the elderly or when the water level was high.

One day the villagers saw the little boy piling stones on the riverside. He said he was building a stone bridge for the villagers. People laughed at him.

But as the years passed, the pile of stones grew and the villagers were moved by the boy’s persistence. They began to help him build the bridge.

During the work, the boy was hit in the eyes with some pieces of rock and blinded. People blamed heaven for injustice, as the poor boy had been trying to do something good. But the boy remained cheerful and helpful and never complained.

He continued to help in any

Geography Guru Epoch Times

TM

“Growing your geography knowledge” Quiz #2 WHAT COUNTRY AM I? The name of my capital means “Good Air.” The capital is located on the Rio de la Plata and is the third largest urban area on the continent. My physical features include Pampas, Patagonia, and Gran Chaco. Many of my people originally came from Italy, Germany, and Spain. I went to war with the United Kingdom in 1982 over the nearby Falkland Islands, but they remain British today. What country am I? Read The Epoch Times next week for the answer!

Answer for Quiz #1 PLACING IN CONTEXT:

• Europe: Andorra, San Marino

• North America: Belize, Jamaica

• Africa: Lesotho, Malawi

• South America: Guyana, Paraguay • Asia: Bhutan, Yemen

way he could. With everyone’s hard work, the bridge was finally completed.

People celebrated joyfully and focused their attention on the poor boy who was handicapped and then rendered blind during the building of the bridge. The boy could not see anything, but the happiest smile of his life appeared on his face.

Once, an unexpected thunderstorm started brewing, as though it was to freshen up the bridge by washing the dirt and dust off of it. But after a deafening thunderclap, the people found the boy knocked down to the ground.

People were all shocked to see the boy killed by the lightning.

They wept for him, feeling heaven was being unfair.

But as it just so happened, Prime Minister Bao Zheng, whom people affectionately called “Justice Bao”, came to the village on business at that time.

The villagers came to Zheng and complained about how unfair the heaven was towards the hard-working boy. They asked him, “Why are good people not rewarded accordingly? How will people want to be good in the future?”

Affected by the villagers’ emotions, the prime minister wrote a statement, “Thou shall do bad, rather than good” and left.

After going back to the capitol, Bao Zheng made a trip report to the emperor, but omitted the incident. Although he was very perplexed by the fact that the good boy encountered so much tragedy, he felt uneasy about writing the words he had.

It so happened that the emperor wanted to see him in private because the emperor had just had a new son. The little prince was very lovely, but for some reason he would not stop crying all day.

The emperor wanted Bao to take a look and see if he could figure out why. The boy had

In a former life, the boy was a terrible villain and committed hideous crimes.

It required three incarnations to pay back what he had done. The Gods originally arranged... very fair and fine skin, but on his tender little hand, Bao saw a row of words. Looking closely, it turned out to be exactly what Bao had written while he was at the village.

Bao blushed badly and rushed to rub the words off the prince’s hand. Strangely, the words immediately disappeared.

The emperor was upset about the disappearance of the words and asked for an explanation.

Bao fell on his knees and explained to the emperor, and begged for forgiveness for not having told the emperor about the incident.

The emperor felt the matter quite peculiar, and ordered Bao to make a trip to the spirit world to find out exactly what had happened.

Bao lay on a bed with his head on a special pillow to make the trip.

He saw the village boy’s past lives. It turned out that in a for-

fotolia

mer life, the boy was a terrible villain and committed hideous crimes. It required three reincarnations to pay back what he had done. The Gods originally arranged to have his first life be an orphan, lonely and impoverished. In his second life he was to be completely blind. In the third life he was to be hit and killed by a bolt of lightning.

The boy’s first life was poor and he was handicapped. But he decided to be a good person and always tried to help people.

The Gods then decided to let him clear away his karma from the first two lives in his first life, so they let him go blind.

But the child did not feel sorry for himself or complain. Rather, he still only thought of others all the time. The Gods then let him also clear away his karma of the third life in his first life. So they struck him with lightning.

A being in that realm asked Bao: “Isn’t it a good thing that one can clear away one’s karma of three lifetimes in one lifetime?

Because he only did good deeds and always wanted to help other people, and was never concerned about himself, he accumulated a lot of virtue. That was why he reincarnated as a prince right after his death.”

This story was edited from a version originally published on Minghui.org.

Dear Readers, do you have an article to contribute?

Epoch Times welcomes your contributions.

Do send in your writings to feedback@epochtimes. com.sg!

Dear Reader

Epoch Times

December 19, 2014 – january 1, 2015 29

Entries for Epoch Times Snap & Review

Singapore Yummy Food Instagram Contest

@fred.van

Song Fa Bak Kut Teh at 11 New Bridge Rd. Since 1969, Song Fa has been brewing this traditional Teochew aromatic meat soup dish to many Singaporeans. Have you

@jamiechaw

Sharing??? I doubt it. Biggest “thosai” all for ME!!! After eating this, I need to detox with sunsweet prunes.

@jamiechaw

Home-cooked food is the best when it’s made with love by mum and me (bonding time).

Home-made kimbap and home-made dumplings.

Each reader is entitled to submit a maximum of four food snapshots. Consolation Prize will be given to ALL participants! Send in your entries today! Contest ends on 31 December 2014.

We Wish to Hear from You @jamiechaw

You haven’t tasted what Singapore has to offer until you taste durians!!! Better still… A durian BUFFET. Not for the faint-hearted.

Yummy!!!

We at The Epoch Times welcome your comments and feedback on the content we run, as well as news and issues you can share with us that we may follow up with in our next issue. Do send your thoughts to feedback@epochtimes.com.sg

@fred.van

This stall located at Maxwell Food Centre serves one of the BEST Chicken Rice in Singapore! The chicken skin has lots of fats and it just melt in my mouth! Yummy and chewy!

Positive Living

30 december 19, 2014 – january 1, 2015

Epoch Times

Enrich Life by Sharing

By Huang Zhenyu | Primary School Teacher

D

ad once shared with me a thought-provoking story.

In a devout place where everybody attend Sunday service, there was a businessman who was hooked on bowling. For weeks he sneaked off to bowl while everybody devoutly said prayers to God. A little angel in heaven came to know of this and reported to God: “Dear Lord, this businessman has not entrusted himself to you. Shouldn’t you teach him a lesson?” God smiled and nodded.

A week later, God increased the frequency of letting him scored strikes when he bowled. The businessman was jubilant and elated but the little angel was rather puzzled and asked God: “Dear Father, why did you not punish that businessman for not entrusting himself to you?”

God still smiled and nodded,

indicating that he would do so.

Two weeks later, the businessman, feeling that nothing seems to have happened to him despite skipping churcch service, sneaked off to bowl again. This time he strikes at every throw. He was overjoyed. The little angel was extremely puzzled and asked God: “Dear Father, it baffles me as to why you let him strike at every throw since you wanted to punish him. See how happy he is!”

God finally speaks. He said: “Does he seem truely happy?” Puzzled, the little angel looked down and saw the businessman without a smile of achievement. Yet the frustration of not being able to share his joy with others made him very upset. That is because he could not speak out and share with others the achievements of his sneaking out to bowl

during the Sunday prayer time.

Therefore to be able to share is a beautiful thing.

Dad came home to find two pots of golden trumpet flowers drooping.

The potted plant at the front door also lacked water and looked lifeless. Dad watered the plants at night after the baby is asleep.

“You are really good at gardening!

Your flowers always lift my mood whenever I stroll around the community,” remarked an old lady who happened to be out for a walk.

She also praised the beautiful flowers and commented how they have made her feel good.

God must have been touched by my love for gardening and sharing with others. When I could not make time to tend the garden, different kinds of flowers bloomed and presented to passers-by a pleasing sight. As is the case, I generously give away my flower

seedlings to anyone who likes it as passing on beautiful things to others is a form of sharing. Sharing is not confined to expensive things. It can be a piece of candy, a personal idea, and even a little flower that you cultivated.

As long as it is in sincere faith, sharing is a wonderful thing.

A quick remark from dad: Life becomes more enriching simply if we know how to share. We will not lose anything because we have shared, rather our spirits will be more enriched.

Life will be more enriched because we know how to share. We will not lose everything instead our mind will be more enriched.

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Epoch Times

Positive Living

december 19, 2014 – january 1, 2015 31

14 Ways to Stay Sane for the Holiday Season

By Dr. Frank Lipman www.drfranklipman.com 1. Don’t Over-Commit.

Many people over-commit, try to please everyone, rush around and do too much. Sort of like too much total load. So decrease your load and enjoy the fewer commitments you make.

2. Stay Present or Be in the Moment.

The more you are in the moment with awareness, the less you are caught up in the mind and all the things you still have to do or haven’t done yet. Be aware of your breathing. If it becomes short and shallow, you know you are getting anxious. Stop what you are doing and take a breathing break. You will enjoy the time much more.

3. Take Breathing Breaks.

Whenever you get a chance, take breathing breaks….not only when you feel yourself getting

anxious. Make the time for them, even if it is only 5 minutes at a time, it will re-invigorate you. You can do it anywhere, just find a quiet spot. It will get you back into the present and out of your head and will help you let go of worries and tension.

4. Do some Restorative Yoga.

When you get home in the evening, do a restorative yoga pose for 15 minutes to rejuvenate you. Or do a restorative yoga pose if you feel the need during the day to help recharge your energy It really does restore you.

5. Use those Tennis Balls.

After running around all day, do the ultimate foot massage and feel the relief in your feet.

6. Move.

Try walking as much as you can.

Take your dog for a walk. Take a walk with a family member or friend and combine walking with connecting. If the weather

prevents walking outdoors combine a Christmas shopping trip with your exercise. Indoor malls are great places to walk.

Get there early before the crowds get too heavy. If you are driving to a store, park at the opposite end of the parking lot to walk to the store. And when you are home, if you are up to it, turn the music up and dance.

7. Have your Smoothie in the Morning.

The more you fill yourself with good nutrients in the morning, with good protein, fat and phytonutrients, the less space and craving you will have for the junk food 8. Fill up with Vegetables.

If you are at a party with a lot of tempting food, try to start with healthy vegetables and salads.

These will fill you up and reduce the temptation to over-indulge on the junk. Just a taste of your holiday favorites should satisfy

your taste buds. The worst thing you can do is start your meal or eating with the sugary snacks or junk food.

9. Don’t Overindulge.

Alcohol in moderation, cake and cookies in moderation, sweets in moderation 10. Be Thankful.

It is always good to put things in perspective and realize how lucky you are that your basic needs are being met and that you are actually able to celebrate the way you can. Add up all the things that you are grateful for, for instance, family, friends, loved ones, the fact that you can celebrate etc….it will put you in a good mood.

11. Get Good Sleep.

Holiday celebrations can often disrupt regular sleep patterns.

Try to get to sleep at the same time every night. Avoid heavy foods, sugary sweets and alcohol before bedtime as these can disturb your sleep.

12. Have Fun, Laugh, Commit to Enjoying the Holidays.

13. Give in a Way that Gives you Joy instead of out of Obligation.

14. Practice Ubuntu which is a Xhosa concept that means “I am because you are”. As Bishop Tutu says “my humanity is caught up in your humanity, and when your humanity is enhanced mine is enhanced as well”.

32 December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015

Positive Living

Epoch Times

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How to Read Cosmetics Labels

By Bill Baker www.NaturallySavvy.com

I

f you enjoy grocery shopping like I do, you probably spend time browsing the aisles looking for great new products.

I’m always interested in something that will help me pick up more dirt, that will make my meals taste better, and that will get my whites whiter than white. Discovering these products isn’t difficult; you just have to look for the special “NEW” or “IMPROVED” flashes on the labels.

In fact, as any consumer goods marketer will tell you, a product’s label is one of the most powerful selling tools they have. It’s also one of the most efficient – it doesn’t cost extra to have a label on your product.

In fact, you have to, so you may as well make it work for you.

When it comes to skin care and cosmetics, manufacturers have become quite good at making their labels work for them. As Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon, famously said, “in the factory we manufacture cosmetics; in the store we sell hope.” No small order, selling hope. Let’s start with the label: “Softer, smoother looking skin.” “Younger looking skin from the first use.” “Eliminates the look of lines and wrinkles.” “For a more beautiful you.” “You’re worth it.”

Hope, it seems, springs eternal!

While producing cosmetics labels that “sell” may seem like an art, it is actually a combination of art and government-regulated science. In virtually every developed country, there is a government agency responsible for regulating the content of cosmetics labels. And there is likely more there than initially meets

In theory, product performance claims must be true and accurate.

In practice, they are often vague enough to be misleading.

You should always read any warnings and special instructions to determine if the product is contraindicated for certain skin types, ages or conditions.

the eye, so here is a quick guide to navigating the complex waters of cosmetics product labeling.

Product Identity In addition to the brand name and descriptive name of the product, manufacturers must list the legal name of their company, their head office address, and the country in which the product was produced.

You should always be able to directly contact the manufacturer of any cosmetic product you buy.

Product Description, Features, Benefits, Usage Instructions While there is some regulation around this content, there is lots of wiggle room for manufacturers.

In theory, product performance claims must be true and accurate.

In practice, they are often vague enough to be misleading. Read this information carefully to understand what the manufacturer is really saying. “Eliminates the look of fine lines and wrinkles” does not mean it eliminates lines and wrinkles; just the look of lines and wrinkles.

Typically when you stop using the product, they come back.

You should always read any warnings and special instructions to determine if the product is contraindicated for certain skin types, ages or conditions. Regardless of what the label says, every time you use a new product on yourself or a family member, test a small amount

on the inside skin of your wrist or elbow. Any sensitivity caused by the product should be noticeable after just a few minutes.

Product Ingredients All personal care products must list ingredients in standard, INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetics Ingredients) format. By this standard, ingredients are listed in descending order of concentration using the scientific name. Remember that some ingredients, such as “fragrance”, are catch-all terms for groups of ingredients. Unfortunately manufacturers aren’t obligated to disclose the composition of these ingredients, so some ingredients may be hidden.Learn which ingredients in turn are made up of these hidden ingredients so you can avoid some of the more toxic ones like phthalates, commonly found in “fragrance.”

Weights and Measures In addition to the size of the product, typically measured in volume, you will also find other important product information symbols on labels. The most common ones are: Jar Icon: Consider this a “best before” symbol. The number inside the open jar icon is the length of time in months the product will stay fresh after it has been opened. Typically, the longer the product will stay fresh, the more synthetic it is. More natural products typically have a shelf life of

approximately 12 months.

Triangular Recycling Symbol: This is a standard recycling symbol found on virtually all plastic cosmetics containers, and is important for two reasons. First, it tells you what type of recycling program is required for this particular container, and second, it tells you what kind of plastic the container is made from (PVC, LDPE, HDPE, etc). Some types of plastic should be avoided because they are thought to leach chemicals into the products inside.

Certified Organic Logo: Increasingly common are symbols representing organic, natural product, or soil management certification programs. Each of these programs has different criteria for certifying products, so familiarize yourself as best you can with their guidelines so you know what you are buying. e: The large ‘e’ symbol found following the size means the product was filled using European Union system of measures. This typically means the product is sold overseas.

With just a little bit of label sleuthing, you can save yourself from building up mountains of halfused products at home. Knowing what to look for (and what to avoid!) can help separate the ones that really deliver from the pretenders. Because while hope itself costs nothing, that wrinkle cream doesn’t.

This article was originally published on www.NaturallySavvy.com

Epoch Times

Positive Living

December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015 33

Working Alone ‘Together’ Can Be Good Motivation

By Clifton B. Parker Stanford University

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T

he sense that you’re not the only one tackling a challenge—even if you’re physically alone— can increase motivation, say researchers.

As the new study notes, people undertake many activities in life on their own but with others in mind—a researcher writes a paper on a new medical treatment and knows that others are working on the same problem.

A student writes an essay for class and understands that other students are writing their own essays.

When people feel they and others are working together on a difficult problem, does this increase motivation?

“Working with Gregory Walton, an others affords enormous social assistant professor of and personal psychology at Stanford benefits,” writes Gregory Walton, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford, in an article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology with coauthor Priyanka Carr, then a Stanford graduate student.

“Our research found that social cues that conveyed simply that other people treat you as though you are working together on a task—rather than that you are just as working on the same task but separately—can have striking effects on motivation,” says Walton.

Our research shows that it is possible to create a spirit of teamwork as people take on challenging individual tasks.

Work Because You Want To In five experiments, Carr and Walton found that these “cues of working together” increased “intrinsic motivation” as people work on their own. Intrinsic motivation refers to behaviors people want to do—what they enjoy and find intrinsically rewarding— not what they force themselves to do.

First, participants met in small

Study found that people undertake many activities in life on their own but with others in mind— A student writes an essay for class and understands that other students are writing their own essays.

groups. Then, they went to separate rooms to work on their own on a challenging puzzle. People in the “psychologically together” category were told they would work on the puzzle “together” and that they would either write or receive a tip on the puzzle from another participant in the study. Later they received a tip ostensibly authored by another participant.

People in the “psychologically separate” category were simply told that each person would work on the puzzle—there was no mention of working “together.” And the tip they would write or receive would come from the researchers—who, of course, were not solving puzzles.

They received the same tip content as those in the “psychologically together” category—but it did not come from people engaged in the task.

While all the participants worked on their own on the puzzle, the key difference was that one group was treated by peers as though they were working “together.” The rest thought they were working on the same thing as others but separately, or simply in parallel to them.

Motivation for Challenges As Walton says, “In our studies, people never actually worked

together—they always worked on their own on a challenging puzzle.

What we were interested in was simply the effects of the perceived social context.”

Their findings showed that when people were treated as though they were working together they: • Persisted 48 to 64 percent longer on a challenging task • Reported more interest in the task • Became less tired by having to persist on the task—presumably because they enjoyed it • Became more engrossed in the task and performed better on it • Finally, when people were encouraged to reflect on how their interest in the puzzle was relevant to their personal values and identity, people chose to do 53 percent more related tasks in a separate setting one to two weeks later.

“The results showed that simply feeling like you’re part of a team of people working on a task makes people more motivated as they take on challenges,” says Walton.

Moreover, the results reflect an increase in motivation—not a sense of obligation, competition, or pressure to join others in an activity.

When Group Work Isn’t Great Walton points out that the research does not suggest that group work is always or necessarily better as a means to motivate children in school or employees at work.

“Sometimes group work can have negative effects,” Walton says.

For example, if people feel obligated to work with others, if they feel their contributions will go unnoticed, or if they don’t have ownership over their work and contribution, then group work might not be productive.

“Our research shows that it is possible to create a spirit of teamwork as people take on challenging individual tasks—a feeling that we’re all in this together, working on problems and tasks— and that this sense of working together can inspire motivation,” he says.

Carr notes, “It is also striking that it does not take enormous effort and change to create this feeling of togetherness. Subtle cues that signal people are part of a team or larger effort ignited motivation and effort.

Careful attention to the social context as people work and learn can help us unleash motivation.”

Republished from Futurity.org under Creative Commons license 3.0.

Positive Living

34 December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015

过无闻闻若唯见见彼凡 能心誉过衣德人人 说道 改非恐怒服学恶善长字

归名闻闻若唯即即此重 于为过誉饮才内思说且 无错欣乐食艺省齐短舒

倘有直损不不有纵不勿 掩心谅友如如则去 关急 饰非士来人人改远己疾

增 名渐益 勿 当无以 莫 勿 一为相友生 自加渐 闲模 辜恶亲却戚砺警跻管糊 *

事见 非未 宜真

勿勿 轻轻 诺言

苟知 轻未 诺的

进勿 退轻 错传

奸话 巧说 语多

秽不 污如 词少

市惟 井其 气是

切勿 戒佞 之巧

凡 出 言

信 为 先

诈 与 妄

奚 可 焉

信

Epoch Times

弟 子 規

* According to Dizi Gui, “when still unsure of what you saw, do not say it. When still unsure of what you know, don’t spread it. If asked to do something that is inappropriate or bad, don’t agree to it. If you do so, you will be wrong no matter whether you keep your promise or back out from it.” lessons from dizi gui

Communication Matters: Thinking Before Speaking

By Jade Pearce

By Epoch Times Staff

Dizi Gui (Standards for Being a Good Student and Child) is an ancient Chinese text for children that teaches moral values and proper etiquette. It was written during the Qing Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (1661-1722) by Li Yuxiu.

B

eneath the conservative, “old-school” verbose of this ancient classic, one can still find gems of wisdom that remain surprisingly relevant to our modern society. A new lesson is covered in each issue.

As a child, I remember being scolded a lot for mumbling.

“Speak up!” my mother would say. “Why do you have to make it so difficult for people to hear you?”

Being softspoken by nature, I didn’t take too kindly to her advice. But as I grew older and observed how others around me com mu n ic ated , I came to realize how important it is to speak clearly and properly.

In this week’s lesson of Di Zi Gui, we learn that “when words are said, say them with weight and relaxation; not hurriedly or quickly, nor in a vague or unintelligible way”.

Poor communication isn’t just

Poor communication isn’t just frustrating for the listener; it can also lead to mistakes, some of which can be terrible and even fatal.

frustrating for the listener; it can also lead to mistakes, some of which can be terrible and even fatal.

The Emperor, the Monk, and the Earthworm There once was a Buddhist monk during the Liang Dynasty, who had cultivated diligently and possessed supernatural powers. People called him “Kowtow Monk”.

Emperor Liangwu heard of the monk and wanted to meet him, so he sent the monk a message, inviting him to the palace.

The monk accepted the invitation and arrived at the palace, just when Emperor Liangwu happened to be playing chess. “Your Majesty, the Kowtow Monk has arrived,” the court messenger reported.

Emperor Liangwu was concentrating so hard on his chess game, trying to figure out how to take one of the enemy’s chessman, that he said loudly “Kill!” The messenger left at once to fulfill the command, and the monk was killed.

After Emperor Liangwu finished the chess game, he remembered that “Kowtow Monk” was waiting for him. He said, “Please invite the Master to come in.”

The messenger replied, “You just ordered me to kill him, so I killed him.”

Emperor Liangwu was shocked and very sad, and deeply regretted what had happened. He asked, “Did Kowtow Monk have any last words?”

The messenger replied, “The monk said that he had been a farmer in one of his previous lifetimes and had once killed an earthworm by mistake when digging the ground with a shovel. Your majesty was that earthworm and that’s why he received retribution today.”

A true gentleman doesn’t expose or spread the shortcomings of others, especially behind their backs. Such actions can only create conflict, resentment, hatred, or separation.

Emperor Liangwu listened with tears in the eyes, and became deeply remorseful.

From this story, it becomes clear that we have to be mindful and clear about the things we say and the instructions we communicate.

This way, we can prevent misunderstandings and serious mistakes from occurring.

Han Qi Refrains from Generating Conflict Besides knowing how to speak, it is also important to know when, or when not to, speak.

Di Zi Gui states that “People may gossip about how good or how bad another person is. If it doesn’t concern you, don’t participate.”

A true gentleman doesn’t expose or spread the shortcomings of others, especially behind their backs. Such actions can only create conflict,

resentment, hatred, or separation.

Han Qi, a Prime Minister during the Northern Song Dynasty, was a kind gentleman who believed in being considerate of others’ shortcomings. He was always accommodating and empathetic to those around him.

When Han Qi led an army to quell rebellions in Shaanxi Province, two generals, Yan Shilu and Li Ji, were not in harmony. Yan Shilu used to bad-mouth Li Ji to Han Qi, and vice versa.

Han Qi listened to both but never said a word to the other. As a result, the two generals worked together peacefully from the beginning to the end.

If Han Qi had mentioned to either general what the other person thought of him, he would easily and irreversibly damaged any cordiality between the two generals.

It was because he wisely chose not to participate that the generals could cooperate together.

Wikimedia Commons

While playing a chess game, Emperor Liangwu (464-549) shouted the word “Kill!” was mistaken by his messenger as an order to kill his invited guest Kowtow Monk.

Positive Living

Epoch Times

December 19, 2014 – JANUARY 1, 2015 35

Seven Fun Gift Wrapping

Hometalk.com

Ideas to Step Up Your Presentation This Holiday

By Hometalk.com

T

here are two very exciting parts of receiving gifts: the presentation, and the reveal. Any gift, no matter how awesome, is a bit less exciting if it’s given in a shopping bag or other simple packaging. To really wow your friends and family, ditch the standard wrapping paper, and up your gift-giving game, by trying out some fun gift wrap ideas to make your presents pop!

are the perfect balance of adorable and chic, and they’re simple enough that you can make one for each gift!

3. Decoupaged With Napkins

Bring all the colorful fun of Christmas characters to your gift decorations, by decoupaging festive napkins onto mason jars! You can easily fill your holiday-ready jars up with small gifts or a gift kit! Add some glitter and other details to really make your wrapping pop!

4. Merry Clothespins

Turn boxed gifts into mini retro suitcases, to create totally unique and ridiculously cute gift wrap! You can even personalize these little packages, with your gift-ee’s favorite colors and themed stickers.

Dress up your gifts with little personalized messages on clothes pins, to delight your friends and family. Write classic Christmas messages, draw tiny images, or personalize each pin for your special someones, with this easy tutorial!

For just a little bit of holiday cheer, add DIY mini wreath gift toppers to your presents this holiday. These tiny wreaths

Believe it or not, the gift is actually inside the mug! Surprise your favorite coffeedrinkers, with a double gift, by packaging

1. Bon Voyage to Wrapping Paper

2. ‘Tis the Tiny Season

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5. This Is Everyone’s Cuppa Tea

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their present in a DIY decorated sharpie mug! Add your own messages and patterns, with this incredibly simple holiday craft. Pair this with a gourmet hot cocoa kit, and they’ll be forever grateful!

6. All Tagged Up and Nowhere to Go

Using polymer clay and paint pens, create adorable gift bling with all your favorite holiday images and festive words. These simple little tags create an amazing highend look that really adds that “WOW” factor to your gift! Don’t be surprised if your gift-ee turns these tags into a

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pendant necklace or earrings once they get your gift.

7. Santa Disguise

Everyone loves gifts and everyone loves Santa – it almost seems obvious that those two ideas together would be the best Christmas surprise imaginable. Let your loved ones find Santa underneath the Christmas tree, by dressing your gifts up in Santa’s classic garb — belt, hat, and all!

For more crafty and clever Christmas ideas, check out our Christmas Decorations page on Hometalk!

www.facebook.com/sportselements Email: se-exxe@hotmail.com

36 December 19, 2014 – january 1, 2015

Positive Living

A Modern Expression of an

Ancient Tradition

Epoch Times

Positive Living

Epoch Times

“That’s the top!

Mind-blowing!”

—Richard Connema, Broadway critic

By Ryan Moffatt Epoch Times Staff

W

hat is it that creates a magical theatrical experience—one that transcends mere audio-visual spectacle and leaves a deeper, transformative impression? What is it that makes an imprint on the psyche, leaving a feeling that lingers for days and weeks after a movie or performance?

Modern technology has definitely contributed to our ability to create and share art, but it can be a double-edged sword when it comes to artistic expression.

The problem is, it is easy to overuse and abuse the modern artistic mediums to the point that our senses no longer tingle when we are presented with a more subtle beauty. The emphasis has been on the spectacle and not on the soul.

Of course, we want to be wowed and stimulated, and we want all of our senses to react to what we see. But that alone is not enough. A fine balance is necessary to

December 19, 2014 – january 1, 2015 37

“It was so inspiring. I think I may have found some ideas for the next Avatar movie.”

“Elegant—very athletic and very skilled!”

—Robert Stromberg, Academy awardwinning production designer

—John McColgan, Riverdance producer

create a theatrical experience that is aweinspiring but still human and beautiful.

This is something that Shen Yun Performing Arts has been able to achieve.

“Fantastic! So elegant and beautiful,” said Vanessa Harwood, a former principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada who saw the show several times in Toronto.

“It’s a new realm of dance—there’s a lot of depth to it, and a lot of meaning.”

Regarded as the foremost ambassadors of classical Chinese dance, the New York based company has succeeded in marrying the modern and the ancient in a way that enables audiences to experience the rich cultural legacy of China in a modern context.

The popularity of Shen Yun, which will soon begin its 2015 global tour, has increased exponentially within the last few years largely due to the fact that it provides theatre-goers with a depth of performance that audiences love.

To present ancient traditions formed over 5,000 years to today’s world, Shen Yun has embraced the best of modern technology and used it as a means of

communicating China’s rich and varied culture through the classical arts.

Modern Touch

Combining the modern with the ancient is something that Shen Yun has managed to pull off with panache due to an innate understanding of how the two can supplement each other, creating a holistic theatrical experience that is exhilarating both visually and spiritually.

To depict the China of yesteryear, Shen Yun incorporates a huge digital backdrop that displays vivid animated settings, transforming the stage into a world that transports audiences to the Middle Kingdom’s ancient lands.

The graphics technology is state of the art and larger than life. But rather than being overbearing, the digital projection constantly works in harmony with the performers on stage, augmenting and adding to the performance.

Robert Stromberg, the Oscar-winning production designer of “Avatar,” is someone who knows a thing or two about special effects. He was impressed after

“A beautiful show... fantastic!”

—Joy Behar, former co-host of The View

seeing Shen Yun in Los Angeles in 2010.

“It’s absolutely beautiful. It was so inspiring, I think I may have found some new ideas for the next ‘Avatar’,” he said in an Epoch Times interview after the show.

Our threshold for impulse stimulus has been widened to the point that we no longer find “larger than life” production enough. Shen Yun fills this void, blazing a new trail by bringing to audiences the essence and enduring charm of classical China.

Chi Cao, principal dancer with the Birmingham Royal Ballet and lead actor in “Mao’s Last Dancer”, said Shen Yun, demonstrates “the highest realm in arts”.

“Shen Yun inspires the performing arts world,” he said after seeing the show in London, England.

There’s a reason why the film industry has of late begun to veer away from computer-generated imagery and reembrace more traditional forms of “movie magic”—filmmakers are recognising that people want more substance, more meaning.

Maybe Shen Yun has started a trend…

Shen Yun 2015 World Tour

www.shenyunperformingarts.org

UNITED STATES

EUROPE

DEC 26 – 28 FT. LAUDERDALE (FL)

JAN 30 - FEB 1 BALTIMORE (MD)

MAR 3 – 4 APPLETON (WI)

FEB 26 – 28 GENEVA (CH)

MAR 28 – 29 Birmingham (GB)

DEC 26 – 29 AUSTIN (TX)

FEB 3 – 4 CHARLESTON (WV)

MAR 6 – 8 DENVER (CO)

MAR 10 – 11 VIENNA (AT)

MAR 31 - APR1 Salford (GB)

DEC 28 - JAN 7 HOUSTON (TX)

FEB 3 – 4 THOUSAND OAKS (CA)

MAR 6 – 8 CHICAGO (IL)

MAR 13 - APR 16 GERMANY (DE)

MAR 31 - APR 1 SALFORD (GB)

DEC 29 SARASOTA (FL)

FEB 5 – 15 MICHIGAN

MAR 10 – 11 FORT WORTH (TX)

MAR 13 – 15 Frankfurt (DE)

APR 4 – 7 STOCKHOLM (SE)

DEC 30 GAINESVILLE (FL)

FEB 5 – 8 Detroit (MI)

MAR 11 – 12 COLUMBUS (OH)

APR 14 – 16 Baden-Baden (DE)

APR 10 – 12 PARIS (FR)

JAN 2 – 4 ATLANTA (GA)

FEB 11 – 12 Lansing (MI)

MAR 13 MEMPHIS (TN)

MAR 13 – 15 FRANKFURT (DE)

APR 14 – 16 BADEN-BADEN (DE)

JAN 2 – 4 SAN JOSE (GA)

FEB 14 – 15 Grand Rapids (MI)

MAR 14 – 15 PEORIA (IL)

MAR 28 – 29 BIRMINGHAM (GB)

APR 21 SALZBURG (AT)

JAN 6 – 7 BERKELEY (GA)

FEB 5 – 8 DETROIT (MI)

MAR 15 – 17 SAN ANTONIO (TX)

MAR 28 – APR 1 UNITED KINGDOM (GB)

APR 24 – 25 BARCELONA (ES)

JAN 2 – 14 CALIFORNIA

FEB 7 – 8 LONG BEACH (CA)

MAR 17 TULSA (OK)

JAN 2 – 4 San Jose (CA)

FEB 7 – 8 WATERBURY (CT)

MAR 19 JACKSON (MS)

JAN 6 – 7 Berkeley (CA)

FEB 10 – 11 CLEVELAND (OH)

MAR 20 – 21 DES MOINES (IA)

JAN 8 – 11 San Francisco (CA)

FEB 11 – 12 MESA (AZ)

MAR 21 – 22 CORPUS CHRISTI (TX)

DEC 27 – 28 HAMILTON (CA)

JAN 13 – 14 Sacramento (CA)

FEB 11 - 12 LANSING (MI)

MAR 24 – 25 SALT LAKE CITY (UT)

DEC 29 – 30 KITCHENER (CA)

JAN 31 – FEB 1 GOLD COAST (AU)

JAN 8 – 11 SAN FRANCISCO (CA)

FEB 13 – 15 MINNEAPOLIS (MN)

MAR 24 – 25 BATON ROUGE (LA)

JAN 2 – 4 OTTAWA (CA)

FEB 3 – 4 BRISBANE (AU)

JAN 9 - MAR 11 DALLAS FORT WORTH

FEB 14 – 15 PHOENIX (AZ)

MAR 27 – 29 PORTLAND (OR)

JAN 7 – 11 MONTREAL (CA)

FEB 6 – 15 SYDNEY (AU)

JAN 9 – 11 Dallas (TX)

FEB 14 – 15 GRAND RAPIDS (MI)

MAR 27 – 28 ORLANDO (FL)

JAN 13 – 14 QUEBEC (CA)

FEB 17 – 18 CANBERRA (AU)

MAR 10 – 11 Fort Worth (TX)

FEB 17 – 18 DAVENPORT (IA)

MAR 30 – 31 FORT MYERS (FL)

JAN 16 – 18 MISSISSAUGA (CA)

FEB 20 – 21 ADELAIDE (AU) FEB 25 – 28 MELBOURNE (AU)

CANADA

JAN 9 – 11 DALLAS (TX)

FEB 18 – 22 SAN DIEGO (ESCONDIDO) (CA)

MAR 31 EUGENE (OR)

JAN 16 – 18 VANCOUVER (CA)

JAN 9 – 18 NEW YORK (NY)

FEB 20 – 22 ST. LOUIS (MO)

APR 3 – 5 SEATTLE (WA)

JAN 21 – 25 TORONTO (CA)

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38 DECEMBER 19,2014 – January 1, 2015

Epoch Times

Joyfully Climbing Heaven’s Ladder Courtesy of NTD Television

By Christine Lin Epoch Times Staff

N

EW YORK—The judges of the NTD Television International Figure Painting Competition don’t grade on a curve.

As outstanding as the finalists’ works are, Tuesday night’s awards ceremony went without a gold winner. This is the first year that the top prize went unclaimed.

The competition is part of a series held by the television network to promote traditional arts of East and West. The mission of the Figure Painting Competition is to promote cultural exchange and the art of figure painting using classical Western realistic methods. accuracy in representation, Judges are stringent content that elevates artist with their criteria.

Not only do they and viewer, and adherence look at technique and the overall effect of to traditional oil painting a painting, they also require that artists technique. demonstrate an understanding of art’s importance in upholding sacred values​​ .

“The result is not what we’re after here,” said Professor Zhang ​​ Kunlun, chairman of the judging committee.

“We’re here to pioneer the future of art.”

The future of art, as held by this competition’s judges, is to return to the ideals exemplified by the Renaissance— accuracy in representation, content that elevates artist and viewer, and “Yvonne” by Sandra adherence to traditional oil painting Kuck, United States technique.

The future of art, as held by this competition’s judges, is to return to the ideals exemplified by the Renaissance—

Courtesy of NTD Television

“Some of the works have good content but the technique is not quite up to par. Others show promising technique but show modern influences,” Zhang said to explain why there was no gold winner in the end.

Thus the silver award became the highest honour this year. Four artists won silver. Wang Jing and Li Ben from China portrayed the story of Falun Dafa; Gabriel Picart and Sandra Kuck won with portraits of young women in their families.

Strength in Faith

Wang’s “Joyfully Climbing Heaven’s Ladder” portrays a young Chinese woman clutching to her chest “Zhuan Falun,” the book of teachings at the core of the spiritual practice Falun Dafa.

She seems to be able to see straight to heaven, and paradises open up before her.

Wang has been practicing Falun Dafa since 1995.

“I wanted to portray a cultivator’s state of mind when reading this book,” she said. “You discover that it explains the universal law, how to be a good person, and the origin of humanity. I wanted to express that compassionate energy that surrounds you when you practice, that joy and gratitude that as a cultivator you feel in every cell of your being.”

Since Falun Dafa came under fire from the Chinese Communist Party in 1999, its practitioners in China continue to hold on to their faith and spread the word, not only about the regime’s brutal persecution, but also about the practice’s spiritual and health benefits.

“They still spread the wonder of Dafa despite personal danger,” Wang said.

“What prompts them? They truly feel it in their hearts.”

Li’s painting “Unmovable Faith” illustrates that steadfastness from the depths of a Chinese prison. In it, a young male Falun Dafa practitioner sits cross-legged at the top of stairs while two policemen try to drag him down using a rope tied around his torso . He seems to be unaffected by physical coercion—his faith makes him literally unmovable.

Little Women

Gabriel Picart from Spain painted his daughter Allegra in a ballerina costume. Her slender frame and the delicate textures of her tutu make a striking contrast with the red background and the look of determination in her eyes.

The colour choice, simple composition, and clarity with which every texture is rendered make the small portrait immensely powerful and intimate at the same time.

Sandra Kuck also painted a

precocious young woman. Of her three granddaughters, Yvonne is the youngest, and the one she was able to watch grow up since infancy. Kuck had her sit for the portrait in her home, which is decorated in ornate Asian décor , full of dragons, silks, and brocade. It feels almost like a royal portrait.

Yvonne is so small, at the of age 9, but has such a wise look in her eyes.

“She’s an interesting person, very wellread,” Kuck said. “I feel like she’s an old soul, like she’s been here before. I can talk about any subject and she knows what I’m saying.”

For more information and to see all the finalists’ paintings, visit competitions. ntdtv.com/oilpainting

“Joyfully Climbing Heaven's Ladder” by Wang Jing, China.

Positive Living

Epoch Times

Benjamin Chasteen/Epoch Times

A Billionaire Who Listens to His Mother

By Amelia Pang Epoch Times Staff

N

EW YORK— Alex Rovt, the president of fertilizer c o m p a n y IBE Trade Corporation, is a towering man with a thick mustache and a net worth of $1.1 billion. His New York office is decorated with photographs of himself with important figures such as Andrew Cuomo, and an autographed photo of Barack and Michelle Obama.

On the side of the room nearest his desk hang photos of his family, along with a photo of the Grand Rabbi Moshe Leib Rabinov ich, the rabbi of Hu nga r ia n Hasidic Jews.

Rovt, 61, is a self-made m a n — a U k ra inia nAmerican Alex Rovt, businessman president of IBE and real estate Trade Corporation investor who made it to the top in the former Soviet Union through the trade and manufacture of fertilizer.

For each of Rovt’s decisions, no matter how big or small or strange, family has been the basis for each choice.

To Rovt, one of the most important actions one can take to protect one’s family and honor is not to be in debt. Hence, Rovt pays all his mortgages up front—in cash— regardless of the amount. In 2012 he paid $303 million for a majority stake in a 1 millionsquare foot office building on Wall Street, in cash.

“I don’t do things like everybody else,” he explained in a heavy eastern European accent. “Even if it is more difficult, I do what I think is

I don’t do things like everybody else. Even if it is more difficult, I do what I think is right

right. If you have debt, then it’s like having something over your head that can club you,” he said.

Even though he has the money to risk, he has never played the stock exchange. “I don’t want to be the richest man in the world,” he said. “You can’t eat with two spoons.”

One of the most influential figures in his life is a little old woman, an Auschwitz survivor: his mother. Although she never went to college, it is from her that this billionaire developed a visceral understanding and sense for money.

“Even at 80-years-old, my mother gives me advice,” he said.

He recalled how recently, as they drove past the Brooklyn– Battery Tunnel to take his mother to her open heart surgery, she pointed to a house and said vehemently, “Listen, Alex, this is a beautiful house, you should buy it.”

“It was a nice house,” he admitted. “I really learned from my parents how strong you have to be if you want to achieve something.”

His father immigrated to the United States at age 55, his mother at 52. His mother went straight to work in a nursing home, and his father at a Kosher deli in Borough Park, Brooklyn. During the winter, he would bake barbeque chicken in a sweltering kitchen, and go out back into the freezing cold where they kept the poultry meat.

Rovt did the same when he immigrated to New York in 1985. “I only did this for three months; he did it for 15 years,” he said.

Carpathian Roots Rovt’s family is from a town called Mukachevo in the Carpathian region. The area was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945. The town has been a part of five different countries in the course of 80 years. Before World War I, the region belonged to Austria-Hungary. After the Warsaw Treaty in 1920,

DECEMBER 19,2014 – January 1, 2015 39

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Alex Rovt, president of IBE Trade Corporation, at his Manhattan office on June 6. Rovt is listed in Forbes magazine as one of the top 400 wealthiest people living in the United States

the region became a part of Czechoslovakia. After the Munich Treaty in 1938, the area became part of Hungary.

It went on to become the Soviet Union; after the Soviet disintegration it became Ukraine.

That’s why Rovt speaks Hungarian, Czech, Russian, Ukrainian, English, and can understand German— although he knows German because it’s similar to Yiddish.

Members from both sides of his family were taken to concentration camps during the Holocaust. Out of six siblings, his father and one uncle were the only ones who survived on the paternal side of the family.

Out of the nine children that his maternal grandfather had, seven survived. His mother is the only one who is still alive today. She still has an Auschwitz serial number tattooed on her arm.

The Shift to Capitalism Although Rovt was a smart boy, he was also a rowdy one who often got into fights. “I was aggressive,” he recalled. “My mother needed to come to the school a lot.”

In the Soviet Union, his father was a manager of a knitting factory; his paternal grandfather sold fur. From an early age, Rovt developed an inclination toward trade.

He went to the Lviv State University of Trade and Economics in Ukraine at age 17. There, he met his wife, who studied economics. His worldview changed during this period.

“That’s when I decided that capitalism was my future,” he said. “In a communist state, you could get six to eight years in jail for doing business.”

Rovt graduated with a degree

in business and later received a doctorate in international economics from the same university.

His parents were never members of the communist party, and immigrated to the United States the first chance they got in 1978.

Rovt immigrated to Hungary, where he worked as a director at a state-owned fruit and vegetable supply company.

“I was 26 years old, and I wanted to do something different,” he recalled. But his capitalistic ideas got him arrested.

In 1985, he fled to the United States with his wife and son and settled in Brooklyn. “I visited the U.S. in the 1970s and understood that this is the free world,” he said.

At first, his wife did not want to move so far from home. “She said, ‘Let’s move for five years, and see what happens,’” he recalled. “In my strong belief, anybody who lives here for five years will not go back to a former communist country.”

Sure enough, his family has stayed. They had their second son in the United States in 1987.

Today, his sons often joke that he should stay home more often.

Rovt is still keeping busy.

In the middle of running a billion dollar business, he also serves as the vice chairman of the board of the Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, the oldest member on the NYC Board of Corrections, a trustee of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a board member for Touro College.

“If you properly raise your children, it gives you a feeling that you are welcomed at home,” he said. “It’s a good feeling. A person can be happy if they can achieve this.”

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