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Hungary closed of
Croatia became the latest pressure point in the migrant crisis after Hungarian riot police
used tear gas and water cannons Wednesday to turn back people at that country's
border with Serbia.
Migrants attempting to reach Western Europe were left with a difficult choice: Stay and
contend with Hungary's tough new border defenses, or set out through Croatia on
another uncertain path toward the European Union's wealthier nations.
Frustrations boiled over after Hungary had sealed the final hole in its border with Serbia
a day earlier, shutting of a popular route used by tens of thousands of people in
Europe's vast migrant crisis.
The move left desperate men, women and children -- most of them fleeing violence in
the Middle East -- blocked by a razor-wire fence from entering.
But the impasse at that entry point into the European Union won't stop the flow of
migrants attempting their arduous journeys, said Eugenio Ambrosi, regional director of
the International Organization for Migration.
"People will continue to try to reach Europe through Hungary, Croatia or any other route
that might be available to them," he told CNN.
More barriers ahead?
After Croatia, migrants are expected to try to reach Germany by traveling up through
Slovenia and then Austria. But it's unclear whether they'll ultimately fare better on that
route.
Slovenia Prime Minister Miro Cerar tweated Thursday that his country is committed to
protecting the EU's external borders.
The Slovenian Interior Ministry said it hadn't discussed with Croatia the possibility of
providing a safe corridor to migrants and that such a move would violate national and
European laws.
The ministry said it would carry out its "obligations to manage migration and control its
borders" and expected Croatia to do the same.
Croatia is a member of the European Union, but unlike its northern neighbors, it isn't
part of the Schengen Agreement that eliminated border controls between many EU
nations.
Some people gathered at the Serbian-Hungarian border said they were wary of taking
the Croatian route if it meant they would only end up stuck at yet another closed
crossing.
They say turning around and heading back to the troubled countries they fled -- such as
Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iraq -- isn't an option.
The current crisis has prompted other EU nations to reintroduce security measures at
borders with other member states.
Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck said his country had
started border control measures on its southern border with Slovenia.
German minister for migrants resigns
Germany's minister for migration and refugees resigned "for personal reasons" on
Thursday.
Manfred Schmidt had been criticized for the slow process of dealing with asylum
application and creating a backlog.
At the end of August, 276,617 applications still needed to be processed, according to a
ministry spokesperson.
"Dr. Schmidt has done an excellent job and the federal interior minister regrets losing
him as head of this office," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said in a
statement.
Children sufering: A true picture of Europe's migrant crisis
A huge crisis
Aid workers say Europe is facing its largest refugee and migrant crisis since World War
II.
Seeking refuge: Full coverage of the migration crisis
More than 430,000 migrants have come to Europe by sea so far this year, double the
number that arrived during all of 2014, the International Organization for Migration said.
Migrants typically cross the Mediterranean and try to go through Greece, Macedonia,
Serbia, Hungary and Austria before finally reaching Germany or other European
countries known to be welcoming to refugees.
The EU is still trying to figure out how to distribute 160,000 migrants -- and whether to
set quotas for member countries to absorb them.
"The crisis is moving quite fast -- and unfortunately is moving much faster than the
response that was put in place by all the concerned governments," said Ambrosi of the
IOM.
Are countries obligated to take in refugees?
CNN's Ivan Watson reported from Tovarnik, Ben Wedeman reported from the
Hungarian-Serbian border; Susanna Capelouto wrote from Atlanta; and Jethro Mullen
wrote from Hong Kong. CNN's Milena Veselinovic, Alex Hunter, Tim Hume and Holly
Yan contributed to this report.
The 1951 Refugee Convention was adopted after World War II, when hundreds of
thousands of refugees were displaced across Europe.
The treaty defines what refugees are -- those who is seeking refuge from persecution. It
also gives them a very important right -- the right to not be sent back home into harm's
way, except under extreme circumstances.
"Since, by definition, refugees are not protected by their own governments, the
international community steps in to ensure they are safe and protected," said the
UNHCR, the United Nations' refugee agency.
The treaty was amended in 1967, in part to include refugees from around the world.
And according to the provisions, "refugees deserve, as a minimum, the same standards
of treatment enjoyed by other foreign nationals in a given country and, in many cases,
the same treatment as nationals," the UNHCR said.
The agency said more than 50 million refugees have been resettled.
Why migrants head to the Mediterranean
Who has signed on to the treaty?
Over the past several decades, 142 states have signed onto both the 1951 Refugee
Convention and the 1967 protocol.
Hungary is one of the signatories. But it has been criticized by migrants and activists
who say refugees are left in decrepit conditions as they await transfer. Now, Hungary is
erecting a fence at the Serbian border to help control the flow of migrants.
Countries outside of Europe are also stepping up to handle the current flood of
refugees. Venezuela, which signed on to the 1967 protocol, said it will take in 20,000
refugees. Australia said it has absorbed 4,500 refugees from Syria and Iraq over the
past year.
Noticeably absent from the list: the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar,
Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
How you can help in the migrant crisis
How many refugees has Europe taken in this year?
Well over 366,000 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe this year,
the UNHCR said. Another 2,800 attempted the journey, but either died or disappeared.
The vast majority of refugees come from three countries: Iraq, where migrants are
fleeing the brutality of ISIS; Afghanistan, which has been devastated by war; and Syria,
where civilians are grappling with both ISIS and indiscriminate attacks in the country's
civil war.
A country-by-country look at the crisis
What rights do refugees have?
In addition to not getting sent back to their home countries, refugees have several other
rights, including:
- The right to not be punished for illegally entering countries that signed on to the treaty
- The right to housing
Since oil-rich Gulf states are close to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, they'd help absorb
some of the refugees, right?
Wrong.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have each
given millions of dollars to the United Nations to help Syrian refugees. But they haven't
housed any of them, according to Amnesty International.
"We've been asking that not only the borders of the region are open, but that all other
borders -- especially in the developed world -- are also open," said Antonio Guterres,
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Abdul Khaleq Abdulla, a retired professor from United Arab Emirates University, said
Gulf states have security on their minds.
"Having refugees also feeds into ISIS' appeal," Abdulla said. "And it feeds into the
violence in the region, which is already the most violent region on Earth. So all in all,
anything that goes in the neighborhood impacts the security and the stability of the Arab
Gulf states who are by far the most stable and the most secure."
And those Gulf states aren't party to the international treaty -- so technically, they don't
have to help.
Things to know about Europe's migrant crisis at land and sea
For all the presidential candidates' uproar over the U.S.-Mexico border, the world's
biggest migrant crisis actually lies with the European Union, reeling from mass deaths
on land and sea.
In the span of just a week in August, 71 refugees were found dead in a truck in Austria,
and scores of other migrants died of Europe's shores yet again.
Indeed, the Mediterranean Sea is called the world's deadliest border because
thousands of desperate migrants and refugees drown on unseaworthy boats trying to
reach Europe from Africa and the Mideast.
On land, 60 men, eight women, and three children were found dead in the abandoned
truck on an Austria highway this week, and the victims are most likely Syrian refugees,
authorities said.
Here are four things to know about the humanity migrating to Europe's doorstep despite
deadly peril. Arrests were announced in the Austrian deaths; Italian authorities arrested
10 people in the 52 deaths of migrants and refugees found aboard a boat of Libya.
Why are so many migrating?
As of August, more than 300,000 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean,
exceeding the number in all of 2014, which was 219,000, a United Nations
spokeswoman said.
However, another group estimated that 432,761 migrants and refugees have reached
Europe by sea this year as of early September, according to the International
Organization for Migration.
The reasons for the mass movement are as varied as the nationalities of the people
involved.
In broad terms, migrants and refugees are fleeing war, persecution and poverty in Africa
and the Arabian peninsula.
Eritreans and Syrians made up half the migrant traffic to Europe last year, according to
Arezo Malakooti, director of migration research at Altai Consulting.
In their case, Eritreans are fleeing "one of the poorest countries in the world and a
closed and highly securitized state under an authoritarian government,"according to a
report by the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat in Nairobi last year.
In other words, they are running from a life of repression and abject poverty.
In the Mideast, more than 4 million Syrians have fled four years of civil war, becoming
the worst refugee crisis seen in 25 years by the United Nations.
There's also a pull factor: Migrants see Libya as an open door to the Mediterranean
because of the country's deteriorating security, so they use its coast as a stepping stone
to Europe, experts say.
Just how deadly is it?
The Mediterranean passage accounted for 65% of all migrant deaths last year, the
International Organization for Migration said.
That equates to 3,279 deaths.
This year, a total of 2,748 migrants have died in the Mediterranean as of early
September, accounting for 73% of all migrant deaths worldwide, the IOM said.
Even over a yearslong view, the European external borders remain the biggest
deathtrap for migrants and refugees, with 22,400 deaths between 1996 and 2014, the
organization said.
The next deadliest?
The U.S.-Mexico border with 6,029 deaths between 1998 and 2013, the group said,
citing U.S. Border Patrol statistics.
What's being done about this?
This may sound familiar to those exasperated by how the U.S. Congress is gridlocked
over immigration reform and the U.S.-Mexico border: A Europe-wide solution moves at a
painfully slow pace.
"There is no simple, nor single, answer to the challenges posed by migration. And nor
can any member state efectively address migration alone. It is clear that we need a
new, more European approach," European Commission officials said on August 6.
need now is the collective courage to follow through with concrete action on words that
will otherwise ring empty," the commission officials said.
Portugal, the Netherlands and Finland support search and rescue operations at sea.
But Italy reduced its rescue missions after the rest of Europe wouldn't help shoulder the
onus of the crisis: Because of its proximity to Libya, Italy feels it has done more than its
fair share of picking up, sheltering and feeding migrants.
Britain isn't supporting the naval Operation Triton held under the auspices of the
European Union's Frontex, contending the rescue fleets are "an unintended 'pull
factor' encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and thereby
leading to more tragic and unnecessary deaths."
The European Commission has scheduled a November summit with key African
countries to "tackle this challenge from all angles."
What's the diference between migrant and refugee?
Migrants, however, are processed under the receiving country's immigration laws. So,
ultimately, these terms have major implications for those seeking asylum and the
countries being asked to grant it.
A migrant is someone who chooses to resettle to another country in search of a better
life.
So, for example, those fleeing poverty in Nigeria, looking for work in Europe, would not
have refugee status and would be considered migrants.
But, technically, refugees are also migrants.
So, what term should we use?
The United Nations notes that both groups are present in Europe and at its shores. It's
safe to call all of them migrants because each is migrating, but many of them are also
refugees.
The extraordinary world of Soviet bus shelters
It's universally acknowledged that the old Soviet Union had many faults, but creating
weird and wonderful structures that celebrate the humble bus ride isn't one of them.
When it came to building roadside bus shelters, Moscow's former satellite states were
streets, perhaps even highways, ahead of the rest of the world.
Before their 1990s independence, the Soviet states threw up hundreds of extravagant
rest stops, giving tyro architects and artists unusually free rein to express their wilder
ideas.
And so bus passengers from Estonia to Armenia have been able to pause beneath
buildings resembling UFOs, majestic crowns and concrete eagles while waiting for the
number 37 to come rumbling into view.
With many of these beautiful -- sometimes brutalist -- structures now crumbling away, it's
a legacy that might have passed unnoticed if it wasn't for Canadian photographer
Christopher Herwig.
Herwig, 40, first stumbled across them after setting himself the challenge of snapping
an interesting photograph every hour while cycling from London to St. Petersburg in
2002.
"I was getting of my bike to photograph things I normally wouldn't photograph -- things
like clothes lines, power lines, mail boxes and bus stops," he tells CNN. "And then as I
got into the former Soviet Union, I saw these bus stops were actually worthy of me
taking photographs."
Herwig has amassed photographs of at least 1,000 former Soviet bus shelters.
Middle of nowhere
That set in motion an odyssey lasting more than a decade as Herwig criss-crossed 14
countries or territories on various assignments, his eyes always on the side of the road
on the lookout for suitable shelters.
The fruits of his travels have been collected into a book, "Soviet Bus Stops" -- a now
sold-out KickStarter project that's being republished by Fuel in September with a
foreword by renowned criticJonathan Meades.
Herwig says his obsession with Soviet shelters wasn't always appreciated by the locals
who they were built to serve.
"A lot of the bus stops that were intriguing weren't in cities or villages. They were often in
the middle of nowhere, particularly in Kazakhstan -- there was often no one around," he
adds.
"But when there were people around, for the most part they would not get it. They would
not see that the bus stop was worth photographing and they thought I was doing
something that was making fun of them.
"A lot of people thought the bus stops were kind of disgusting because some were used
just to dump garbage or go to the bathroom, and most of them are in quite rough
condition.
"I would try to explain that my motives were actually quite genuine and that I thought this
was a fairly positive part of history and quite fun, and quite beautiful and quite creative.
"Most people wouldn't quite see it right away."
Herwig says some of his favorite shelters are found in the disputed region of Abkhazia.
Octopus, waves and UFOs
Some did though, most notably taxi drivers he hired along the way to help him track
down his targets.
"A couple of the taxi drivers really got into the game as well, and they could really spot
them. There was one driver, even though it was getting late when we're searching for
one bus shelter and couldn't find it, he just wouldn't give up."
Herwig also credits his bus stop quest for taking him to destinations that wouldn't
otherwise have been on his radar.
"I probably wouldn't have gone to Armenia, or Belarus or Ukraine or Moldova or the
region of Abkhazia," he says.
"At that point I really didn't have any other reason for traveling apart from the project. It
was really fun and I got to places I wouldn't have normally gone to because of the bus
stops."
His favorite stops, he says, include some found in Abkhazia, a breakaway region still
claimed by Georgia, that were created by Zurab Tsereteli, an artist who went on to
become president of the Russian Academy of Arts.
"He was one of the pioneers who really pushed it to the limit. His were more like
sculptures, much more animated -- there was one like an octopus, one like a wave, one
like a shell, one like a UFO.
"He was really out there in terms of the design, they were heavily painted and a lot of
fun."
MORE: Photographing Europe's invisible borders
Herwig believes that creating bus stops was one of the few opportunities that artists and
architects had under restrictive Soviet regimes to fully express themselves.
"I think a lot of people didn't judge or restrict the artists at the time on these bus stops
because they're quite a minor architectural form.
"They weren't something that was going to clash ideologically with the Soviet Union and
they're seen as a way of bringing art to the people."
Herwig, originally from Vancouver but currently living in Amman, Jordan, says that
having photographed at least 1,000, his bus shelter project is over for the time being.
But he doesn't rule out reviving it.
"I've restarted it four times now," he says. "I think I'm done, but I wouldn't be surprised
that if I get the option to travel somewhere else I'll pick up some more.
"I haven't completely shut the book on it. There are actually no pictures from Russia in
there, so maybe..."
"Soviet Bus Stops" is available for order via the Fuel website.
(CNN)The European Commission has set out detailed plans for mandatory quotas for
EU nations to take in refugees, as Europe struggles to cope with a huge influx of
migrants -- many of them fleeing war in Syria.
European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the proposed measures would
"ensure that people in clear need of international protection are relocated swiftly after
arriving -- not just now but also for any crisis in the future."
Under the proposals, 120,000 refugees will be relocated from Greece, Italy and Hungary
-- three EU nations at the forefront of the crisis, thanks to transit routes across the
Mediterranean and through the Balkans.
Of those, 15,600 will come from Italy, 50,400 from Greece and 54,000 from Hungary,
the European Commission said.
They would be distributed among other EU states according to binding quotas based on
each country's population, GDP, past asylum applications received and employment
rate. Additional EU funding would be provided to countries taking in refugees.
safe countries of origin. Nations such as Albania, Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia should be
added to this, it said.
These steps would speed up the process of individual asylum applications from
individuals coming from countries considered to be safe across Europe.
The European Commission also proposed a more efective returns policy for those
migrants who do not have the right to stay in the European Union.
And it said renewed eforts were needed to look for political solutions in Syria, Iraq and
Libya, and to support the countries around Syria, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey,
which are hosting the bulk of those who've fled its civil war.
On top of this, the commission has allocated 1.8 billion euros for a "Trust Fund for
Africa," it said, in a bid to limit migration from African nations where populations have
few opportunities.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Economics Minister Sigmar
Gabriel said in a joint statement that Europe "faces a big test" but the "brave proposals"
of the European Commission were heading the right way.
"Only if we all pull together, can we manage to handle the large number of refugees
appropriately. We need a European refugee policy, which will live up to the expectations
of the people and the expectations of Europe," they said.
Europe has to shoulder its responsibility for refugees with a spirit of solidarity and
ensuring a fair distribution, the statement said.
It's also important to tackle the root causes of migration, such as conflict and poverty,
and develop a convincing plan of action on a European level, they said.
New guidelines for migrants' treatment
Amid concern over the welcome -- or lack thereof -- given to some migrants, the Council
of Europe issued new guidelines Wednesday to its 47 member states on their treatment
of the new arrivals.
There is something almost Biblical about the mass exodus of desperate people fleeing
Syria and other war-torn and impoverished countries. For European governments,
struggling to manage the crisis engulfing their borders, the Bible has a succinct lesson
they might do well to ponder: "For whatever one sows, that will he also reap."
This fatal flood-tide of human jetsam, surging haphazardly across the Mediterranean,
has not suddenly materialized out of nowhere. The crisis has been building for years,
reaching back to the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and much further still,
to the era of European colonialism in the Middle East and north Africa.
The shocking photos of the limp, lifeless body of Aylan Kurdi, the two-year-old Syrian
toddler who drowned of Turkey last week, does not come as a total surprise. At least
2,000 migrants have perished in similar circumstances this year. More than 350,000
have braved the journey across the Mediterranean to Europe in 2015, according to the
International Organisation for Migration -- and they are still coming.
The picture in Iraq is even more alarming. The window on post-Saddam political reform,
painfully opened by U.S. and British troops after 2003, was slammed shut by a
sectarian-minded, Iranian-dominated Shia majority government in Baghdad. Make no
mistake: inept
Western politicians let this happen. Although a new, less divisive regime is now in
power, the damage was done.
A third or more of Iraq is now in the hands of the very worst kind of Islamist extremists
and foreign jihadis who have wrenched control from the alienated and demoralized
Sunni minority. The jihadis murder, torture and rape without conscience or constraint.
Would you and your family stick around? Waiting for Washington or London to remedy
the mess they made in Iraq is akin to bailing water on the Titanic with a sieve.
And then there is Syria. Millions displaced, hundreds of thousands dead, the
neighborhood destabilized, the war continuing with no end in sight. Is it fair to blame
Barack Obama, David Cameron or Angela Merkel for President Bashar al-Assad's
genocidal, Russian and Iranian-backed bid to cling to power?
Not really.
But they can all be faulted, along with Arab and Turkish leaders and cold-blooded
Vladimir Putin, for doing so very little, in practical terms, to halt the slaughter either
through military or diplomatic interventions.
No-fly zones
It is plain political cowardice to continue to deny Syrian civilians the protection of no-fly
zones and internal safe havens, as aforded to the Iraqi Kurds and Shia in the 1990s.
This could be done with minimal military risk. It could mitigate the awful toll exacted by
Assad's chemical weapons and barrel bombs. It would fulfill, in part, the duty of the U.S.
and EU countries to uphold the U.N.-mandated "responsibility to protect." And it might
reduce or even reverse the flow of Syrian migrants heading for Greece.
Nor is it any use saying the Arab regimes of the Gulf, key actors in Syria's tragedy,
should do more to help. Of course they should. But as so often when a humanitarian
crisis blows up, they sit on their hands and their wallets. Just look at the unremitting
sufering in Yemen and Somalia.
The chaos in Libya following the West's 2011 intervention, U.S. acquiescence in Egypt's
repressive, post-Arab Spring counter-revolution, and the generational injustice done to
the Palestinians are all powerful factors in Europe's migrant crisis. So, too, are the
historical machinations of colonialist Britain, France and Italy that so grotesquely
distorted traditional culture and society from Sudan, Eritrea and Chad to Mali, Nigeria
and Algeria.
What now is the legacy of the colonial era? Rather than increasing investment,
technology, training and education in those countries so their people do not need to
seek a better life elsewhere -- their chief imperial inheritance is, too often, political,
ethnic and religious schism, aid dependency, unfair trade rules, and climate change
created by the polluting industries of the North.
Rapid population growth in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, resulting in large
numbers of young people hitting working age at the same time, also means high
unemployment and likely political turmoil.
Recognizing responsibility
Instead of building walls, shutting doors and arguing about numbers, European leaders
-- encouraged by Washington -- must recognize their responsibilities, historical and
current, moral and practical. At the weekend, Germany, its people and politicians,
seemed to be leading the way, with Britain's Conservative government trailing reluctantly
behind. But one country cannot do it all.
Much more generous, collective EU refugee and asylum arrangements are required.
Safe and legal immigration channels must be expanded, search and rescue must be
improved, and a longer-term relocation scheme for sharing asylum-seekers across the
28 EU member states must be agreed.
Europe is reaping a whirlwind of its own making. It needs to stand up, or risk being
blown away.
Refugee crisis: Pressure builds for U.S. to welcome more Syrians
Of the 4 million Syrian refugees who have fled attacks by their government and ISIS, the
United States has taken in 0.03% of them.
That's a pitiful number that needs to be changed immediately, a growing number of
Americans say. Both Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic
candidate Martin O'Malley agree: the U.S. needs to step up.
But how many should the United States take in? And what risks would be involved?
How the U.S. fares
So far, the U.S. has accepted 1,500 Syrian refugees. By contrast, Germany said it will
take in 800,000 migrants in the current refugee crisis. Several other countries, such as
Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, have each taken in hundreds of thousands of Syrians.
The International Rescue Committee called for the United States to open its doors to
65,000 Syrian refugees.
An online petition asking the U.S. government to do exactly that has garnered more than
54,000 signatures.
"The U.S. has historically been the world leader in recognizing the moral obligation to
resettle refugees," International Rescue Committee president and CEO David Milliband
said.
"But in the four years of the Syria crisis, there has been inertia rather than leadership."
Syrian refugees: Which countries welcome them; which don't
What the government says
The Obama administration says is considering helping more with refugee resettlement.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said he anticipates the figure of 1,500
accepted refugees to double before the end of the year.
"I expect to see the U.S. will take in even more going forward," Kirby told CNN last
week.
The National Security Council said the United States has helped quite a bit financially.
"It is important to note that the United States has provided over $4 billion in
humanitarian assistance since the Syrian crisis began, and over $1 billion in assistance
this year," NSC spokesman Peter Boogaard said. "The U.S. is the single largest donor to
the Syrian crisis."
West to blame for migrant crisis?
Where's the hurdle
Some say opening the country to more Syrian refugees runs the risk of having
extremists slip through.
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, a son of immigrants, said the U.S. must
be careful.
"We would be potentially open to the relocation of some of these individuals at some
point in time to the United States," he said.
"We'd always be concerned that within the overwhelming number of the people seeking
refugee, someone with a terrorist background could also sneak in."
But the process for Syrians seeking asylum in the United States is complicated by a
long security vetting procedure meant to ensure that only desperate refugees -- not
extremists -- reach American soil. It typically takes 18 months before a refugee
designated for resettlement in the United States can actually set foot in the country.
Opinion: Why U.S. should do more for refugees
Where opposing presidential candidates agree
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, whose campaign often focuses on expelling illegal
immigrants, said the United States should accept more Syrian refugees due to the
"unbelievable humanitarian problem."
"I hate the concept of it, but on a humanitarian basis, with what's happening, you have
to," Trump told Fox News.
Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley backed the IRC's call for the U.S. to
accept 65,000 refugees.
"Americans are a generous and compassionate people," he said. "But today our policies
are falling short of those values. We must do more to support Syrian refugees -- and we
must certainly welcome more than the proposed 5,000 to 8,000 refugees next year."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Obama hasn't acted strongly enough during the
Syrian crisis and "has allowed these folks to be slaughtered."
"I frankly can't imagine as president of the United States how you could permit this to
happen on this scale," he said. "And now we're seeing those results."
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state when the
Syrian crisis unfolded, said she and other members of the Obama administration
wanted to be more aggressive helping Syrian rebels in their battle against Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
"I advocated for a more robust policy," Clinton told MSNBC. She said she called on the
"entire world" to come together to solve the crisis.
But Michel Gabaudan, president of Refugees International, said the United States can't
be blamed for extreme violence in Syria.
"To accuse Washington of the tremendous horrors that al-Assad has been vesting on
his own people is perhaps going a step too far," he said.
Are countries obligated to take in refugees?
What's in it for the United States
The United States also stands to gain from helping Syrian refugees, Gabaudan said.
"I would argue there is another obligation beyond a moral obligation to help refugees -and to help particularly those who are in Turkey, in Lebanon and in Jordan," he said.
"These countries are allies of the U.S. We have a moral obligation to look after the
refugees, but we also have an interest in the security of these countries, and that the
refugees in these countries do not lead to some destabilization. And that's another
factor why we should move further in providing assistance."
CNN's Steph
Police fired tear gas on Friday to stop the massed crowds of men, women and children
rushing across the border from Greece.
Macedonia is not a member of the European Union, but a favored transit country along
migrant routes toward Western and Northern Europe.
Closing of Macedonia would create a bottleneck in Greece, which is an EU state but is
already struggling to cope with a huge influx of migrants thanks to its ongoing economic
difficulties.
'Terrifying' conditions
Ivo Kotevski, a spokesman for Macedonia's Interior Ministry and the Macedonian police,
told CNN Saturday that the country is under great pressure from the Greeks to find a
solution.
Nawras, 25, who arrived at the Greece-Macedonia border three days ago from Syria,
described the standof with police as "terrifying" and said stun grenades and tear gas
were being used on women and children.
Some migrants were allowed across the border late Friday but many others were forced
to wait in a cold, heavy rain, Nawras said.
"I don't know what to do," he said by phone. "This is miserable."
Minister: Crisis beyond what Macedonia can handle
An estimated 44,000 migrants have arrived in Macedonia in the last two months,
including 33,461 Syrians, the Macedonian Interior Ministry said. The rest come from
Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and various African countries.
Migrants who express interest in applying for asylum gain the right to spend three days
in Macedonia until they apply for asylum. Most use that time to travel to the Serbian
border, according to the country's state-run Macedonian Information Agency.
For migrants, crossing through Macedonia is the most dangerous part of the journey
because of armed gangs and Mafia. The migrants often wait until they are in large
groups to cross safely.
Macedonia's Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki told CNN's "The World Right Now" on
Friday that there had been a dramatic increase in the number of illegal migrants trying to
enter Macedonia over the past few days.
"I think that probably the last couple of days have been the most dramatic ones, with
numbers around 3,000 to 4,000 migrants coming in to the Macedonian border on a daily
basis," he said.
"Obviously this was far beyond what the local authorities could have handled, and this
has caused a massive border queue which is now trying to be resolved and numbers
are decreasing."
He insisted his small country of 2 million people was doing what its best to handle the
influx of migrants.
"Obviously these are people that are not going on holidays, but are sufering
tremendously back home, mainly from Syria and Afghanistan and other countries," he
said.
There's no way to resolve the situation without a coordinated response from the
European Union, he added.
Wider crisis
Paju, South Korea (CNN)North and South Korea resumed talks at the historic
"truce village" Sunday in a bid to ease tensions and heated rhetoric that escalated last
week.
The talks, held inside the Demilitarized Zone, featured key players such as Hwang
Pyong So, who is the reclusive regime's leader's deputy and political director of North
Korea's army.
Also present was Kim Yang Gon, a veteran of negotiations with South Korea since Kim's
father, Kim Jong Il, ruled the secretive regime.
Korea watchers point to the seniority of the two men, particularly Hwang, as an
indication of the North's intentions.
"He can speak with the authority of Kim Jong Un. This is as high as you can go. He has
the longest history, best idea of what Kim Jong Un and what he's hoping to get out of it,"
Professor David Kang of the University of Southern California's Korean Studies Institute
told CNN.
Kim Yang Gon's attendance may signal that the North really wants serious wide-ranging
negotiations.
From South Korea, Kim Kwan-jin, national security adviser to the president; and
Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo attended the meeting.
Mistrust lingers
The talks take place against a backdrop of mutual mistrust. A South Korean Defense
Ministry official told CNN that the North had doubled artillery forces on the front lines in
comparison to the level before talks were proposed.
During the same period, the official said, 70% of the North's submarine units have left
their bases. Local media put the number of subs on patrol at around 50, although their
movements are not currently traceable.
"They are showing two faces," the source, who was not named, added.
"The joint forces between South Korea and the U.S. are currently putting its best eforts
in responding to it."
From the North's perspective, previous language that had been seen as conciliatory -its state media, KCNA, had referred to its southern neighbor by its official title, the
Republic of Korea -- has reverted to a more typical, inflammatory style.
"The south Korean puppet warmongers ran amuck for confrontation, firing shells to the
area of the DPRK's side," read one line from an official KCNA report dated Sunday,
which used an acronym for North Korea's official title, the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea.
The meeting comes after days of threats and counter-threats, which saw a brief
exchange of artillery fire Thursday.
Hostilities escalated this month after South Korea resumed propaganda broadcasts
against the North, which was blamed for a landmine explosion in the DMZ that wounded
two South Korean soldiers. The North resumed its anti-South broadcasts.
Propaganda loudspeakers, placed in 11 locations along the DMZ, are still "in operation,"
a South Korean Defense Ministry official told CNN.
The evacuation order to residents living near the DMZ is still in efect.
Kim Jong Un's regime Friday warned its southern neighbor to stop the "provocations"
and "psychological warfare" or pay the price.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said Saturday that its troops on the border areas were
on "regular position."
South Korea's pro-democracy broadcasts, via loud speakers across the border with the
North, restarted after the two South Korean soldiers were wounded by landmines.
Before the talks were announced, North Korean U.N. Ambassador An Myong Hun told
reporters: "If South Korea does not respond to our ultimatum ... our military
counteraction will be inevitable and that counteraction will be very strong."
As a result of the threats, residents in northern areas of South Korea, such as the district
of Yeoncheon, which neighbors the DMZ, were being urged to evacuate Saturday.
Threats almost normal, but this is pointed
North Korea's regime, known for being both thin-skinnedand fond of saber-rattling, has
made threats before, and when it does, South Koreans mostly just go about life as
usual.
Tensions have mounted since the two South Korean soldiers were seriously wounded by
landmines on August 4, including firing between the two sides.
One ongoing point of contention is South Korea's joint military exercises with the United
States -- a regular training event that An contends aims to "occupy Pyongyang."
Those exercises were suspended Thursday amid the war of words, U.S. Assistant
Secretary of Defense David Shear told reporters. But they're now back on.
"We suspended part of the exercise temporarily in order to allow our side to coordinate
with the ROK (Republic of Korea) side on the subject of the exchange fire across the
DMZ," Shear said. "And the exercise is being conducted now according to plan."
During such exercises in the past, Pyongyang has escalated posturing, propaganda and
threats.
North Korea calls broadcasts 'an open act of war'
South Korea and the U.S.-led U.N. Command in Korea concluded that North Korea
planted the mines that wounded the South Korean soldiers.
North Korea denied responsibility and refused demands for an apology.
Seoul has since resumed its cross-border propaganda broadcasts, which North Korea
called "an open act of war" and spurred it to threaten to blow up the speakers.
Korean crisis: What's behind the North-South divide?
(CNN)Here we go again.
After another war of words, and an exchange of fire across the world's most fortified
border, the two Koreas appear to be set on a collision course.
South Korea is angry at its unpredictable neighbor's provocations, while Kim Jong Un
has placed his front-line forces on a war footing. Though the two sides are now talking,
tensions remain high.
We look behind the scenes of this fractious relationship.
What happened this time?
On Thursday, the two sides traded artillery fire over the demilitarized zone -- though no
casualties were reported by either side.
READ: Korean rivals face of
Pyongyang hasn't explained its part in the incident, but a statement last week from the
state-run KCNA new agency accused South Korea of committing a "military
provocation."
Seoul, meanwhile, has accused the North of planting landmines deliberately in the path
of its patrols in the demilitarized zone after two soldiers were seriously wounded earlier
this month. North Korea has denied the allegation.
And if this wasn't enough, a massive military exercise involving South Korea, the United
States and a host of other allies is underway, which North Korea says it views as a
prelude to an invasion. It has threatened to retaliate against the U.S. "with tremendous
muscle."
According to the U.S. military, the purpose of the multinational exercise -- named Ulchi
Freedom Guardian -- is "to enhance ... readiness, protect the region and maintain
stability on the Korean peninsula."
But since the weekend, the two neighbors have been locked in high-level talks inside the
DMZ in a bid to scale back the tensions. Pyongyang has sent senior officials such as
Hwang Pyong So, the reclusive regime's leader's deputy and political director of North
Korea's army, and Kim Yang Gon, a veteran of negotiations with South Korea since
Kim's late father, Kim Jong Il, was in charge. Analysts suggest the attendance of such
high-ranking officials may signal that the North really wants serious wide-ranging
negotiations.
Should we be worried about this latest escalation?
Relations between the two neighbors -- who are technically still at war -- ebb and flow.
Earlier this year, an annual exercise between South Korean and U.S. forces, involving
thousands of troops and state of the art military hardware, didn't go down well with
North Korea. It fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea, also known as
the Sea of Japan, after slamming the exercises as "dangerous nuclear war drills for
invading the DPRK."
Leader Kim Jong Un then called for full combat readiness and oversaw military facilities,
according to KCNA.
"The North Koreans, being paranoid in their own way, have always had this concern: 'If
there is going to be an invasion, this would be the time,'" said Philip Yun, executive
director of the Ploughshares Fund, a group that advocates nuclear disarmament. "But
that's not the intent on the U.S.-South Korean side."
This time around, North Korea appeared to shoot at loudspeakers the South had set up
along the DMZ blaring out propaganda in the wake of the landmines incident, prompting
a retaliation from South Korean forces. Pyongyang had previously threatened to blow up
the speakers and warned of "indiscriminate strikes."
"North Korea is especially sensitive about propaganda from South Korea," explained
CNN's Seoul producer, KJ Kwon. "They've even shot at balloons carrying leaflets critical
of Pyongyang that activists have floated across the border."
So this isn't war then?
Unlikely. North Korea usually responds to "provocations" such as military drills with
angry rhetoric and perhaps a weapons test. Messages of impending doom and the firing
of short-range rockets or missiles into the sea tend to become routine as the military
exercises approach. "Their response is carefully calculated to convey a particular
message," said Kwon.
And that message is not always intended for its enemies abroad.
According to Yun of the Ploughshares Fund, playing up the threat from the U.S. helps
the North Korean leadership's propaganda eforts to control the population of the
isolated nation.
For now, the North is unlikely to push things any further. "According to analysts in South
Korea, they might move massive numbers of troops closer to the border and then
retreat, just as a provocation," said Kwon.
What next?
Predicting the secretive North Korean regime's next move is a notoriously difficult game.
Though tensions may not reach 2013 levels when long-range rocket tests and its third
nuclear test earned it tougher United Nations sanctions. Pyongyang responded by
ramping up its threats of nuclear war against South Korea and the United States.
One North Korean government website even uploaded a YouTube video showing
an imaginary missile attack on Washington.
The U.S. decision to fly B-2 stealth bombers, which are capable of carrying nuclear
weapons, over the region only served to further antagonize North Korea amid the
annual military drills.
"That was a really bad escalation of the tensions in the Korean peninsula," Tong Kim, a
visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute, part of Johns Hopkins University, said of the
period.
But Pyongyang's decision to carry out the rocket launch and nuclear test were most
likely carefully timed, according to Yun, who was part of U.S. teams that negotiated with
North Korea under former President Bill Clinton.
"They game everything out. They don't do things of the cuf for the most part," he said
of the North Koreans. "If they're going to do something very provocative, they have an
extensive decision tree laying out many options."
The moves appeared to be aimed at advancing North Korea's technology and making
Kim, still a relatively new leader, look strong inside the country, Yun said. They also
coincided with political transitions in South Korea, China and Japan.
The 'Kim factor' -- more dangerous than his father?
Kim Jong Un is "similar in action but stronger in rhetoric" than his father, Tong Kim said.
"Except that North Korea under Kim Jong Un has newer and more formidable
weapons."
Some of the techniques seen under Kim certainly recall those employed during his
father's rule.
During the tensions in early 2013, North Korea declared that the armistice agreement
that halted the Korean War in 1953 was no longer valid.
The announcement sounded unsettling, but North Korea had already said in 2009 that
its military was no longer bound by the armistice because South Korea was joining a
U.S.-led anti-proliferation plan.
In 2013, the North also tried using the silent treatment, cutting of a military hotline with
the South. That was similar to an approach it had adopted in 2009 when it stopped
responding to calls after the military exercises started.
But during 14 years of Kim Jong Il's rule, the United States and South Korea "had a
track record of what North Korea would do and a sense of what to expect," Yun said.
"Kim Jong Un was new, you didn't know how far he would go, which added to the
uncertainty."
Troubled history?
After Japan's defeat in World War II, Korea became a divided nation, the capitalist South
supported by the United States and its Western allies and the communist North an ally
of the Soviet Union.
Cold War tensions erupted into war 1950, devastating the peninsula and taking the lives
of as many as two million people. The fighting ended with a truce, not a treaty, and
settled little.
Besides the border skirmishes, other incidents also have proved provocative. In 1968,
North Korea dispatched commandos in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate South
Korea's President.
In 1983, a bombing linked to Pyongyang killed 17 high-level South Korean officials on a
visit to Myanmar.
In 1987, the North was accused of bombing a South Korean airliner.
And in 2009, Seoul said a North Korean torpedo sent the warship Cheonan to the
bottom of the Yellow Sea of the South Korean-controlled island of Baengnyeong. The
sinking, also in the border area, killed 46 South Korean sailors.
What does China's shock yuan devaluation mean for Africa?
(CNN)China's development decisions are critically important for Africa. In Lagos, Addis
and Johannesburg, China's surprise yuan devaluation has African analysts scratching
their heads.
Obviously Chinese goods will be cheaper in Africa, and African exports more expensive
in China. So far, this decision is just a tremor, not a quake. Yet why did China devalue,
and what is this likely to mean for Africa?
Deborah Brautigam
To understand China's devaluation, we need to take a step back. Beijing has been trying
to manage China's enormous structural transformation ever since Chinese leaders
made their historic decision to move out of poverty by turning to the market in the late
1970s. Their supercharged development model depended on low wages, high levels of
foreign and public investment, and rapidly expanding, cheap exports.
Today, China is an upper middle income country with more expensive labor. Their
economy is increasingly based on domestic innovation, consumption, and exports of
high-tech products. Chinese firms have become significant foreign investors themselves
with interests outside China's borders.
This has been mainly good news for Africa. China's growing reserves were recycled into
large loans for infrastructure finance across Africa. Prices for African commodities rose
with Chinese demand, helping underpin a long period of sustained -- if unequal - African
growth. Trade between Africa and China skyrocketed to $220 billion in 2014, nearly
three times the U.S. level. Consumers benefited from low cost cell phones and other
goods. On the down side, African manufacturing sufered from the competition with
Chinese imports. Critics charge that China's embrace -- like that of other major powers
-- has not budged African economies away from high dependence on raw material
exports.
The devaluation is a step backward in China's strategy. Chinese authorities had
pressing, but short-term political and economic reasons to devalue. Beijing's policymakers need to avoid rocking China's political stability, while still pushing forward with
measures that might cause temporary pain as they transform into a high income
economy. Slower growth is now necessary, but this needs to be gradual, not dramatic.
In 2015, China's economy began to slow a bit too rapidly. The Chinese had been using
their foreign exchange reserves to prop up the yuan against the challenge of a strong
dollar. This pushed their currency to appreciate by 14% over the past twelve months.
The stronger yuan led to a drop in Chinese exports: 8.3% in July alone. That month,
China's factory sector experienced its largest contraction in two years, leading to layofs.
Combined with the recent stock market crash, this was too much change, too quickly.
Last week's decision allowed the market a greater role in setting the yuan's value, and it
promptly fell. This should lead to a modest export recovery but will do little for the long
term goal of continued transformation.
Long-term view
So far, China's devaluation has been fairly modest -- about 4% -- but how will this be felt
in Africa?
- Prices for African commodities will worsen, then improve. In recent years, China's
slower growth has pushed down prices for gold, crude oil, copper, platinum and iron ore.
South Africa's mining sector was expected to lose over 10,000 jobs due to lower
demand.[vi] In response to China's devaluation, global prices for crude oil and some
other African commodities fell further.
These goods have now become more expensive for Chinese buyers using yuan to buy
inside China,leading to even lower demand. Yet over the medium term, if growth in
China picks up as a result of the devaluation, demand for Africa's commodities will
increase, and prices should recover.
- Africa will import even more from China. Cheaper Chinese exports will please African
consumers while putting Africa's manufacturers at a further disadvantage. There will be
more pressure for tarif protections.
Lower cost steel imported from China will hurt African steel producers, but will benefit
other manufacturers who use steel in their products. Chinese tourists will be more likely
to vacation at home as African safaris become relatively more expensive.
- China's African investments will be helped -- and hurt. The appreciation of the Chinese
yuan had eroded the value of profits from Chinese investments abroad when transmitted
back to China and exchanged into yuan. Now, Chinese investors will see their profits
from African investments automatically rise (in yuan terms) and this could lead them to
expand.
On the other hand, new investors will find that they have to pay more (in yuan) to buy
dollars for overseas investments. Furthermore, low wages in Ethiopia and elsewhere
had been attracting significant factory investment from China. With costs now relatively
lower in China, the push to relocate factories overseas will slow. This will save Chinese
jobs, but postpones Africa's own structural transformation.
In the short term it is hard to see how this devaluation can help Africa, notably its
productive and export sectors. But if this step backward works, China will bounce back
and Africans will benefit.
Beijing (CNN)Tattoos have a long history in China. But for most of that history they
were stigmatized, associated with prisoners, vagrants and the criminal underworld.
Thanks in part to the influence of celebrities and sports stars, tattoos have become
much more socially accepted in the past decade.
It's a trend driven by a younger generation that isn't afraid of standing out but also by the
sophisticated skills of China's tattoo artists.
"Ten years ago we still associated tattoos with bad people or gangsters. People who
wanted to get one were afraid of discrimination from society," says Liao Lijia, 28 a tattoo
artist at Creation Tattoo in Beijing.
"But tattoo culture is well accepted by Chinese people these days, especially in Beijing,
Shanghai or Guangzhou."
Scores of parlors are opening up in cities across China, and many are taking up the
tattoo gun hoping to get in on the increasingly lucrative trade.
"In the past three years, my custom has doubled every year," says Yu Haiyang, Liao's
boss. His studio takes on average around $10,500 a month.
"My income is 10 times more than six years ago," he adds.
Getting inked is one way for young people to forge their own identity and mark life
experiences -- bad or good.
"I think a tattoo is a sign of myself, like your name. It's the most special part of your
body, it makes you diferent. Shows your mind, your world," says Wang Zi, 28, a fashion
designer.
She has a tattoo of a hot air balloon on her shoulder blade, a design she drew herself to
cherish a childhood dream of flying in one.
Du Wei, 28, works in IT in Beijing. She has a tattoo of a butterfly on her chest -representing the memory of a baby she lost.
Just as Chinese characters are a popular choice in the West -- David Beckham
famously has a Chinese proverb tattooed on his torso -- in China some people like
tattoos of English words and phrases.
British football player David Beckham shows his tattoo to fans during his visit to Peking
University on March 24, 2013 in Beijing.
Popular words include "love,"and "forever." Others choose song lyrics such as lines from
the John Lennon's song "Imagine," or quotes from the Bible.
Tattoo artist Da Hua shows of a quote scrawled over the forearm of one client that
reads, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." He also takes inspiration from
Chinese legend, creating art that melds time and cultures.
Asia has long had its own tattoo culture. Japan is famed for its bold and highly
developed style.
Hong Kong is also a bastion -- the port city catering to British sailors of old, giving rise to
a mixture of traditional western tattoos -- the rose, the anchor -- with oriental motifs such
as the dragon and the tiger.
China is starting to develop its own unique styles, drawing on both ancient and modern
inspiration.
Qiao Zhengfei is a 20-year-old tattoo artist who opened up her own studio in her native
Xiamen before moving her business to Beijing.
She specializes in "blackwork," an intricate form based on a style of embroidery. The
former art theory student likes the fact that tattoos are a living embodiment of her work.
"It's an aesthetic choice," she says. "I couldn't see myself doing traditionally Chinese
tattoos like dragons and fish. They don't resonate with me."
In China, some parlors are cubicle afairs, a small square room with a curtain and
heavily tattooed proprietors.
Others boast large studios with grungy aesthetics and art adorning the walls.
The Chinese tattoo artists I spoke to shied away from calling their work an art form,
viewing it as a trade.
Eight years ago, Zhao Liang graduated from teaching college after majoring in art and
planned to find a teaching or civil service job.
"But they both were not well paid jobs. Since I have to support my family I thought I
should find a job that can earn a living."
One day, he saw a poster advertizing tattoos for 50 yuan ($8) each and thought about
giving it a go.
"Then I started doing (it). I just thought life is going to be better and better."
(CNN)When Rochelle Herman first heard Jared Fogle's alleged of-color comments
about young girls, she was so disturbed, she knew she had to do something, she said.
She recorded conversations with him for the FBI.
Fogle, a pitchman for Subway at the time, was attending a health event at a school in
Florida in 2007 when the incident occurred, Herman said. She was covering the event
for a local station when Fogle made a random comment.
"He told me that he thought middle school girls were so hot," Herman said. "I was in
shock ... I actually was questioning, 'Did I really just hear what I think I heard?' I looked
over at my cameraman ... and he was just astounded," she said.
Years later, Fogle is planning to plead guilty to child pornography charges. His plea will
include crossing state lines to pay for sex with minors, prosecutors said this week.
The plea deal would see him serve between five and 12 years in prison in a stunning
downfall from a celebrated pitchman to a sex ofender.
Herman saw Fogle numerous times over the years, and his comments and admissions
got more brazen, she said.
"He talked about sex with underage children," she said. "It was just something that he
really, really enjoyed," she said.
Herman said she notified law enforcement authorities, and the FBI asked her to wear a
wire to record her conversations with Fogle.
For years, she said, she worked undercover with authorities to gather evidence against
Fogle.
"He trusted me for unknown reasons," Herman told CNN's "AC360." "He had said to me
numerous times over the course of years about having sex with minors."
He got so comfortable with Herman, she said, he included her children in their
conversations.
"I had two young children at the time, and he talked to me about installing hidden
cameras in their rooms and asked me if I would choose which child I would like him to
watch," she said.
'I had to play a role'
Although she was horrified by his suggestion, she focused on gathering evidence to put
him behind bars.
"During the time that I had with the FBI, I had to play a role. I had to play a certain part
in order for Jared to be able to trust me and talk further into detail," she said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Indianapolis, where Fogle was based, said Herman's
information was part of the federal investigation into the former pitchman.
Tim Horty of the U.S. Attorney's Office said authorities also connected Fogle to alleged
child pornography during their investigation into Russell Taylor.
Taylor, a former director of Fogle's charity that focuses on children's health, is facing
child pornography charges as well. Authorities allege he had images and videos of
minors engaging in sexual conduct that he shared with Fogle.
Fogle will plead guilty to possessing and distributing child porn and to traveling across
state lines to have sex with at least two teenage girls.
Attempting to make amends
Under the plea deal, the government will recommend less than 13 years in prison for
Fogle. And his lawyers agree to ask the judge for no less than five years in prison.
Fogle, 37, will also pay restitution to the 14 victims who were secretly photographed or
who he paid for sex. Each victim will get $100,000 to help with counseling, support and
other assistance.
By admitting to the crimes, Fogle is accepting responsibility and attempting to make
amends, his defense team said in a statement.
His lawyers said he is also undergoing examination by sexual conditions experts with a
goal of becoming healthy.
No date has been set for his next court date, where he will formally enter a plea.
Fogle became a household name 15 years ago after he lost more than 200 pounds on
what he described as the Subway diet. He became the face of the restaurant chain,
appearing in ads nationwide.
Tattoos last, but for 1 out of 10, so does the pain
(CNN)An estimated 25% of people in the United States have a permanent tattoo,
making it one of the most popular forms of body art. But those colorful etchings of birds
and symbols can sometimes cause ugly and painful skin problems. A new study
suggests that 10% of people who get inked experience infections, itching and other
adverse reactions, sometimes lasting more than four months.
Researchers at New York University asked people in Central Park whether they had a
tattoo, and if so, whether they had any reactions after getting tattooed that they thought
were out of the ordinary, such as redness and scarring.
Out of the 300 people the researchers surveyed, 31 (10.3%) said they developed
abnormal reactions. In 4% of these cases, the reactions, including pain, itching and
infection, went away within four months. Some required antibiotics. The other 6% had
itching, scaly skin and swelling around the tattoo site that lasted for more than four
months.
"I was totally surprised by these numbers," said Dr. Marie C. Leger, assistant professor
of dermatology at NYU Langone Medical Center and lead author of the study, which
was published Thursday in the journal Contact Dermatitis. "I see patients with
complaints about their tattoos, but I didn't have any idea how common it was," Leger
added.
However, as Leger pointed out, it is not clear if the numbers in her study are
representative of this large subset of the population. Researchers need to study bigger
groups of people, and follow up with physical exams and biopsies to confirm and
diagnose their conditions, she said.
Leger got motivated to study tattoo complications after treating a patient who developed
itching and raised, scaly skin around only the red parts of a tattoo on her arm. She had
the first tattoo for years but the symptoms started after getting a more recent tattoo on
her foot. In addition to the problems at the tattoo site, she developed a rash over her
whole body. "It was like her body decided after being exposed to red dye more than
once, that it just didn't like it," Leger said.
There are many questions over what is causing these undesirable side efects. Leger
said she suspects that allergic reactions to the dyes, especially red dye, are responsible
for some of the chronic reactions lasting more than four months.
In Leger's small survey, chronic reactions were more likely in people who had more
variety of colors, and red seemed to be particular problematic. Other small studies have
also reported lesions associated with red tattoos.
If chronic problems do arise, it is possible to remove the tattoo, Leger said. However in
the case of the patient who inspired the current study, the tattoos covered too much of
her body to easily excise.
Many of the problems that the survey captured, both the acute and chronic reactions,
"don't have anything to do with the tattoo parlor or the artist," Leger stressed. "It's not
anybody's fault, it's body meets ink and what happens," she said.
Nevertheless, some of the acute problems that occur in the days and weeks after body
and ink meet can be avoided. For example, people should make sure to clean the tattoo
site to reduce infection risk, and follow other instructions from the tattoo artist, Leger
said. The study found that acute problems were more likely among people who had
many tattoos and tattoos that covered a large part of their body.
If any signs of an infection develop, such as warmth, swelling and drainage at the tattoo,
people should go to an urgent care clinic or get some other medical help immediately,
Leger said.
Although the numbers in the New York survey seem high, they may underestimate the
complications linked with getting tatted. "Some of the skin reactions may be very subtle
and require a dermatologist to diagnose exactly what it is," said Dr. Jared Jagdeo,
assistant professor of dermatology at UC Davis, who was not involved in the current
research. Problems with tattoos on the back or other out-of-sight areas may go
unnoticed, too, he added.
Studies in Europe have found similar, and in some cases higher, rates of tattoo
complications.
"The findings [of the current study] highlight the importance of educating the general
public prior to tattooing," Jagdeo said. "Anytime you introduce a foreign substance into
the body, in this case the skin, there is the potential for adverse events [such as]
infection or something more serious like an allergic reaction," he said.
However, tattooing is a lot safer now that many states and cities inspect tattoo parlors to
make sure they are using safe practices and equipment such as single-use needles,
Jagdeo said.
There are no federal regulations on tattoo ink. "I think the composition of dyes is an area
that will be looked at in the future at the state and potentially federal level," Jagdeo said.
"This study is very important to bring attention to this important topic," he said.
By Rhea Wessel
19 August 2015
It may sound a bit odd to have a chat with yourself every morning,
repeating phrases like, "My arms and legs are heavy. My arms
and legs are warm. My heart is calm and regular."
But these are precisely the kinds of statements repeated by
people who perform autogenic training, or the practice of autosuggestion to reduce stress and increase concentration.
Konstanze, who preferred not to give her last name, learned the
technique as a child growing up in eastern Germany. At 16, she
was having trouble breathing while playing sport. Her doctors
recommended an autogenic training course.
"I remember saying, 'This is nonsense.' We had to sit on the edge
of our chairs and plant our feet on the ground, our arms hanging
down. It was like sitting as a coach driver. The leader would then
tell us where to concentrate on our feet, toes, lower legs," she
said. Now after decades of practice, Konstanze has been won
over. "When I take this journey through my body, I notice that I'm
much more relaxed and take things easier. I am energetic until
late at night."
Leaving work behind
Another benefit Konstanze describes is being able to switch off
her thoughts about the office when she's not there. "When I leave
work, I'm not interested in my problems there. In autogenic
training and yoga, you learn to cut off the thoughts that fill a racing
mind by focusing on something banal, like your toes. If you're
thinking about your big toe, then your thoughts cannot race to the
undone laundry or shopping," she said.
By Michelle Goodman
10 April 2014
a number of them then spent even more time refilling their coffee
mugs or splashing water on their faces in an attempt to snap back
to work form.
The whole process would waste anywhere from 30 minutes to an
hour-and-a-half, Mushtaq said.
Employee productivity took a hit, too. Six months into the nap
programme, the once-efficient team was reaching only 55% of its
weekly goals, down some 30 percentage points from before the
sleep experiment, Mushtaq explained.
Studies and productivity experts show that power naps and
relaxation breaks can restore energy and focus during the
workday, even during the dreaded mid-afternoon slump. A number
of leading companies, in an effort to keep employees engaged
and focused, now offer nap rooms or encourage an afternoon
break away from the desk. Among them: Apple, Nike and Procter
& Gamble in the US, and HootSuite and Intuit in Canada.
MetroNaps, a New York company that produces sleeping pods
that look like space-age lounge chairs, counts Google, Huffington
Post and Cisco Systems among its worldwide customers.
Managers eager to appeal to employees concerned with work-life
balance sing the praises of such programmes. But lurking behind
the lounge chairs and mood lighting are some surprising
drawbacks that are only now coming to the forefront.
Not everyone wakes up from a snooze able to bounce back to
their previous energy levels. And not all employees who leave
their workstation for a quick walk or game of table football or
table tennis return promptly. Managers whove instituted these
programmes then find themselves tasked with a job more akin to
that of a kindergarten teacher overseeing a room of toddlers
The company doesnt have any hard and fast break rules, said
Matt Powers, Blue Sodas internet marketer. But, Powers said, he
and his co-workers know better than to abandon their
workstations at the expense of deadlines or linger too long in
relaxation-land.
An appreciation of the companys work hard, play hard culture
and a vigilance in meeting deadlines has been key to the
programmes success.
If [abuses] happen, its because they lost track of time or maybe
relaxation turned into a nap, Powers explained.
A gentle Where have you been? from a peer or manager is
usually all it takes to ensure a negligent break-taker doesnt do it
again, he said.
Relaxing more efficiently
Simon Hudson, founder and CEO of Brndstr, a social branding
start-up in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates trialled a nap room
on company premises for two months before scrapping the idea.
Having team members disappear in to a secluded room to doze
was simply too disruptive.
When youre in start-up stage, you need ideas and chats to
include everyone, Hudson said.
Instead, he set up a cluster of sofas, comfortable chairs, a 50-inch
television and a PlayStation console in a corner of his teams large
open office.
By being in the main room, a sense of guilt will always kick in,
Hudson said.
By Kate Ashford
7 April 2014
What if you didnt have to wait until you were in your mid-sixties to
retire? What about 50, or even just as you hit your 40th birthday?
Dont laugh with enough dedication, you could say goodbye to
your full-time job years sooner than you think.
We all dream of retiring early with a fantastic pension and no
money worries, said Victoria Lewis, a financial adviser with the
Spectrum IFA Group in Paris, France. You just have to put the
right plan in place.
What counts as early retirement? In the United States, the
average adult retires at 61, according to a Gallup poll. In Australia,
men retiring within the last five years were 61.5 to 63.3, on
average, and women were 59.6, according to the Australian
Bureau of Statistics. Whereas in Japan, the average worker retires
at 69.1, and in Luxembourg, the average retirement age is 57.6,
according to the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Based on those averages, financial experts consider an early
retirement age to be under 55, and typically between age 50 and
55. But in some countries, like India, for instance, where twothirds of the population is 35 or younger, this, more youthful
working population has its goal set to retire earlier at 45 or 50,
said Lovaii Navlakhi, founder and chief executive officer of
financial planning firm International Money Matters in Bangalore.
Here is some advice on making it happen:
What it will take: Dropping out of the workforce years before
everyone else, means you have to be completely debt free, with
savings equal to about 25 times the income you wish to achieve in
retirement, taking any government pensions or payments into
account.
By Elizabeth Garone
17 August 2015
Are you in the exact same position? ... Did they get their
salary through seniority or performance bonuses?
It can happen to the best of us. You think that you have done a
stellar job of negotiating your compensation package only to find
out shortly after you start that your pay is substantially lower than
a colleague's in the same position.
Your first instinct might be to go running into your supervisors
office, screaming about the injustice of it all. But youll be sorry if
you take such a combative approach.
This is a tricky position to be in. On the one hand, you want to be
paid appropriately for the skills youre contributing to the business
(CNN)Does she really have a headache? And if not, could a little pink pill help?
For the most part, we know that for many women, the only "headache" that is causing
her to avoid sex is fatigue or relationship issues. (If it were George Clooney asking for
sex, that headache might miraculously disappear.)
But I don't believe that being tired or out of sorts are the only reasons women lose
desire.
Which is why the Food and Drug Administration announcing its approval this week of a
"female Viagra" is intriguing -- and appealing: the idea that a pill could restore libido in
women, just the way Viagra has improved the hydraulics for millions of men.
Pepper Schwartz
The move came after an organization recently launched a pressure campaign, backed
in part by the drug's developer, to push the FDA for approval, saying gender bias has
kept such a pill from women.
It's a complicated issue, no question. But some women are genuinely upset about their
loss of libido. They are searching for help and deserve to have it.
In so many sexuality and relationship workshops I have conducted with women, I have
heard the following lament: "I love my husband. I used to crave making love with him.
But now I feel nothing. I wish I could reclaim my sexual desire and sexual pleasure." In
these cases I don't think it's the relationship that's the issue, or having a partner who is
sexually inept, or the efect of memories from earlier sexual trauma. No, something else
is going on.
That said, it is not clear what will help a woman who lacks desire and has little ability to
be aroused. Consider: Early clinical trials for Viagra to see if it would stimulate women's
sexual desire didn't do so well. One study by psychologists Andrea Bradford and Cindy
Meston found that if women thought they were taking a sexual arousal drug but were
instead taking a placebo, they still reported a rise in libido. These authors found an
almost uniform rise in libido, particularly if the women were in a long relationship.
The "placebo efect" is powerful -- so powerful that it is difficult to get the FDA to pass
any drug because, quite reasonably, a new medication needs to be more efective than
the results that occur in the placebo control group. This was initially believed to be the
case with flibanserin, the desire drug that will be sold as Addyi.
Furthermore, even some of the people on the FDA advisory committee who voted in
June to recommend the drug's approval were worried that the results were small and
side efects worrisome, although not huge (mostly nausea and fainting). Dr. Julia
Heiman, a respected psychologist and past head of the Kinsey Institute, once joked with
me that she sometimes wished it was possible to sell a placebo as the real thing
because then you could get the same results for a lot of people without any side efects.
But the fierce fight between advocates of a desire drug and doctors and psychologists
who believe that the approval of flibanserin creates a pathological condition where none
exists is no laughing matter. One side hopes for a pill to help solve desire problems; the
other looks to natural attenuation of desire or to psychological and relationship issues.
The fact remains that there is medical evidence that not all desire is impeded by
interpersonal or intrapersonal issues. We know, for example, that "stress hormones"
make sexual desire unlikely. We also know that many modern medications, for example
anti-depression drugs or drugs used to treat heart disease, cancer and diabetes, will
afect desire and sexual ability -- so why is it unthinkable that some women's current
physiological functioning impedes sexual response? And could be helped with
medicine?
I know this has become a feminist issue. But interestingly enough, there are feminists on
both sides of the debate: Some support the idea of a pill, and believe that women
deserve a desire drug, and others feel this is just another plot to label women as
dysfunctional when there is evidence that losing sexual desire over the life cycle may be
a natural consequence of hormonal change that doesn't need to be fixed.
I get both sides, but I have landed on the former. Even if loss of sexual desire is normal
in some women, it is not optimal. I am not, for example, as physically strong as I used to
be, but I know if I work out I can be stronger than if I don't. Am I rejecting nature?
Correct: I am. Nature may take us some places we don't want to go -- and if an exercise
regimen, a pill or even a tummy tuck (not done yet, but I would consider it!) help us
resist changes we do not want to accept, I'm all for it.
Up to a point. Any new regimen has to be safe and efective.
I presume that the FDA decided that the benefits were high enough, and the side efects
low enough, to approve the drug. The "pill" has to work better than a placebo, and the
side efects have to be reasonable and unlikely. I understand that there are some side
efects, but let's face it, nothing is cost-free and most women who yearn for their lost
desire would likely be happy to take on moderate costs to jump-start their sex lives.
For myself, the capacity for sexual desire is an important part of my identity and my
pleasure in life. If it were ever to go away spontaneously, I will be first in line for that little
pill.
In 2012, the Hubble Space Telescope observed water vapor above the south polar
region of Europa.
And work begins this summer on a spacecraft that will explore the gas giant Jupiter and
several of its moons. Airbus Defence and Space in France was selected by the
European Space Agency to build the probe for a launch in 2022.
Called Juice (from JUpiter ICy Moons Explorer), the mission aims to study not only
Jupiter and Europa but two of its other moons: Ganymede and Callisto.
It will spend 3 years exploring the Jovian system after a journey of more than seven
years.
The project scientist for the Juice mission, Olivier Witasse, said there was no direct
proof, but there are hints that there could be oceans hidden below the moons' crusts.
"The mission aims to try to confirm this and find out how deep they are," he said.
Witasse said the project, which will cost about 900 million euros (about $993 million), is
very exciting because it will allow for "multiple flybys of diverse moons."
To date, most of the planets discovered beyond our own solar system -- so-called
exoplanets -- have been gas giants. If Juice could find evidence of habitable zones on
the moons of Jupiter, it gives hope to those looking for habitable environments in the
wider universe.
The ESA says on its Juice website, "Understanding the Jovian system and unravelling
its history, from its origin to the possible emergence of habitable environments, will give
us a better insight into how gas giant planets and their satellites form and evolve. In
addition, new light should be shed on the potential for the emergence of life in Jupiterlike exoplanetary systems."
It's a possibility that fascinates Joanna Barstow, a researcher in planetary science at the
University of Oxford.
"Since long before we started our robotic exploration of the solar system, we wondered
if there was life on another world," she said.
"Some of the moons of Jupiter, even though their surfaces are covered with ice, might
have liquid water oceans hiding under the surface. Maybe they are sheltering bacterial
life as well? We'd love to find out.
"Finding rocky planets around other stars is tricky, because they are so small: The Earth
is less than a 10th the size of Jupiter. So finding Jupiter-sized planets is much easier,
and there's no reason why we wouldn't expect other Jupiters to have moons. But a
cautionary word: We have never found an exo-moon, and of course they are also small,
and small things are hard to see."
Eight new planets might be capable of hosting life
The Juice mission faces considerable challenges.
Didier Morancais, key account manager for science and exploration at Airbus Defence
and Space, explained that the solar panels have to be huge to be able to generate
enough power at Jupiter, where, he said, the sunlight energy is 25 times lower than on
Earth. The company says solar generators will cover 97 square meters, the largest built
for an interplanetary mission.
The panels also have to be light but strong enough to withstand the forces of
deceleration when the probe is put into orbit.
Juice will tour the three moons, spending eight months orbiting Ganymede. It requires a
complex trajectory that Morancais described as "highly critical."
If that wasn't difficult enough, the instruments have to be shielded from the intense
magnetic field around Jupiter, which can interfere with the sensitive equipment.
So what does NASA say about the target moons on its website?
Europa: The moon stretches and flexes in its orbit, creating heat and possibly
explaining the cracks seen on its surface. It is thought that there could be a saltwater
ocean beneath a thin ice shell.
Callisto: NASA says it is the most heavily cratered object in the solar system. Its interior
is a rocky core surrounded by a large ice mantle.
Ganymede: Although a moon, it is larger than both Mercury and Pluto and has an iron
core surrounded by a shell of ice and rock.
Any discoveries from Juice are more than 15 years away, but in the meantime, the
search for more Earth-like planets goes on.
Barstow points to one particularly interesting discovery that is tantalizing scientists.
"Gliese 1214 b is a type of planet we call a Super-Earth: a bit bigger than Earth, a bit
smaller than Neptune. It's not dense enough to be rocky, so it's probably like a warm
mini-Neptune. There's nothing like it in our solar system, and we don't really know what
to expect," she said.
"On my wish list for the future is a telescope to study exoplanets like Gliese 1214 b in
more detail. I want to know what's going on beneath that cloud layer!"