Women Only Buses in Pakistan

Will Pakistan's women-only bus service reduce harassment?

Authorities in Pakistan have launched a minibus service exclusively for women travelling between the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Women in Pakistan often run the risk of being physically and verbally abused while travelling on public transport - but previous attempts to introduce women-only buses in other cities in Pakistan have failed. Ridiculous situation in a supposedly enlightened age.

Malaysia Airlines plane: 'Credible sightings' of debris

20 March 2014

There have been "credible sightings" of possible debris from Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 aircraft, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).

AMSA General Manager John Young said the objects were a "reasonable size" but "relatively indistinct".

Ask Maxy

Dear Maxy,
I've considered  writing  every time  I read  about some one who thinks  their spouse  is having an affair . Facebook and other social media have opened the door  to secret  connections . I didn't  fully understand  the issue  until  I found that my husband  was  communicating with various other women this way .
I never  expected  this . My husband  was an upstanding 
professional  and we had been married  25 years  . When  someone  gets caught  communicating with another and protests  that "nothing  happened," what they mean is  that they aren't  yet sexually  involved . But a lot  has happened . It's  a betrayal . Once a husband  or wife  closes a window  to the  spouse  and opens  it to  another person, it creates  an intimacy .
A better  definition  of an affair  is that  it's something that  violates  trust . My husband  and I now  work every day to keep those windows  open . He finally understands  that  it's not  sex that makes the affair. It's taking your emotional  passion  and giving  it to someone else  other than  your  spouse .
Trusting again
Dear Trusting ,
I agree  that trust  is the bottom line  of  any relationship, providing  the security  and  confidence  that allow  it to survive  for the long haul . I am glad  that you and  your husband  managed  to work  on this  together  and repair  your marriage .
Well done,
Maxy
Dear  Maxy ,
I am 60-years-old  and feel  that I have accomplished next to nothing . The only worthwhile  things are my husband, two children  and a lovely granddaughter. They are the  lights  of my life .
I was let  go from  a previous job . My current  job  is awful  and it  stresses me out . But I have no computer training so a job change  is not in the cards . Because  my job pays  next to nothing , I began charging things on credit  . I'm now in deep credit-card  debt  and am desperate  to find the funds  to pay  it off.
I'm a hard worker, but feel like a useless failure . Don't tell  me to see a counselor, because there is no money  to pay for it . If my car dies on me, I'll be walking 6 miles to work .
At this time, I thought I'd be  better off . Please tell me I can do it .
End of The  Line
Dear End,
The quality of your life  should  not be based  solely on your financial  situation. Can your husband  help pay off this debt ? Surely he would want to be supportive . Also try Debtors Anonymous (debtorsanonymous.org) . For  a  job, contact  your local city hall  or state  government offices  for help .  Then Try AARP (aarp.org) , which  offers  information  and resources  for senior-friendly companies .
But also, please don't disregard  your depression. There is free  and low-cost  counseling  available  through  your local county services, the YWCA and any graduate  school counseling department  or  medical school psychology department, United Way, the Samaritan Institute (samaritaninstitute.org) and the Abraham Low Self-Help Systems (lowself-helpsystems.org) .
 You are appreciated and loved by your family and you will find  your way. Don't lose heart.
Maxy

Dear Maxy,
I am a college senior  and I am concerned  about my upcoming journey into the real world . I am preparing  myself  to apply for jobs but I am very shy . I have attended  job fairs on campus, but  when I go, I just briefly greet the recruiter, put my  resume on the table  and run away . What are some networking tips shy people should keep in mind  when approaching  recruiters ?
Shy Senior
Dear Shy Senior ,
Keep your focus on your goal . Be clear  about the type of job you want . Make sure your resume  expresses your interest and your experience . Do your research  to find out  which recruiters  represent jobs in your area  of interest . Seek those particular people out as you move  through the  job fair . It will be easier  for you to go to each targeted recruiter  rather  than feeling  like you have to search  through  an endless sea of people .
When  you approach  a recruiter, make eye contact  and offer a firm handshake . State your name  and say that you have  looked him /or her up  and believe  that  you  might be a good  fit  for the  company .
Having done research in advance shows that  you are a strategic  thinker  and a planner . The recruiter will probably  appreciate that and  invite you to talk . When you talk, stick to the facts at first . Answer  any questions  you are asked . As  you loosen  up share things about yourself  that reveal your uniqueness . Follow up with a thank-you note expressing  gratitude  for the opportunity  to meet  the recruiter . State  that you hope  to be considered  for the position  you discussed . You can do this.
Maxy

Pistorius on his stumps when he opened fire

Captain Christian Mangena said Pistorius was most likely not wearing his prosthetic legs when he shot Reeva Steenkamp

A key police ballistics expert has said Oscar Pistorius was not wearing his prosthetic legs when he shot his girlfriend, as the athlete's trial continued in South Africa. Correspondents say this lends support to the defence team's insistence that the shooting was not premeditated. Mr Pistorius denies murdering Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day 2013, saying he thought she was an intruder. The prosecution says he intentionally shot her after an argument.

On day 13 of the trial, Captain Christian Mangena said analysis of the crime scene and his subsequent tests suggested that Mr Pistorius, 27, was not wearing the prostheses when he fired the fatal shots.

Capt Mangena also said that while he had not been able to determine the exact distance, the evidence pointed to the shots having been fired from a position greater than 60cm (23 inches) away from the toilet door but no further than 3m. Correspondents say this is in line with the athlete's testimony that he pulled the trigger while standing at the entrance to the bathroom.

Oscar Pistorius sat with his fingers in his ears as details of Reeva Steenkamp's injuries were read out. Explaining the trajectory of the bullets, Capt Mangena said that Ms Steenkamp, 29, was standing up in the toilet cubicle when she was hit in the right hip by the first of four bullets.


It was a high energy day in court as the state's ballistics expert gave his findings. Christian Mangena, with 20 years of experience in the South African Police Service, stood his ground while being cross-examined by defence lawyer Barry Roux.

Capt Mangena came across as professional and prepared and may have restored some respect to the police service after a few blunders in the investigation. Mr Roux is known for his gruelling style of questioning, but Capt Mangena showed no doubt in his version of events, insisting: "That is my version. I will not change my version."
It's no secret here that the police have limited resources compared to Mr Pistorius' highly paid team of experts. Proceedings have begun to resemble a childish game of "my experts are better than yours". But who will the court believe?

He said she then fell backwards before being hit in the arm and the head by the last two bullets fired by Mr Pistorius through the wooden door as she crossed both hands over her head to protect herself.
'She dropped immediately'. Contradicting the athlete's testimony that the shots had been fired in close succession, Capt Mangena said there had been a short break between the first and second shots and that the second bullet missed Ms Steenkamp. Correspondents say this corroborates evidence given by a neighbour who said she heard a shot, then a pause, then three further shots. It also suggests that Ms Steenkamp may have had time to scream before she fell to the floor, supporting the neighbour's testimony that she had heard a woman screaming.

"I'm of the opinion that after [the first] wound was inflicted... she dropped immediately," Capt Mangena said. She then slumped into a "seated or semi-seated position" on top of a magazine rack, according to the police officer.

After the third and fourth shots she "ended up with her head on top of the toilet seat, and the lower part of her body on the rack", Capt Mangena added.
But defence lawyer Barry Roux contested Capt Mangena's evidence on the timing, maintaining that the bullets could have been fired in quick succession using a "double tap" technique - where the trigger is pulled in quick succession.

Capt Mangena insisted this was "impossible", saying that if this had been the case then Ms Steenkamp's wounds would have been in the same area of her body.

Oscar Pistorius was comforted by his sister Aimee as the trial was adjourned on day 13
 

The court also heard from Col Mike Sales, an officer in the police technological investigations department, who analysed data from Mr Pistorius' smartphones and tablets. Col Sales said several websites had been browsed on the athlete's iPad on the evening of the shooting, although he could not confirm who had been using the iPad. The internet history featured searches for used cars, including an Aston Martin and a Ford Ranger, and a free pornography website.

The court was adjourned until Monday after the prosecution said it would only call on five more witnesses. There are no juries at trials in South Africa, and the fate of Mr Pistorius will ultimately be decided by the judge, assisted by two assessors.

If found guilty, the 27-year-old - a national sports hero and double amputee dubbed the "blade runner" because of the prosthetic limbs he wears to race - could face life imprisonment.

INTERACTIVE view of Pistorius home

Putin Annexes Crimea

 With a sweep of his pen, President Vladimir Putin added Crimea to the map of Russia on Tuesday, describing the move as correcting a past injustice and responding to what he called Western encroachment upon Russia's vital interests.

While his actions were met with cheers in Crimea and Russia, Ukraine's new government called Putin a threat to the whole world and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden warned that the U.S. and Europe will impose further sanctions against Moscow.
"The world has seen through Russia's actions and has rejected the flawed logic," Biden said as he met with anxious European leaders in Poland.
In an emotional 40-minute speech televised live from the Kremlin's white-and-gold St. George hall, the Russian leader said he was merely restoring order to history by incorporating Crimea.
"In people's hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an integral part of Russia," he declared.
He dismissed Western criticism of Sunday's Crimean referendum - in which residents of the strategic Black Sea peninsula overwhelmingly backed leaving Ukraine and joining Russia - as a manifestation of the West's double standards. Often interrupted by applause, Putin said the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine had been abused by the new Ukrainian government and insisted that Crimea's vote to join Russia was in line with international law and reflected its right for self-determination.
Putin said his actions followed what he described as Western arrogance, hypocrisy and pressure, and warned that the West must drop its stubborn refusal to take Russian concerns into account.
"If you push a spring too hard at some point it will spring back," he said, addressing the West. "You always need to remember this."
While Putin boasted that the Russian takeover of Crimea was conducted without a single shot, a Ukrainian military spokesman said one Ukrainian serviceman was killed and another injured when a military facility in Crimea was stormed Tuesday by armed men just hours after Putin's speech. As for the sanctions brought to bear on his country, he completely ignores them.
Joe Biden, visiting Poland, condemns Russian 'land grab'
The U.S. immediately fired back, with Vice President Joe Biden condemning Putin's actions and vowing to impose more sanctions against Russia.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Warsaw on Tuesday. During his trip to the region, Biden is set to speak about the Ukraine crisis with the leaders of Poland, Estonia and Lithuania.

Biden, speaking in Warsaw next to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, said the world has seen through Russia's actions in Crimea, which he called "nothing more than a land grab."
Biden says virtually the entire world rejects the referendum in Crimea that cleared the way for Russia to annex the peninsula in Ukraine. The Crimea crisis is not just a problem for Ukraine ...but also for the 'global community'. Many leaders feel that the underlying motive for the grab is to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, something that Russia would like to prevent.
G7 leaders to talk Ukraine at The Hague
The United States and its G7 allies will gather next week at The Hague to consider further response to Russia's attempt to absorb Ukraine's Crimea region, the White House said on Tuesday.

The meeting will take place on the margins of a nuclear security summit at The Hague that President Obama plans to attend.
"The meeting will focus on the situation in Ukraine and further steps that the G7 may take to respond to developments and to support Ukraine," said White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden.

On Monday, the White House imposed asset freezes on seven Russian officials, including Putin' close ally Valentina Matvienko, who is speaker of the upper house of parliament, and Vladislav Surkov,
one of Putin's top ideological aides. The Treasury Department also targeted Yanukovych, Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov and two other top figures.
The EU's foreign ministers slapped travel bans and asset freezes against 21 officials from Russia and Ukraine.
Despite Obama's vow of tougher measures, stock markets in Russia and Europe rose sharply, reflecting relief that trade and business ties were spared.
"I guess the market view is that Russia forced their case in Crimea, pushed through the referendum, and the Western reaction was muted, so that this opens the way for future Russian intervention in Ukraine," said Tim Ash, an analyst who follows Ukraine at Standard Bank PLC.
Biden is also set to meet with the leaders of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia while he's on the road.
New concerns in Ukraine as Russia ignores sanctions
Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said in a televised statement that Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies have gathered "convincing evidence of the participation of Russian special services in organizing unrest in the east of our country."

Members of a 'Maidan' self-defense battalion take part in a training at a Ukrainian Interior Ministry base near Kyiv. Ukraine's parliament, seeking to boost the country's military force in the face of Russia's takeover of the Crimea peninsula, endorsed a presidential decree on Monday to carry out a partial mobilization involving 40,000 reservists.

Many in the ethnic Tatar minority in Crimea were wary of the referendum, fearing that Crimea's break-off from Ukraine would set off violence against them.

Crimean Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev seemed to confirm those fears, saying in remarks carried by the RIA Novosti news agency that the government would ask Tatars to "vacate" some of the lands they "illegally" occupy so authorities can use them for "social needs."

The Russian State Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution condemning U.S. sanctions targeting Russian officials including members of the chamber. The chamber challenged President Barack Obama to extend the sanctions to all the 353 deputies who voted for Tuesday's resolution, suggesting that being targeted was a badge of honour. Eighty-eight deputies wishing to remain neutral left the house before the vote.

Putin's senior foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov blasted the new sanctions in an interview with Russian news agencies. “We are fed up with these sanctions,” Ushakov said.

“They provoke only feelings of irony and sarcasm.”

Malaysian Plane Deliberately Diverted, Officials Confirm

Still searching

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia called for satellite and radar data from 22 countries as the search for a missing airliner evolved to include a massive criminal investigation alongside the physical hunt for the plane.
U.S. officials confirmed that they had examined the names of the passengers and crew members on ­Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 for possible connections to terrorist groups — none have been disclosed — but also expressed frustration that Malaysia had not asked for more extensive help from the FBI in investigating what is now thought to be a “deliberate act.”


India said Sunday that it had suspended its involvement in the search for the plane until it becomes clearer where its ships and planes should be looking — or how its officials might support the criminal side of the probe. Privately, Indian officials were also upset over Malaysia’s handling of the case and the massive area they were expected to scour — an example of how regional tensions and backbiting have plagued the investigation.
Attention focused Sunday on the plane’s pilot and co-pilot after authorities searched the homes of both men and removed the captain’s flight simulator. Analysts tried to divine the significance of the fact that a satellite-based flight data system on the plane had been shut down before a crew member — or whoever was in the cockpit — signed off to Malaysian air traffic control with a seemingly innocuous “All right, good night” before the plane left Malaysian airspace.


That detail, confirmed by Malaysian authorities, suggests that the person at the controls of the plane continued to indicate that all was fine even though the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, known as ACARS, had gone off-line. The plane’s transponder — a separate device that provides a precise location to radar systems — was shut down later. The sequence of events, analysts say, appeared consistent with an effort to conceal the aircraft’s position and direction as it veered from its intended northeast path toward Beijing. Ron Carr, who spent 39 years flying for the Air Force and American Airlines before becoming a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, said that it is “very rare” for ACARS units to malfunction but that the system could be deliberately switched off through its circuit breaker.


From a regional search a week ago in shallow waters in the vicinity of a presumed crash, the disappearance of Flight MH370 has now forced authorities to think along two equally complex tracks: how to find a plane that may have wrecked anywhere over tens of thousands of square miles of ocean and land, and how to home in on a theory about who steered it astray and why.
The physical search now spans much of Asia and extends deep into the Indian Ocean, toward areas where debris could remain unnoticed for years. At the same time, no evidence has surfaced indicating a perpetrator or motive for a criminal act. Even if passengers initially survived whatever happened, the plane carried only limited emergency supplies.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that none of the theories about the fate of the plane had risen “from plausible to the probable.” Despite the speculation about flight directions and timelines, the aircraft may well be “at the bottom of the Indian Ocean,” he said.

Crimea referendum: Voters 'back Russia union'

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Some 95.5% of voters in Crimea have supported joining Russia, officials say, after the votes have been counted in a disputed referendum. Crimea's leader says he will apply to join Russia on Monday. Russia's Vladimir Putin has said he will respect the Crimean people's wishes.



The referendum took place after 10 days' notice, without a proper campaign or public debate, with the political leaders of the country being unable to visit Crimea, and in the presence of many thousands of troops from a foreign country.  The EU says it is a mockery of proper democratic practice.The majority of the international community  do not recognize the referendum or its outcome. With reports of more disturbances in the city of Donetsk in the largely pro-Russian eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin  has been warned against any further military incursion into Ukrainian territory.

"Any attempt by the Russian Federation to use the referendum as an excuse to annex the Crimea, or to take further action on Ukrainian territory, would be unacceptable," said Mr Hague, Britain's foreign minister .

"I call on Russia to enter into dialogue with Ukraine and with the international community to resolve this crisis through diplomacy and in accordance with international law, not to exacerbate it further through unilateral and provocative actions."

Mr Hague was speaking from Brussels where, on Monday, he is expected to discuss a range of possible sanctions with other EU ministers. These could include asset freezes, and travel bans aimed at senior Russian officials.

Russia's military intervention in the Crimean peninsula - part of Russia until 1954 and host to its Black Sea fleet - followed the fall of Ukraine's pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych on  February 22nd.

In a joint statement, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said it was "illegal and illegitimate and its outcome will not be recognized".

There were 1.5 million eligible voters in the Crimean referendum, and election officials put the turnout in Sunday's vote at more than 80%.