The man identified as R.M was walking to his office when the accident took place at around 5:30 am. The vehicle driven by Emirati youth knocked him from behind, said Abdullah. Police patrol and ambulance rushed immediately to the scene of the incident.

The motorist ignored the safety regulations as he was talking on his mobile while driving, causing the man serious head injuries and fractures in his hand, Abdullah said. The Egyptian man was transferred to hospital for treatment.

The driver has been arrested and referred to public prosecution to complete the rest of the legal proceeding.
 

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It is estimated that 300 million chips that incorporate Imagination's technology are shipped each year, and the British firm makes about 19p ($0.30) on each chip.

The market is growing fast.

Hossein Yassaie, the chief executive of Imagination Technologies, told the BBC: "We have stated our goal of a billion units by 2016.

"It is really not difficult to see the volume increase is going to continue (and) penetration in the new markets is going to continue."

As well as graphics for smartphones, Mr Yassaie is confident that his company's other areas of expertise will be in high demand.

That includes connecting devices to the internet and to broadcast systems like radio, and delivering high-definition television to mobile phones.

But, if it is such a profitable, high-growth market, then what has stopped giant chipmakers like Intel and Samsung moving in?

Well, designing graphics chips requires hundreds of extremely skilled engineers with years of experience.

According to analysts, even a giant computer chip firms like Intel would struggle to build a rival team.

The nature of the industry also favours an independent firm that designs the product and then sells it on to everyone else – even to rival firms in the computer chip business.

"The economics of this industry vastly favour the third-party licensing model," says Lee Simpson, a technology analyst at Jefferies International.

"The time to market is a constraint for chipmakers. These guys work on nine-month product cycle, so design lead time is becoming crucial."

Companies that need computer chips, like Apple and Samsung, want new or upgraded products every year, so there's little time to experiment with new designs.

Customers also appreciate the independence of Imagination.

In fact, so keen are they to stop its technology falling into rival hands that Apple and Intel are the firm's two biggest shareholders.

So how did a relatively tiny British firm take the lead in such a valuable industry?

When Mr Yassaie joined the firm in 1992, he was convinced that computer graphics was the business to be in.

So the firm developed its technology, and in 1997 landed a high-profile deal to supply the Japanese computer games firm Sega.

But shortly after that came his second strategic masterstroke.

Mr Yassaie decided that people would want to do everything they could do on their personal computers, on their mobile phones.

At the time many considered that impossible, as phones have a feeble power supply and, back then, screens were unsophisticated.

"I was being told by chief executives of other firms that there was no point in targeting the mobile phone market because the screens did not have have enough pixels," said Mister Yassaie.

Fortunately, Imagination's technology was well suited to this task as it required much less power than graphics processors in personal computers.

It quickly found customers for its designs and as demand for smartphones took off, so did Imagination's business.

Imagination also branched out into the radio business. In 2001 it launched the world's first portable digital radio and has been expanding the Pure range ever since.

It has given the Imagination an outlet for its broadcast technology and some valuable experience in dealing with a consumer market – rather than selling to companies.

So what could upset Imagination?

Some analysts are concerned that the company is being distracted from its most profitable market, designing computer chips.

Ian Robertson, a technology analyst at Seymour Pierce, said: "They are taking money out of graphics and investing it into other areas like networking technologies, but it is far from clear if real returns will emerge from those investments."

"I don't see another big breakthrough win like the graphics technology happening again."

Mr Yassaie is confident that is not the case. He thinks his chips are only going to be more important.

He says that in mobile devices, the graphics processing unit (GPU) is doing more and more of the work.

For example, Apple's popular voice command system, Siri, is driven by the GPU.

As for the new areas of business, Mr Yassaie says one should just look at the results.

"Recently we announced a deal with Qualcomm for our Ensigma technology. To get that calibre of a customer surely must suggest we know what we are doing."

A major challenge to the status quo came in 1983, when Capt Thomas Sankara seized power and adopted radical left-wing policies. He renamed the country, previously Upper Volta. Its present name which translates as "land of honest men".

In 1987 Mr Sankara was overthrown and killed in a coup by his erstwhile colleague Blaise Compaore, who went on to re-introduce a multi-party system.

Burkina Faso has faced domestic and external concern over the state of its economy and human rights, and allegations that it was involved in the smuggling of diamonds by rebels in Sierra Leone.

Troubles in neighbouring Ivory Coast have raised tensions, with Ivory Coast accusing its northern neighbour of backing rebels in the north and Burkina Faso accusing Ivory Coast of mistreating expatriate Burkinabes.

“President Barack Obama is speaking at Barnard College today,” the news reader said. Our eyes widened, and we shot each other a smile. The president was speaking at Mama’s school.

I had arrived at Barnard in 1983, fresh from a school run by Jesuit priests, where gay groups were banned from the premises. A boy I’d known had been severely harassed for being gay. Barnard was a long step better, but on the first day of college, my dorm mates fell into silence when one young woman delivered this news: “I have two mothers,” she said.

I remember asking whether one was her stepmother. “No. My mothers are gay,” she said. “They had me together.” She looked so uncomfortable, and no one was stepping up to make her feel any better.

Back then, Barnard had openly gay and lesbian professors and a group for students who were gay. But in 1983, it was still not cool to be a lesbian; AIDS was beginning to surface on campus, and discussions over sexuality and condom use quickly became explosive.

Barnard, a Seven Sisters women’s college, had been embroiled in a battle over whether to merge with Columbia University’s men’s college, Columbia College, where Barack Obama was graduating that year. The buzz at Barnard was that nobody wanted it to be known as a college for “dykes.” It was just another political debate to me. I was happily dating a wonderful guy, and it didn’t affect me. Sexuality is a complicated thing.

Sudden pressure to get ‘gay married’

That was the same year Evan Wolfson started a thesis at Harvard Law School on why gay people should have the freedom to marry. He had read an award-winning book by John Boswell, a prominent Yale professor, who argued that Christianity, particularly Catholicism, had once been OK with homosexuality. Wolfson believed that if things had once been different, there was an opening for society to reconsider. He made this argument: “You can’t say you’re for equality if you acquiesce to exclusion from the central social and legal institution of society, which is marriage.”

I’m her mom, not the nanny!

He spent a career saying marriage rights could be the agent for social change around attitudes toward homosexuality, which prompted some folks to tell him he was flat-out nuts. In 1991, he served as co-counsel in a lawsuit by a group of Hawaiian gay couples against the state, alleging that it was unconstitutional for the state to forbid two people of the same sex to marry. In 1996, their Supreme Court agreed.

Wolfson has launched a national movement toward allowing gays the freedom to marry. By 2001, 10 countries allowed gays to marry. By 2005, our neighbors in Canada granted marriage licenses to gays, and my partner and I attended our first wedding of a couple who had traveled there from the U.S. to wed. I remember the voice of this heterosexual justice of the peace cracking as he called himself a participant in history in the making.

What a distance we have traveled as a society, even as our country debates whether allowing gay couples to marry is the right thing to do. There are six U.S. states that now allow gay couples to marry and an additional 12 that offer domestic partnerships or civil unions that are similar to marriage. There are 30 states that ban them. The federal government recognizes none of these unions, thus denying the couples hundreds of significant federal marriage rights.

Obama spoke at Barnard on Monday about how we arrived here and how much further we have to go: “Young folks who marched and mobilized, who stood up and sat in from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall, didn’t just didn’t do it for themselves. That’s how we achieved voting rights. That’s how we achieved workers’ rights; that’s how we achieved gay rights; that’s how we’ve made this union more perfect.”

‘Mama, would you please speak English?’

A year after that wedding in Canada, my partner and I had our daughter, Luna, and were legally bound to her through a second parent adoption, even as we could not marry each other.

Luna is now 6, an age when kids really can’t conceive of the future but seem to find comfort in recounting the past. “What was it like when I was a baby” quickly reaches back to “What was it like when you were a baby?” So she had a broad smile the day I enrolled her at Bank Street Summer Camp and they told her she would be taking swim class at Barnard College. “That’s your college, Mama! Let’s go see!” she said and pulled me and my partner, Mafe, onto campus.

I showed her the pool I barely touched as a student and bought her an electric blue sweatshirt with BARNARD emblazoned on the front. She could sense the emotion in my voice when I told her what a life-changing experience it had been for a first-generation American to go to an Ivy League school. Barnard used to say it “makes women,” and the confidence and smarts it instilled were something I want for her, too. I told her one too many times that she would have to study very hard to get in.

She ran along the patio in front of buildings named for women who’d accomplished incredible things. I walked around with my partner, wondering whether we would ever be able to afford to send her to a place so great, where I once met a girl raised by two mommies who struggled to explain herself and find support.

Monday afternoon, 594 young women, in their light blue caps and gowns, graduate from Barnard College of Columbia University. They will honor Rosa Alonzo, a former trustee and an out lesbian Latina, for her contributions to the university. Wolfson received the same medal of distinction Barnard gave to the president of the United States, days after Obama declared his personal support for marriage rights for gays.

Obama called upon the women at Barnard to change society for the better as the women who raised him had taught him, to persevere — that in this country, “no matter who you love or what God you worship, you can still purse your own happiness.” This is my alma mater, the same college our little girl talks of attending some day because it’s “Mama’s school,” where it will be of absolutely no consequence that her mothers are gay.

]]> http://chagosrefugeesgroup.com/signs-of-change-for-gay-parents/feed 0 http://chagosrefugeesgroup.com/turning-the-lens-to-climate-change-2 http://chagosrefugeesgroup.com/turning-the-lens-to-climate-change-2#comments Thu, 17 May 2012 14:00:52 +0000 ChRusk http://chagosrefugeesgroup.com/turning-the-lens-to-climate-change-2

By DENNIS NISHI

Full name: James Balog

Age: 57

Hometown: Watchung, N.J.

Current position: Nature photographer

First job: Wilderness camp counselor in Maine

Favorite job: This one

Education: B.A. Communications and Secondary Education, Boston College; M.A. Geography with a specialty in Geomorphology, University of Colorado

Years in the industry: 32

How I got to here in 10 words or less: I did what I knew would work for me.

Adam LeWinter

James Balog’s love of mountaineering led to a new career.

After studying geography in college, James Balog embarked on a nature-photography career that merged his love of mountaineering, science and art. It is an aesthetic reflected in the work he has done for publications like the New Yorker, Smithsonian and National Geographic. He also has published seven books of photography. Mr. Balog has photographed everything from nuclear missile silos throughout the agrarian West to figure studies of chimps. His latest project, “Extreme Ice Survey,” is a time-lapse, photographic record of climate change as seen through glacial melting at 15 sites in the northern hemisphere. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: Your work often explores the relationship between humans and nature. How did this interest develop?

A: I grew up in suburban New Jersey in a transitional area that was surrounded by farmland that wasn’t being cultivated. It took me 50 years to realize that living in that border zone was key to informing my thinking in my adult life. I had to live in that duality that’s between nature and civilization in order to do what I’ve done as a photographer.

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James Balog

High tide brings an endless procession of ice fragments into the beach in Jokulsarlon, Iceland. These “ice diamonds” are unique sculptures created as the glacier fragments tumble in the surf and on the sand. They will vanish during the next high tide.

Q: Is that what led to your interest in geomorphology—and what exactly is that?

A: I was a communications major but was always interested in how the tectonics [the study of the earth's crust] worked and how the land is shaped. That’s geomorphology. I studied it as a junior and ended up going to graduate school, figuring I’d end up working with consulting companies that did environmental-impact statements.

Q: What detoured you from that career path?

A: By the time I finished my dissertation, it was clear that science was moving toward a heavy emphasis on statistics and computer modeling. I didn’t want to spend my career sitting in front of a computer screen doing mathematical models.

Q: Is that when you decided to pick up the camera?

A: I actually started writing stories. I did a bunch of spec work—mostly for small publications where I also included my photos. One of my first major paid assignments was writing for Geo magazine on oil and shale development during the Carter [administration] years. My first paid assignment for photography was shortly afterward for Smithsonian magazine; it was on avalanche control. Within a year, I was shooting for Time and Life magazines.

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James Balog

Icebergs 200 feet tall, formerly part of the Greenland Ice Sheet, float into the North Atlantic Ocean, raising sea levels as they melt.

Q: At what point did your interests in nature and photography begin to merge and manifest in your work?

A: I started studying black and white concern photographers—guys that were photographing drug addicts and prostitutes. I realized there was nobody looking at nature [in the same way]. I thought that there was a lot to be said about the conflict between humans and nature.

Q: Your first book “Wildlife Requiem” was pretty graphic and shocked some critics. What were you trying to accomplish with that series?

A: It was a study of big-game hunting in the Rockies. They’re bloody pictures and gruesome. You look at them and think and think this guy must have been inspired by war photography. War photography had a long tradition of turning a glass eye onto horror and ugliness. I wanted to do the same here.

Q: You then started photographing portraits of animals. That seems to take a completely different tack from Requiem.

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James Balog

Near the Ilulissat Isfjord, Greenland, March 2008. A massive iceberg broken off the Greenland Ice Sheet, surrounded by lily pads of sea ice, in the process of breaking up at the edge of Disko Bay.

A: I was doing a job for Geographic on endangered wildlife when the idea for the book “Survivors: A New Vision of Endangered Wildlife” hit. There was this magnificent rhino at the San Diego Wild Animal Park staring at me, and I thought we’ve been looking at animals the wrong way. We always look for picturesque places to photograph them that make it look like they have these idyllic lives. Looking up close made me realize that this species is almost extinct. I wanted to put them in a setting that showed the alienation of that species from nature. That led to years of pictures of animals in front of artificial backgrounds with strobe lights.

Q: Were rhinos a difficult subject to work up close with?

A: Mostly they were curious about me and all this stuff I brought into their world, which is pretty boring. We stood there eyeball to eyeball studying each other for 20 minutes and that’s when I realized, ‘This isn’t just a cabbage. There’s a mind in there that’s forming opinions, ideas.’ You can’t see any of this with a telephoto lens from far away.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for “Extreme Ice Survey”?

How You Can Get There, Too

Best advice: If you’re going to ascend to a higher level, it has to come from your core, Mr. Balog says. It’s a deep biochemical, psychological, philosophical thing, he adds.

Skills you need: “Good communication skills can help in many ways,” says Mr. Balog. “You have to know how to tell stories in a meaningful way.”

Professional organizations to contact: North American Nature Photography Association (nanpa.org); Professional Photographers of America (ppa.com)

Salary range: According to the Bureau of Labor, the median wage for photographers was $40,730 in 2008 with the top percentile earning $62,430.

A: The New Yorker asked me to shoot a story on climate change in 2005, and I wound up going to Iceland to shoot a glacier. The real story wasn’t the beautiful white top. It ended up being at the terminus of the glacier where it’s dying. That idea gestated in my mind for a year and eventually turned into the “Extreme Ice Survey” in 2006.

Q: How do images of glaciers collapsing bring the idea of climate change home?

A: There were a lot of repeat photos that showed glaciers retreating over a hundred years. That’s pretty abstract. I wanted to show a shorter term time lapse that would make people think, “My god, little Emily was in first grade in April and she’s in second grade in October. I remember this. It’s happening in my life.”

Q: How much longer do you plan to keep the project going?

A: We’re almost at three years now. Four if you include the New Yorker and National Geographic story. We’ve decided to keep the cameras alive for another year or two—or until the money runs out.

Write to Dennis Nishi at cjeditor@dowjones.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A27

USA – If Jesus isn’t on the ballot and the choice is between President Obama and Mitt Romney, televangelist Pat Robertson knows which way he’ll vote.

The televangelist told 700 Club viewers today that he’s basically siding with the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, in what is being viewed as a tepid Romney endorsement.

“It looks like the people who were worried about his Mormonism … at least that crowd is diminishing somewhat. The question is, if you have two candidates, you don’t have Jesus running against someone else. You have Obama running against Romney,” Robertson said.

Romney this weekend made an appeal to evangelical voters with his commencement address at Liberty University. The Lynchburg, Va. school bills itself as the “largest Christian university in the world.”

Romney didn’t specifically mention his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but he told graduates that they share with him the same beliefs and values.

“People of different faiths, like yours and mine, sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose, when there are so many differences in creed and theology,” Romney said. “Surely the answer is that we can meet in service, in shared moral convictions about our nation stemming from a common worldview.”

Nevertheless, many people still find the concept somewhat confusing.

Khalifa Shakrin, a political science professor at the University of Tripoli, insists he will not vote because Libya needs more time to prepare.

"I'm dissatisfied with the process," he says. "People are underestimating the implication of the assembly's job on the whole system and future of Libya," he says.

"People are mostly unaware of the seriousness of the task entrusted to the assembly."

The 200 members of the National Public Conference will appoint a new prime minister and cabinet. It will then form a 60-member panel to draft a new constitution, which will be put to a referendum.

Meanwhile, the Council for Cyrenaica – an oil-rich eastern region which stretches from the central coastal city of Sirte to the Egyptian border – has called for a boycott of the elections, saying regional representation in the National Public Conference should be split equally.

Security may ultimately prove to be an obstacle, though officials are hesitant to admit to it.

Al-Ameen Belhaj, a member of the NTC and of the preparation committee for the election, says some parts of the country are unstable and that they need to have a security plan for them ahead of the elections.

Earlier this week, some 200 disgruntled ex-rebels attacked the headquarters of Prime Minister Abdurrahim al-Keib in Tripoli with heavy weapons, killing a security guard, over demands for compensation and the treatment of those wounded in last year's uprising.

The weakness of the transitional government is consequently seen both as a threat to the elections and a reason for holding them as soon as possible.

In Tripoli, potential voters seem more excited with the idea of taking to the polls and are less bothered with whether the country will get it right.

It is perhaps understandable in a post-revolution environment where many are hungry to cast a vote they have been starved of for more than four decades.

Iran should engage in substantive negotiations on its nuclear program and allow access to its sites, personnel and information related to this program, said Monday the deputy director of the International Agency for the Energy Agency (IAEA). These comments were made as the UN agency began two days of talks with the Islamic Republic at the headquarters of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Vienna. These discussions should test the will of Tehran to respond to suspicions raised by UN inspectors ahead of the scheduled meeting May 23 in Baghdad with the group of “Six” powers (U.S., Russia, China, France and Britain, plus Germany).

“The purpose of these two days is to reach an agreement on an approach (that would) resolve all outstanding issues with Iran, clarification about possible military dimensions remain our top priority,” said Herman Nackaerts , IAEA Deputy Director, upon his arrival to the talks.

“It is important now to engage in substance on these issues and that Iran gives us access to people, documents, information and sites” related to nuclear activities, said the head of the IAEA delegation .

The representatives of the IAEA have left the premises of the Iran’s diplomatic mission on 1300 GMT, after five hours of discussion, without comment. The spokesman for the agency announced that the talks would resume Tuesday.

In Brussels, where EU ministers met for to discuss foreign affairs, the British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Iran of new sanctions by the EU if no concrete measures are takes to allay the fears of the international community vis-à-vis its nuclear program. “We are now waiting for concrete proposals and actions by Iran,” he told reporters. “Otherwise we have of course the sanctions we have imposed. They will not only be applied, but gradually strengthened.”