US Muslims Begin Ramadan

Karlina Amkas

July 19, 2012 

Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, begins for Muslims in the U.S. on Friday. How do Muslims in America set the first day of fasting and what are the roles of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and Indonesian Muslim organizations here in this country?

The Fiqh Council of North America, which interprets Islamic law, decided that the first day of Ramadan in the U.S. would be Friday, as it is in most of the Arab world and parts of Asia. The Council, consisting of a set of American Muslim scholars, based its decision on a scientific calculation called Hisab. It enables them to determine the start of the fasting month years in advance.

The Hisab method is different from another method called Rukyah, which is based on sighting the moon, and is commonly used by Muslims in Indonesia to determine the beginning and end of Ramadan.

Key facts about the Muslim holy month of Ramadan

• Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. 
• The start of Ramadan is determined by the appearance of a new moon.
• Muslims are expected to refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex from daybreak to sunset during Ramadan.
• For Muslims, Ramadan is intended to teach spirituality, patience and devotion to God. 
• After sunset, Muslims celebrate with family visits and iftars, shared meals that break the fast.
• Ramadan ends with the Eid al-Fitr festival, which includes feasts and an exchange of gifts.

​​ISNA adopted the Hisab method three years ago.

"So far it’s working very well because the majority of the Muslim countries have fasted according to this calculation now, [and] because that has helped the Muslim community," stated ISNA President Mohammad Magid.

Muslims from Indonesia living in the U.S., usually belong to one of two main associations -- the Indonesian Muslim Association in America (IMAAM) in the Washington, DC area, and the Indonesian Muslim Society in America and Canada (IMSA) and those groups have different opinions about the decision of the Fiqh council.

Oscar Zaky is the president of IMAAM. As an organization in America, he said, IMAAM needs to follow the Council's decision and not Indonesia's decision. Indonesia's government has decided that Ramadan starts on Saturday, July 21, 2012.

Zaky says that even though the majority of its members are Indonesians, IMAAM is part of the American Muslim community.

Arief Iswanto is president of IMSA. He explains why his organization does not follow the decision of the Fiqh Council.

Arief says the difference should not divide Muslims. He believes both decisions are right because each has its references.

The Islamic Center of Washington, DC, the largest mosque in the nation's capital, determined Thursday evening that Ramadan would start on Friday.

During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, and are not allowed food or drink. It is very challenging for some because of the heat wave that most of the United States is facing right now - the worst heat wave in decades. But Muslims are allowed to eat and drink again the whole night, after the sun sets and before the sun rises.

Muslims will crowd mosques to break their fast and pray the Taraweeh, a special prayer performed only during Ramadan. Based on the method of computation, Ramadan will last for 30 days.

Ramadan ends with the Eid al-Fitr festival, which includes feasts and an exchange of gifts. On that day, Muslims believe they are reborn and cleaned from their sins.

Muslim organizations estimate that there are 7 million Muslims in the U.S.

 

Post-Ceasefire, No Signs of Peace in Burma's Kachin

Matt Saunders

July 19, 2012 

KACHIN STATE, Burma — A year has passed since a cease-fire collapsed between ethnic Kachin forces and Burma's government troops and there are still there are no signs of peace. Tens of thousands people have fled as the Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO, fights for greater autonomy and control over their resources.

People who fled their homes for this temporary camp in Burma's Kachin state are bracing for the monsoon season, worrying about food shortages.

Despite an increase in foreign aid flowing into Burma's capital, Kachin groups say little assistance is reaching the conflict zone.

May Li Aung heads Wun Pawng Ninghto, an umbrella group of eight local aid agencies. "All of the international community and funding agencies want to help inside of Burma," she explained. "But this is non-government-controlled area and they are also afraid to come here."

Although some supplies have been allowed into KIO-controlled areas, that is not the case in refugee camps on the Chinese side of the border.

A recent Human Rights Watch report criticized China for a lack of assistance to the refugees in Yunnan and called on authorities to give aid workers access.

Mui Hpu Kaw cares for seven grandchildren, while her four sons fight for the Kachin Independence Army on the Burmese side of the border. She says the uncertain future is almost unbearable. "I only wait to hear the words, 'Let's go home, the fighting's stopped now'. Every time I see someone come to visit the camp, I'm hoping they will say we can go home now," she said.  "I pray that I won't die here.”

Many observers are skeptical of a resolution anytime soon.

Former activist Tun Kyaw Nyein, the son of former deputy Prime Minister U Kyaw Nyein, is now a member of the independent, pro-democracy Burma Strategy Group.  He says even Aung San Suu Kyi is treading carefully on the conflict. “I understand fully why she is careful in the way she brings up the topics and addresses the issues because there is also the risk of appearing to favor one side or the other when things are so precarious," he stated. "It is going to take some time and its going to take all parties including Aung San Su Kyi and U Thein Sein and the Kachin leaders to overcome this long-standing mistrust.”

In the meantime, the displaced Kachin population waits in these growing camps for a resolution to the conflict that drags on -- despite the dramatic changes happening in other parts of the country.

Does New Tree Ring Study Put the Chill on Global Warming?

By Natalie Wolchover | LiveScience.com

 

• The density and width of tree rings …

A new analysis of 2,000 years of tree ring data has quickly made climate change deniers' list of greatest hits to the theory of manmade global warming.

The tree rings "prove [the] climate was WARMER in Roman and Medieval times than it is now," the British newspaper the Daily Mail reported last week, "and [the] world has been cooling for 2,000 years."

That and other articles suggest the current global warming trend is a mere blip when viewed in the context of natural temperature oscillations etched into tree rings over the past two millennia. The Star-Ledger, a New Jersey newspaper, mused that the findings lock in "one piece of an extremely complex puzzle that has been oversimplified by the Al Gores of the world."

However, the study actually does none of the above. "Our study doesn't go against anthropogenic global warming in any way," said Robert Wilson, a paleoclimatologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and a co-author of the study, which appeared July 8 in the journal Nature Climate Change. The tree rings do help fill in a piece of Earth's complicated climate puzzle, he said. However, it is climate change deniers who seem to have misconstrued the bigger picture.

So, what exactly did the study find? Instead of using the width of trees' rings as a gauge of annual temperatures, as most past analyses of tree rings have done, Wilson and his fellow researchers tracked the density of northern Scandinavian trees' rings marking each year back to 138 B.C. They showed that density measurements give a slightly different reading of historic temperature fluctuations than ring width measurements, and according to their way of reckoning, the Roman and medieval warm periods reached higher temperatures than previously estimated.

That's significant because "if we can improve our estimates for the medieval period, then that will help us understanding the dynamics in this climate system, and help us understand the current warming," Wilson told

But it's old news that Northern Europe experienced a natural warm period 2,000 years ago and during the 11th century. Not much is known about the Roman period, but the medieval warm spell primarily resulted from a decrease in volcanic activity, Wilson said. Volcanic ash in the atmosphere tends to block the sun, decreasing Earth's surface temperature.

The current warming, on the other hand, has nothing to do with volcanoes. "None of this changes the fact that the current warming can't be modeled based on natural forces alone," he said. "Anthropogenic [greenhouse gas] emissions are the predominant forces in the late 20^th century and early 21^st century period."

That Scandinavia may have been slightly warmer in the 11^th century than today also doesn't change the fact that the world, as a whole, is warmer now. "This data is spatially specific. You would expect to see this trend in northern Scandinavia, but not in the Alps," Wilson said. "Almost all models show that the current global warming is probably warmer overall than that warming."

Finally, according to Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate scientist, the tree rings show what mounds of other data have shown as well: For the past few millennia, Earth's northern latitudes had been cooling down overall. "Similarly, we expect that over the same period the tropics should have warmed slightly," Schmidt said in an email. These trends resulted from shifts in the Earth's orbit on thousand-year-long time-scales.

But Wilson, Schmidt and the vast majority of climate scientists agree: human-caused warming of the entire globe now overwhelms those subtle, regional heat redistributions. World temperatures are now pushing in only one direction: up.

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Can two bedrooms make one happy marriage?

By Jennifer Nelson

It’s now officially a substantial trend: a study by the National Sleep Foundation found that 25 percent of couples sleep in separate rooms. That’s one in four couples! Many who choose to sleep separately are reluctant to discuss it, but for most people, the decision to sleep in separate beds is a practical decision. It seems that sleep is elusive when you bed down with a partner who snores, tosses relentlessly, traipses to the restroom repeatedly, hogs the covers or is drenched in sweat each night.

One partner often retreats to a guest room, kid’s bed or the family room sofa while hoping that people won’t assume the worst about their relationship. By 2015, The National Association of Home Builders says that it expects 60 percent of custom-built homes to include dual master bedrooms for this exact reason. “It’s important for couples facing these issues to try their best to avoid being influenced by negative social stigma and [others’] judgment around sleeping apart and be as creative and innovative in finding solutions that work for them,” says Manhattan psychologist Dr. Joseph Cilona. And while sleeping in separate beds may solve some issues, it’s not always a perfect solution. Sleeping separately may mean you’re both getting better rest, but will it chip away at the romance or take a toll on overall intimacy? Some folks think that sleeping apart robs a marriage of its special connection.

Here’s how couples can combat living as roomies and keep close, cozy and connected even if they sleep in different beds:

1. Stay touchy-feely with each other. Even when couples don’t hold each other all night long, a lot of touching goes on while you’re falling asleep. Touch enhances the sense of intimacy and it also has a measurable biological effect: it stimulates the production of oxytocin, the hormone that deepens human bonding.

Separate-bed solution: “Make a real effort to stay touchy-feely during the day. Don’t just walk by each other; stop for a casual kiss or a loving pat. Hold hands on the couch and cuddle while you watch TV in the evening before bed,” suggests Beverly Hills psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman, author of Bad Girls: Why Men Love Them & How Good Girls Can Learn Their Secrets (Cogito Media Group, 2010). “Couples need to make an extra effort if they sleep apart to consciously make up for the loss of loving touch. It’s not only important for holding onto the romance — touch is vital to emotional and physical health.”

2. Engage in pillow talk. You may have lots of focused conversations about your kids, the car, work and the dog, but there’s also intimacy in the kind of pillow talk couples engage in as they relax before falling asleep. Good marriages thrive on these private, unplanned conversations that may vanish when you start sleeping separately.

Separate-bed solution: Try to fall asleep together in the same bed with the understanding that if one partner disrupts the other’s sleep, that person will slip off to a different room during the night. The one who wakes up first can join the other for pillow chat in the morning. Lieberman suggests taking your pillow talk “to go” — while snuggling on a porch, in front of a fire, in the garden or in any cozy corner of the home — with candles, soft music, strawberries and whipped cream before retreating to separate sleeping arrangements.

3. Plan your romps between the sheets together. If you’re not snoozing together, you might end up having less sex. But psychologists say that many couples’ sex lives are enhanced by sleeping in separate rooms — in fact, it can even lead to greater desire for a partner or more frequent sexual encounters.

Separate-bed solution: “Instead of the ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ effect that sleeping together can bring — along with morning breath and bed head — you can present yourself at your most appetizing best,” says Lieberman. Women should forego their flannel pajamas for sexy lingerie instead. Light candles, take a bath or shower together, and invite your partner “over” to the bed he or she doesn’t usually sleep in. Create a “love nest” atmosphere and be spontaneous about where you will make love that night before you go to sleep.

4. Find other ways to sustain your emotional connection. It’s easy for any couple to get caught up in the daily grind and take each other for granted. If you’re not sharing a bed nightly, it may be even easier to miss each other’s cues for connecting emotionally.

Separate-bed solution: “Look for ways to be able to lie down together, even if it’s not sleeping with each other every night. Just some quiet time [spent] holding each other can help deepen your relationship,” says Dr. Elizabeth Lombardo, psychologist and author of A Happy You: Your Ultimate Prescription for Happiness (Morgan James, 2009). Look for other ways to connect outside the bedroom, such as having at least one date night each week, engaging in a hobby or fun activity together — not just paying bills and doing household chores. Make breakfast dates (and keep them fresh) by planning a picnic on the floor, for example; other ideas could include eating on the porch or enjoying breakfast in bed together. “You shouldn’t sleep and eat separately — or it’s a recipe for disaster and divorce,” says Lieberman.

Jennifer Nelson (www.byjennifernelson.com) is a Florida-based freelance writer whose work appears in Self, O - The Oprah Magazine, Redbook, Family Circle, Women’s Health and many others. She also regularly writes about health, lifestyle and relationships for Parade, Glamour, MSNBC.com and WebMD.

Alarm over threat to Burma’s tiger population

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 14:41 Mizzima News

(Feature) – Burma has the world’s largest sanctuary for endangered tigers, but experts are warning its population is dangerously threatened by poachers and ethnic fighting in the area.

A tiger trips a remote camera placed next to an animal corridor in the Hukawng Valley tiger reserve in Kachin State in northern Burma. Photo: Wildlife Conservation Society

The former military government in 2010 expanded the tiger reserve in far north Burma to about 8,450 square miles (22,000 square kilometres) – an area roughly the size of Israel – in the remote Hukaung Valley, where about 50 to 70 tigers are estimated to remain, said at article by Agence France Presse (AFP) last week.

“The tigers are in terrible shape,” said Alan Rabinowitz, chief executive of the animal protection group Panthera, who was the driving force behind the creation of the reserve. He now fears the tiger population there is rapidly declining

“The tiger is still valuable and the indigenous people there such as the Lisu and the Kachin are very much tied into the Chinese trade, and they’ve been killing off tigers,” he told AFP by telephone from the United States.

“I’m not convinced frankly that we’re going to be able to save the tigers there. We’re going to try because it’s a big enough area, and we know there are still tigers in some of the more remote regions in the far north,” he said.

The Hukaung Valley is one of the region’s last closed forests – an area with dense tree cover – and there are hopes the reserve could also protect other large mammals such as clouded leopards and Asian elephants.

Ringed by steep mountain ranges to the north, east and west, the valley is the largest protected area in mainland Southeast Asia. The government establishment of the preserve was accomplished in cooperation with the Kachin Independent Army, a rebel group that operates in parts of the area. It is in peace talks with the government, but little progress has been made in recent months.

Do the Suburbs Make You Selfish?

Urban areas have begun to outpace the growth of suburbs. Could that be good for America's social ecology? 

By David Futrelle | July 9, 2012 | 56

Getty Images

New numbers from the Census Bureau suggest that America’s long love affair with the suburbs may be cooling off just a bit: In the year-long span from July 2010 to July 2011, in the majority of America’s largest metropolitan areas, densely packed urban areas grew faster than suburbs – reversing a trend that has held since the heyday of the Model-T in the 1920s. If this current trend holds, it could be good news for the environment, reducing the time commuters spend in gas-guzzling cars going to and from their jobs in the city. Could it also be good for America’s social ecology?
That’s one of the implications of a new paper by Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, which takes aim at something that many homeowners and would-be homeowners consider as American as apple pie and Apple iPads: the home mortgage interest deduction.
Glaeser argues that the deduction, as well as other governmental policies that encourage homeownership, effectively “bribe” the well-off to segregate themselves from poorer people by abandoning more diverse cities for more homogenous and affluent suburbs.

As Glaeser explains:

The most fundamental fact about rental housing in the United States is that rental units are overwhelmingly in multifamily structures. … More than 85 percent of single-family dwellings are owner occupied; more than 85 percent of dwellings in homes with more than three units are rented. When the federal government subsidizes homeownership explicitly, through the home mortgage interest deduction, and implicitly, through the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it is pushing Americans away from dense multiunit dwellings toward sprawling single-family detached homes.

Obviously there are plenty of single-family homes in cities. But dense urban areas can’t exist without a large percentage of multifamily structures, from 2-flats to giant residential skyscrapers.
And as more affluent Americans have moved to the suburbs, they have also moved away from poorer neighbors.

Because poorer people tend to live disproportionately in cities … bribing wealthier people to leave higher density apartments is increasing the physical, and possibly also the social, distance between rich and poor.

Citing the work of economist Erzo F. P. Luttmer, who found that support for redistributionist policies was greater among those who live near poor people of the same race, Glaeser argues that “[i]f proximity breeds empathy …  then distance may reduce that empathy.”


While Glaeser’s argument here remains speculative, it’s in line with a great deal of recent research that suggests wealth (and the attendant ability to segregate oneself from the poor) may make people more selfish and less empathetic. In a cover story in the latest issue of New York magazine, Lisa Miller uses this research to present a compelling case that “Money Can Make You Mean.” As one money-empathy researcher, Berkeley psychologist Paul Piff, tells Miller:

[T]he rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people. It makes them more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, a**holes.

Some of the most interesting research on what New York magazine calls the “money-empathy gap” comes from another Berkeley psychologist, Jennifer Stellar. In one recent experiment, Stellar showed a group of ethnically and socially diverse students a video depicting a family trying to deal with a child with cancer; while the video tugged at the heartstrings of all those who watched it, lower-class students felt more compassion and empathy for the struggles of those in the video.
As Stellar explains in a statement about her research,

It’s not that the upper classes are coldhearted. … They may just not be as adept at recognizing the cues and signals of suffering because they haven’t had to deal with as many obstacles in their lives.

Are there ways to help decrease this “money-empathy gap” short of having everyone in the suburbs move back into the city? In Forbes, Alice G. Walton turns to Beverly Hills psychiatrist Reef Karim, who has treated a lot of troubled rich folks. “When you massage that money-making muscle for so long, it doesn’t go away,” Dr. Karim tells Forbes. “It informs all of your relationships. CEOs of big companies have some of the most sociopathic traits … because … those personality traits lend themselves so well to business. But the downside is that they’re very hard to shut off.”
Dr. Karim finds that teaching his patients meditation and mindfulness are effective ways to develop what he calls the “empathy muscle.” I’m guessing not many of Karim’s patients follow the Buddha one step further, giving up their worldly possessions to live amongst the poor. But if the research of Piff, Stellar and others holds true, such practices could teach more than a few Scrooges a lot of empathy, very quickly.

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What Genius and Autism Have in Common

A study of eight child prodigies finds that share some striking characteristics, most notably high levels of autistic traits and an overrepresentation of autism in their close family members

 

By Maia Szalavitz | @maiasz | July 10, 2012 | 35

Martin Poole / Getty Images

 

Child prodigies evoke awe, wonder and sometimes jealousy: how can such young children display the kinds of musical or mathematical talents that most adults will never master, even with years of dedicated practice? Lucky for these despairing types, the prevailing wisdom suggests that such comparisons are unfair — prodigies are born, not made (mostly). Practice alone isn’t going to turn out the next 6-year-old Mozart.
So finds a recent study of eight young prodigies, which sought to shed some light on the roots of their talent. The prodigies included in the study [PDF] are all famous (but remain unidentified in the paper), having achieved acclaim and professional status in their fields by the ripe age of 10. Most are musical prodigies; one is an artist and another a math whiz, who developed a new discipline in mathematics and, by age 13, had had a paper accepted for publication in a mathematics journal. Two of the youngsters showed extraordinary skill in two separate fields: one child in music and art (his work now hangs in prestigious galleries the world over), and the other in music and molecular gastronomy (the science behind food preparation — why mayonnaise becomes firm or why a soufflé swells, for example). He became interested in food at age 10 and, by 11, had carried out his first catering event.
All of the prodigies had stories of remarkable early abilities: one infant began speaking at 3 months old and was reading by age 1; two others were reading at age 2. The gastronomist was programming computers at 3. Several children could reproduce complex pieces of music after hearing them just once, at the age most kids are finishing preschool. Many had toured internationally or played Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall well before age 10.
Six of the prodigies were still children at the time of the study, which is slated for publication in the journal Intelligence. The other two participants were grown, aged 19 and 32.

The study found a few key characteristics these youngsters had in common. For one, they all had exceptional working memories — the system that holds information active in the mind, keeping it available for further processing. The capacity of working memory is limited: for numbers, for example, most people can hold seven digits at a time on average; hence, the seven-digit phone number. But prodigies can hold much more, and not only can they remember extraordinarily large numbers, they can also manipulate them and carry out calculations that you or I might have trouble managing with pencil and paper.
Working memory isn’t just the ability to remember long strings of numbers. It is the ability to hold and process quantities of information, both verbal and non-verbal — such as, say, memorizing a musical score and rewriting it in your head. All the children in the study scored off the charts when tested on measures of working memory: they placed in at least the 99th percentile, with most in the 99.9th percentile.
Surprisingly, however, the study found that not all of the prodigies had high IQs. Indeed, while they had higher-than-average intelligence, some didn’t have IQs that were as elevated as their performance and early achievements would suggest. One child had an IQ of just 108, at the high end of normal.
There was something else striking too. The authors found that prodigies scored high in autistic traits, most notably in their ferocious attention to detail. They scored even higher on this trait than did people diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism that typically includes obsession with details.
Three of the eight prodigies had a diagnosed autism spectrum disorder themselves. The child who had spoken his first words at 3 months, stopped speaking altogether at 18 months, then started again when he was just over two-and-a-half years old; he was diagnosed with autism at 3. What’s more, four of the eight families included in the study reported autism diagnoses in first- or second-degree relatives, and three of these families reported a total of 11 close relatives with autism. In the general population, by contrast, about 1 in 88 people have either autism or Asperger’s.
Other unusual parallels between prodigies and those with autism: they’re both more likely to be male (though that finding may be due in part to the failure to recognize either girls on the autism spectrum or, perhaps, girls’ hidden talents) and both are associated with difficult pregnancies, suggesting that uterine environment may play a role in their development. In the math whiz’s case, for example, his mother “started labor nine times between the 29th and 37th weeks of her pregnancy and required medication to stop the labor. During the 35th week of her pregnancy, her water broke and she had a 105-degree fever from an infection in her uterus. The child prodigy did not have a soft spot at delivery,” the authors write.

When Asperger’s was first described in 1944 by Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, he referred to children with the syndrome as “little professors” because of their prodigious vocabularies and precocious expertise, and because they tended to lecture others endlessly without being aware of their own tediousness. Poor social skills and obsessive interests characterize the condition.

Yet, despite the obvious similarities, very little research has been done on the connection between autism and extreme talent. One previous study, published in 2007, did find that close relatives of prodigies — like close relatives of people with autism — tended to score higher on autistic traits, particularly in problems with social skills, difficulty switching attention and intense attention to detail. Other than that, however, the issue hasn’t been studied systematically, beyond the observation that autism is often seen in savants, or people with exceptional abilities who have other simultaneous impairments.

Prodigies, in contrast, appear to benefit from certain autistic tendencies while avoiding the shortfalls of others. On a standard assessment of traits associated with autism, the prodigies in the current study scored higher than a control group on all measures, including attention to detail and problems with social skills or communication (though this result was not statistically significant, probably because the sample was so small). But they also scored significantly lower than a separate comparison group of people who had Asperger’s — except on the attention-to-detail measure, in which they outshone everyone.
“One possible explanation for the child prodigies’ lack of deficits is that, while the child prodigies may have a form of autism, a biological modifier suppresses many of the typical signs of autism, but leaves attention to detail — a quality that actually enhances their prodigiousness — undiminished or even enhanced,” the authors write.

In other words, these children may have some genetic trait or learned skill that allows them to maintain intense focus, without compromising their social skills or suffering from other disabilities that typically accompany autism spectrum disorders. Comparing these children with those who have full-blown autism or Asperger’s could therefore potentially help pinpoint what goes wrong in those who develop disabling forms of autism and what goes right in others with similar traits who simply benefit from enhanced abilities.

The current study doesn’t tread that ground, but its findings do fit in with the intense world theory of autism, which posits how the disorder may arise. The theory holds that certain patterns of brain circuitry cause autistic symptoms, including excessive connectivity in local brain regions, which can heighten attention and perception, and diminished wiring between distant regions, which can lead to a sort of system overload. In both animal and human studies, this type of brain wiring has been associated with enhanced memory and also with amplified fear and sensory overstimulation. The former is usually a good thing; the latter may cause disability.

The intense world theory propounds that all autism carries the potential for exceptional talent and social deficits. The social problems, the theory suggests, may ensue from the autistic person’s dysfunctional attempts — social withdrawal and repetitive behaviors, for instance — to deal with his heightened senses and memory.
It’s possible, then, that the wiring in prodigies’ brains resembles that of an autistic person’s, with tight local connections, except without the reduction in long-distance links. Or, their brains may function just like those with autism, but their high intelligence allows them to develop socially acceptable ways of coping with the sensory overload.

Although some researchers — and much of the public, influenced by popular books like journalist Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers — argue that prodigious expertise can be acquired with sheer effort, 10,000 hours of practice to be exact, the current findings suggest that natural talents can blossom in far less time. “[Many prodigies] displayed their extreme talent before reaching 10 years of age, undercutting the nurture-based theories that credit contemporary training techniques and upwards of 10 years of deliberate practice as the root of all exceptional achievement,” the authors write.

That doesn’t mean all is lost for everyone else, notes Scott Barry Kaufman, a cognitive psychologist at New York University. “There is research showing the positive benefits of working memory training,” he wrote on his blog on Psychology Today‘s website, suggesting that practice could take us closer to perfect.

The current study is a small one, and much more research needs to be done to elucidate the connections between highly gifted children and those with autism spectrum conditions. But the findings strongly suggest that such connections exist. They also caution against characterizing the genetic roots of conditions like autism — or other potentially disabling problems like mood disorders, which have been linked with exceptional creativity — as wholly negative. If the same “risk” genes may lead to both debilitating autism and great intellectual gifts, we need to understand them far better before we label them as unwanted.
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4 July 2012 Last updated at 23:09 GMT

Alexander the not so Great: History through Persian eyes

By Prof Ali Ansari Institute of Iranian Studies, St Andrews University
 

Alexander the Great is portrayed as a legendary conqueror and military leader in Greek-influenced Western history books but his legacy looks very different from a Persian perspective.

Any visitor of the spectacular ruins of Persepolis - the site of the ceremonial capital of the ancient Persian Achaemenid empire, will be told three facts: it was built by Darius the Great, embellished by his son Xerxes, and destroyed by that man, Alexander.

That man Alexander, would be the Alexander the Great, feted in Western culture as the conqueror of the Persian Empire and one of the great military geniuses of history.
Indeed, reading some Western history books one might be forgiven for thinking that the Persians existed to be conquered by Alexander.

A more inquisitive mind might discover that the Persians had twice before been defeated by the Greeks during two ill-fated invasions, by Darius the Great in 490BC and then his son, Xerxes, in 480BC - for which Alexander's assault was a justified retaliation.

 

 

Alexander the Great razed the ancient city of Persepolis

But seen through Persian eyes, Alexander is far from "Great".

He razed Persepolis to the ground following a night of drunken excess at the goading of a Greek courtesan, ostensibly in revenge for the burning of the Acropolis by the Persian ruler Xerxes.

Persians also condemn him for the widespread destruction he is thought to have encouraged to cultural and religious sites throughout the empire.
The emblems of Zoroastrianism - the ancient religion of the Iranians - were attacked and destroyed. For the Zoroastrian priesthood in particular - the Magi - the destruction of their temples was nothing short of a calamity.

The influence of Greek language and culture has helped establish a narrative in the West that Alexander's invasion was the first of many Western crusades to bring civilisation and culture to the barbaric East.
But in fact the Persian Empire was worth conquering not because it was in need of civilising but because it was the greatest empire the world had yet seen, extending from Central Asia to Libya.

Persia was an enormously rich prize.
Look closely and you will find ample evidence that the Greeks admired the Persian Empire and the emperors who ruled it.
Much like the barbarians who conquered Rome, Alexander came to admire what he found, so much so that he was keen to take on the Persian mantle of the King of Kings.
And Greek admiration for the Persians goes back much earlier than this.

Through Persian Eyes

Prof Ali Ansari is one of the world's leading experts on Iran and its history.
He presents Through Persian Eyes - a three part series on BBC Radio 4 exploring world history from a Persian perspective.

Xenophon, the Athenian general and writer, wrote a paean to Cyrus the Great - the Cyropaedia - showering praise on the ruler who showed that the government of men over a vast territory could be achieved by dint of character and force of personality:

"Cyrus was able to penetrate that vast extent of country by the sheer terror of his personality that the inhabitants were prostrate before him…," wrote Xenophon, "and yet he was able at the same time, to inspire them all with so deep a desire to please him and win his favour that all they asked was to be guided by his judgment and his alone.
"Thus he knit to himself a complex of nationalities so vast that it would have taxed a man's endurance merely to traverse his empire in any one direction."

Later Persian emperors Darius and Xerxes both invaded Greece, and were both ultimately defeated. But, remarkably, Greeks flocked to the Persian court.
The most notable was Themistocles, who fought against Darius's invading army at Marathon and masterminded the Athenian victory against Xerxes at Salamis.
Falling foul of Athenian politics, he fled to the Persian Empire and eventually found employment at the Persian Court and was made a provincial governor, where he lived out the rest of his life.

In time, the Persians found that they could achieve their objectives in Greece by playing the Greek city states against each other, and in the Peloponnesian War, Persian money financed the Spartan victory against Athens.

 

 

 Achaemenid soldiers, seen in wall-carvings in Persepolis

The key figure in this strategy was the Persian prince and governor of Asia Minor, Cyrus the Younger, who over a number of years developed a good relationship with his Greek interlocutors such that when he decided to make his fateful bid for the throne, he was able to easily recruit some 10,000 Greek mercenaries.

Unfortunately for him, he died in the attempt.
Soldier, historian and philosopher Xenophon was among those recruited, and he was full of praise for the prince of whom he said: "Of all the Persians who lived after Cyrus the Great, he was most like a king and the most deserving of an empire."

There is a wonderful account provided by Lysander, a Spartan general, who happened to visit Cyrus the Younger in the provincial capital at Sardis.
Lysander recounts how Cyrus treated him graciously and was particularly keen to show him his walled garden - paradeisos, the origin of our word paradise - where Lysander congratulated the prince on the beautiful design.

When, he added, that he ought to thank the slave who had done the work and laid out the plans, Cyrus smiled and pointed out that he had laid out the design and even planted some of the trees.
On seeing the Spartan's reaction he added: "I swear to you by Mithras that, my health permitting, I never ate without having first worked up a sweat by undertaking some activity relevant either to the art of war or to agriculture, or by stretching myself in some other way."

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In time, the Persians were to come to terms with their Macedonian conqueror”

Astonished, Lysander applauded Cyrus and said: "You deserve your good fortune Cyrus - you have it because you are a good man."

Alexander would have been familiar with stories such as these. The Persian Empire was not something to be conquered as much as an achievement to be acquired.
Although characterised by the Persians as a destroyer, a reckless and somewhat feckless youth, the evidence suggests that Alexander retained a healthy respect for the Persians themselves.

Alexander came to regret the destruction his invasion caused. Coming across the plundered tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargad, a little north of Persepolis, he was much distressed by what he found and immediately ordered repairs to be made.
Had he lived beyond his 32 years, he may yet have restored and repaired much more. In time, the Persians were to come to terms with their Macedonian conqueror, absorbing him, as other conquerors after him, into the fabric of national history.
And thus it is that in the great Iranian national epic, the Shahnameh, written in the 10th Century AD, Alexander is no longer a wholly foreign prince but one born of a Persian mother.

It is a myth, but one that perhaps betrays more truth than the appearance of history may like to reveal.
Like other conquerors who followed in his footsteps even the great Alexander came to be seduced and absorbed into the idea of Iran.

Ali Ansari is a professor in modern history and director of The Institute of Iranian Studies at The University of St Andrews, Scotland.
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Mutual trust, cooperation essential to formulation of COC: Chinese FM

English.news.cn   2012-07-13

01:06:09

PHNOM PENH, July 12 (Xinhua) -- China calls for shelving disputes and seeking joint development on the South China Sea issue, and hopes all parties will do more to enhance mutual trust and promote cooperation for the formulation of a code of conduct in the South China Sea (COC), visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said here at the 19th ASEAN Regional Forum Foreign Ministers' Meeting Thursday.
Yang pointed out that China's sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters is supported by ample historical and legal evidence. Yet given the complexity of the South China Sea issue, China has always called for shelving disputes and seeking joint development.
China and ASEAN countries had candid discussions and reached broad consensus on the South China Sea issue 20 years ago and signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in Phnom Penh ten years ago. An important principle of the DOC is to let sovereign states directly concerned resolve their territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means through friendly consultations and negotiations, Yang noted.
Yang also said China is "open" to launching discussions on COC on the basis of full compliance with the DOC by all parties, adding it is "essential that all parties exercise self-restraint in keeping with the spirit of the DOC, and refrain from taking moves that will escalate and complicate the disputes and affect peace and stability."
"China hopes that all parties will do more to enhance mutual trust, promote cooperation, and create necessary conditions for the formulation of COC," Yang made the remark in response to the remarks by some countries at the meeting on the issue.
The foreign minister stressed that the South China Sea is an important shipping route for China as 60 percent of its external trade goes through it. Thus China attaches great importance to the freedom and safety of navigation in the South China Sea, and China will continue to work closely with the littoral countries to ensure smooth sea lanes in the South China Sea.
Yang Jiechi arrived in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, on Monday midnight for the week-long ASEAN ministerial level meetings, including the 45th ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting and the 19th ARF.
The 19th ARF kicked off here at the Peace Palace on Wednesday afternoon, with foreign Ministers and representatives from 27 countries and ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan attending the meeting.