Features

The Essential Guide to Jordan and the Middle East: Conversations from a Cross-Cultural Perspective

Usama Shair and Petra Shair

Amman, 2014

Pp. 110

This book is literally a cross-cultural endeavour as intimated by the title. Usama and Petra Shair, a husband and wife team — he born in Jordan and she in Germany — combine their two individual perspectives to fill a gap in the prevailing guide book genre. “The Essential Guide” doesn’t tell the reader what sights to see — there are plenty of books for that already. Instead, it provides an introduction to local society and customs, a guidebook to people, focusing on socio-cultural attitudes and practices, rather than relics. 

Writing in alternate passages, Usama from the perspective of “insider” and Petra from the viewpoint of “outsider” (though she’s lived in Jordan for decades), the Shairs pack a lot of information into a small volume. There are also occasional dashes of humour, mostly provided by Petra who appears to relish playfully, but patiently, countering misconceptions about Arabs as reflected in questions she has been asked over her 35 years of marriage to Usama. The first part of the book is based on these questions. Petra has her own set of questions that lead to logical answers to queries such as: “Did you convert to Islam?” This question is ironic since Usama is Christian, but Petra discovered how many people in the West don’t know there are Arab Christians, or that God and Allah are one and the same.

Actually, the issues raised are quite serious, as is driven home when Petra writes: “Throughout my married life, I have been asked many questions about being the wife of an Arab and living in the Middle East, and the nature of these questions has not changed in all of this time. When I first got married, I was asked whether my husband rides a camel, and if we were going to live in a tent. More recently, after a four-year stint living in Dubai, I have been asked if we live in a palace and drive a Rolls Royce.” (p. 7) 

Augmenting Petra’s account of her own experience in Jordan and Germany, Usama provides further background explanations. He takes on the greater role in narrating the three ensuing parts of the book covering Jordanian culture and traditions, religions and a very brief summary of Middle East history starting from just before World War I. While vividly describing the consequences of the post-war division of the area, the text, surprisingly, does not mention the division and ensuing occupation of Palestine, although this is certainly the most abrupt and damaging of all the divisions.

Hospitality and the significance of coffee lead off in the section on Jordanian traditions which explains the customs surrounding marriage, condolences, meals and social life. Throughout the importance of family is apparent. Religion is covered in great detail, presumably because of its centrality to people’s lives, but also because it is what is most misunderstood in the West. While sketching the history, practices and legal issues pertaining to Islam and Christianity respectively, Usama notes the many commonalities between Jordan’s two religions. Only one point is contestable: The book states that government and non-Christian schools are not permitted to teach Christianity to Christian students, but this is no longer the case. 

Usama and Petra Shair serve as genuine goodwill ambassadors for Jordan and the Arab world overall. They present Jordan as a more complex society than is usually assumed, and emphasise the coexistence and good neighbourliness that prevails among the different religious, ethnic and cultural groupings that make up its population. Another strong point is that they go beyond the parameters of West Amman and the city itself to describe life in the villages. Much of the information provided would apply to other countries in the region as well, making the book very useful for travellers and newcomers.

Their main message — don’t stereotype, don’t make sweeping generalisations — is ever more relevant, and their solid information should be a powerful tool in countering

Islamophobia and other misconceptions about Arabs and the Middle East. The fact that they write from the heart, as well as from the mind, makes their message very accessible. As Petra says in conclusion, “Jordan is my family.” (p. 110)

“The Essential Guide” is available at Readers/Cozmo Centre.

OSLO — Large storms like the blizzard that battered New England this week may become more severe but less frequent as the Earth’s climate changes, scientists recently said.

The Canadian-led study noted that warmer air can hold more moisture, meaning more fuel for rain, hail or snow, and found knock-on effects on how the atmosphere generates storms.

“In a future climate, the global atmospheric circulation might comprise highly energetic storms,” they wrote in the journal Science.

At the same time, “fewer numbers of such events” may occur, they said. More evaporation and precipitation of water are likely to use up more energy in the atmosphere, contributing to reduce the intensity of winds around the world.

The report looks at how the atmosphere works as a heat engine, shifting heat from the sun from the tropics towards the poles. It is part of the effort to pin down the probable affects of climate change to help everyone from farmers to city planners cope with the shifts.

“This is about the large-scale storms... like the storm in the northeast of the United States,” lead author Frederic Laliberte of the University of Toronto in Canada told Reuters of the findings, which also involved other experts in Britain and Sweden. “More moisture creates very strong storms.”

In 2013, a UN report by leading climate scientists found that heavy downpours and days with extreme heat and cold had become more frequent. It linked the shift to man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.

Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading who was not involved in Thursday’s study, said it gave a new perspective into how the atmosphere acts as a heat engine.

More powerful but less frequent storms would be “more bad than good” overall, he said. “The intensity of the rainfall can do damage to crops. And a lack of rainfall over extended periods can also do damage.”

Governments will meet in Paris in late 2015 to work out a global deal to limit rising emissions of greenhouse gases.

AMMAN — “It makes no sense to reproduce reality as we see it,” says artist Fausto Borge, “that is why I became an abstract painter.”

His abstracts on display at Nabad Art Gallery, an attempt to follow the “dynamics” and “evolution” of objects, are inspired by “what we do not see”. 

“This reality is a fiction; we only comprehend 1 per cent of what it is,” says Borge, which must be why he seems compelled to “erase what is explicit”, the “sharp edges and contrasts” of an “opaque” reality, leaving the viewer with mysteries to decipher in a world of his own creation.

Avowedly influenced by sciences — “I love physics, chemistry; I worked as a mason and as a car mechanic when I was a student” — Borge then has to reconcile order and minuteness with his rejection of reality as a comprehensible concept.

The result: a collection aptly titled “Order and Chaos”, a stunning set of abstracts that may get a perfunctory look from a casual viewer but that require long scrutiny from a more inquisitive soul seeking to “read” his message.

The envoy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to Jordan, the artist is an ambassador in more than one way: representing his country as a diplomat, but also presenting art to the world at large.

“The recumbent”, the work that meets the viewer at the entry to the gallery, and one of few titled, may suggest, as its title implies, a body lying in a wooden receptacle, but it could also be cooling magma in some primordial earth crust formation, a window to a fiery horizon or a prehistoric monolith, man’s first attempt at leaving something to his likeness to the future.

This almost monumental work is offset by five small ones on the adjoining wall. It is as if the artist decided to deconstruct the “whole” into several components, recognisable yet different, and leave it for the viewer to choose which he can relate to better.

The smaller abstracts are created by geometrical patterns — order — or images reminiscent of cave paintings, a few “chaotic” outlines hinting at some form of life.

And then, like a conductor changing tenor, the artist presents a different kind of work. Small paper paintings are replaced by bigger sculptural metal representations, solid yet soft, permanent yet fragile. 

The “Homage to Rothko” — who, incidentally, like Pollock, was a student at the Arts Students League of New York, where Borge also studied from 1980 to 1983 — is a sober silver aluminium square on which, playing with texture, the artist creates another square almost three dimensional, bringing to mind cubism.

But if this image is rather trompe l’oeil, “An ancient bread recipe” is truly in relief.

A blue wooden background supports aluminium squiggles, little shiny, playful blobs that create an imaginary text of a bread recipe, known to the artist but a total mystery for the viewer.

Then it is paper, again, dainty abstracts in colours that defy description and challenge imagination, juxtaposed to big wood works in such seamless fashion that one has difficulty distinguishing one medium from another. 

The temptation to touch the works is irresistible. Their surface is smooth, despite appearing rugged and ridged, almost sensual, in warm, earthly colours. Their enigmatic imagery lends itself to interpretation.

Aluminium in Borge’s hands is pliant. But then, he confesses using the torch as his brush. It moulds and smelts to become a starry night, the lights of a city seen from high above, a bubbly magic potion or gold nuggets buried in dark basalt. 

It becomes, in other instances, flattened ore placed by the artist haphazardly on wood in apparent chaos to create, depending on one’s imagination, arcane heraldry or some exotic plant.

Borge plays with texture skilfully to create depth and movement.

Whether paper, canvas, wood or aluminium, his works, in subdued, soothing, almost monochromatic colours, are rich and intriguing. They reflect the artist’s distinct aesthetic and a wealth of artistic experience.

Each painting, the artist says, is a project; each object has its own dynamism whose evolution and effect he follows to create his reality, one only he can see and we only can hope to understand.

In Jordan for five years now, Borge, who was “always able to draw” is content to have been able to create a workshop in the basement of his residence, where he can put to good work this natural skill, finely honed in schools in the US and France.

“I became a painter when I was 30. I studied painting in New York, engraving under the direction of Krishna Reddy and conventional painting at the Arts Students League of New York.”

Further studies in France yielded a certificate in aesthetics and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Bordeaux.

Born in Costa Rica, when he was “five or six” his parents emigrated to Venezuela, a country with which he entirely identifies. 

“Even though I have French nationality, as I lived for 20 years in France, I consider myself Venezuelan.”

Since 1982, Borge has held solo exhibitions in France, Venezuela and now Amman, and participated in group exhibitions in the US, France and Venezuela.

His “Amman period” is on display until March 11.

SAN FRANCISCO — Kill switches that render stolen smartphones useless were recently credited with stifling robberies and thefts in London, New York City and San Francisco. 

In London, the number of reports of smartphones being stolen from people dropped 40 per cent last year, after kill switches were introduced there, according to officials.

San Francisco last year recorded a 27 per cent decrease in overall mobile phone robberies, and a 40 per cent plunge in robberies targeting iPhones, according to the district attorney here.

California-based Apple was the first company to build in kill switches that let people remotely disable its smartphones, making them worthless to thieves interested in selling them to new users.

In New York City, there was an overall decline of 16 per cent in mobile phone robberies and a 25 per cent drop in iPhone robberies, officials there reported.

In London, the monthly average for the number of phones stolen has halved since September 2013 resulting in 20,000 fewer victims annually, according to figures released by Mayor Boris Johnson.

“The significant decrease in smartphone thefts since the implementation of kill-switch technology is no coincidence,” New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said in a joint release.

“Restricting the marketability of stolen cellphones and electronic devices has a direct correlation to a reduction of associated crimes and violence, as evidenced in London, San Francisco and New York.”

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, San Francisco District Attorney George and Johnson co-chair a Secure Our Smartphones initiative launched in June of 2013 to find solutions to a violent crime wave of smartphone thefts.

The initiative pressed the smartphone industry to adopt kill switch technology as a theft deterrent.

Apple’s home state of California was the first in the nation to mandate kill switches in smartphones, passing a law that will take effect in July of this year.

Apple added the technology to iPhones in September of 2013 in the form of an Activation Lock feature added to the iOS 7 version of its mobile software and made it standard in new-generation iPhone 6 models.

Activation Lock calls for an Apple ID and password to reactivate an iPhone that has been remotely disabled by its owner.

South Korean consumer electronics titan Samsung released a “kill switch-type solution” last year for its Galaxy S5 smartphone, officials noted.

Google added a smartphone disabling feature to the Lollipop version of its Android mobile device software, and Microsoft is expected to have the capability built into a version of its smartphone operating system due out later this year.

“The wireless industry continues to roll out sophisticated new features, but preventing their own customers from being the target of a violent crime is the coolest technology they can bring to market,” Gascon said.

SAN FRANCISCO — Parents may not have the resources of the National Security Agency, but it’s not that hard for them to snoop on their smartphone-addicted kids.

A booming array of gadgets are being marketed to harried parents who want to keep tabs on their children, whether they are speeding in Mom’s car or texting after hours when they should be asleep.

There are fobs, watches and bracelets with location sensing capabilities. Smart anklets track the ever changing moods of babies. There is even a SleepIQ Kids Bed that can tip parents off when kids are up after hours.

Many of these devices — especially the ones designed to track older children — are reliant on the smartphones that teens hold so dear, given their location tracking features.

“Parents want to feel more safe and in control of the situation; its a sort of feel good thing that parents can do,” said Florida Atlantic University criminology professor Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the US Cyberbullying Research Centre.

Phones and trackers

The six-year-old daughter of Frank Lee, a senior marketing manager at South Korean consumer electronics powerhouse LG, sports playfully coloured GizmoPal wrist wear.

The LG device designed for children lets them make mobile phone calls to pre-programmed numbers by pushing a button, and also taps into GPS capabilities to let parents easily check whether they arrived safely at their expected destination.

GizmoPal can also receive calls, but only from select pre-designated numbers.

“At first she was a little excessive in calling us,” Lee said. 

“I told her to let me know when she wants to stop wearing it, but she doesn’t even like to take it off to let me charge it.”

Applications that run in the background on teens’ smartphones or tablets can access camera rolls, messages, web browsing activity and more, according to Hinduja.

Software can even capture occasional screen shots of web pages being viewed.

In some cases, parents can set boundaries, or geo-fences, that will trigger text message or e-mail alerts if children stray into areas that grown-ups have designated off-limits.

“We’ve heard of parents putting microchips in children,” said Robert Lowery of the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.

“Of course, those things raise eyebrows. We don’t advocate that.”

Lowery, a former law enforcement officer, credited technology — including social media sites like Facebook where well-targeted calls for help can spread quickly — with ramping up the speed at which some missing children are located.

Parenting trumps technology

Hinduja, however, expressed concern that people might be sabotaging themselves with what they think are parenting short-cuts.

“In a perfect world, we want to have great relationships between parents and children so they will talk to parents about what is going on in their lives,” Hinduja said.

“If parents are going behind kids’ backs with this software, it basically kills any lines of communications that parents have probably worked years to develop.”

He recommended that parents wait until older children prove they cannot be trusted before they resort to cyber-snooping technology.

“It feels like hacking life,” Hinduja said. “People shouldn’t think there is software to make them a better parent, because there isn’t.”

Lee and Lowery agreed that good parenting trumps technology, which is best viewed as a helpful tool for keeping children safe and fostering communication in families.

“Technology can’t replace the human connection,” Lee said.

“It is about teaching responsibility regardless of the toy or tool.”

Lowery advises parents to teach children common sense when it comes to safety practices.

Kids should “kick and scream if someone tries to grab them”, Lowery said. “An electronic device is not going to stop that — it will just give us a good idea where they are going.”

NEW YORK — Are you a hack waiting to happen? Your boss wants to find out.

High-profile hacks have companies on the defence, trying to prevent becoming the next Sony Pictures or Anthem. And data shows phishing e-mails are more and more common as entry points for hackers — unwittingly clicking on a link in a scam e-mail could unleash malware into a network or provide other access to cyberthieves.

So a growing number of companies, including Twitter Inc., are giving their workers’ a pop quiz, testing security savvy by sending spoof phishing e-mails to see who bites.

“New employees fall for it all the time,” said Josh Aberant, postmaster at Twitter, during a data privacy town hall meeting recently in New York City.

Falling for the fake scam offers a teachable moment that businesses hope will ensure employees will not succumb to a real threat. It’s even a niche industry: companies like Wombat Security and PhishMe offer the service for a fee.

Phishing is very effective, according to Verizon’s 2014 data breach investigations report, one of the most comprehensive in the industry. Eighteen per cent of users will visit a link in a phishing e-mail which could compromise their data, the report found.

Not only is phishing on the rise, the phish are getting smarter. Criminals are “getting clever about social engineering”, said Patrick Peterson, CEO of e-mail security company Agari. As more people wise up to age-old PayPal and bank scams, for example, phishing e-mails are evolving. You might see a Walgreens gift card offer or a notice about President Barack Obama warning you about Ebola.

The phishing tests recognise that many security breaches are the result of human error. A recent study by the nonprofit Online Trust Alliance found that of more than 1,000 breaches in the first half of 2014, 90 per cent were preventable and more than one in four were caused by employees, many by accident.

Fake phishing e-mails are indistinguishable from the real ones. That’s the point. In one sent out by Wombat, the subject reads “E-mail Account Security Report — Unusual Activity.” The e-mail informs the recipient that his or her account will be locked for unusual activity such as sending a large number of undeliverable messages. At the bottom there’s a link that, were this a real phishing e-mail, would infect the recipient’s computer with malicious software or steal password and login information.

If you click?

Up pops a web page: “Oops! The e-mail you just responded to was a fake phishing e-mail. Don’t worry! It was sent to you to help you learn how to avoid real attacks. Please do not share your experience with colleagues, so they can learn too.” It also offers tips on recognising suspicious messages.

In the 14 years since PhishMe CEO and co-founder Rohyt Belani has been in the information security field, he says it’s changed from something a “geek in the back room” was supposed to take care of to something companies now handle at the highest level of management. The nature of the intruder also has changed, from pranksters to criminal organisations and nation-states.

As the security industry developed, he said, so did the idea of the user as “stupid” and the “weakest link”, destined to continue to fall for phishing attempts and other scams. Belani disagrees with that, faulting the security industry for not better training workers.

“We posted posters in hallways, gave out squishy balls, [made] screen savers,” he said. “When was the last time you changed your password because of a squishy ball?”

While phishing training e-mails are a “good cautionary measure”, they aren’t “actually going to strike at the core of the issue”, believes Agari’s Peterson. He, along with large Internet companies such as Facebook Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., support establishing a standard that makes it impossible for scammers to impersonate your bank, social network or other business in an e-mail. Think of it as a verification system for e-mails. For now, though, this seems a long way off.

So, at Pinnacle Financial Partners in Nashville, Tennessee, employees will continue to receive fake phishing e-mails, about one a quarter. The results are reported to the company’s audit committee and board of directors, said Chief Information Officer Randy Withrow. Since the 800-employee company started the Wombat programme Withrow said it has seen a 25 per cent drop in successful phishing attempts.

Workers “take it very personally” when they fall for it, he said. “They become apologetic and wonder, ‘how did I miss it?”

Luckily for Pinnacle, it was only a test.

Are digital tablets going to replace books in schools? Will it happen anytime soon?

Trying new, potentially life-changing technology when you’re 20 or older is one thing. Trying the same, or rather being forced to, when you’re 10 or 12 is something else. The impact can be devastating if the experience ever proves to be, well, not so beneficial, not to say harmful. For it is definitely what we would call an experience, with no results guaranteed.

There’s a global trend, in many countries, to try and replace traditional books with digital tablets at school. One of countries that are most seriously considering the change is France. The debate is hot and should the move be adopted by the authorities, the country may see it implemented in a year or two. More than 60 per cent of the population, however, is against the change and so it may not really happen so soon.

How come that France, a country with a very high level of education, globally, and a land whose culture is famous the world over, is considering such a drastic change for schoolchildren? Are they properly weighing the consequences?

In Jordan, the question is not totally eluded in official circles though it is not as seriously on the authorities’ agenda as it is in France, for example. Still, it is often heard and discussed in social circles in Amman.

At first sight it looks like a very attractive change or revolution should we say: less weight to carry every day for schoolkids, quicker learning, a smoother and better approach to the digital world and to the Internet, and last but not least more interactive learning. Not to mention the sempiternal save-the-planet approach that would save paper, ink, etc. The list of advantages is long and they make no doubt.

But there are also disadvantages; some are plain to see and others totally unpredictable. The obvious ones are a wider exposure to the web and to all its hazards. Of course Internet access can be limited to the local network in the classroom, for better control, but how do you give very young persons an Internet able digital device and make sure they do not bypass the classroom rules, that they will not get to the web anyway?

There are also technical constraints. A traditional book doesn’t need to be recharged, understandably, tablets do. So instead of the typical “I forgot my book at home” excuse there will be the “I forgot to recharge my tablet”. Sure, there could be solutions for that, like global wireless recharging in the classroom or simply a power outlet available for each child, but how hard and how expensive it would be to implement such major infrastructural changes?

The above are nothing compared to the unknown effects. These may take a generation or two to be observed and analysed.

The greatest fear of those who are against the sudden introduction of tablets at school, against seeing them replacing books completely, is the possible loss of handwriting. This fear is very understandable.

Given the time handwriting has been in use by mankind, losing it too suddenly could significantly alter one’s character. By handwriting any topic we understanding it, memorise it and learn it better. Typing is not exactly the same. There’s also the graphological aspect of handwriting that is not to be ignored. Handwriting reveals much of our character and is as identifying as a signature. Where will this go if you only use tablets when you are still at school? Will it make children will weaker personality?

 Things will inexorably change, however.

When electronic calculators invaded the academic field circa 1974 many were afraid that they would cause more harm than good to students. We know that it proved not to be true, now that we all have and use these calculators everywhere, from smartphones to computers, even if die-hard purist educators complain that the young generation is unable to perform mental arithmetic like their elders used to. Perhaps we should not fear tablets for they may prove to become as ubiquitous and as widely accepted as calculators. The human mind simply will be put to better use than it has been in the past — assumingly. Tomorrow’s tasks may not necessarily be today’s.

PARIS — A new look at four fossils has revealed that snakes’ earliest known ancestor lived as many as 70 million years earlier than thought, scientists recently said.

Until now, the fossil record had suggested snakes slithered onto the scene in the Upper Cretaceous period, about 94-100 million years ago.

But an international team of researchers reported in the journal Nature Communications that serpents actually have a much longer lineage.

“Evolution within the group called ‘snakes’ is much more complex than previously thought,” Michael Caldwell, a professor at the University of Alberta in Canada, said in a press release.

Re-analysing fossils in museum collections, the scientists found that the oldest among them belonged to the earliest identifiable snake, which lived between 143 and 167 million years ago.

Its skull has key features that have continued to appear among snakes ever since, even through millions of years of species diversification.

The granddaddy is a critter dubbed Eophis underwoodi, after Garth Underwood, an expert at Britain’s Natural History Museum, who wrote an important reference work on snakes in the 1960s.

Its fragmentary remains were found at a cement quarry in Oxfordshire.

E. underwoodi lived in the Middle Jurassic period, during the final stage of an important event in Earth’s geological history — the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent into two components called Gondwana and Laurasia.

It, and the three other ancient fossils, suggest that snakes by this time had already differentiated from their lizard cousins, the study says.

The big giveaway is the skull, which remains almost unchanged among snakes to this day.

Though E. underwoodi still had limbs, its cranium and dental features closely resembled today’s snakes.

Snakes lost their limbs gradually under evolutionary pressure as they adapted to niche habitats.

Caldwell and his team are hoping for other fossil finds to show whether there were even older snakes. They would also like to fill a knowledge gap of tens of millions of years the discovery has opened.

The thing is that I can never buy guavas. Don’t get me wrong; I love the fruit, in all its varieties. There are several types of it: the seeded, seedless, white centred, yellow skinned, green shaded and one very rare kind that has a red core to it. I love them all. But the fact remains that I can never buy them. 

And that’s because when I was a little, guava trees surrounded our house. Not one or two, but a veritable orchard grew in our backyard that would be laden with the luscious fruit. The birds, especially the parrots would go crazy in the guava season. They feasted on them from the crack of dawn until twilight set in. There was so much to choose from that like greedy children, they would peck at one and then hop across to another one, leaving the half eaten fruit dangling precariously at an unnatural angle. 

I knew the topography of most of these trees blindfolded. Aping my older brother, I had learned to climb them at a very early stage. Rushing back from school I would dump my heavy bag and lunchbox and immediately scamper up the one on the left of the doorway. That was also the place where I disappeared to sulk after every disagreement with my hapless parents. 

Our sensible mum did not have much patience with my tantrums but our nanny, who we called “Ayyamma” and was like our surrogate mother, would continue to coax me to come down. I would petulantly ask her to clamber up but her large girth unfortunately made it impossible to do so. Our father good naturedly would move his chair beneath the tree and ask for his tea to be served there. As the aroma of the wafer thin cucumber sandwiches wafted up, I would surreptitiously reach for them while hanging on to the unsteady branches for dear life. 

When the guavas ripened, they did so in quick succession. My mom, along with all the other ladies of our neighbourhood got very busy then. Regular meals in our household were halted as jam and jelly making took precedence over everything else. Other than those two routine specialties, she also concentrated on making guava juice, squash, conserve and just about anything else she could think of. If she could have her way she would have made guava toothpaste, guava soap and guava shampoo too. Believe me, it’s true. 

When all the transparent jars were filled and lined neatly on the kitchen counter and still more guavas came in from the orchard, she would finally give-up.

These fruits were separated into two heaps and placed outside the entrance gate of our house. Any farmer, passerby or stranger was welcome to take them, as much as they wished and as often as they wanted. 

Seeing such an abundance of guavas being distributed in my childhood, I somehow thought they came for free. To pay some amount to consume them was a concept that was completely alien to me. Lost in thought, I was jolted by the sound of our daughter’s voice. 

“Look Mum, guavas,” she exclaimed. 

“Let’s get the pineapple,” I cut in. 

“It’s JD4 per kilo,” she said. 

“Exorbitant,” I nodded. 

“The pineapple is for JD6,” she read out. 

“Put it in the basket please,” I requested. 

“But it’s more expensive,” she reasoned. 

“I know,” I agreed. 

“Penny wise, pound foolish?” she asked. 

‘You can say that again,” I laughed. 

MIAMI — When heated to the max and inhaled deeply, e-cigarettes produce the toxic chemical formaldehyde, which could make the devices up to 15 times more cancerous than regular cigarettes, US researchers recently said.

E-cigarettes are battery powered devices that heat up a liquid containing nicotine and artificial flavouring. The vapour is inhaled, much like a cigarette.

While some say e-cigarettes may help tobacco smokers kick the habit, others are concerned that the unregulated devices are being marketed widely despite little long-term evidence about their health effects.

The team from Portland State University experimented with a machine that “inhaled” e-cigarette vapour at low voltage and high voltage to see if and how much formaldehyde was produced by the heating of the vaping liquid, which contains flavouring chemicals, nicotine, propylene glycol and glycerol.

The machine took 10 puffs over the course of five minutes, each puff lasting three to four seconds.

No formaldehyde was detected when the machine operated at the low, 3.3 voltage setting, the authors said in a research letter published by the New England journal of Medicine.

But when it inhaled at the highest setting, five volts, formaldehyde was detected, at levels far higher than seen in conventional tobacco cigarettes.

At high voltage, an e-cigarette user vaping at a rate of three millilitres per day would inhale about 14 milligrammes of formaldehyde per day in formaldehyde-releasing agents, the article said, describing the estimate as “conservative because we did not collect all of the aerosolised liquid, nor did we collect any gas-phase formaldehyde.”

The daily estimate of formaldehyde exposure for a pack-a-day smoker is three milligrammes.

That level of exposure could boost the risk of cancer five to 15 times higher than in long-term smokers, it added, using two previous studies on formaldehyde in cigarettes as reference.

“How formaldehyde-releasing agents behave in the respiratory tract is unknown, but formaldehyde is an International Agency for Research on Cancer group 1 carcinogen,” the article said.

“Formaldehyde-releasing agents may deposit more efficiently in the respiratory tract than gaseous formaldehyde, and so they could carry a higher slope factor for cancer.”

Peter Hajek, director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, said the study did not reflect real-world conditions.

“In e-cigarette use by humans, overheating the liquid generates acrid tasting ‘dry puff’ which is unpleasant and avoided rather than slowly inhaled,” said Hajek, who was not involved in the study.

“When a chicken is burned, the resulting black crisp will contain carcinogens but that does not mean that chicken are carcinogenic,” he added.

“Vaping may not be as safe as breathing clear mountain air, but it is much safer than smoking. It would be a shame if this study persuaded smokers who cannot or do not want to stop smoking and contemplate vaping that they might as well stick to their deadly cigarettes.”