Features

NEW YORK — Sure, you have a lot to do today — laundry, bills, dinner — but it’s never too early to start planning for your digital afterlife, the fate of your numerous online accounts once you shed this mortal coil.

Facebook, Google, Twitter and other sites have different policies on dealing with dead users. Some states are also considering laws that would automatically give loved ones access to, though not control of, their dead relative’s digital accounts, unless otherwise specified.

Unless you take action, you might not like the outcome: Would you want to give your spouse automatic access to your e-mail correspondences? Should parents automatically be able to browse through a deceased child’s online dating profile?

Now that you’re mulling your eventual demise, here’s a look at how some of the biggest Internet companies deal with deceased users’ accounts and what you can do to control your information.

Google

The company behind Gmail and Google Plus has a tool that lets you decide what happens with your account after you die or become inactive online for another reason, such as moving to a deserted island off the grid with no Internet access. The tool is called “inactive account manager”.

You can choose to have your data deleted after three, six or 12 months of inactivity. Or you can choose someone, such as a parent or a spouse, to receive the data. The tool covers not just e-mail but also other Google services such as Google Plus, YouTube and Blogger.

Before deleting data, Google will send a warning to a secondary e-mail address or a phone number if you have provided one. This, of course, won’t help if you’re dead. But you can also have that warning go to a loved one.

Google’s inactive account manager: http://bit.ly/XuvgqD

Facebook

The world’s largest online social network doesn’t give relatives access to dead people’s accounts. Instead, loved ones can request for your account to be “memorialised” if you die. This means no one will be able to log in or modify any settings, such as adding or removing friends or deleting content. In addition, Facebook won’t show the account in its “people you may know” section for suggesting friends and won’t send birthday reminders.

Privacy settings from when you were alive will carry over, and those can’t be changed. So if friends were able to post to your account’s Timeline, they’ll still be able to do so. The Timeline posts will be viewable by the same people who were able to see those posts before. Friends will also be able to send private messages, as long as they were able to before, even though no one will see them.

Facebook’s page on deleting or memorialising accounts: http://on.fb.me/1cyCi5e

Twitter

Twitter will deactivate your account if contacted by a family member or a person authorised to act on behalf of your estate. For this, the person will need a death certificate. Because many people don’t use their real names on Twitter, the company will also want a “brief description of the details that evidence this account belongs to the deceased”, its policy states.

After 30 days, a deactivated Twitter account is permanently deleted.

To respect the wishes of loved ones, Twitter says it may also remove images of deceased individuals that circulate on the site. The policy applies only in limited circumstances and was implemented recently, after some users sent altered images of Robin Williams to his daughter Zelda after the actor committed suicide in August.

The policy was also used to remove gruesome images of the beheading of journalist James Foley. The company’s CEO Dick Costolo said last month, in reference to the Foley images, that Twitter “is actively suspending accounts as we discover them related to this graphic imagery”.

By Melissa Healy

Los Angeles Times (MCT)

Those with a body mass index, or BMI, above 40 are robbed of at least six-and-a-half years, on average, of expected lifespan, a study has found. And the toll in years lost rises with the degree of obesity, reaching nearly 14 years for the most obese — those with a BMI above 55, researchers said.

The study found that the reduction in life expectancy associated with being extremely obese was similar to that seen in adults who smoke. And as a person’s obesity rises to higher levels, his or her expected lifespan falls below that of smokers.

The findings come from a project that aggregated the results of about 20 long-term studies on obesity conducted in the United States, Australia and Sweden. They were published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine, in what is believed to be the largest study to date of the health consequences of severe obesity.

Compared with their normal-weight peers, the extremely obese are more likely to succumb early to heart disease, cancer and diabetes. For men with “class III obesity”, the rate of death attributable to heart disease and diabetes is especially elevated compared with normal-weight males. For women in the same obesity category, cancer deaths dramatically outstripped those among normal-weight women.

But premature deaths attributable to all causes, from injury to chronic lower respiratory infections, were consistently higher in those with severe obesity, the study found.

The extremely obese — those who generally would need to lose 100 pounds or more to attain a “normal healthy weight” — are a fast-growing segment of the US population, now representing about 6 per cent of American adults.

The ranks of those with a BMI over 40 have grown fourfold since the 1980s. The population with a BMI over 50 has grown by 10 per cent in the same period.

Look up your BMI, a rough indicator of a body’s degree of fatness, at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/obesity/BMI/bmicalc.htm.

The medical costs for such patients are outsized as well, accounting for one in five healthcare dollars spent per capita in the year 2000.

The latest findings suggest that extreme obesity may be even more dangerous for men than it is for women and for younger adults compared with older ones. They come as evidence mounts that weight-loss medications, as well as diet and lifestyle counselling, work only modestly in helping the obese lose weight and keep it off.

Increasing research has shown bariatric surgery to be highly effective not only at inducing weight loss but at forestalling and reversing the health consequences of obesity. But the substantial costs of such surgery are expected to limit its widespread use.

As the extremely obese age and their ranks continue to grow, the authors of the current study said, their medical problems may reverse progress made in driving down cardiovascular disease through smoking-cessation programmes and more widespread treatment of risk factors, and in driving down cancer deaths with better prevention and treatment. Cancers more prevalent among the obese are those of the breast, colon, pancreas, ovaries, kidney, esophagus, thyroid and gall bladder.

“If current global trends in obesity continue, we must expect to see substantially increased rates of mortality due to these major causes of death, as well as increasing health care costs,” the authors concluded.

CAIRO — A bomb hit an Egyptian security force convoy in the Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, killing six policemen in the restive region where jihadists launch regular attacks.

Two policemen were also wounded in the attack on the road between North Sinai provincial capital El Arish and the town of Rafah on the Gaza border, the interior ministry said.

"An explosive device went off near one of the APCs [armoured personnel carriers] of a joint police and army security convoy on the road between El Arish and Rafah, killing six policemen including an officer and wounding two others," the ministry said in a statement.

It said security forces had cordoned off the area and an investigation was being carried out.

The attack has not been claimed but the Sinai Peninsula is a hotbed of jihadist groups who regularly attack security forces in retaliation for a government crackdown against Islamist supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

The crackdown targeting Morsi's supporters has left at least 1,400 people dead since his ouster on July 3, 2013.

Then-army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi ousted Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president, after millions protested against the Islamist's one-year rule.

More than 15,000 Morsi backers and members of his Muslim Brotherhood movement have also been jailed since his ouster.

The authorities say hundreds of police and army personnel have also been killed by jihadists since Morsi's ouster.

Sisi was later elected president, riding a wave of popularity following the crackdown.

Most attacks against security forces have been spearheaded by Ansar Beit Al Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem), an Al Qaeda-inspired jihadist group based in Sinai which launched rockets into neighbouring Israel.

It says its attacks against security forces are to avenge the killing of hundreds of pro-Morsi protesters.

The group claimed a bombing earlier this month in Sinai that killed 11 policemen. It also recently expressed support to the extremist Islamic State group that has seized territories in Iraq and Syria.

The police and army have launched a massive operation in the region to crush Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, killing scores of militants including several of its leaders.

Ansar Beit Al Maqdis is believed to be led by Bedouin militants, and several of its members who have been killed or arrested had fought alongside Islamist rebels in Syria.

The group adheres to an austere and militant version of Islam shared by Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups.

The security campaign has inflamed tensions in the historically marginalised Sinai, where Bedouin have long complained of discrimination by the central government in Cairo.

Despite the military and police operation, the militants have persisted in launching sporadic assaults and sometimes even set up impromptu checkpoints to target security personnel.

PARIS — Jean Paul Gaultier, showman of Paris fashion, is to bow out of ready-to-wear later this month after nearly 40 years of over-the-top, sometimes provocative collections.

The 62-year-old former “enfant terrible” of fashion, who famously designed Madonna’s cone bras, will devote himself to couture, the brand’s perfume business and other projects, the fashion house said in a statement.

Gaultier’s last ready-to-wear collection will be shown on September 27 during the spring/summer 2015 fashion shows in Paris.

The designer told industry journal Women’s Wear Daily the decision had been taken after an “in-depth assessment” of the future of the fashion house in which Spanish fragrance and fashion group Puig has a majority stake.

“We looked at various possibilities considering the present state of the company and we have reached the same conclusion,” he said.

“For some time, I have found true fulfilment in working on the haute couture, and it allows me to express my creativity and my taste for research and experimentation,” he added.

The designer, who still creates stage costumes for performers such as Kylie Minogue, said the decision came as the world of ready-to-wear had “evolved considerably”.

“Commercial constraints as well as the frenetic pace of collections don’t leave any freedom, nor the necessary time to find fresh ideas and to innovate,” he said.

“I will be able again to express my creativity without constraints,” he added.

Gaultier, who launched his own company in 1976, started his beauty business in 1991 and an accessories division in 2000.

He moved into haute couture in 1997, and his high-fashion collections are always a highlight of the Paris fashion calendar.

For the finale of his last couture show in July, Gaultier got the bearded Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst to parade down the catwalk resplendent in a black and red vampire-themed gown.

“She is bringing in a new genre — a man with a beard with... virility, but a great femininity,” he said afterwards.

In recent years, Gaultier, considered one of France’s most talented designers, has been the subject of a major retrospective by the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal.

Since 2011, the exhibition has been seen by a million visitors worldwide and is due to arrive in Paris in 2015.

One room in the exhibition is devoted to “Eurotrash”, the outlandish adult television show hosted by Gaultier and Antoine de Caunes on Britain’s Channel 4 during the 1990s.

The eccentric designer is still popular in Britain for the show and has said that he continues to be inspired by London where he went “to party” in the 1970s.

By Deborah Netburn

Los Angeles Times (MCT)

What happens when you take about 50 sixth-graders and send them to a nature camp with no access to computers, tablets and mobile phones? A new study suggests that after just five days their ability to understand non-verbal social cues improves.

Non-verbal social cues are the emotional information we pick up from people around us that is not communicated through words. It includes facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice and body posture.

As children spend more time corresponding with their friends via text rather than talking to them face to face, the researchers wondered whether they were losing the ability to read these important cues.

“The idea for this study came from looking at the way my older child and her friends’ older siblings were communicating,” said Yalda Uhls, who runs the Los Angeles office of the non-profit Common Sense Media. “I’ve been at parties where the kids are all hanging out, but instead of looking at each other, they are staring at their phones.”

Uhls, who is the lead author of the study published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour, wanted to see what would happen if a group of children had to spend an extended period of time communicating completely device-free.

Uhls and senior author Patricia Greenfield of the University of California, Los Angeles found a public school that sends its sixth-grade class to a wilderness camp near Big Bear, Calif., for five days. At the camp, the students have no access to electronics.

When the class of about 50 children arrived at the camp, they were asked to take two tests to measure their ability to read non-verbal social cues. In the first, the kids were asked to assess the emotions portrayed in 48 photos of people making faces. In the second test, they watched a video with the sound turned off, and then made a judgment about the emotional state of the actor.

At the end of the five-day camp, the students were asked to take the tests again. The researchers report that over the five days the kids went from making an average of 14.02 errors on the face-recognition test at the beginning of their camp stay to 9.41 errors by the end. For the video component, they went from getting an average of 26 per cent of the emotional states correct to getting 31 per cent correct.

“Honestly, we were pretty surprised that just five days would have that affect,” said Uhls. “But we think this is good news because if indeed lack of face-to-face time is changing people’s ability to understand emotion, our results suggest you can disconnect for five days and get better.”

The researchers gave the same test to a control group of 54 sixth-graders from the same school who had not yet attended the camp. That group had an average of 12.24 mistakes the first time they took the face-recognition test and 9.81 mistakes when they took it again five days later. For the video test, the students’ scores stayed flat, getting an average of 28 per cent of the emotions correct both times they were tested.

Though the children who were at the camp showed a larger improvement over the five days than those who did not go to camp, the end results were not that different.

“I noticed that too,” said Uhls, “but even though the kids ended up in the same place, they started at different places, so the change is what we are really looking at.”

Uhls and Greenfield said the results of their study suggest that it is important for kids to spend time away from screens, but it doesn’t necessarily suggest that all screen time is bad.

“The main thing I hope people take away from this is that it is really important for children to have time for face-to-face socialising,” said Uhls. “I love media, my kids are media-savvy, but it is really important to have a balance.”

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s chronic shortages have begun to encroach on a cultural cornerstone: the boob job.

Beauty-obsessed Venezuelans face a scarcity of brand-name breast implants, and women are so desperate that they and their doctors are turning to devices that are the wrong size or made in China, with less rigorous quality standards.

Venezuelans once had easy access to implants approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. But doctors say they are now all-but impossible to find because restrictive currency controls have deprived local businesses of the cash to import foreign goods. It may not be the gravest shortfall facing the socialist South American country, but surgeons say the issue cuts to the psyche of the image-conscious Venezuelan woman.

“The women are complaining,” said Ramon Zapata, president of the Society of Plastic Surgeons. “Venezuelan women are very concerned with their self-esteem.”

Venezuela is thought to have one of the world’s highest plastic surgery rates, and the breast implant is the seminal procedure. Doctors performed 85,000 implants here last year, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Only the US, Brazil, Mexico and Germany — all with significantly larger populations — saw more procedures.

There are no official statistics on how many Venezuelans are walking around with enhanced busts. But a stroll down any Caracas street reveals that the augmentations are at least more conspicuous here than in other surgery-loving places. Even the mannequins look they’ve gone under the knife.

Until recently, women could enter raffles for implants held by pharmacies, workplaces and even politicians on the campaign trail. During this spring’s anti-government street demonstrations, the occasional sign protesting the rising price of breast implants mixed in with posters railing against food shortages and currency devaluation.

“It’s a culture of ‘I want to be more beautiful than you.’ That’s why even people who live in the slums get implants,” surgeon Daniel Slobodianik said, fiddling with an FDA-approved pouch of saline solution no longer on sale here.

Slobodianik used to perform several breast implants each week, but now performs closer to two a month. He says women call his office every day asking if he the implant size they’re looking for. When they can’t find it, they choose a second-best option, almost always a size up.

No one is giving the frustrated women much sympathy, especially not the government. The consumerism of plastic surgery has always jibed awkwardly with the rhetoric of socialist revolution. The late President Hugo Chavez called the country’s plastic surgery fixation “monstrous”, and railed against the practice of giving implants to girls on their 15th birthdays.

On social media, some Venezuelans take a judgmental tone, saying the panic over implants shows the real shortage here is values. Others joke that the scarcity will force Venezuelan women to start developing their personalities, using a Twitter hashtag that riffs on the Colombian telenovela “Sin Tetas, No Hay Paraiso” (“Without Boobs, There’s No Paradise”).

In the absence of US brands, plastic surgery has become an area dominated by Venezuela’s chief trading partner, China, whose goods are often given priority for import over those from other countries. They’re also a lot cheaper. While a pair of implants approved by European regulators can cost as much as $600 — about the same as the annual minimum wage here — the Chinese equivalent goes for a third of that. Some Venezuelan doctors refuse to use the Chinese devices, which are not subjected to random government inspections or clinical studies.

“I’m not saying they’re not safe, but I’ve removed more than a few ruptured Chinese implants. I just don’t feel comfortable with them,” Slobodianik said.

April Lee, an analyst at the Massachusetts-based healthcare research company Decision Resources Group, said the medical community frowns on the use of non-FDA-approved implants.

Unable to find the devices in doctors’ offices, some women are turning to the Venezuelan equivalent of the bartering website Craigslist, where sellers post pictures of black market implants of unknown origin sitting in sealed packages on kitchen tables, complete with stories of spouses who changed their minds and reassurances that the pouches remain sterile.

It’s not just women looking for a more attention-getting silhouette who are struggling; some patients are in urgent medical need. Lisette Arroyo, 46, waited two months this summer to get her ruptured implants replaced, dealing with intense itching while waiting for new devices to arrive from France. She had to buy them directly from the manufacturer before they could be shipped, spending the entire $300 in foreign currency the government permits Venezuelans annually. The surgery can cost another $800.

“This country is not what it used to be,” she said earlier this month as awaited surgery in a blue paper gown.

For the doctors trying to manage their patients’ expectations, the shortages are no less grave than Venezuela’s other hardships. Dr Miguel Angel Useche, who performed Arroyo’s delayed surgery, says women sometimes save for years for their operations, and to be told they must wait longer can be unbearable.

“Women call me up saying: ‘I’ve made so many sacrifices for this. How can you not help me?’” he said.

By Marco della Cava

USA Today (MCT) 

SAN FRANCISCO — The drone wars have officially begun.

Once the exclusive domain of DIYers passionate about buzzing parks and neighbours, tech titans are entering the fray with serious financial and grey-matter resources. Late last year, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos showed off his company’s drone delivery prototypes, and now Google reveals it has been secretly testing its own drones in Australian cattle country.

Dubbed Project Wing, the three-year mission successfully completed its first delivery August 13, a bundle of Cherry Ripe chocolate bars. Over subsequent days, the team from GoogleX — the Mountain View, California-based search company’s exploratory technology arm — air-dropped a range of other farmer-friendly goods, from medicines to first-aid kits.

The flights were a direct response to GoogleX lead and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who challenged his team to make a delivery to a real person via drone.

“We selected these items based on several conversations with local people about how aerial delivery might help them in their jobs,” GoogleX said in a recent release. “Over the course of the week, the team ran more than 30 successful delivery flights. We are now back in California reviewing what we’ve learned.”

Delivery by drone remains the stuff of the future, in part due to pending Federal Aviation Administration regulations regarding such unmanned flights. There’s also the simple matter of people getting used to oversize mechanical mosquitoes buzzing around. But for some drone industry observers, it’s a matter of when not if.

“Google’s announcement of its planned UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) delivery service further demonstrates [its] potential,” says Michael Toscano, president and CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. The technology promises “to revolutionise industries... whether it is helping farmers survey their fields, search for lost hikers or filming Hollywood movies, UAVs are capable of saving time, money and most importantly, lives.”

GoogleX, perhaps best known for its self-driving car project, is calling Project Wing a self-flying vehicle. Headed by Nick Roy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Aeronautics & Astronautics department, the project took flight in earnest in July 2012. A hybrid approach was deemed best, with wings for fast forward flight, and four rotors for vertical take-off and landing. In a drawing provided by Google, the package is seen nestled inside the plane’s body, and is lowered by a chain from heights of 35 to 50 metres.

The next two years were then spent refining the prototype before heading to a ranch 160 kilometres inland from Brisbane. The site was chosen, according to Google, for its “rolling hills, open sky and long-standing history of innovation with UAVs. Out in the countryside, the temperature varies drastically by time of day, winds shift by the second, and weather rolls in unexpectedly.”

Although bullish on its progress, Google says consumers shouldn’t expect drone deliveries for years. The reasons include complexity (“These planes have much more in common with (our) self-driving cars than the remote-controlled airplanes people fly in parks”), sophistication (“They will fly a preprogrammed route with just the push of a button”), and variety (“Over time, what you want to deliver and where and why will determine what vehicle you want to use”).

In the coming months, GoogleX’s Project Wing team will drill down deeper on reducing the noise of its drones, improving the precision of its flights and delivery targets (“to the size of a doorstep”), and making sure its self-flying vehicles are able to see and avoid each other while in flight.

Often perceived as the thinking man’s mass market auto maker, Honda is a safe pair of hands maker that is at the same time often subtly sporty and highly innovative, and enjoys a dedicated clientele. Launched as a 2013 model year, the latest generation Accord is a spacious, easy-to-drive and thoroughly sensible mid-size saloon with understatedly handsome appeal.

Though a mildly face-lifted version has already begun appearing in some regional markets, a recent test drive of the soon-to-be-outgoing model’s zippy engine, direct driving experience and ergonomics make it still one of the few standout cars in a rather grey, functional and uninspired automotive segment.

Understated elegance

Not one for extravagant, wild or overstated aggressive or futuristic designs that are betrayed by dull driving and cramped interiors, the Honda Accord is, however, a handsome, refined, and understated design. Smart and practical in execution, the Accord’s big glasshouse provides good visibility and cabin space. Its big rear lights are easy to see; its large boot is accommodating; and its side mirrors extended away from the body for better aerodynamics.

Sized at 225/50R17, the Accord’s footwear looks suitably large in proportion to its body in terms of aesthetics, but are also compromised well to deliver the right amount of road feel, grip and suppleness over road imperfections.

An evolutionary design, the Accord’s elegantly flowing lines are tighter, sharper, and more detailed and designed. With deeper lower air intake wider at the bottom and prominent lower bumper ridges, recessed foglights subtly raised bonnet and deep twin ascending flank crease lines — at door handle and sill levels — the wide Accord has a subtly athletic presence and eager stance on the road. 

Twin chrome slats and thicker chrome grille outline and L-shaped lower lighting elements lend the Accord’s fascia an uncluttered, understated, clean and classy appeal. Smooth and flowing sportily into the rear deck, the Accord’s silhouette, however, doesn’t sacrifice space or functionality.

Smooth spinning

Smooth and revvy, the Honda Accord’s 16-valve variable-timing 2.4-litre, transverse, 4-cylinder engine develops 173BHP at 6,200rpm and 166lb/ft at 4,000rpm, and mated to a five-speed automatic gearbox, should return 0-100km/h acceleration in 9.8-seconds or less and a top speed of around 226km/h.

Refined in operation, the Accord’s four-pot engine is progressive in nature, but once one approaches near its maximum torque point, it becomes noticeably livelier. Once revved into its high sweet spot the Accord’s 2.4 becomes more responsive and eager and will spin happily through to its rev limit. An under-square design engine with precise throttle response, the Accord’s engine also quickly winds down on throttle lift-off

The Accord’s 2.4 engine’s revvy characteristics has a certain sporting sensibility absent from many rivals and which would work well with a manual gearbox to better exploit the Accord’s potential and capable chassis. The five-speed automatic gearbox version tested, however, seemed to be tuned more for economical rather than spirited driving.

The Accord’s five-speed auto gearbox is one to be driven with firm throttle inputs if one wants decisive kickdowns and responses at low speeds. 

However, driven in a more relaxed manner, it delivers a smooth and clean shift, but for greater driver input, would have been better with sequential, or individually selectable gears, rather than three driving positions.

Clarity and comfort

A big car that seems to shrink around the driver, the Honda Accord’s driving dynamics stand out for their spot-on combination of comfortable and refined ride, and sporty and direct handling. 

Not a car that is overly stiff in an attempt to seem sporty or soft, wallowing and vague in its interpretation of comfort, the Accord gets it just right for its segment. 

And though it loses its predecessor’s sportier, more sophisticated and costlier double wishbone front suspension for more conventional MacPherson struts, the Accord nevertheless feels special in its segment in its smooth, sure-footed, agile and reassuring suspension, chassis and steering set-up and driving style.

Light and quick, the Accord’s steering is user-friendly for congested town driving and wrist-flick quick for winding roads. Stable and reassuring at speed, the quick steering delivers clarity through corners, with crisp turn-in and good feel and feedback. Threading through winding roads, body roll is well restrained, and its chassis copes in a fluent and sure-footed manner.

Sporty, tight and fluidly following road curvatures and textures, the Accord feels manoeuvrable, responsive, agile and expectedly good fun to drive through tight or sweeping corners and fluidly processes sudden direction changes in its stride. Its low-rolling resistance tires promote efficiency, but stickier tires would yet better complement its handling ability.

Airy ambiance

Nimble, eager and crisp in handling, the Accord is feels reassuringly stable at speed, and settles well on the rebound from undulations and sudden crests and dips. Taking road imperfections smoothly, the Accord’s damper and spring rates are well tuned for comfort, handling and composure. A big glasshouse provides good road visibility for when manoeuvring, while ergonomic, supportive, comfortable and adjustable seating allows one to find an upright and alert driving position. 

Airy and ergonomic with good refinement from noise, vibration and harshness, the Accord’s unpretentious cabin promotes a relaxed yet alert and confident driving position. A large speedometer and clear instrumentation are complemented by intuitively user-friendly and un-distracting controls.

User-friendly, functional and spacious the Accord features terrific front and rear space, where tall and wide passengers are accommodated well even when sitting in a row. Design is airy, elegant and uncomplicated, with cloth upholstery, logical layouts, big buttons and generally good textures and plastics, with harder textures not prominent.

Rear headspace is generous, adjustable steering travel is long, while A/C, USB connectivity and steering controls are standard, and dual-zone climate control, Bluetooth connectivity, parking sensors and other options are available on the EX model and up. Safety systems include standard stability and traction control, front and side airbags, ABS and electronic brake-force distribution, all-round three-point seatbelts and Isofix childseat latches.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2.4 litre, transverse, 4 cylinders 

Bore x stroke: 87 x 99.1mm

Compression ratio: 10:1

Valve-train: 16 valve, DOHC, variable valve timing

Gearbox: 5 speed automatic, FWD

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 173 (175) [129] @ 6,200rpm

Specific power: 73.5BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 112.3BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 166 (225) @ 4,000rpm

Specific torque: 95.5Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 146.1Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 9.8 seconds (est.)

Top speed: 226km/h (est.)

Fuel capacity: 65 litres

Length: 4,890mm

Width: 1,850mm

Height: 1,465mm

Wheelbase: 2,775mm

Tread, F/R: 1,584/1,586mm

Ground clearance: 141mm

Kerb weight: 1,540kg

Steering: Variable electric-assistance rack and pinion

Lock-to-lock: 2.56 turns

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs/discs

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/multi-link

Tyres: 225/50R17

Baghdad Central

Elliott Colla

London: Bitter Lemon Press, 2014

Pp. 332

Elliott Cola teaches Arabic literature at Georgetown University, and has translated several important contemporary Arabic novels. This time around, he has written his own fictional story, but it seems so real. Set in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, “Baghdad Central” covers many things which one knows about: A city in ruins, devastated infrastructure, unravelling social fabric, the occupiers’ ignorance of the country and callousness towards its people and culture, torture at Abu Ghraib, etc. But it is something else to read about these things from the point-of-view of Iraqi citizens themselves. This is an insider’s view that Colla produces with much authenticity.

Violence, intrigue, suspicion and double-dealing are the hallmarks of the world turned upside down which ex-police officer Muhsin Khafaji must navigate. Colla made a daring choice when he created Khafaji as his protagonist. For most Westerns, even those opposed to the invasion of Iraq, the idea of a Baathist policeman conjures up only negative images, but Khafaji will change their minds. “Poetry was everything in the house where he grew up.” (p. 41)

He can reel off hundreds of lines from Nazik Al Malaika and other poets — an interest he shared with his Palestinian wife until her untimely death from cancer due to lack of proper medicine during the sanctions regime. It is not Colla’s intent to present Khafaji as a top intellectual, but simply to indicate the level of public culture in pre-war Iraq. “To educated Iraqis, none of the poets in Khafaji’s mind would be unknown,” he writes in the acknowledgements. (p. 331)

Khafaji’s internal musings and flashbacks reveal that it is poetry and memories of happier times before Suheir’s death — plus chain smoking and whiskey, which enable him to endure the harsh realities of occupied Iraq. “The present is never thick enough.” (p. 45)

Now he has only his daughter, Mrouj, and her health is rapidly deteriorating due to a serious kidney condition, also left untreated during the time of sanctions. Khafaji is a pragmatist. After being arrested and tortured by US forces, he eventually agrees to work with them to rebuild the Iraqi police force in return for their providing Mrouj with treatment. From then on, the ambiguity pervading the novel only gets thicker.

“Baghdad Central” opens like a detective story. Khafaji’s brother-in-law asks him to try to find his daughter who has disappeared. When Khafaji’s American boss assigns him to trace missing interpreters, he thinks this will help him search for his niece, but what he finds is a tangled web of deceit that ends in horror. (It is noteworthy that he also encounters Iraqis who are putting their lives on the line to resist occupation and reclaim their country.)

Though billed as a crime story, “Baghdad Central” is much more because the crimes in question are not individual acts but the outgrowth of war and occupation. An interview Colla gave Henry Peck of “Guernica” magazine, August 15, 2014, suggests that the book can be classified as a roman noir, a genre where the protagonist is not necessarily a detective but can be a suspect, a perpetrator or the victim of a corrupt system. Circumstances push Khafaji into all these roles at different times, while the novel as a whole graphically illustrates the breakdown of moral clarity in such times.

Khafaji is the quiet type; his responses at times seem slow, but his mind is always working. His reactions to the situations he confronts are priceless, tinged with bitter irony. He is, by turn, bewildered, disgusted and amused by the changes he witnesses, from the presidential palace’s transformation into the Green Zone, to US soldiers having given Baghdad’s streets American names, presumably because they are too lazy or unwilling to learn the Arabic ones. While sometimes horrified by the US killing machine, he is also struck by the naïveté of those who imagine rebuilding the Iraqi police force simply by locating former policemen.

The atmosphere of ambiguity and insecurity is augmented by short, first-person, anonymous narratives interspersed in the story that convey the terror of post-war Baghdad: unexplained disappearances, families driven from their homes for having the “wrong” religious or ethnic identity, random and targeted killing. By the end of the novel, things are not any clearer than they were at the start. After all, the occupation is ongoing. But Khafaji has taught us a lot about human perseverance, loyalty, making tough choices (or having no choice at all), about loving Baghdad even at its worst and, oddly enough, how deep familiarity with poetry can bolster human logic.

“Baghdad Central” is available at Books@Cafe.

LONDON — British and Japanese scientists have managed to “reset” human stem cells to their earliest state, opening up a new realm of research into the start of human development and potentially life-saving regenerative medicines.

In work described by one independent expert as “a major step forward”, the scientists said they had successfully rebooted pluripotent stem cells so they were equivalent to those of a seven to 10-day old embryo, before it implants in the womb.

By studying the reset cells, they said they hoped they would now be able to learn more about embryo development, and how it can go wrong and cause miscarriage and developmental disorders.

“These cells may represent the real starting point for formation of tissues in the human embryo,” said Austin Smith, director of the Britain’s Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, who co-led the research recently published in the journal Cell.

“We hope that in time they will allow us to unlock the fundamental biology of early development, which is impossible to study directly in people,” he added.

Human pluripotent stem cells, which have the potential to become any of the cells and tissues in the body, can already be made in a lab either from cells extracted from early-stage embryos or from adult cells that have been induced, or reprogrammed, into an earlier state.

But, the researchers said in a statement, until now it has proved difficult to generate human pluripotent stem cells that are at an early enough, pristine stage, before they have started changing.

Instead, scientists have only derived cells that are slightly further down the developmental pathway, not a totally “blank slate”, said Smith.

Experts say that by helping to regenerate tissue, stem cell science could offer new ways of treating conditions for which there are currently no cures — including heart and eye diseases, Parkinson’s and stroke.

The process of generating stem cells in the lab is much easier to control in mouse cells, which can be frozen in a state of very early pluripotency using a protein called LIF. Human cells are not as responsive to LIF, so they must be controlled in a different way that involves switching key genes on and off.

Smith said this was the main reason why scientists have been unable to generate human pluripotent cells that are as primitive and pristine as their mouse equivalents.

To avoid this problem, the scientists introduced two genes — NANOG and KLF2 — which caused a network of genes controlling the cell to reboot and induce the early pluripotent state.

Yasuhiro Takashima of the Japan Science and Technology Agency said the reset cells opened the door to a new phase of research.

“We now need to carry out further studies to establish how our cells compare with others,” he said. “We don’t yet know whether these will be a better starting point than existing stem cells for therapies, but being able to start entirely from scratch could prove beneficial.”

Chris Mason, a stem cell expert and professor of regenerative medicine at University College London who was not involved in this work, praised its results and implications.

Mason said benefits could be safer and more clinically effective cell therapies produced at lower cost — good news for patients and healthcare provider.