Features

Bookkeepers use the time-honoured double entry system to make sure they didn’t enter wrong figures. Patients often consult more than one physician when they doubt the diagnostic made by a first one, taking what is called a second opinion.

Most software applications require you to enter twice a new password you are just creating, so as to verify it. Examples abound of such precautionary behaviour meant to cater for otherwise perfectly understandable human errors, or deception sometimes. Multiple verification, double or even triple, often is the only way to ensure you don’t end up with wrong numbers or information — especially information.

With the above in mind, and with the kind of information you find on the Web, which by now have become absolutely overwhelming in volume and also in diversity, multiple verification has become a must if you want to believe what you are reading or seeing on the Web. And yes, this includes news channels, Wikipedia and any source for that matter, however trustable it may appear at first sight.

Unless the information is unimportant, is trivial, or does not really matter to you, beware of immediately believing what you are reading or watching.

From honest mistakes, to misleading news, poorly written articles and to deceptive photos or videos, manipulated with digital wizardry, the reasons are many why you can’t believe everything without multiple checking.

It has become a habit to me, whenever I see information on the Web, to think, more or less instinctively, “well, yes, maybe it is true, and maybe it’s not”, and then to move on to a next subject or website. However, when the information matters to me, when I intend to use it or to act based on it, I tend to verify it by cross checking it on other sites, or by searching other sources, still on the Web of course.

The less trustworthy is the first source I come upon and the more intensive cross-checking I do. If I don’t end up with solid, very much convincing verification, I usually reject the infomation as being unreliable and I don’t use it or act at all. In a way, in my book of rules and in this specific context, they all are guilty until proven innocent.

Even automatic translation such as Google Translate, that we all use every now and then, is for me subject to suspicion. A common method I use in such-case is the reverse translation. Say I am trying to translate a sentence from English to Spanish. Once I get the Spanish sentence I copy and paste it again in the original window, translating it again to English to see if there’s no discrepancy the other way round. I sometimes get crazy results. If both ways match then I accept it. Moreover, if the subject of my sentence is critical to me, I take it again to other translation sites or online dictionaries for more validation.

Wikipedia and Web news channels, more particularly, are to be taken with extreme precaution. Though I admit that I frequently use Wikipedia to find information, I am very careful as to how to use it.

The freedom on the Web and the magnitude, the scale of things found there is such that it has become a double-edged sword. It can be an efficient weapon if handled carefully and wisely, or a terrible one if misused, abused or trusted blindly.

Multiple verification and cross-checking is tedious and long. I don’t particularly enjoy doing it on the Web; no one does I suppose. It is, however, the only way I know of if I want to believe what I see there. Again, this attitude makes sense only for information that matters to you and that you may use, re-use or act upon.

WASHINGTON — Being overweight more than doubles the risk of bowel cancer in people with a certain gene disorder, but a regular dose of aspirin can reverse the trend, a recent study found.

The international study, published in the US-based Journal of Clinical Oncology, followed 937 people with an inherited genetic disorder known as Lynch Syndrome in 16 countries, in some cases over a decade.

About half of the people with the disease eventually develop cancer.

Study participants took two aspirin tablets (600 milligrammes each) or a placebo per day for two years.

The researchers at Newcastle University and the University of Leeds in Britain found that being overweight increases the risk of bowel cancer by 2.75 times.

But participants who took aspirin had the same risk, whether or not they were obese.

“Obesity increases the inflammatory response,” said lead researcher John Burn, professor of Clinical Genetics at Newcastle University.

“One explanation for our findings is that the aspirin may be suppressing that inflammation which opens up new avenues of research into the cause of cancer.”

Burn recommended, however, that patients consult their doctor before taking aspirin on a regular basis as the drug is known to be associated with a risk of stomach ailments such as ulcers.

He pointed to a growing body of evidence linking an increased inflammatory process to higher cancer risk.

“The lesson for all of us is that everyone should try to maintain a healthy weight and for those already obese the best thing is to lose weight,” said John Mathers, professor of human nutrition at Newcastle University.

“However, for many patients this can be very difficult so a simple aspirin may be able to help this group.”

The team of researchers is now readying a follow-up trial for which they want to recruit 3,000 participants around the world to test the effect of various doses of aspirin.

For some inexplicable reason I never liked dolls. I had a very normal childhood with very normal parents who would occasionally buy us presents to celebrate our birthday or a scholastic achievement. Like well-mannered children, we would thank them after accepting our gifts. If the wrapped package contained a book, colouring pencils, stationery or orange flavoured sweets I was overjoyed. But whenever I received a doll in a box, my heart would sink. 

This was not considered a very standard reaction in my giggly group of friends who loved dolls. Even my mother loved dolls. In her enthusiasm she would stitch frocks for me with a matching one for my doll. She thought it was a great idea and would help me bond with it. But I continued to eye the plastic figure with suspicion and kept it at as far away from me as possible.

There was a reason for this. The dolls that were available in my home country India when I was a child were manufactured in the factories of either Japan or Germany. Consequently their features, dresses and expressions matched those of their country people. I could not find anything familiar and truth be told, I was petrified of them. 

Once, an uncle of mine who was in the Merchant Navy got me a fancy doll that could shut its eyes and even gurgle with laughter when its stomach was pressed. It had pale cheeks and blonde hair and looked so alien that I was scared to even touch it.

My mom finally decided to make a doll for me from bits of discarded cloth. Two brown buttons made up its eyes and black wool was used for the hair. The doll felt like a small pillow and had permanent outstretched arms and a fixed happy smile. I loved it from the moment I saw it being made and I carried it everywhere that I went. It had red crayon marks on its cheeks where I tried to make it flush with anger after getting into an imaginary fight with another doll. A few of the hair strands also went missing when my older brother tied it to a ceiling fan, but other than a little wear and tear, the doll survived. 

When I left home for college, I gave my younger brother the sole responsibility of looking after it. I came back during one vacation and the doll was missing. I looked everywhere before quizzing my second-in-command. He was clueless. Further probing revealed that one family had visited with their small children and my mum had given them some toys to play with. While leaving, they decided to walk off with my doll. I was heartbroken. 

My sibling was furious. He wanted to rush to their house and bring back the doll but my parents told us to behave ourselves. We were teenagers now and the doll was better placed with the infants. 

I never went near another doll till our daughter was born. By then we had a wide selection of dolls to pick from. On her third birthday she got her first Barbie. 

“I no like,” she lisped as soon as I offered her the doll. 

“You like it, no?” I placed it on her lap. 

“I want book,” she insisted, throwing the Barbie. 

“But you can’t read darling,” I tried to reason. 

“Can read, can read,” she chanted. 

“Like mother, like daughter,” laughed my spouse handing her the book.

ZONGO, DR Congo — Imagine living in a place bigger than Germany and Belgium combined but with few or flooded roads, broken bridges and unnavigable rivers as your only link to supply lines.

Welcome to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s lush Equateur province, which once made multinationals rich and exported food to other parts of the country before decades of neglect changed all.

“When the bridge is repaired, I’ll drive on. Now, I sleep in the lorry,” said sheet metal worker Jean-Pierre whose supply trip between the towns of Zongo and Libenge, 120 kilometres apart, turned into a three-week saga.

Land transport is difficult at the best of times in Equateur, where a chronic lack of infrastructure has seen the scarce roads fall into disrepair and complicate trade and daily life.

Locals’ only alternative is patience. “I was left with a little money, but it’s almost run out. You eat once a day, you sleep,” said Jean-Pierre.

A potential lifeline is the Ubangui River, which forms the border between Equateur and two neighbouring states, the small Republic of Congo and the restive Central African Republic (CAR).

But a marked dry-season decline in water levels over the past 20 years has prevented cargo boats from heading upstream from the spot place where the Ubangui flows into the mighty Congo River.

‘Challenge... is the roads’

“The real challenge in Equateur is the roads,” said Ursula Nathalie Dzietham, bureau chief in Zongo for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which struggles to reach people who fled the latest strife in the CAR.

“The means of getting around really aren’t obvious,” she said. The UNHCR tries to maintain several wooden bridges in the region, but they are prone to breaking.

On a recent day, a dozen men unloaded a truck full of chickpeas sent by the UN World Food Programme. The lorry can only cross the bridge when it is empty, so the men will reload it later, hoping to earn a little food.

A farming community of about 140,000 people, Zongo sprawls across rich green land in a bend of the Ubangui. On the far bank lies Bangui, capital of the deeply poor and partly arid CAR.

During the dry months from mid-April to mid-July, it takes roughly an hour and a half to drive from Zongo to Mole, 30 kilometres to the south. After the rains start, it takes up to twice as long, with a constant risk of skidding or getting stuck in mud.

“Since it’s soon the rainy season, we’ll be cut off from the rest of the country... There will be shortages,” said Eudes Eloko, Zongo’s deputy mayor.

Local people and refugees can make up some of the losses by shopping in Bangui. Even in Zongo, traders tend to shun the Congolese franc for the CFA franc, a multinational currency used in the CAR.

Much of Equateur — whose 7.5 million residents account for about 10 per cent of the country’s population — is covered by trees forming part of the Congo Basin forest, often called the planet’s “second lung” after the Amazon. The tropical forest is so dense that light barely penetrates it.

Major logging firms working in the region sometimes assume the role of the state by building roads and keeping them operational, but heavy rain can make slippery mud of the paths.

Most tracks date from Belgian colonial times, when people in Equateur grew essential foodstuffs to supply other provinces, including cassava, palm oil, groundnuts and rice.

Decades of decay

A few signs remain of other once-lucrative export products, such as rubber and coffee. Dutch food and cosmetics firm Unilever would most likely not be a multinational giant today without the palm oil plantations it managed in the province in the first half of the 20th century.

But three decades of dictatorship under Mobutu Sese Seko (1995-1997) brought decline and conflict, and the country’s infrastructure was left to fall apart.

Equateur has gotten little help since the change of regime when rebel leader Laurent-Desire Kabila ousted Mobutu and took power, to be succeeded in turn by his son Joseph Kabila when he was assassinated in 2001.

Local officials complain that the province is being punished by Kinshasa authorities because it was the birthplace of Mobutu and Jean-Pierre Bemba, a businessman and rebel leader during the second Congo war (1998-2003) and rival of Joseph Kabila in the 2006 presidential vote.

But isolation can occasionally be an advantage. It enabled health workers to prevent the spread of the last Ebola outbreak in DR Congo, which claimed 49 lives between July and November 2014, according to official figures.

MADRID — They allow you to climb the steepest streets of Madrid without sweating, even on sultry summer days: more than 50,000 residents of the Spanish capital have signed up for a public electric bike share system.

In the shadow of the San Ildefonso Church in the heart of Madrid, Anne Stauder, a tourist from Luxembourg, is trying out a BiciMAD bike for the first time.

“We came from Luxembourg with our four bicycles inside our car — my children, my husband and me — and we have visited the city like that for 10 days. But I wanted to try the electric bike because Madrid is hilly,” the 44-year-old said.

The white bicycles work just like a regular bike but an electric motor kicks in to help with pedalling, and most importantly it give an extra push up hills.

The city of some 3 million people launched its electric bike share system in June 2014.

While other European cities like London and Paris set up shared bicycles schemes earlier, Madrid is the first major city to offer a system that only uses electric bicycles.

The argument behind BiciMAD is that with only regular bikes, they accumulate in low-lying areas and need to be shuffled around by trucks to redistribute them to higher ground — as happens in Barcelona.

Margot Bonilla, a 28-year-old IT technician, started using the electric bikes in July and no longer uses the metro to get around the city.

“You exercise, you don’t pollute and you move around fast. It’s just a bit expensive for my taste,” she said.

An annual membership to the bike sharing scheme costs 25 euros ($27.7) while renting a bicycle costs 50 cents during the first half hour, then 60 cents for the next half hour.

By comparison a ride on the Madrid metro costs 1.5 euros for travel in the centre of the city.

Another problem is a lack of bicycles, Bonilla added.

“Yesterday I had to walk home because I went to two stations and did not find any,” she said, repeating a common complaint from regular users of the system.

Vandalised and stolen

The city rents the bicycles from Spanish firm Bonopark, which since 2013 has supplied electric bicycles for a similar scheme in the northern Spanish city of San Sebastian.

“We have a thousand bicycles available at 160 stations right now,” said the head of the BiciMAD system, Joaquim Jimenez.

“We will have 2,000 electrical bicycles once the system is fully operational and the goal is to have 4,000 by 2026 when the contract ends,” he added.

Madrid city hall has spent 535,000 euros to rent the bicycles from Bonopark since the bicycle sharing programme was launched in June 2014.

It blames the shortage of bicycles on a technical glitch with the docking system, which often fails to recognise bikes and locks them, making it impossible for users of the system to take them for a ride.

The electrical bicycles also suffer all sorts of attacks: they are mistreated by users, yanked from docking stations to be taken for a free ride, abandoned anywhere, sometimes even in the city’s Manzanares River.

Since the launch of the scheme, 470 bicycles have either been stolen or vandalised to the point that they could no longer be used, according to a city hall tally.

The vandalism has increased since the start of summer but city hall does not link the influx of foreign tourists during the peak travel season with the rise.

Stolen BiciMAD bicycles usually resurface since they can only be recharged at a public station and they weigh a hefty 22 kilos, said Jimenez.

The launch of the electrical bicycle sharing scheme has led to an increase in the use of bicycles in general in the city, despite the lack of cycle lanes.

“Clearly we want a city with fewer cars,” the city councillor in charge of mobility, Ines Sabanes, said.

“We need the use of bicycles to develop, it is an obligation,” she added, referring to European Union demands that Madrid boost public transportation to curb high air pollution levels.

Over a century ago, legendary magnate John D. Rockefeller said, “I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other skill under the sun.” 

Since then, studies by companies such as Google have echoed his thinking by pointing out that the most effective managers and executives possess strong interpersonal skills.

Thus, here are my 10 commandments for effective business behaviour:

1. Thou shalt have a positive attitude. Everybody has bad days. Nobody has the right to take it out on others. Rudeness, impoliteness, surliness, ugly moods, unprovoked displays of anger and general unpleasantness can be costly to your career.

2. Thou shalt respect yourself and others in cyberspace. E-mail is eternal. Social media is a minefield. If you would not want your mother to see it, do not hit “Send”.

3. Thou shalt be on time. Keeping others waiting is the ultimate power play. This goes for in-person appointments, e-mails, and telephone calls. In the end, being late is self-defeating. Everybody’s busy. Everybody’s time is valuable. Being late only makes you look as if you don’t have your act together.

4. Thou shalt praise in public and criticise in private. If you intend to improve a situation or somebody’s performance, public criticism is the worst approach. It serves no purpose except to humiliate the other person and possibly lead to cutthroat retaliation. Remember that the office gossip looks far worse than those being gossiped about.

5. Thou shalt honour social courtesies at business functions. Etiquette is just a matter of common sense with a large dose of kindness. Make sure you respond to invitations promptly and never bring an uninvited guest. Never be a no-show when you’ve said you’d be there. Good guests contribute as much, if not more, to a social occasion as good hosts. 

6. Thou shalt get names straight. We all forget people’s names. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “Please tell me your name again. My brain just froze.” But there is something wrong with not checking on correct spelling whenever you write a name. That’s lazy. It can cost your career. And remember, with four generations actively operating in today’s workplace, it’s a big mistake to assume you can call someone by his or her first name.

7. Thou shalt speak slowly and clearly on the telephone. A smile can be heard in your voice. So smile or you will sound irritated and put out. Not a good move when you are speaking with someone in authority, and perhaps from a different culture or generation.

8. Thou shalt not use foul language. Kind is about the only four-letter word for the workplace. Don’t accept vulgarity and poor grammar as your personal standards. On the other hand, liberal use of “please”, “thank you”, and “excuse me” is helpful in career advancement.

9. Thou shalt dress appropriately. Don’t enter your workplace without knowing its dress code. Good grooming is more important than making a fashion statement.

10. Thou shalt be accountable. We all make mistakes. That does not give us licence to blame someone else for them. There is no shame in admitting you don’t have all the answers. Yet there is shame in not being willing to look for them.

A stylish send off for the seductively sexy GranTurismo model line and a celebration of Maserati’s centenary, the dramatic MC Centennial coupe features rich new colours, alloy wheel designs and special interior and exterior details. Based on the raciest and most focused GranTurismo MC Stradale, the Centennial might also well be a last hurrah for Maserati’s glorious naturally aspirated V8 engine.

Powered by a crackling, popping and howling 4.7-litre V8, the GranTurismo’s successor is almost certain to be a more efficient and powerful — but less visceral — turbocharged engine. 

Focused and honed, the MC Stradale and Centennial special edition distils the GranTurismo’s sporting and dynamic potential. However, it remains a comfortable and spacious luxury sports coupe engineered for inter-continental travel and inspired handling.

Dramatic demeanour

Glamorous, exotic and dramatic, the Pininfarina-styled GranTurismo features a moody face, seductive proportions and voluptuous curves in all the right places, and with traditional front mid-engine platform, its engine lies low and behind the front axle. And with gearbox situated on the rear axle the MC Centennial features near ideal 52 per cent rear-biased within wheelbase weighting and a low centre of gravity.

Rakishly rising with heavily scalloped wings, the GranTurismo’s swooping curvy and luxuriously long snout features three side ports in silhouette, with its waistline trailing off to voluptuous Coke-bottle hips and a short pert rear deck. Dramatic and exotic, the GranTurismo’s low-slung concave horizontal-slat grille, low air splitter, hungry bonnet scoop, extractors, side gills and Neptune’s Trident badge evoke a shark-like predatory character. 

Using less unpainted lightweight carbon-fibre panels than the MC Stradale, the Centennial edition instead features either of two paint options, including deep three-layer Rosso Magma red with subtle blue and purple undertones or sophisticated Blu Inchiostro. While both colours reflect Maserati badge, the Centennial also features two-tone split five-spoke alloy wheels with three-pronged Neptune’s trident edges and centennial logo hub centres.

Crackling charisma

The MC Centennial’s urgently lusty, naturally-aspirated Ferrari-derived 4.7-litre V8 is the sort of visceral and evocative engine that will become a rarity in future as more efficient turbocharged engines become the norm. A model of pinpoint clarity and razor sharp throttle control responses, it provides a connection between car and driver, as one is able to unleash power with exacting increments.

Highly responsive to inputs, the Centennial’s charismatic V8 also alters tone and pitch with seductive nuance. Working through a medley of staccato crackles, resonant mid-range warbles and seductive snarls, it coalesces to a hard-edged wail as one reaches for its urgent high strung 7200rpm rev limit. Reduced sound deadening allows for fuller acoustics, especially in its more vocal and edgy “Race” mode.

Tractable at low revs and flexibly linear in mid-range, with 384lb/ft peaking at 4750rpm, the Centennial’s viciously responsive V8 is, however, at its best at high revs. Building power with addictive intensity as it rips through to its rev limit the Centennial develops 454BHP at 7000rpm, and can rocket through the 0-100km/h sprint in 4.5 seconds and onto a 303km/h top speed.

Clarity and commitment

Focused and track-orientated, the Centennial is 80kg lighter and lower than other GranTurismos, with firmer fixed rate — rather than adaptive magnetic — dampers mated to sophisticated double wishbone suspension. For better weighting and sharper, more resolute shifts, a rear-axle mounted robotised single-clutch transaxle 6-speed gearbox replaces lesser the front-mounted automatic. Shifting with concision at full load, robotised shifts are smoothed out by feathering the throttle at low speeds. 

Crisp and tidy into corners, the Centennial’s steering is nuanced, intuitive, direct and well weighted when loaded up through hard driven corners. Meanwhile, firm suspension provides superb body control, poise and agility through switchbacks, and a big footprint and limited-slip differential ensure confident cornering and committed road holding. Big 255/35ZR20 front and 295/35ZR20 tyres provide tenacious grip, while linear power delivery ensures they are not easily unstuck.

Responsively but progressive, the Centennial’s smooth — rather than suddenly surging — power delivery ensures rear wheel traction isn’t unintentionally broken. A limited-slip differential distributing power along the rear axle as needed, helping the Centennial to dig into a corner and pounce out as the road straightens. Meanwhile, firmer fixed dampers deliver superb high-speed stability and buttoned down rebound control, and a taut but not uncomfortable ride quality.

Lap of luxury

Settled securely in well adjustable, comfortable, and ergonomic seats in an attentive driving position, the focused four-seat Centennial luxury coupe seemingly shrinks around the driver and feels lighter than its 1800kg. A precision instrument easy to drive on-throttle through corners, the Centennial’s eager and long-legged throttle is responsive and accurate, and with balanced chassis, committed roadholding and communicative steering, it delivers neutral, predictable and progressive handling.

A spacious and practical long distance and track companion, the MC Centennial is classy, airy and evocatively sporty inside, with good visibility and spacious seating. A focused driving position is complemented with large clear instrumentation and fixed metal steering column-mounted gearbox paddle shifters, while standard multi-piston perforated ventilated carbon-ceramic disc brakes provide reassuringly effective, fade-free stopping power, bringing the Centennial to halt from 100km/h in 33 metres.

Luxuriously appointed, the Centennial features Poltrona Frau black leather upholstery with contrasting white double-stitching and red accents and embossed headrest Trident badges. Its supportive front seats feature stiff and light carbon fibre spine backs, while a rich suede roofliner contrasts with glossy carbon-fibre panels. Well-equipped, the Centennial features climate control, satnav, CD changer and USB/Bluetooth connectivity.

Yusif Sayigh: Arab Economist, Palestinian Patriot — A Fractured Life Story

Edited by Rosemary Sayigh

The American University in Cairo Press, 2015 

Pp. 388

It is true as indicated in the book title that Yusif Sayigh’s life story is fractured: He and his family were often on the move; like all Palestinians, his life was cruelly disrupted by the violent creation of Israel; later, his carefully charted economic plans were thwarted by the self-serving, upper tier of the PLO leadership. Moreover, the memoir itself covers his youth more thoroughly than his mature, most productive years as an economist. Yet, despite these fractures, the voice that rings out in this book is totally coherent, full of logic, intellect and compassion, and tinged with sly wit.

Sayigh was too busy in his lifetime (1916-2004) to write his memoirs. Luckily, Rosemary Sayigh, his wife and fellow intellectual and activist, made him speak into a tape recorder in April 1989, during a bout of illness, and in snatches thereafter. An anthropologist who has recorded extensive oral histories of camp Palestinians, she must have found it ironic that Yusif did not count himself among the “proper subjects of memoirs. He did not accept the idea that ordinary people can contribute to a richer understanding of history through their memory and witness”. (p. 5)

In this case, he was wrong. Thanks to Rosemary’s perseverance, his memoir stands as a precious example of a life that successfully combined professional brilliance with political and moral convictions. It is also a document of everyday life in the early 1900s and a bird’s-eye view of the famous and not so famous people and events that constitute contemporary Palestinian history.

The first third of the narrative is very much about family, a charming account of a simple but adequate village life. Due to his father’s vocation as a Protestant minister, the Sayighs had limited means but there was much love and caring. As they move rather seamlessly from Al Bassa in northern Palestine, to Karaba in southern Syria, back to Al Bassa, and later to Tiberius, one re-envisions the continuity of Bilad Al Shem, despite the recent colonial division. Yusif’s very life attests to this continuity as he attends boarding school in Sidon, the American University in Beirut (AUB), and works in Tikrit, Tiberius, Jerusalem and Beirut. Equally striking is the priority his parents accorded to their children’s education.

Sayigh’s earliest political memory is questioning France’s occupation of Syria. Studying at the AUB sharpened his awareness and honed his inquisitive mind: “The day didn’t have enough hours in it for all the things I wanted to do. I attended every lecture that sounded interesting.” (p. 115)

One gets a taste of the political discussions of the 1930s as Sayigh recalls the thinkers who influenced him from Charles Malek and Constantine Zurayk to Antoun Saadeh, who drew him into the Parti Populaire Syrien (PPS).

Upon obtaining his BA, Sayigh began working to support his brothers’ education, eventually leading him to Jerusalem. He traces his gradual shift from the PPS’ Syrian nationalism to Palestinian nationalism seen in a broader Arab context. Working for the Arab National Treasury in 1946, he was co-inventor of a plan for all Palestinians to contribute, each according to their means, to a fund for defending their country from the looming Zionist assault. Unfortunately, there was not enough time and the traditional leadership did not realise the imperative of sustained, organised efforts. In the end, Sayigh was trapped in Qatamoun and taken prisoner when it was overrun by the Zionist forces. His account of his time in Jerusalem, the last minute efforts to save the city, and almost a year as a POW, when he was unanimously elected to be the prisoners’ spokesman, give a rare glimpse into a little-publicised chapter of Palestinian history.

It is beyond the scope of this review to name all the positions Sayigh held. Suffice it to say that after obtaining a PhD in economics, he became the PLO’s major economist, but was constantly frustrated by the leadership’s refusal to work according to systematic plans. In 1988, he was assigned to prepare a study on the economic underpinnings of a Palestinian state to be implemented, he assumed, after political independence, but he was kept in the dark about the ensuing Oslo talks, and had to stand by watching as president Arafat hijacked the rational, transparent structure his plan called for. This caused Sayigh to leave Tunis and return to scholarly work in Beirut, where, tragically, he was faulted by those who felt he had facilitated the Oslo accords.

In the last chapter on Yusif’s economic thinking, written by Rosemary, as this was not recorded, she ends with a note of hope: “Yusif’s Palestine Development Programme has been rediscovered by a younger generation of economists critical of the National Authority’s laissez-faire liberalism, dependency and failure to achieve growth or welfare.” (p. 323)

His conviction that development must involve social justice is just as relevant today as when set out in his 1961 book, “Bread With Dignity”, which predicted the thrust of the 2010 Arab uprisings.

FRANKFURT — Smartphone apps that help people learn languages for free or nearly free, a few sentences at a time, are piling pressure on established education firms and setting the pace for how to make lessons more engaging.

Phone and tablet-based mobile products from newcomers like Germany’s Babbel, Britain’s Memrise and US-based Duolingo have overtaken names like Berlitz and computer self-learning pioneer Rosetta Stone in terms of audience, if not yet sales or teaching sophistication, market researchers say.

Tens of millions of users are being drawn to the flexibility of practising vocabulary or conversation on the go, either as part of a serious course of study or simply a more productive alternative to casual video gaming.

“It is a matter of incremental convenience: smartphone apps offer a wide selection of content that is more easily accessible, anytime, anywhere,” said Ed Cooke, founder of London-based Memrise, whose language apps are mostly free.

The best mobile apps use voice recognition, e-mail reminders and insights from the psychology of mobile games and cognitive science to keep entry-level as well as advanced users coming back for a few minutes of practice each day.

These low-cost products are forcing a rethink by publishers, tutors and suppliers of classroom teaching tools who have long counted on charging double-digit dollar prices for books or hundreds of dollars for courses.

Established companies in the sector are scrambling to make their existing print, software and online products more mobile or retrenching to higher-end courses aimed at businesses or schools so as not to have to compete with free or low-cost apps.

The rise of mobile apps is denting sales in the overall market, said Sam Adkins, chief research officer of research firm Ambient Insight. “The language-learning market is declining in terms of revenue due primarily to the adoption of less expensive, technology-based products,” he said.

Global sales of language tools and services are expected to dip 2.1 per cent to $56.3 billion by 2018, compared with 2014, according to Ambient. Meanwhile, the mobile share should climb 73 per cent to around $14.5 billion by 2019, it estimates.

Fears for future

Under pressure from new competitors, Rosetta Stone, which popularised language self-learning with CD boxsets selling for $200, has been restructuring to focus more on business and school sales rather than consumers. To catch up in mobile, it bought LiveMocha, a free online learning site, and created Apple and Android phone apps that give away a bit of content for free in a bid to draw intermediate users to commit to longer courses.

Virginia-based Rosetta’s share price has plunged 77 per cent since its stock market flotation in 2009. Recently, it saw its second-quarter revenue fall 10 per cent to $51.4 million, with sales at its consumer business dropping 26 per cent.

Berlitz, another grand name in language training now owned by Britain’s Apa Publishing, gave a bleak assessment of the outlook for many established providers.

Chief Executive Officer Rene Frey said it did not make sense for publishers to invest further in expert language content as users flock to mostly free content on the web, served up by Google Translate, crowd-sourced dictionaries such as LEO of Germany or low-cost digital companies like Babbel. Instead, Apa is focused on expanding its Insight line of travel guides and phrase books.

“Some publishers are trying to become premium-product suppliers. But it is very difficult for them to be as innovative as these technology companies,” Frey said.

“I just don’t see how much future there is for publishers.”

The most popular mobile apps help users with written vocabulary or sentence fill-ins but also give them conversational practice, talking back to their phones — safer, at least for starters, than grilling by a punctilious teacher.

Berlin-based Babbel, whose founders previously ran a music-mixing software business that remains one of the more popular programmes used by professional DJs, embarked on language training in 2007 to fill an online market void.

It has attracted tens of million of users and has 120,000 downloads a day of its apps, which come in 14 languages.

Less is more?

Babbel says it has been profitable since 2011, doubling revenue each year since. Users pay, on average, about $6 a month for subscriptions. That has made it the highest-grossing language app supplier in most European countries on the Apple and Google Play stores, according to research firm AppAnnie.

Chief Executive Officer Markus Witte said Babbel quickly found that it was not how much one could learn in one sitting, but how little. “Binge learners tend not to come back,” he said. “People who learn a little tend to come back more regularly.”

Duolingo, the top language app globally in terms of users, asks users to pick a goal, from five minutes a day for casual users to 20 minutes daily for “insane” users, then sets them off on short vocabulary and sentence completion games.

Pittsburgh-based Duolingo has attracted more than $83 million in financing from top Silicon Valley venture capitalists and Hollywood actor-turned-tech investor Ashton Kutcher since its founding in 2011. It says it has up to 100 million users.

While keeping its services free to consumers, it has yet to settle on a sustainable revenue-generating model, having shifted recently from seeking to charge media companies for translation services to becoming more of a resource for schools.

Language teachers are coming to accept the apps as useful vocabulary builders and for conversational practice but say they are no substitute for interaction with a knowledgeable teacher when it comes to grammar and sustaining motivation.

Angelika Davey, a native German language tutor living in Wiltshire in England, says that with the rise of language apps, fewer students are interested in committing to weekly classes. She has stopped advertising with flyers in her local community and instead finds students online, via social media or Skype.

“Students are different now. People are quite happy to work on their own,” she said. “But they do need a port of call to discuss thing with when they get stuck or things go wrong with books or apps.”

SEOUL, South Korea — Every evening, 14-year-old Kim Sung-jin orders fried chicken, delivery pizza or Chinese food to eat in a small room in his family’s home south of Seoul. He gorges on food as he chats before a live camera with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of teenagers watching.

That’s the show, and it makes Kim money: 2 million won ($1,700) in his most successful episode.

Better known to his viewers by the nickname Patoo, he is one of the youngest broadcasters on Afreeca TV, an app for live-broadcasting video online launched in 2006.

Kim, who has a delicate physique and chopstick-like slight limbs, has been broadcasting himself eating almost every evening since he was 11. Sometimes he invites friends to eat with him. To add fun, he once wore a blonde wig and dressed as a woman.

While the Internet has been making stars for years — from bloggers to gamers who play for millions of YouTube viewers — outsiders may find it puzzling, if not outright bizarre, for young people to spend hours watching someone eating. But in South Korea, Afreeca TV has become a big player in the Internet subculture and a crucial part of social life for teens.

Shows like Kim’s are known as “Meok Bang”, a mash-up Korean word of broadcast and eating. They are the most popular and often most profitable among some 5,000 live shows that are aired live at any given moment on Afreeca TV.

Kim started the show essentially to find someone to eat with. His parents worked in another city so he was living with his grandparents, and they ate dinner so early he got hungry at night.

He says the show made his dining more regular, although most of his meals on Afreeca TV begin after 10pm The show also brought him unexpected joy: He said that even though he’s just an ordinary teenager, “people say hello to me on the street”.

“I do what I want. That’s the perk of a personal broadcast.”

Many connect the popularity of Meok Bang to the increasing number of South Koreans who live alone, and to the strong social aspects of food in this society.

“Even if it is online, when someone talks while eating, the same words feel much more intimate,” said Ahn Joon-soo, an executive at Afreeca TV. He noted South Koreans’ common habit of bidding farewell to friends by saying, “let’s eat together next time”, even when they don’t literally mean it.

There are plenty of other quirky offerings on Afreeca TV. Late at night there is “Sool Bang” — broadcast drinking — in which melancholic South Koreans drink liquor alone discussing their tough lives. Then there is “Study Bang,” or broadcast studying: A screen shows the hand of an unidentified person writing notes on a thick book under the light of a desk lamp.

About 60 per cent of the 8 million unique monthly visitors to Afreeca TV are teens or in their 20s. That means nearly 40 per cent of the 12.5 million South Koreans aged 10 to 30 watch a show on Afreeca TV at least once a month.

“Young generations believe that TV is naturally something like Afreeca TV where they can interact with broadcasters,” said Ahn, the company executive. He believes TV in the long run will be completely replaced by such apps.

Cho Young-min, a 12-year-old who has watched an online game show on Afreeca TV since he was a third-grader, aspires to have his own show on Afreeca TV, not on the TV in the living room.

Ahn Won-jun, a 17-year-old high school student, said he prefers to eat dinner in his room to watch Kim’s Meok Bang, rather than dining with his parents.

Kim isn’t a particularly polite virtual dinner guest. He burps loudly before his audiences and sometimes walks off abruptly, announcing with some specificity that he needs to use the bathroom. He usually leaves his fans with a mission, during his absence, promising a prize to the person who last clicks the “like” button when he is back.

Hardcore Afreeca TV viewers are drawn to hosts like Kim because they can interact with them, unlike more distant TV stars. Fans say they feel their blood rush and heart flutter when a host reacts to their comments, singling them out in the stream of hundreds of live chat messages.

“I was so moved,” said Lee Yeon-joo, a 15-year-old recalling the moment when a 26-year-old man read her message in the middle of his live show. “You cannot really approach celebrities.”

Afreeca TV users can get broadcasters’ attention by giving them “star balloons”, which cost them about 10 cents apiece. The show hosts keep most of that money, though Afreeca TV takes a cut of up to 40 per cent.

Most broadcasters, including Kim, are reluctant to reveal how much money they make. Afreeca TV said out of some 300,000 broadcasters who air their show at least once a month, top 500 make more than what one would normally make by working full time, but the company declined to be more specific. In 2013, a South Korea television network TV Chosun cited a lawmaker’s office that the top Afreeca TV host earned 298 million won ($250,000) a year.

Live-streaming videos are going mainstream, both in South Korea and overseas.

In Asia, services such as YYTV in China have been in use by tens of millions of users for years, and also have developed ways to let broadcasters generate income.

Meerkat and Periscope from Twitter, two live-streaming apps in the US, were launched in March. Facebook is launching its own live-streaming service called Live, although it will be only available for famous people.

South Korean search giant Naver rushed to launch a real-time video service where K-pop stars can live stream their behind-the-scenes lives. One of the most talked-about TV shows on a South Korean TV network this year was “My Little Television”, which adopted similar features to Afreeca TV, such as the format of one person broadcasting a show live while responding to comments from viewers.

Afreeca TV’s model may not translate across borders, however. The company’s efforts to make inroads in Japan, Taiwan and the US have met with little response.