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Tag: novels
Basti by Intizar Husain
Post date 23 February 2016
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This is a Pakistani novel from 1979, set during Bangladesh's war of independence from Pakistan, but with lots of flashbacks — to a pre-Partition life in India, to Partition and the migration to Pakistan — and dreams going further back still, to India's First War of Independence.*
The earliest scenes of pre-Partition India are seen, through a child's eyes, as idyllically multicultural, which makes Partition a sort of fall from grace. Partially that's just the contrast between the innocence of the child and the cynicism of the adult; but there is a sense reading the book of a great deal of political and ideological energy being expended and great changes being achieved, and none of it making life appreciably better.
Politics aside, it's just a very well-written novel (hat-tip to Frances W. Pritchett for the translation). As well as the flashbacks, parts of it are in the form of letters, diary entries and dreams. The result is atmospheric and impressionistic, and occasionally confusing, especially for those of us who don't have the cultural context. But it has a very strong sense of place, a great eye for detail, well-drawn characters and natural-sounding dialogue.
This is the second book from Pakistan I've read for the Read The World challenge; I felt I ought to be able to do better than the last one (Kartography by Kamila Shamsie), which was fine but nothing special. Basti is a definite improvement.
*i.e. the Indian Mutiny/Rebellion/Revolt of 1857.
» The photo of the Tomb of Bibi Jawindi is from Wikipedia; it's by Shah zaman baloch and used under a CC by-sa licence.
Tags books, India, Intizar Husain, novels, Pakistan, read the world, South Asia
War with the Newts by Karel Čapek
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This is satirical science fiction from 1936, about the discovery of a species of intelligent amphibian living in the sea next to a small island near Sumatra. The 'newts' are exploited and traded, initially as pearl fishers and then as cheap labour on massive marine construction projects, until they are present in huge numbers all around the world; and then — spoilers, I guess, but the clue's in the title — they start fighting back.
I bought it because it was recommended on the Book Shambles podcast, but even so it turned out to be much more entertaining and readable than I expected. The satire is not as focussed as, say, Nineteen Eighty-Four; the biggest targets are colonialism and racism, with the trade in newts modelled on the slave trade, but along the way it takes pot shots at nationalism, capitalism, fascism, Hollywood, newspapers, scientists and much else.
I read the Robert and Marie Weatherall translation from 1936; I certainly enjoyed it, although Wikipedia suggests that the more recent Ewald Osers version is more highly regarded.
I did already have the Czech Republic ticked off for the Read The World challenge when I started — I've read Kafka and Hašek and whatnot — but this is the first Czech book I've read since then, probably.
» The photo is a tweaked version of 'Hellbender at the National Zoo, Reptile Discovery Center', © Brian Gratwicke and used under a CC-by licence.
Tags amphibians, books, Czech Republic, Karel Čapek, novels, read the world, science fiction
The Palace of Dreams by Ismail Kadare
Post date 5 November 2015
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This is a novel written in communist Albania in 1981 but set in a fictionalised version of the Ottoman Empire in, I guess, the late 19th century. The protagonist, Mark-Alem, is from a family, the Quprilis, who are originally Albanian but are living in Istanbul and are prominent, powerful players within the Ottoman Empire.
The book follows his career working at the Tabir Sarrail — the Palace of Dreams — a huge office devoted to collecting, sifting and interpreting the dreams of people from all across the empire. Once a week, a single dream is chosen as the Master-Dream and delivered to the Sultan, along with its interpretation.
"The world has long recognised the importance of dreams, and the rôle they play in anticipating the fates of countries and of the people who govern them. You have certainly heard of the Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece, and of the famous soothsayers of Rome, Assyria, Persia, Mongolia, and so on. […] Now this long tradition undoubtedly has its own importance, but it pales into insignificance beside the operations of the Tabir Sarrail. Our imperial State is the first in the history of the world to have institutionalized the interpretation of dreams, and so to have brought it to such a high degree of perfection." […]
"The task of our Palace of Dreams, which was created directly by the reigning Sultan, is to classify and examine not the isolated dreams od certain individuals — such as those who in the past were for one reason or another granted the privilege, and who in practice enjoyed the monopoly, of prediction through the interpretation of divine omens — but the 'Tabir' as a whole: in other words, all the dreams of all citizens without exception."
The Palace of Dreams was apparently banned in Albania on publication, and you can see why. As a piece of political commentary, it is necessarily somewhat oblique, as this quote from Kadare points out: "dissidence was a position no one could occupy, even for a few days, without facing the firing squad. On the other hand, my books themselves constitute a very obvious form of resistance". Still, the vision of a government trying to reach right into the minds of all its subjects, of a huge sprawling bureaucracy devoted to tracking and recording people's thoughts, the brutal interrogation of people who are unlucky enough to have 'significant' dreams, and the way the process is undertaken with great seriousness but seems to be completely arbitrary: it's a pretty good metaphor for a totalitarian government.
I find it quite hard to think of this as a book written in my lifetime; it's not just the setting, but tone and style. The most obvious comparison would be Kafka — there are descriptions of getting lost in the corridors of the Tabir Sarrail which are particularly reminiscent — but also someone like Bruno Schulz, perhaps. Early/mid C20th, anyway. Although this edition, which I picked up in a second-hand shop, was translated from the Albanian via the French, so I don't know how that may have affected the nuances.
Still, it's a striking fable. It's very much built around one central concept, but it's short enough that that's not a problem.
The Palace of Dreams is my book from Albania for the Read The World challenge.
» The postcard is, as the caption says, of the central post office in Istanbul. Which is at least a big Ottoman bureaucratic building. I found it via Ottoman Imperial Archives on Flickr.
Tags Albania, Balkans, books, Europe, Ismail Kadare, novels, read the world
Remnants: The Way of the Womb by Hagop Oshagan
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This is my book from Armenia for the Read The World challenge. Oshagan was born in 1883 in what is now Turkey — then the Ottoman Empire — and this novel is set in the Armenian community in Turkey before the genocide. 'The Way of the Womb' is actually just the first volume of a three volume novel; the third, unfinished volume tells the story of the genocide itself.
The Way of the Womb works well enough as a stand-alone novel, but obviously it would be a very different experience to read the whole work. Even without any explicit references to the approaching horrors, the context is unavoidable. It creates both dark foreshadowing and an elegiac note for a lost world. Not that Oshagan presents the lost Turkish-Armenian life as a golden idyll — his characters are feuding and manipulative — but there's a certain amount of stuff about straight-limbed, strong Armenian youths living simple, honest lives among the olive groves, contrasting with an (understandably bitter) representation of weaker, more degenerate Turks.
This volume tells the story of a woman who, desperate to produce a grandson to continue the family name, is scheming to persuade her daughter-in-law to sleep with the hired help. That is used as a framing device to look back at the history of her family, the Nalbandians; once wealthy and powerful, built up by one man, Hajji* Artin, and in terminal decline in the generations after his death.
I would like to be more enthusiastic about this book. The story itself, the characters, and the setting, are striking and interesting. But reading it was really hard work. The prose is quite dense and difficult anyway; I often found myself having to reread sentences several times. But it is made much harder by a lack of white space. The framing story has some pretty long paragraphs, but at least it's frequently broken up by dialogue. The flashback to tell the story of the Nalbandians is 60 pages without a single paragraph break. 60 pages! I assume that's a reflection of the original Armenian, but it was a real struggle to get through it.
It's a pity. I can see why this is an important book for Armenians, and there really were things I liked about it; but it was just too much of a chore. It's possible that's the fault of the translation, rather than the original text… but either way, I won't be picking up the next two volumes, if they get translated. For once I can see the appeal of a Reader's Digest Condensed version, just for sake of the story, if anyone feels like producing one.
* 'Hajji' is obviously a term they picked up from their muslim neighbours, but in their case it was apparently used to refer to someone who had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
» The photo is of the Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Akdamar Island, Turkey. It was abandoned at the time of the genocide; it was restored and reopened as a museum in 2007. The photo is © Adam Jones and used under a CC by-sa licence.
Tags Armenia, books, Hagop Oshagan, novels, read the world, Turkey, Western Asia
The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi
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Gosh, this book is grim. It starts with the colonel being summoned from his house in the middle of a rainy night to collect the tortured body of his daughter from the secret police, and he is told to bury her before daybreak to avoid any kind of attention.
The story of that night and the following day is combined with flashbacks, and we learn of one child after another lost to violence: being tortured by the Shah's regime or the Islamic Republic, or dying in the Iran/Iraq War. Each of his children belongs to, and represents, a different political movement: different flavours of communism and Islamism. But they all fall foul of the government sooner or later, as the political tides change. Except, I guess, for the one who dies in the war, who is celebrated as a martyr — but is no less dead.
I don't know enough about the politics of Iran in the 70s and 80s, so the historically specific detail is lost on me, but it still works as a portrayal of a country suffering political turmoil and violent repression. Certainly an effective novel, if not an enjoyable one.
» The photo is of 'the acoustic ceiling of the rooftop music room of the Ali Qapu Palace in Isfahan, Iran'. Not particularly thematically apt, but it's a nice picture. © David Stanley and used under a CC-by licence.
Tags Iran, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, Middle East, novels, read the world
Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos
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I picked this up because it was around the house and I was looking for something to read, but it turns out the author is from Mexico, so I guess it's my book from Mexico for the Read The World challenge.
This is a very short novel — 67 pages — narrated by Tochtli*, the young son of a drug dealer. He lives entirely surrounded by adults — a maid, a cook, two armed guards and a tutor — all of whom indulge his eccentricities out of fear of his terrifying violent father. He has a collection of hats and a desire to own a pygmy hippopotamus to go with his father's various exotic animals, including two tigers.† The story really is of a child's mind being warped by his surroundings; by his father's lessons about how to be macho, and above all to avoid being 'a faggot', by his conversations with his father about how many shots it would take a to kill a man in different parts of the body, and by the evidence of corruption and sex and violence around him.
So at the start, although it's disturbing the way he parrots his father, he still seems rather innocent; by the end you are wondering if it's already too late for him, if he's damaged beyond repair.
Having this horrible situation told in a child's voice is an effective and creepy device. It's also genuinely funny in a dark grotesque way. I enjoyed it.
*'Tochtli' is the word for rabbit in Nahuatl, and all the Mexican characters have Nahuatl animal names; so the father is called Yolcaut, 'rattlesnake', and so on.
† Hippopotamus is, somewhat famously, now an invasive species in Colombia after some escaped from the ranch of the drug baron Pablo Escobar.
» The photo is of the original entrance to Pablo Escobar's hacienda. The plane is a replica of the one Escobar used to carry his first shipment of cocaine to the US. The hacienda is now a theme park; you can see the entrance in the background. "Pórtico Hacienda Nápoles" by XalD – Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Tags books, Central America, Juan Pablo Villalobos, Mexico, novels, read the world


From the 9th century onwards, the lords of Blois and the kings of France continually modified the chateau according to their tastes. At present, the courtyard of honor is surrounded by buildings that attest to the four great epochs of French architecture from the Middle Ages through the 17th century.
In the 9th century, the headland overlooking the town of Blois and the Loire river was occupied by a fortress and a county palace. Shortly thereafter, the monks of Saint-Calais founded a chapel to protect their relics from Viking pillaging. Starting in 1000, the counts of Blois erected a tower and some new structures, which were regularly enlarged. As regards these medieval constructions, today's Royal Chateau of Blois contains only a few remnants of these 13th-century buildings: the large seigneurial room, part of the rampart and three towers incorporated in the François I wing, as well as the circular Foix Tower.
Starting in 1498, Louis XII transformed the fortress into an urban palace. A new dwelling was built for the king, who received Philip the Handsome, archduke of Austria, in 1501. On the courtyard side, the Gothic building features an open arcade leading to the two stairway towers providing access to the floors. At the front, the long brick facade harbors an equestrian statue of the king. While the edifice remains faithful to the standards of French architecture, the candelabra-laced decors and the arcades display an early Italian artistic influence. In our time, the Louis XII wing is home to the Fine Arts Museum.
In 1515, right after having acceded to the throne, François I initiated the first building project of his reign by erecting in Blois an edifice inspired by the Italian Renaissance. On the courtyard side, the majestic facade has in its center the François I staircase whose massive buttresses vividly contrast with the light picture windows. As for the exterior facade, it is inspired by the facades of the lodges elaborated by Bramante in the Vatican. At the time of their construction, the lodges afforded a view of the gardens brought into being for Louis XII and Anne, the Duchess of Brittany.
Brother of Louis XIII and heir to the throne, in 1634 Gaston d'Orleans decided to erect in Blois a totally new castle. His chosen architect was François Mansart, who built to the rear of the courtyard a main dwelling house that should have represented the first step of a large-scale, highly ambitious reconstruction project. However, the work was curtailed in 1638 by the birth of the future Louis XIV, whose arrival removed him from succession to the throne and deprived him of financing. Never fully completed, the dwelling house was built according to 17th-century tastes, in a classical style that prefigures Versailles: columns, pilasters, capitals and pediments pay tribute to antique Greek architecture. Inside the wing, the most spectacular element of the decor is the vault adorned with trophies and masks, and topped by a cupola.
Dive into the universe of 3D screens!


The idea was first discussed between Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Global Investors Summit in Indore last year.
The plan is to invite investment for developing, a safari road network covering at least 70 per cent of the area, and cameras at waterholes and artificially-built tiger dens for live streaming at restaurants inside such properties.
The Central Government is actively considering a proposal to amend the Wildlife Act and convert large tracts of degraded forests to private concessions meant for high-density tiger tourism.
The plan is to invite investment for developing parcels of 20-50 sq km forestland as concessions under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model with fences, a safari road network covering at least 70 per cent of the area, and cameras at waterholes and artificially-built tiger dens for live streaming at restaurants inside such properties.
The Environment Ministry is currently scrutinising the technological and legal aspects of the proposal, which was discussed at a high-level meeting in August.
"This is a policy matter. Yes, we had initial discussions but no final decision has been taken. Now the issue is with the division that deals with forest policy in the ministry," said Vinod Ranjan, additional director general (wildlife).
The idea was first discussed between Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Global Investors Summit in Indore last year. Subsequently, 'private investment in forest and wildlife conservation' was placed as the first item on a list of proposals sent by Chouhan to Modi on October 17.
In his letter, Chouhan proposed that the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, be suitably amended to allow private investment, arguing that the time has come to free wildlife from the "absolute hold" of the state, which is constrained by financial limitations.
The Environment Ministry then sought a concept note on the project from the Madhya Pradesh government, which was handed over early this year.
The Indian Express has examined the concept note and other official documents related to the proposal (see box), which indicate that the Government is expected to share a part of the cost as Project Development Expenditure (PDE) and Viability Gap Funding (VGF), since trophy hunting — the mainstay of such concessions abroad — is not permitted in India.
The concept note, however, is silent on obtaining the consent of local communities under the Forest Rights Act. It states that 10-20 per cent of the forest area under each project can be "managed" to meet the community's requirement of firewood and fodder. This should suffice as concessions will create jobs for locals and also reduce crop raiding, it suggests.
The note claims that such concessions will rejuvenate degraded forests, lessen the tourism pressure on existing tiger reserves, serve as tiger corridors or buffer to adjoining sanctuaries, reduce crop damage, and create jobs for locals.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has defined a degraded forest as "a secondary forest that has lost, through human activities, the structure, function, species composition or productivity normally associated with a natural forest type expected on that site… and maintains only limited biological diversity".
Incidentally, the Finance Ministry had sent a letter to the states on December 11, 2014, backing private investment in zoos. It is now being argued within the government that such investment in forest land and wildlife management will be more helpful to conservation.


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Banks want Congress to let them share in money market mutuals
By Thomas Watterson Business and financial writer of The Christian Science Monitor
After taking it on the chin for more than two years, the banks are fighting back. They have lost billions of dollars in deposits to the upstart money market mutual funds, and now they want a chance to get even.
Since mid-1978 money fund assets have blasted from about $6 billion to around savers who are not putting it in banks and savings institutions.
The banking industry got a little unintentional help from the Federal Reserve Board last year when the Fed handed the money funds a 15 percent reserve requirement on new deposits. But that requirement was lifted a few months later around the new rules and continue to grow almost as fast as before.
So now, having gained nothing in trying to restrict the money fund's game, the banks are trying to join in themselves.
The American Bankers Association has let it be know that one of its top priorities in the new 97th Congress will be to see a "comingled agency" bill passed that would allow bank, bank holding companies, or savings-and-loan associations to create and operate investment companies. Although this would permit banks to establish various mutual fund-like investments, experts see its primary purpose as giving the banks a chance to offer money funds of their own.
While the ABA prepares to do battle over the comingled agency bill, it has also petitioned the federal government to let banks offer "a new deposit instrument with higher yield than current passbook rates and greater liquidity than six-month money market certificates."
Currently, banks are able to offer savers Treasury bill money market rates if they purchase six-month certificates with a $10,000 minimum investment. But as interest rates have soared again, the bankers argue, the competitive edge enjoyed by money funds has widened so much the banks need a new instrument "to maintain our deposit base."
The mutual fund industry is expected to oppose the comingled agency legislation -- as it has consistently opposed attempts by banks to broaden their security activity. Up to now, though, the Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund trade organization, has not yet officially commended on it.
"We have no strategy on the bill because we haven't seen it," Matthew P. Fink , general counsel of the ICI said. "we have been traditionally opposed to changes in [the law], but we can't commnent on this until we've had a chance to read it."
As for the banks' request for a lower-denomination savings certificate, Mr. Fink said, "We welcome the competition, in a strange sort of way. Instead of restricting money market funds, we would rather see the banks and S&Ls free to compete. We'd rather have competition that restrictions on money market funds."
The banks have already been given a chance to catch up in the interest rate race. But the new rules of the competition won't be fully in effect to five years. Last year, Congress passed a sweeping bank deregulation bill. Among other things, it gradually lifts interest rate ceilings so that by 1986 banks may pay whatever they can afford.
In the spirit of competition ICI officials say they do not mind these changes , either. But the words of conciliation mask what has been a rapidly deteriorating relationship between the banking and mutual fund industries.
It wasn't always this way.
In the early 1970s the new money market funds were mostly nothing more than a handy place for institutions, companieS, and pension funds to "park" spare cash for a day or so -- some weeks at most -- until they figured out where they really wanted to invest it.
The banks didn't care. In fact, it relieved them of a lot of bother and paper work. Everybody was happy.
But then high inflation crept in, bringing high sport-term interest rates, making money funds more than a financial parking lot. Since then, a lot of "small savers" have moved their money into money funds for the long term, where their deposits can earn interest that is two to three times as high as bank passbook rates.
And the money isn't locked in for a long time, either. While banks require savers to leave deposits for six months to eight years to earn the highest rates , the money funds let you take it out the day after you put in in, if you need it. This liquidity, combined with high yields, has helped drain deposits from the banks.
The fact that people like money fund expert William E. Donoghue were going around saying those who kept their savings in passbook accounts were "losers," did little to improve the relationship between banks and money funds.
Mutual funds face new SEC regulations, falling assets
Timothy Geithner pressures SEC to change money-market rules
The Circle Bastiat The euro exodus from Greece and Spain

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


J.I. Rodale, the founder of Rodale Inc., publisher of Prevention and several other magazines, was dead at the age of 72. What was even more shocking was where he died.
The promoter of health in media was gone, but his legacy carried on. What does this have to do with content marketing? Everything. Not because of the interview, but because of the publishing company Rodale left behind.
You see, Rodale didn't just create a magazine that "presented systematic ways people could try to prevent illness and disease." He left behind an understanding of the magazine industry that would propel Prevention to become one of the world's largest magazines (10 million monthly readers).
What I want to do today is reveal how Rodale Inc. did that, and help you apply it to your own content marketing strategy.
There is still an illusion to the effect that a magazine is a periodical in which advertising is incidental. But we don't look at it that way. A magazine is simply a device to induce people to read advertising. It is a large booklet with two departments – entertainment and business. The entertainment department finds stories, pictures, verse, etc. to interest the public. The business department makes the money.
This simple concept is like most foundational concepts. The power isn't in knowing, it's in implementing the concepts.
Rodale (and those at Rodale Inc. after him) implemented these concepts so well that it became a science. In 2014, Rodale publications reached an all-time high gross readership of 37.7 million readers.
I accidentally discovered Rodale Inc.'s strategy. It all began when my wife started receiving Prevention magazine and Rodale began to send her promotional magazines (magalogs). The next thing I knew she ordered some of those books and products promoted in those magalogs.
You need to understand something. Unlike me, my wife doesn't like (or even care about) marketing. For her to read these marketing materials, like them, and respond to them meant Rodale was doing something right. That led me to pay attention to its efforts and research its current and past practices. The results are revealed in the five-step strategy.
Rodale Inc. never creates content for the sake of creating content. It always has a specific audience in mind. All of the content is designed to appeal, attract, and help that audience.
With an often irreverent, always authoritative tone, EatClean.com will be the gathering place for clean-food insiders and experimenters, uncovering the latest trends, innovations, opinions, products, and recipes.
Rodale's mindset on creating content is different from that of many marketers. Others usually focus on a generic audience. They create content for "urgent" reasons such as a blog post is scheduled; it's a topic we've wanted to discuss; it's something everybody else is talking about right now.
Who is the specific audience we are trying to attract?
What do they want to share?
Rodale always creates content with purpose and on purpose.
I once heard author and podcaster Paul Colligan say, "I am not focused on listeners. I am focused on subscribers." This should be true for content creators of all kinds. Why? Readers are great, but subscribers are what really matters.
Uncover a specific audience that wants to hear from you by letting them raise their hands and identify themselves.
Gain permission to contact them.
Create content that is expected and anticipated by your audience.
Build a deep relationship with your audience.
Contact your audience for free (or be paid as the magazine subscription model provides).
Email marketing has shown to be much more powerful than any social media tool. And physical mailing lists always have been an asset that every business should grow.
Of course, Rodale appreciates it when people walk into a bookstore and buy one of its magazines. But Rodale isn't focused on single-copy sales; it knows subscribers offer the most value.
Never forget that is true for you, no matter what type of content you are creating.
This is the copy writer's task: not to create this mass desire – but to channel and direct it. Actually, it would be impossible for any one advertiser to spend enough money to actually create this mass desire. He can only exploit it. And he dies when he tries to run against it. Let me repeat. This mass desire must already be there. It must already exist. You cannot create it and you cannot fight it. But you can – and must – direct it, channel it. Focus it onto your particular product.
You cannot create a desire for your product or service. It doesn't matter if you love your product. All that matters is that your prospects desire it. That's not only true for copywriters. It's true of all successful content marketers.
You must know what your audiences' desires are and how to appeal to them.
How can you do that? Think of your content marketing as a way to discover the desires of your audience.
Write for a specific audience and pay attention to how that content resonates with them. See what gets the most comments and shares. But that's just the beginning. Talk to those subscribers on whom you've been focusing and ask what they want.
Rodale constantly studies the desires of its audiences. It looks at trends. It even conducts an annual survey to get consumers' reactions to specific areas and types of information.
People are more in tune than ever with the relationship between what they eat, how they look and feel, and how our food affects the planet. Everywhere you shop or eat now, you can find some food label – whether something is sustainably sourced, real, natural, pure, non-GMO, local, gluten-free – that raises more questions than it answers.
Eat Clean helps people negotiate this crazy landscape and figure out how to 'eat clean' in a way that makes the most sense for their own health, goals, and ethics.
Rodale understands that unless it knows what a specific audience wants, it can never create solutions that they will buy.
You must never forget this. It's the key to success in sales conversions.
Once you know the audience's desires, you can create the things that they want to buy or position what you already offer in ways that appeal to them.
People have different content-consumption preferences.
Some types of content have more perceived value than others.
With this in mind, Rodale created all kinds of different info-products, products, and services to appeal not only to the different desires of its audiences but to the different ways the audiences want to consume information.
In addition to magazines, Rodale offers books, products, an online university, and host-branded events. Now obviously, you don't want to create all of these solutions at once. Start with one idea and build from there. How can you get ideas on where to start?
Look to the content you've created for format ideas.
All of the content you create must be designed to attract and help that hungry crowd with money. Your products and services must meet the needs and/or desires that a crowd of people with money has.
Rodale knows that to help your audience the most, and at the same time maximize your profits, you must create many types of solutions for your prospects to buy.
If you want to maximize your sales, then you must do the same.
The other thing Rodale does that many content marketers do not do is they rely on more than content marketing — they also rely on content selling.
Content marketing can take you far but without an offer or ask, it's difficult to get a sale. At some point, you must focus on content that intentionally sells.
What's the difference? I recently heard Todd Brown of MarketingFunnelAutomation.com give this powerful explanation on the difference between marketing and selling. I'll paraphrase it: Marketing is when you talk about the prospects – the prospect's situation, needs, wants, and what's in the best interest of your prospect. In other words, what they should be doing to alleviate their problem … Selling is when you talk about you, your product, your product's benefits, features, advantages, risk-reversal, bonuses – that's selling.
In other words, content marketing is content focused on attracting members of an audience, educating them, and helping them. Content selling is content focused on why the audience members should buy what you are offering.
Rodale doesn't just focus on content to attract its audiences (magazines = content marketing). It also is focused on content that offers a solution (magalogs and sales letters = content selling).
That is why Rodale is so successful. That's why my wife has purchased things from the company. Its magazines alone would never have been able to accomplish this success.
Too many content marketers never ask for the sale. They waste much of their content marketing efforts.
Rodale never loses sight of the two purposes of a magazine – to gather an audience and to make a profit. This balanced focus and the powerful way it is implemented are the keys to Rodale's amazing success.
If you want to see better results, then you must do the same.
This five-step strategy can act as a template to improve your content marketing strategy. Answer these questions to see which step you need to focus on. Once you can answer yes to a question, proceed to the next.
Have I determined the specific audience on which we are focused?
Have I focused sufficiently on subscribers?
Do I know the existing desires of this audience?
Have I created enough different types of solutions to sell to them?
Have I created content that encourages these audience members to purchase and explained why they should?
Following Rodale's model, you can ask the right questions to develop the best answers to create a well-informed content marketing strategy.
Want some more assistance to enhance your content marketing strategy and structure your team for more effective content marketing. Read CMI's e-book: Building the Perfect Content Marketing Mix.


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H&M Foundation
Global Change Award
200,000 USD DONATED TO TYPHOON VICTIMS
H&M Foundation gives a total donation of USD 200,000 to the Red Cross, to meet the immediate and urgent needs of people affected by the series of tropical cyclones that have devastated areas in Vietnam and the Philippines lately.
November 30, 2020 Read in 1 minute
The donation of USD 100,000 to each country aims to meet the immediate needs of the 260,000 most vulnerable people through the provision of household items, water purification tablets, water tanks, cash grants, food packs and more.
"Thanks to the generous support from H&M Foundation, the Red Cross in both the Philippines and Vietnam can give immediate live-saving relief to affected families in these regions."
Olle Castell, Head of Asia & Pacific, Swedish Red Cross
"It's critical to quickly support communities after they have been hit hard by multiple and devastating typhoons on top of the relentless physical, emotional and economic toll of COVID-19. Thanks to the generous support from H&M Foundation, the Red Cross in both the Philippines and Vietnam can give immediate live-saving relief to affected families in these regions as their lives and livelihoods have been disrupted and many have lost family members, their homes and sources of income," says Olle Castell, Head of Asia & Pacific, Swedish Red Cross.
August 2020 Aug 2020 Emergency Relief
USD 100,000 to Red Cross to support the victims of Beirut
The massive blast that devastated parts of Beirut caused many casualties and considerable damage. 300,000 people are estimated to have been displaced from their homes, over 200 people have been reported dead, 6,000 injured and many are still missing. The donation to the Red Cross is focused on first aid, psychosocial support, emergency shelter and related water, sanitation and hygiene services as well as food and other household needs.
March 2020 Mar 2020 Emergency Relief
H&M Foundation donates USD 500,000 to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund
A first-of-its-kind COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund is initiated to raise money to support the work to prevent, detect, and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is to ensure all countries are prepared, especially those with the weakest health systems. The UN Foundation, at the request of World Health Organization (WHO), has created the fund which already has some major early supporters lined up including Facebook and Google. Today, the non-profit H&M Foundation commits USD 500,000 to the fund's lifesaving work.
February 2020 Feb 2020 Emergency Relief
H&M Foundation donates 100,000 USD to the Philippine Red Cross
H&M Foundation is giving emergency relief to help people in the Philippines who's been affected by several natural disasters lately.
The H&M Foundation is a non-profit global foundation, privately funded by the Stefan Persson family, founders and main owners of H&M Group. Its mission is to drive long lasting positive change and improve living conditions by investing in people, communities and innovative ideas.
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When it comes to annuities, most of us are enhanced. We just don't know it yet
27. February 2014 · Write a comment	· Categories: Cartoons, Demographics, Pensions, Risk
In all the talk about annuities and the poor value they currently offer, nearly all of it has been based on standard annuity rates, ie where there is nothing sufficiently medically wrong with you to affect your life expectancy. However this is almost certainly not the rate you should be looking at.
Go to any of the annuity provider or broker websites, sometimes buried away a little, and you will find a link explaining what they can offer in the way of "enhanced" or "impaired lives" annuities. Legal & General's web page on this looks like the kind of warning notice you find on the wall of your doctor's surgery waiting room, with headings like Smoking, Type 2 Diabetes and High Blood Pressure. But in the upside-down world of buying annuities these become good things to do or have.
Just Retirement give some handy illustrations of what various conditions could mean for your income: up 20% for minor conditions like obesity and hypertension, up 30% for "moderate" ones like being a heart attack survivor with a bypass and 40% for serious medical conditions like stage 2 bowel cancer one year in. However, you don't need to get anywhere near the frankly frightening conditions in the moderate and serious boxes to make a big difference to the income you can receive. annuitydiscount.co.uk provide a very long list of medications (covering every letter in the alphabet except J and Y) which could lead to an impaired life annuity if disclosed to the annuity provider.
As the BBC article from 2012 posted by the Better Retirement Group on enhanced annuities says: "At its simplest an annuity is a bet with the insurance company about how long you will live."
So on that basis, it makes sense to stack the odds in your favour as much as you can. Which makes the 2007 article in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled, rather dully, Incidental Findings on Brain MRI in the General Population, such an interesting read.
They studied 2,000 people (mean age 63.3 years, range 45.7 to 96.7) from the population-based Rotterdam Study in whom high-resolution, structural brain MRI scans had been carried out. Asymptomatic brain infarcts (more commonly known as strokes) were present in 145 people (7.2%). Among other findings, aneurysms (1.8%) were the most frequent. Benign brain tumors also turned up reasonably often (1.6%). The most extreme case was someone with a large, chronic subdural haematoma, who was subsequently found to have had a minor head trauma 4 weeks before the MRI scan. Some of the scans are shown below.
But the really amazing thing is this: only 2 of the 2,000 people scanned (the subdural haemotoma mentioned above and another who had a 12 mm aneurysm of the medial cerebral artery) had any idea that there was anything wrong with them!
Another huge area of undiagnosed disease (and on the annuity.co.uk list for enhanced annuities) is prostate cancer. According to a systematic review of prostate cancer biopsy schemes by the University of York in 2005, where they quoted from the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination publication on screening for prostate cancer, Effectiveness Matters:
Post mortem studies show that 30% of men over 50, who had no symptoms of prostate cancer whilst alive, had histological evidence of prostate cancer at the time of death. This percentage rises to 60-70% in men over 80 years of age. In other words, most men with prostate cancer die with, rather than from, the disease.
The main reason these studies have been carried out is to determine whether screening for prostate cancer, which kills 3.8% of men with the disease, has saved many lives. The Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test that is commonly used to detect prostate cancer in the absence of symptoms is not only prone to false positives and negatives (ie telling you you have it when you don't and don't have it when you do – something all screening suffers from to some extent), but can lead to you being offered treatment which may well be worse than the disease. This is discussed further in the excellent The Norm Chronicles, by Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter, which questions whether, overall, screening is particularly effective in saving lives.
Effective in preventing death? Perhaps not. But effective in increasing retirement income? Almost certainly.
The latest Association of British Insurers (ABI) facts and figures on the UK annuity market suggest that enhanced annuities have grown in popularity, to 24% in 2012 from 2% in 2003. There is scope to make further large increases in these figures if more people can be persuaded to have themselves screened for some of the most common undiagnosed conditions before they retire.
So don't necessarily accept a standard annuity rate. And consider getting yourself tested first.
Scotland and Oil
24. February 2014 · Write a comment	· Categories: Economics
The most interesting figures I have seen so far in all the noise of the Scottish independence debate come from the Government Expenditure & Revenue Scotland report for 2011-12 (the latest figures available). This report compares the effect of various approaches to splitting oil revenues. It does, being a Scottish report, focus on the impact on Scotland. However, extrapolating from their published figures, the impact on the rest of the UK are just as interesting.
The net borrowing in the Public Sector Accounts for the UK as a whole is shown in blue at the bottom next to the Scottish position with no oil revenues, with the deficits of an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK shown both in £ billions and as a percentage of their respective GDPs above under two separate scenarios. One assumes oil revenues are split per capita, the other that they are split by geographical share. I have assumed no change to economic activity in the UK as a whole due to independence, an assumption I admit may be shaky but for which I have seen no authoritative alternative to date.
On this basis, the rest of the UK's deficit in 2011-12 as a percentage of its GDP would be 7.7% with a per capita split and 8.5% with a split by geographical share, compared to the 7.9% of GDP for the UK as a whole in the Public Sector Accounts. So one measure increases the rest of the UK's deficit as a proportion of GDP (the approach the Scottish National Party prefers) and the other reduces it.
That is presumably why it was worth the UK Government relocating to Aberdeen for today's cabinet meeting to discuss the future of the oil industry. There is a lot at stake.
National annuities and small pots
20. February 2014 · Write a comment	· Categories: Pensions, Regulation
Source: Flikr Creative Commons by Thomas Galvez under license
Patrick Collinson's article about bringing in auto-annuitisation and a national annuity service has prompted some discussion.
As he said:
It won't solve the problem of overcharging by the City while workers are saving to build up their pension pot. It won't solve stockmarket underperformance. It won't solve the biggest issue for annuities – that we are continuing to live longer and longer. But a National Annuity Service could at least make sure that one of the biggest financial decisions anybody faces isn't a case of pension pot luck.
Peter Kane, Corporate Relationship Director at Standard Life, felt that the biggest challenge was that most employees in the UK are not saving enough and the average level of fund at retirement (before an annuity is even considered) is insufficient. He'll get no argument from anyone about that being a big challenge, but there has been a great deal of discussion about it and there will continue to be so. It does not in any way diminish the importance of what he refers to as "the annuity issue".
Matt Dorrington, Pension Consultant at Capita Employee Benefits, thinks what we need to consider is who will hand hold these people and how are they remunerated for their services. The reason a national annuity service would be set up of course is if the Government decided that the pensions industry was not hand holding enough and requiring to be remunerated too much.
Joe Robertson, Member Nominated Director at The Pensions Trust, was concerned about the computerisation required to process the information to allow enhanced annuities for the masses. Is that why there has been so little encouragement to people to access the much better value annuities their personal information could buy them for so many years (up to 24% of annuities were enhanced in some way in 2012, but only 2% were in 2003)?
If the Government were to step in with a cheaper annuity advice and broking service, would this lead to commercial annuity brokers leaving the market, or to their charges coming down to closer to the state broker's rates? Commercial brokers might well still offer a wider range of options, justifying higher fees. If auto-annuitisation only applied for pension funds up to a certain level, with funds above this level not needing to be surrendered to the national service, might there still be a market for advising high net worth individuals?
These are just some of the many questions which would need to be answered, but such a service could potentially significantly improve outcomes for many. If nothing else it could reduce the current very wide variation in outcomes, although this may of course lead to those who currently navigate their way around the system quite cannily ultimately being worse off.
I would like to see an additional service provided by the new broker if it ever came into existence: to index market annuity rates against the relative cost of annuities under the Pension Protection Fund's (PPF's) Section 143 basis in any given month (this gives the amount of money the PPF currently requires schemes to have to purchase an annuity when their sponsor has failed so as to avoid entry into the PPF). Obviously even standard annuity rates vary by postcode, but it would provide a check on market prices increasing beyond what movements in the underlying investments used by annuity providers would justify.
But of course the real problems are at the bottom end. According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), 30% of annuities were purchased with less than £10,000 in 2012. For annuities purchased with £20,000 or less, this percentage increases to nearly 40% for external annuities (ie when people "shop around", as apparently they now do in 48% of cases) and nearly 60% for internal annuities (when they don't).
Why is this, when legislation allows people to take the first £18,000 of pensions savings as cash (the so-called "trivial commutation" rules)? Part of the answer may lie in the latest report from the Pensions Institute entitled How do savers think about and respond to risk?. Of particular relevance I think is this finding:
One clear preference stands out: the reluctance to dip into long-term savings to meet a shortfall in short-term savings goals and vice versa. This provides support for the idea from behavioural finance that people have different "mental accounts" for their savings goals and are reluctant to "borrow from" them for other purposes (ie the mental accounts are not fungible). This holds very strongly for the long-term fund: only as a last resort are most people prepared to dip into this to meet short-term savings goals. A slightly bigger percentage of people are, however, prepared to use their short-term fund if they face the risk of a shortfall in their long-term savings goals.
I think at least part of the reason for the high demand for small annuities is this unwillingness to convert money which has always been seen as long term savings (and for which, as another part of the report makes clear, most people are generally more willing to accept a lower, but more stable, income than to risk significant falls in the asset value) into a form which could end up meeting short term needs instead. Of course, part of the reason might also be lack of awareness that the option not to buy an annuity exists. A state broking service may therefore help here too.
In view of the particularly poor value offered in the market at the lower end (£5,000 buys you around £5 a week, not increasing and which does not include anything for your spouse) and the persistent demand in spite of this, I would like to propose one further step. I think the Government might want to consider creating a section of the PPF for small pots. Say, those up to £18,000?
It is in no way what the PPF was set up to do. And yet. The administration expertise with handling large volumes of small pensions is already in place there. And, if the terms offered were on a S143 basis, it should not create any additional funding burden. What ever they make think of it, employers with pension schemes have become accustomed to dealing with the PPF.
If the PPF were able to take small pots on similar terms to those currently only available to larger annuities in the market, and the market were then left to provide annuities for everyone else, outcomes might be improved at all levels.
The PPF as an annuity provider of last resort? Perhaps this is an idea whose time has come.
Is there something fractal going on?
Economists have recently developed a new term, to describe the nature of income inequality in the United States in particular. They call it fractal inequality, although I am unsure whether Benoit Mandelbrot, the inventor of the whole idea of fractals, would be that impressed. He died in 2010, with the application of fractals to financial markets that he presented in his 2004 book The (Mis)behaviour of Markets, still waiting to be fully taken on board by the risk and investment communities even after the 2008 crash.
A fractal is something that looks pretty much the same however much you zoom in or out on it. A cloud is one example. An equally beautiful example is the Mandelbrot Set (shown below), where a remarkably simple formula creates shapes of infinite complexity.
Source: Wikimedia Commons. Created by Wolfgang Beyer with the program Ultra Fractal 3.
The reason it has come up in economics is that people are paid unequally. Very unequally. And even within the 1% of people who are paid unequally from the other 99%, people are paid unequally. To the extent that it starts to look a bit fractal. See what you think of these two graphs, taken from the HMRC personal income by tax year statistics:
So what about increasing inequality between the 1% and the 99%, as discussed from a US perspective in the first link above? In the UK it has certainly increased, but the rate depends on which time periods you compare. The range provided by HMRC is from 1999-00 to 2011-12. In this period of 12 years, the total income 99% of the population live below increased by 52%, compared to an increase of 41% in the median income (ie the total income 50% of the population live below). Compare this to the 7 years from 1992-93 to 1999-00, during which the total income 99% of the population live below increased by 54% (ie more than the 12 years for which records exist since) compared to a 25% increase in the median income.
The message seems to be that it's getting worse but not as badly as it used to be.
Camps, acronyms and other small stuff
08. February 2014 · Write a comment	· Categories: Actuarial, Defined Ambition, Pensions, Regulation, Risk
The Defined Ambition consultation ended on 19 December but the lobbying has continued. Camps have now formed around the various options.
Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister, and Alan Rubinstein, Chief Executive of the Pension Protection Fund, have been enthusiastic supporters of something called the pension income builder, which increases the guaranteed pension accrued each year with part of the annual contribution, with the remaining contributions invested in a collective defined contribution (DC) arrangement.
The Collective DC more generally, where returns are smoothed between members in an attempt to reduce the volatility of returns on individual DC, has also had some very vocal proponents. Considering it was originally ruled out as an option by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), has had 10 objections to it raised by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and has been accused of not reducing risk so much as moving it around between members by Lord Hutton, this is a little bit of a surprise.
Lord Hutton, former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and chair of the Commission on Public Service Pensions Commission, is dismissive of the whole defined ambition idea. Recently he said that the Government should stop "banging on" about defined ambition and let the pensions industry focus on applying defined benefit (DB) investment strategies to DC schemes. He is a particular fan of the Liability Driven Investment (LDI) approach, common in DB schemes protecting their funding position, being applied more consistently to DC. Hutton has recently joined Redington, an investment consultancy, so I imagine we can expect to hear a lot more from him on this subject.
Much has been made of the Dutch system, which has a "second pillar" of large industry-wide pension schemes. This has suffered from the same economic pressures which have dogged the UK system since the turn of the century, but has arguably retreated from straight final salary benefits – first to career average retirement earnings (CARE), then to risk sharing via variable contributions for employers balanced by variable benefits for employees, and currently renegotiating again in the wake of the 2008 crash – in a more orderly manner. I tend to feel that the main reason the Dutch system is better than ours is the same reason that their flood defence system is better: they put a lot more money into it. Nine times as much in the case of flood defences, and contributions into their second pillar average 20% of salary compared to the current average into DC schemes in the UK of under 8%. They also make you buy an annuity, make you join and don't let you opt out. Despite this it remains remarkably popular with the public.
As you can see, there are a lot of acronyms flying around, and relatively little discussion with the people who these schemes are likely to end up getting foisted on. The Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) carried out a survey of smaller firms which revealed that what they wanted was:
Members to receive more from their savings;
Increased transparency and trust in the companies who provided pensions;
No collective schemes; and
More tax concessions.
This last point is unlikely to be conceded, with the Institute of Fiscal Studies joining the increasing clamour this week to limit the generous tax exemptions to employers and members with occupational pension arrangements.
But has anyone asked members of pension schemes? Very few, as far as I can see. The most notable being the Pension Regulator's survey of DC pension members in 2012. When those still actively contributing to these schemes were asked which of a long list of things would encourage them to take more interest in their pension, the three things they wanted overwhelmingly most of all were:
Notice how concerns about guaranteed benefits did not feature here. When asked, 85% had some understanding that their pension income was not guaranteed, and even more (94%) had an understanding that contribution levels were a key factor in determining that income. While 78% thought their company or personal pension would be one of their main sources of income in retirement (the next highest was the state pension with 22%), only 24% were confident that their current level of contributions was going to provide an adequate income. So they know they have a problem.
What they are asking for is a step change in financial education so that they can begin to tackle that problem. So could it be that all of the groups we have heard from above are trying to solve the wrong thing entirely?
As far as the regulatory environment is concerned, I think the document Defining Ambition produced by the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) before the consultation probably summarised the situation best. Joanne Segars stopped short of supporting any particular solution and instead laid out some of the main options and where they sat on the scale of risk (which I have reproduced above) to the member.
Segars suggested that we shouldn't "sweat the small stuff", and should instead concentrate on providing a flexible continuum of regulation to cover the whole scale of risk, otherwise any new approaches would be snuffed out by HMRC's and TPR's lack of flexibility and overly complex approach before they even got going, much as cash balance schemes have been over the last 20 years. I felt that this was just fence-sitting at the time, but have since realised that she was right. We have all been "banging on" for too long about things about which prospective members simply don't care.
Assuming a relaxation of the regulations which doesn't yet exist, we actuaries have piled enthusiastically into debating slight differences between our different pet schemes, standing toe to toe and swapping model results like punches, while seemingly forgetting all about the member.
Suddenly the most important contribution in Defining Ambitions seems clear to me: that of Morrisons' HR Director about how they introduced a three year financial education and advice programme (called Save Your Dough) throughout their workforce ahead of their auto-enrolment date. They realised that they needed to help their employees understand their finances first before they would understand that they could make a difference to their long-term finances by saving into a pension. They involved Alvin Hall to add some celebrity glitter to the process, but also involved their main union USDAW. And they used a lot of different communication tools, from booklets to podcasts to online modellers to short films and video diaries in addition to the more traditional information sources and face to face sessions. They trusted that they had good people who would make reasonable decisions given sufficient accessible information.
I am sure there are other examples of such good practice out there, but we have not encouraged them with our endless debates about DC plus v CDC v DB minus and everything in between. The small stuff has been sweated quite enough. Let's help firms talk to their members better instead.
Taxation and the Squeezed
A little history: less than 80 years ago, in 1938-39, there were only 3.8 million income taxpayers. This was clearly not enough for a nation on the brink of World War 2 and by 1948-49 (statistics were only collected every 10 years in those days) the number had almost quadrupled to 14.5 million, or around 29% of the UK population (estimates are approximate as there was no census in 1948). Today, there are around 30 million taxpayers, or around 47% of the UK population which, even allowing for the 16-17% uplift in the number of taxpayers caused by the move to individual taxation (rather than counting married couples as a single tax individual as previously), represents nearly a 40% increase in the proportion of the population paying tax since the late forties.
The latest Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) release on income tax paid by percentile of taxpayers has been seized on by others in the continuing political battle over a future 50% tax rate, but I want to focus instead on one of the other political slogans thrown around in the last few years: the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year for 2011 (despite the fact that it is two words) the Squeezed Middle. That the middle has been squeezed is not in doubt, as the graphs below will show. But is this a failure of the income tax system? I think the data suggest otherwise.
First of all, if we look at the proportion of earnings subject to income tax that are paid as tax, they are probably a lot lower than you would think. Obviously this does not include national insurance contributions or Council Tax, both of which are considerably more regressive, but as you can see the percentage did not get above 15% until the top 30% of taxpayers in 1999-00 and the top 12% in 2011-12, with the proportion reducing for everyone below the top 10% of taxpayers until you get to the more complicated interaction between tax and benefits for the bottom 15%. The Squeezed Middle has not been squeezed by the tax man.
We need to be a little careful here, as there has been an effort to move people out of tax through increases to the tax threshold above inflation between 1999-00 and 2011-12. However the percentage of the population paying income tax resulting from this has hardly moved (if anything, it has increased slightly since 1999-00 when it was around 46%), so although the comparison may be approximate, in my view it should still broadly hold.
But the Middle has been squeezed, as the following graph (of earnings in excess of consumer price inflation (CPI) by percentile) shows:
Yet even here, the impact of tax has reduced the depth of the squeeze. At the top end, the top 1% do not on average appear to have seen the sort of runaway increases in earnings seen in the United States. To see what has happened at the lowest point of the smile, the median point where exactly 50% of taxpayers earn more and 50% earn less, we can track the median earnings in 1999-00 terms (adjusting for the increase in CPI since then) up to 2011-12 as follows:
It is clear that the squeeze has been an entirely post 2008 crash phenomenon, with real incomes increasing quite reasonably until then. Interestingly, the tax burden as a percentage of income had already started to fall before the crash, with the process accelerating since then.
The Government's proposal to target a budget surplus by the 2018-19 tax year, to be achieved by spending cuts rather than tax rises, means that this tax burden is unlikely to change if the Conservatives or a coalition they dominate win the next election, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, with 60% of cuts in public spending still to come. Labour have also committed to a budget surplus by the end of the next parliament, with a 50% tax rate reintroduced, but only to the top 1% of taxpayers and offset by a reduction in the starting rate for everyone to 10%. So whoever wins the Middle appear to be safe from an increase in income tax at least.
Both parties appear to be depending on increases to incomes (and/or possibly spending unsupported by incomes which could generate more VAT revenues) amongst the Middle so that unincreased tax rates can still meet the gap between their spending plans and the tax take elsewhere. So let's all hope that the Squeezed Middle start getting paid properly soon.


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Top 100 in the World
Top 100 in Africa
Top 100 in Asia
Top 100 in Europe
Top 100 in Latin America
Top 100 in North America
Top 50 in Oceania
Education System in Togo
School/Level
Primary Primary School 1–6 6–12 6
Middle Junior Secondary 7–10 13–16 4
Secondary Senior Secondary 11–13 17–19 3
Vocational Vocational Eduction 3
Tertiary Dîplome 2 Dîplome de Technicien Supérieur/DTS (Diploma of Higher Technical Studies)/BrevetdeTechnicien Supérieur/BTS (Certificate of Higher Technician) Diplôme d'Études Universitaires Générales (Diploma of General University Studies) Diplôme Universitaires d'Études Scientifiques (University Diploma of Scientific Studies) Diplôme Universitaires d'Études Littéraires (University Diploma of Literary Studies) Diplôme Universitaires de Techniques Juridiques (University Diploma of Legal Studies)
Tertiary License 1 License/Licentiate
Tertiary Diploma of Higher Studies 4 Diplôme d'Études Supérieures(Diploma of Higher Studies)
Tertiary Doctorate 1–2 Specialized Third Stage
In Togo primary education, which is free and in theory compulsory too takes 6 years to complete. This is an improvement over previous decades when parents still had to pay teachers in rural areas themselves. Schools are state-owned, Christian or Islamic, yet 10% of children are still deprived of a basic education.
Secondary schooling takes a further 6 years to complete. Facilities are sparse in far-flung rural places but generous in the Capital City of Lomé, where the better private schools are found. The curriculum is similar to that used in France today.
What formal vocational training does exist is largely in the hands of religious institutions and foreign donors. On the ground though, people lucky enough to find employment continue to just learn as they go along.
Tertiary education institutions are centered in the Capital City of Lomé. These include colleges of administration, architecture and urban planning. The University of Lomé was established as the University of Benin in 1970, and trains engineers and technicians in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering.
Tertiary education in Togo remains the property of the children of the rich, the famous and the influential, and is sadly yet of little benefit to people living in rural areas, where progress stands still.
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Business valuation can be defined as the process and the set of well laid procedures used to estimate the economic value of an owner's equity in a business. Valuation is applied by financial market participants to establish the price they are ready to pay or accept to affect the sale of a business. In- addition to approximating the selling price of a business, the same valuation tools can be used by business appraisers to solve rows associated with, divorce litigation, estate and gift taxation, establishing a formula for estimating the value of partner's' ownership interest for buy-sell agreements, allocating business purchase price among business assets and several other business and legal purposes for instance in divorce litigation, shareholders deadlock and estate contest. In various cases the court can decide to appoint a forensic accountant as a unifying expert in doing the business valuation.
Before the value of the business can be estimated, the valuation assignment must stipulate the grounds for and circumstances surrounding the business valuation. These requirements are officially referred to as the business standard and premise of value. The standard of value is the theoretical situation under which the business is going to be valued. The premise of value relates to the assumptions such as the postulation that the business will continue forever in its present form or that the value of the business can be determined by the proceeds from the sale of all its assets minus the related debt sum of the parts or collection of business assets.
Fair market value – this is the value of a business enterprise agreed upon between a willing seller and a willing buyer both in full awareness of all the applicable facts and neither forced to finish off a transaction.
Investment value – this can be defined as the value the company has to a specific investor. Note that the impact of synergy is incorporated in the valuation under the investment standard of value.
Intrinsic value –this is the evaluation of a business value that reflects the investor's in-depth comprehension of the company's economic potential.
Going Concern – this is the Value in the continuous use as a continuing operating business enterprise.
Assemblage of assets – this is the value of assets available but not used to perform any business operations.
Orderly disposition – this is the value of business assets in exchange where the assets are to be disposed individually and not used for any business operations.
Liquidation – this is the value in exchange, when business assets are to be disposed of in forced liquidation.
Business valuation results vary significantly depending on the option of both the standard and premise of value. In a real business sale, it would be projected that the seller and buyer, each with an incentive to attain an optimal outcome, would decide the fair market value of a business asset that will compete in the market for such an acquirement. In case the synergies are precise to the company being valued, they might not be considered. Fair value also does not include discounts for lack of control or marketability.
However, it is possible to attain the fair market value for a business asset that is being liquidated in the secondary market. This underscores the disparity between the standard and premise of value.
These assumptions may not, and probably won't reflect the definite conditions of the market in which the subject business will be sold. Nevertheless, these conditions are assumed because they capitulate a uniform standard of value after applying the generally conventional valuation techniques, which facilitates meaningful contrast between businesses which are similarly situated.
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This article is about the Singapore MRT station. For the KTM Intercity station, see Tanah Merah railway station.
Passengers at Platform C of this station waiting for the Airport- bound train Changi Airport station.
Tanah Merah MRT station (EW4/CG) is an above-ground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) interchange station located in Bedok, Singapore. Other than the main service (EW4), Tanah Merah station is also the terminus for the Changi Airport branch line (CG) which is also part of the East West Line.
Tanah Merah station is one of the three fully above-ground interchange stations on the Singapore MRT/LRT network; the other two being Jurong East MRT station and Choa Chu Kang MRT/LRT station. It is also one of the two stations that serve both a main service and a branch service; the other station being Promenade MRT station.
Since 2017, Tanah Merah station is officially assigned the station code "CG", in addition to the station code "EW4" which the station originally had, to differentiate the operations of the main service and the Changi Airport branch line, albeit that it is not displayed on the signage of the station.
On 14 January 1986, the contract for building the Bedok MRT station, including the underpass and viaduct from Kembangan to Tanah Merah was awarded to RDC-Obayashi Joint Venture under Contracts 304 and 305. In addition, the contract for building the Tanah Merah MRT station and the line to Changi Depot was also awarded to Hyundai Engineering.
The station was originally not going to be open with the rest of the East West Line in between 1988 and 1989 as there were only private houses surrounding it, but increasing pressure from Members of Parliament and the public forced SMRT to open this station. When it opened, the demand was extremely stagnant, with only private houses, Bedok South housing estates and Fengshan housing estates to cater to. The demand increased when Singapore Expo and the MRT line to Changi Airport opened.
As with most of the above-ground stations built in the past along the East West Line, it was built without platform screen doors. Due to the 2010 accident, installation of the half-height screen doors at this station commenced on 10 January 2011 and operations commenced on 30 March 2011. It is also the final MRT station with the HVLS fans, this went operational on 5 January 2013.
The addition of a new platform was announced by Land Transport Authority on 25 August 2014 to allow trains to arrive and depart at shorter intervals and an improvement in waiting times with the enhancements. On 26 October 2016, the Land Transport Authority awarded the civil contract to Lum Chang Building Contractors Pte. Ltd. to build a new platform at Tanah Merah station and viaducts for a contract sum of S$325 million. In addition to the new platforms, the existing East West Line tracks will be extended to connect the line to the new four-in-one East Coast Integrated Depot at Changi. When completed in 2024, it will be the second station to have triple island platforms after Jurong East.
^ Wong, Siew Ying (26 January 2008). "Above-ground MRT stations to have platform screen doors by 2012". Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved 1 February 2012.
^ "New Platform at Tanah Merah MRT station for Faster Travel to Expo and Changi Airport". Land Transport Authority. 25 August 2014.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tanah Merah MRT station.


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Tag Archive: 4 Agreements
Don't cowtow to science
Filed under: Mind, ONE planet, Science, What is by mandtao — Leave a comment
It is clear that Bruce is extending his arms to understanding but does that mean that science is? Furthermore does it mean that science has left behind its baggage or even that Bruce has left behind his science baggage? At this point I can only ask.
However for understanding to fit into science there is much that has to change with science, and if we limit our understanding by that which science is willing to accept we miss out on much that is genuine. Cowtowing to science is restrictive. In the first part of his book, The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz described how our conditioning changes us and fits us in. We agree to accept the conditioning that parents provide in the home, teachers in school, and the keepers in religious institutions. Significant in this agreement is that we accept science as knowledge, and often measure our intelligence by benchmarks developed from this knowledge. Whilst I believe that the primary purpose of our school system is to prepare the 99% for wage slavery, it is an important secondary purpose to inculcate the 99% into the acceptance of the restricted system of knowledge that we have come to know as science. We agree to both these purposes because we have accepted that society has developed with the interest of all the people at heart. Whilst I have never accepted this I am pleased to hear the progress of the Occupy movement who in general do not agree with either of these purposes.
Rather than cowtowing to science with its dubious masters, what about starting from Nature? Where else better than the sea? How many seas are there? One with many names. It moves in and out, in and out, its motion is fundamental. At any point in the sea that point moves in the direction of the tide, but in addition that point would become part of a wave. The sea is a unity with dual attributes of point and wave.
Now what about light, through light we can see – it has a functionality. How does that light function? Some of physics would describe that light coming from a point source, and yet other physicists describe light as a wave motion. Through calculation we can determine that light has a speed, a speed at which the point emantaing from the source would be travelling.
Suppose we ask what is light? We get no answer, we only get a description of properties. What is electricity? What is sound? Again no answer, simply a description of properties. Can we not describe as fundamental properties of all a point and wave duality? So rather than not having a description which is the scientific position now, we start with an axiom that in all aspects of life there is motion or momentum that is both point and wave. This is not too distinct from established physics where the principle of conservation of momentum applies ie continuous motion.
So if we start from the sea, axiomatically we might start differently but quickly we join with established science through momentum. Point and wave as fundamentals is also accepted as scientific, but in both cases we would not describe them as axiomatic because the scientific framework is different. Science starts by postulating building blocks that it calls atoms. But then through scientific method the nature of those fundamental building blocks has been refuted, and yet science patches over this. It does not say let us re-examine our framework.
And with Bruce we have another fundamental axiom of biology exposed, that of genes controlling life. What do we have instead? The gene as a blueprint. Cells contain genes and protein, and this protein has receptors which receive information as signals through the cell membrane that then cause the genes to actuate. Where do these signals come from? Life in general.
What about man? Compare this with man, s/he has a blueprint. Through perception of what happens around her/him signals actuate the genes, and if there are no signals no actuation. Man, cell. The same process, is this unreasonable? But what if we start with man? Man is conscious of life through mind that perceives. Where does the mind get the perception, through signals that happen as a result of perception and these signals get passed to the brain to the cells. So the question is not where is the brain of man, the brain is a known physical central unit that transmits the signal to the cells in the body. The question is where is the mind of man, and here we have point and wave. The mind centres on a point often seen as resting in the heart, and yet through perception mind spreads out from the point as waves to perceive through the centres including the skin, the cell membrane of man.
There is no inconsistency with this new science and what can be considered from religion, however the framework is different because of the axioms. Yet the axioms of science have been exposed as false. There is no fundamental axiom concerning what is light, sound or electricity. There is an unresolved position concerning the building bliocks as to whether they are masses or energy, and in biology the central dogma is an empty shell. We are expected to cowtow to science not because science is based on axioms that then produce a well-integrated body of knowledge. No the agreement is that we accept science as our knowledge system and not question science's inconsistencies.
Starting from life as motion which is both point and wave we have an axiom that meets easily with established science and prevailing religious knowledge – back to Bacon.
Tags: 1%, 4 Agreements, Lipton
Filed under: Science, What is by mandtao — Leave a comment
What is the set of knowledge we know as science? Basically it is a set of axioms that is then developed through logical thought analysis and experimental method. Science is so complex because we have invested a great deal of money in scientific education and scientific research. At first glance this appears perfectly reasonable. But on closer inspection this apparent reason leads to much questioning, as the third agreement says "Don't make assumptions". What is an axiom? It is an assumption, it is the hedge fund of assumptions inasmuch as what is packaged as a robust knowledge base can all be deeply questioned when you see that the fundamental axioms are not based in truth but based on conjecture – perhaps a loan that should never have been given?
I am going to look at two of these. The first is the one I have just been discussing – the central dogma of biology that the gene is the command centre of the cell (talk – biology of perception). As Bruce says, if the gene is removed the cell functions; it would be sound to dismiss this central dogma. This axiom is a hedge fund.
Now the other axiom that has been undermined is that of the atom consisting of protons, neutrons and electrons. Sub-atomic investigation leads to continuing postulation of hyet smaller atomic particles. In the Tao of Physics Fritjov Capra pointed out that it depended on the viewpoint of the observer whether an atom functioned as a mass or whether the atom functioned as momentum. In a throw-away line somewhere Bruce described the atom as consisting of energy. I don't think we can say that, I would suggest that on occasions the atom behaves as a particle and on other occasions it behaves as energy. I put this forward as an axiom. If this is an axiom what implications does it have? Physics as described in terms of particles has been investigated for a long time as evidenced by my being taught atomic structure at school in the 60s. But what about energy? Let us examine kinetic energy, the energy of movement. This is calculated as 1/2 mv squared, it is worked out in terms of what happens to a particle of mass m.
But how does that relate to the chi? This is energy that is all-around and we can tap into this energy through various techniques such as Tai Chi or Chi Gung. I remember someone on an online forum saying that somoene doing Tai Chi in the US was once described as playing with spirit. Is this chi energy not the energy that exists sub-atomically? This is an axiom of new physics, the particles of established physics and the sub-atomic energy, known as chi, that as yet we have not determined a way of measuring. But that does not say that science does not have a way of measuring any chi, because the chi in humans can be measured as three pulses as explained here.
Despite over two thousand years of medical understanding that has repeatedly been verified in practice western science does accept this energetic medicine. It is worth considering the theoretical basis of acupuncture as a means of accepting the dual axiom of particle and energy. Starting from the axiomatic approach that energy flows in the human body, acupuncture then started to consider what did this energy flow along – channels – these are also called meridians. What happens if you block these channels? Disease. So if we can unblock these channels so that the human energy flows naturally then health returns. If one accepts the axiom that human energy flows in the body, this is a perfectly sound explanation for disease. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has a long established analysis of the flow of energy in the body, and has numerous different branches that perform treatment. For example acupuncture uses needles to unblock these channels. TCM doctors over time have developed charts of these energy channels, they know particular points along these channels which are beneficial for particular illnesses. In fact as far as I understand it now, Chinese acupuncture hospitals don't teach so much about the flow of the chi but teach recognition of the channels and effective points. Shiatsu or acupuncture applies pressure at these points for alleviating illness, and independently Thai Traditional Medicine (TTM) uses the notion of sen lines (Thai equivalent of chi) and so by massaging along these sen lines TTM doctors release illness.
For millenia in China and Thailand these medical systems based on the energy axiom have functioned. Then along came western medicine based on a particle or static view of understanding. This view started with the axiom that the human body is a static organism, and that if one experiments on this static body certain results happened. This led to a medicinal approach to recovery whereby the static illness is removed by applying medicine statically to relieve the illness – allopathic medicine. In China the two medicines run side-by-side, this fits in with the axiom that I put forward that there is an axiomatic duality of particle and energy. In Thailand the two medicines co-exist but not comfortably, and the majority of the medicine fits the western model.
But what is most significant is that the western model is not able to explain a significant portion of our diseases – the major ones, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's etc. None of these can be dealt with by static medicine. But energetically they can be explained. The human body is not static, energy continually renews the organs and if we provide our bodies with the appropriate energy to renew these organs we can cure illness. We can get our energy from the environment or we can get it from food. It could equally be argued that food is a static substance and the causal link between good food and regaining a healthy body has been recognised to be curative. This recognition sadly is only minority, and that minority look on as people suffer the awful indignity of a chemotherapy death whilst rejuvenated health is available through healthy food and lifestyle.
The axiom of new physics can be applied elsewhere, and health is a good example.
Where does Bruce fit into all of this? I contend that the gene could be considered a static component of the cell, the gene is a blueprint that does not change. But within a cell there are two components, the static component of the gene and the energetic component which Bruce describes as protein. Now the protein is what interacts with the signal, and the signal is energetic by nature – this doesn't feel quite right
Tags: 4 Agreements, Capra, Lipton


Tim Page, the new chief executive at CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, ticks all the right boxes. He's passionate about pubs, drinks good beer, makes his own cider and is involved in saving and creating a home for wildlife on common land in his village in Cambridgeshire.
He enjoys working for not-for-profit organisations and is impressed by the "incredible devotion" of CAMRA members who, he says, devote so much of their free time to running beer festivals, researching pubs for CAMRA guides and websites, and supporting breweries.
He thinks it "astonishing" that 1,000 volunteers run the Great British Beer Festival. He sees that as a sign of the campaign's strength, with its ability to motivate such large numbers of members.
Page, aged 59, is a former professional soldier and he says getting on well with people was a critical part of his job. He left the army with the rank of colonel, served in Northern Ireland, Rhodesia, Cyprus and Germany, and as chief of land and air operations during the post-war reconstruction of Bosnia.
After close to 30 years military service, he took on a new, different but equally challenging role as national director of the charity Emmaus that helps homeless people rebuild their lives through living and working in communities. During his time with Emmaus, the number of projects grew from seven to 20, and he recruited the Duchess of Cornwall to be the charity's royal patron.
In 2011 Page became chief executive of another charity, East Anglian Air Ambulance. He developed the UK's first day/night helicopter emergency medical service, assembled a team of world-renowned medical experts and oversaw a 30% increase in the number of seriously injured patients who were helped by the service.
With the Duke of Cambridge due to start work with EAAA next year, Tim Page is clearly a man with contacts in high places. But he's equally at home with grassroots organisations, which was the appeal of CAMRA and its large and active membership.
"I enjoy diversity," he says, "and one of my jobs with CAMRA will be to represent the views of all its members.
Tim Page believes that CAMRA's status as a not-for-profit organisation is its strength and that the campaign should encourage people to live more socially.
"I'm aghast at the individualism of modern society, with people sitting behind locked doors and getting their beer from supermarkets," he says.
He wants to challenge the "outdated concept" that CAMRA is only about real ale and thinks saving pubs is the key issue.
He supports CAMRA calls for tougher planning laws that will make "change of use" more difficult and prevent pubs being turned into mini supermarkets, betting shops or private housing.
"Councils have the power to interpret the law and must realise the importance of pubs to their communities. Pubs shouldn't be sold when they are at the heart of their communities," he adds.
He views the recent activities of the country's two giant pubcos, Enterprise and Punch, as a particular problem. Page thinks the government's plans for a Pub Adjudicator, who will intervene in disputes about rent, beer prices and choice, is a step in the right direction but he says there's still much work to be done to stop the blight of pub closures.
He sees his role at CAMRA as "outward facing". He has met the campaign's National Executive – all volunteers – and the head office staff in St Albans. He will not be desk bound and he'll allow the staff to run the campaign on a day-to-day basis while he is out meeting CAMRA members and influencing the principal decision-makers in government and the brewing industry.
Page thinks the independence of CAMRA is essential. He believes the media often misinterpret the campaign's work and see it as part of the brewing industry instead of being a consumer movement on the drinkers' side of the bar.
Is such a figure achievable? As they say in military circles, let's run it up the flagpole and see if it salutes.
The son of a farmer, he now lives in a village east of Cambridge. He is married to Christine, a Primary Academy head teacher, and they have five children.
In 1974 he was commissioned into the Royal Anglian Regiment before studying English and Philosophy at Exeter University, where he joined CAMRA. During his army career he served in many different countries, commanded the Cheshire Regiment, and trained officers at Sandhurst.
He left the army in 2002 and went to work for Emmaus as national director. In 2011 he was appointed chief executive of the East Anglian Air Ambulance. He is a liveryman of the Drapers' Company and a member of its charity committee, which allocates £2m a year to cultural and educational causes and in support of disadvantaged members of society. As well as working with fellow villagers to save and sustain an area of common land, he is interested in sport of every kind, cooks, sails, and makes jam, pickles, wine and cider from home-grown fruit and vegetables.


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Koporo Pen è un comune rurale del Mali facente parte del circondario di Koro, nella regione di Mopti.

Il comune è composto da 16 nuclei abitati:

Béréli
Déou
Don
Gomou
Goro
Gueourou-Dogon
Gueourou-Peulh
Koporo Pen
Korolou
Koumbogourou-Dogon
Koumbogourou-Peulh
Oro
Sagourou
Samani-Dogon
Samani-Peulh
Sassogou

Note

Comuni della regione di Mopti

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Enderun – darmowa szkoła z internatem założona w Konstantynopolu przez Murata II. Zapewniała "devsirmom" (porwane chrześcijańskie dzieci z Bałkanów i milletów), a także synom urzędników osmańskich doskonałe wykształcenie literackie, teologiczne, inżynierskie, matematyczne itd., przygotowując ich do służby jako urzędników i janczarów.

Kultura w Imperium Osmańskim
Szkoły