Thursday, April 30, 2009

TOP TEN UNIVERSITIES IN AUSTRALIA

Rank University
1 Australian National University
2 The University of Sydney
3 The University of Melbourne
4 The University of Queensland
5 The University of New South Wales
6 Monash University
7 The University of Western Australia
8 The University of Adelaide
9 Macquarie University
10 RMIT University

TOP TEN UNIVERSITIES IN UK

1 University of Oxford
2 University of Cambridge
3 Imperial College London
4 London School of Economics
5 University of St. Andrews
6 University of Warwick
7 University College London
8 Durham University
9 The University of York
10 Bristol University

TOP TEN UNIVERSITIES IN USA

Rank University
1 Harvard University
2 Princeton University
3 Yale University
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5 Stanford University
6 California Institute of Technology
7 University of Pennsylvania
8 Columbia University
9 Duke University
10 The University of Chicago

TOP TEN UNIVERSITIES IN CHINA

Rank University
1 Tsinghua University
2 Peking University
3 Zhejiang University
4 University of Science and Technology of China
5 Nanjing University
6 Fudan University
7 Shanghai Jiao Tong University
8 Beijing Normal University
9 Harbin Insititue of Technology
10 Nan'kai University
10 Renmin University of China

TOP TEN UNIVERSITIES IN THE WORLD

Rank University
1 Harvard University, USA
2 Yale University, USA
3 University of Cambridge, UK
4 University of Oxford, UK
5 California Institute of Technology, USA
6 Imperial College London, UK
7 University College London, UK
8 The University of Chicago, USA
9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
10 Columbia University, USA

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Networking And The Internet

Computers have been used to coordinate information between multiple locations since the 1950s. The U.S. military's SAGE system was the first large-scale example of such a system, which led to a number of special-purpose commercial systems like Sabre.[29]In the 1970s, computer engineers at research institutions throughout the United States began to link their computers together using telecommunications technology. This effort was funded by ARPA (now DARPA), and the computer network that it produced was called the ARPANET.[30] The technologies that made the Arpanet possible spread and evolved.In time, the network spread beyond academic and military institutions and became known as the Internet. The emergence of networking involved a redefinition of the nature and boundaries of the computer. Computer operating systems and applications were modified to include the ability to define and access the resources of other computers on the network, such as peripheral devices, stored information, and the like, as extensions of the resources of an individual computer. Initially these facilities were available primarily to people working in high-tech environments, but in the 1990s the spread of applications like e-mail and the World Wide Web, combined with the development of cheap, fast networking technologies like Ethernet and ADSL saw computer networking become almost ubiquitous. In fact, the number of computers that are networked is growing phenomenally. A very large proportion of personal computers regularly connect to the Internet to communicate and receive information. "Wireless" networking, often utilizing mobile phone networks, has meant networking is becoming increasingly ubiquitous even in mobile computing environments.

HISTORY OF COMPUTER

The first use of the word "computer" was recorded in 1613, referring to a person who carried out calculations, or computations, and the word continued to be used in that sense until the middle of the 20th century. From the end of the 19th century onwards though, the word began to take on its more familiar meaning, decribing a machine that carries out computations.The history of the modern computer begins with two separate technologies—automated calculation and programmability—but no single device can be identified as the earliest computer, partly because of the inconsistent application of that term. Examples of early mechanical calculating devices include the abacus, the slide rule and arguably the astrolabe and the Antikythera mechanism (which dates from about 150–100 BC). Hero of Alexandria (c. 10–70 AD) built a mechanical theater which performed a play lasting 10 minutes and was operated by a complex system of ropes and drums that might be considered to be a means of deciding which parts of the mechanism performed which actions and when.This is the essence of programmability.The "castle clock", an astronomical clock invented by Al-Jazari in 1206, is considered to be the earliest programmable analog computer.It displayed the zodiac, the solar and lunar orbits, a crescent moon-shaped pointer travelling across a gateway causing automatic doors to open every hour, and five robotic musicians who played music when struck by levers operated by a camshaft attached to a water wheel. The length of day and night could be re-programmed to compensate for the changing lengths of day and night throughout the year.The end of the Middle Ages saw a re-invigoration of European mathematics and engineering. Wilhelm Schickard's 1623 device was the first of a number of mechanical calculators constructed by European engineers, but none fit the modern definition of a computer, because they could not be programmed.In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard made an improvement to the textile loom by introducing a series of punched paper cards as a template which allowed his loom to weave intricate patterns automatically. The resulting Jacquard loom was an important step in the development of computers because the use of punched cards to define woven patterns can be viewed as an early, albeit limited, form of programmability.It was the fusion of automatic calculation with programmability that produced the first recognizable computers. In 1837, Charles Babbage was the first to conceptualize and design a fully programmable mechanical computer, his analytical engine. Limited finances and Babbage's inability to resist tinkering with the design meant that the device was never completed.In the late 1880s Herman Hollerith invented the recording of data on a machine readable medium. Prior uses of machine readable media, above, had been for control, not data. "After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards ..."To process these punched cards he invented the tabulator, and the key punch machines. These three inventions were the foundation of the modern information processing industry. Large-scale automated data processing of punched cards was performed for the 1890 United States Census by Hollerith's company, which later became the core of IBM. By the end of the 19th century a number of technologies that would later prove useful in the realization of practical computers had begun to appear: the punched card, Boolean algebra, the vacuum tube (thermionic valve) and the teleprinter.During the first half of the 20th century, many scientific computing needs were met by increasingly sophisticated analog computers, which used a direct mechanical or electrical model of the problem as a basis for computation. However, these were not programmable and generally lacked the versatility and accuracy of modern digital computers.George Stibitz is internationally recognized as a father of the modern digital computer. While working at Bell Labs in November of 1937, Stibitz invented and built a relay-based calculator he dubbed the "Model K" (for "kitchen table", on which he had assembled it), which was the first to use binary circuits to perform an arithmetic operation. Later models added greater sophistication including complex arithmetic and programmability.Defining characteristics of some early digital computers of the 1940s (In the history of computing hardware)NameFirst operationalNumeral systemComputing mechanismProgrammingTuring completeZuse Z3 (Germany)May 1941BinaryElectro-mechanicalProgram-controlled by punched film stockYes (1998)Atanasoff–Berry Computer (US)1942BinaryElectronicNot programmable—single purposeNoColossus Mark 1 (UK)February 1944BinaryElectronicProgram-controlled by patch cables and switchesNoHarvard Mark I – IBM ASCC (US)May 1944DecimalElectro-mechanicalProgram-controlled by 24-channel punched paper tape (but no conditional branch)NoColossus Mark 2 (UK)June 1944BinaryElectronicProgram-controlled by patch cables and switchesNoENIAC (US)July 1946DecimalElectronicProgram-controlled by patch cables and switchesYesManchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (UK)June 1948BinaryElectronicStored-program in Williams cathode ray tube memoryYesModified ENIAC (US)September 1948DecimalElectronicProgram-controlled by patch cables and switches plus a primitive read-only stored programming mechanism using the Function Tables as program ROMYesEDSAC (UK)May 1949BinaryElectronicStored-program in mercury delay line memoryYesManchester Mark 1 (UK)October 1949BinaryElectronicStored-program in Williams cathode ray tube memory and magnetic drum memoryYesCSIRAC (Australia)November 1949BinaryElectronicStored-program in mercury delay line memoryYesA succession of steadily more powerful and flexible computing devices were constructed in the 1930s and 1940s, gradually adding the key features that are seen in modern computers. The use of digital electronics (largely invented by Claude Shannon in 1937) and more flexible programmability were vitally important steps, but defining one point along this road as "the first digital electronic computer" is difficult (Shannon 1940). Notable achievements include.

Computer

A computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions.Although mechanical examples of computers have existed throughout history, the first resembling a modern computer were developed in the mid-20th century (1940–1945). The first electronic computers were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers (PC). Modern computers based on tiny integrated circuits are millions to billions of times more capable than the early machines, and occupy a fraction of the space. Simple computers are small enough to fit into a wristwatch, and can be powered by a watch battery. Personal computers in their various forms are icons of the Information Age, what most people think of as a "computer", but the embedded computers found in devices ranging from fighter aircraft to industrial robots, digital cameras, and children's toys are the most numerous.The ability to store and execute lists of instructions called programs makes computers extremely versatile, distinguishing them from calculators. The Church–Turing thesis is a mathematical statement of this versatility: any computer with a certain minimum capability is, in principle, capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore computers ranging from a personal digital assistant to a supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks, given enough time and storage capacity.

3 Strategies You Can Use To Trade Forex Breakouts...

One of the most popular methods traders use to trade the markets is breakout trading. This is where you wait for a price consolidation in a tight trading range and take a position when the price breaks out of this range. So with that in mind, here's 3 simple strategies you can use to trade forex breakouts:
1. Price Consolidation
This is the simplest form of breakout trading because it doesn't involve any technical indicators. You simply wait for a period of low volatility where the price is stuck in a very tight range. Then you go long when it breaks upwards out of this range and vice versa.
One way of doing this is by plotting a bar or candlestick chart and waiting until a sequence where you get 1 large bar and 4 subsequent bars that all lie within the initial bar's high and low point. Then you simply wait until the high or low point of the initial larger bar is broken and trade in the same direction.
2. Bollinger Bands
Bollinger bands are also a useful tool for identifying breakout situations. All you do is wait until the outer two lines of the Bollinger Band indicator narrow, and then take a position when one of these lines is breached.
3. Exponential Moving Averages (EMA's)
A method I like to use sometimes involves multiple EMA's, namely the 5, 20, 50 and 200 period EMA's. All you do is wait until all of these indicators are all very close to each other , and then wait for the shorter-term EMA, ie the EMA (5) to lead the breakout one way or the other.
(If you would like details of my main trading strategy, please subscribe to my newsletter by filling in the short form above).

WHAT ARE THE MOST TRADED FOREX CURRENCIES

If you have a look at the currencies available to trade via your chosen forex broker you will probably come across lots of different currencies you can trade, some of them quite obscure. However most traders ignore a lot of these smaller currency pairs and focus on the most popular pairs as these conform the best to technical analysis as well as having the tightest spreads.
The most popular currencies are the USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CAD, CHF, AUD and NZD, and the most traded currency pairs are as follows:
- EUR/USD- USD/JPY- GBP/USD- USD/CAD- AUD/USD- USD/CHF- EUR/JPY- GBP/JPY
I personally only tend to focus on the top three pairs in this list as they give me the most success, although I sometimes trade the GBP/JPY as well. The trick is to find those pairs that give you the most profits from your preferred trading method.
(For full details of my trading strategy, plus regular news updates, tips and strategies, please sign up to my newsletter by filling in the form to the right).

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Can I show you a way to earn extra commissions?

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will you become a FOREX Tycoon?

I hope you reached your business goals in 2004, and that2005 is your best year ever!The investing / daytrading world will see some exciting newstrategies and tools emerge in the new year. It will alsosee many new opportunities and markets for you to buildwealth from -- but only if you get to work and takeadvantage of them.
One of the most lucrative (and booming) tradingopportunities, now finally coming of age, is...Foreign Exchange (FOREX) / Currency Trading !
How would you like to spend just a few hours a day or even afew hours a week trading foreign currencies for profit inthe same way that the banks and large corporations do?With modern technology and the Internet it is now possible.But, still almost no one has heard of, or yet toconsistently profit, from this loosely guarded secret.
Even financial experts have misconceptions about this marketthat keep them from taking advantage of it. If you were toask ten people at a party what FOREX is, you would likelyfind that 9 out of 10 would give you a blank stare. However,when you explain that FOREX is just an acronym for 'ForeignExchange' many people will assume that you are referring tothe conversion of money for the purpose of completing abusiness transaction or for traveling purposes. Few willrealize that you are talking about something that they cando a few hours or even minutes a day and possibly earn abetter living than they do now.
More and more investors are turning to FOREX for income andprofit because of innumerable factors that make it the mostsensible choice for intelligent traders and investors. Oneperson put it this way, “Trading FOREX is like picking moneyup off the floor. NOT trading FOREX is like leaving it therefor someone else to pick up." Others in the industry havealso said, “It’s like having an ATM machine on your owncomputer.”In Rapid Forex's very informative 20-part e-Course,understand exactly they mean.Sign up now at: http://www.items4you.biz/rapidforex.html
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...with FOREX gaining so much popularity ....

...how do you plan to profit from the coming opportunities?
I don't have to tell you that it's tough finding rock-solid, *non me-too* type information on FOREX trading.
Since trading the spot currency market (the foreign exchange) is relatively new to the public, few traders have stepped forward to teach their methods. In fact, the traders who are pulling money from the markets, either don't want to let you in on their method, strategies and systems or they simply can't explain what they're doing.
Either way you're on your own.
That's why when I stumble onto people who know their stuff, I don't hesitate from recommending them to you.
Today I want to introduce you to Robert Borowski and Brian Campbell.
What a perfect two-man FOREX-trading & educating TEAM...
Robert and Brian have accumulated a total of over $20,000 worth of training to become FOREX investors. Both men became instant friends and business associates when their paths came together. Robert and Brian both observed, tested, tweaked, and modified original trading methods as a result of their passion to profit from currency trading. They both searched for (and eventually discovered) simple & powerful techniques for trading, that any one can learn.
Since they had each spent considerable amounts of money on training, they decided to combine the results of over 10 years worth of studying, testing, and experimenting into various stand-alone education manuals that has quite literally, overnight, become the premier go-to FOREX education & training site.
Robert and Brian are not only a few of rare FOREX traders who are not only willing to share their methods, but they're also skilled enough to teach them in an easy-to-follow self-study format.
These guys have put together trading manuals (5+ different ones designed for various skill levels and interests) that walk you through ins and outs of FOREX technical-trading like nobody has before.
After ordering and finishing, at least their Success Package, you'll have a firm grasp of how currency trading works, and more importantly you'll join the growing number of traders making money by applying their personal trading systems to the FOREX markets.To learn all their new website, just visit:http://www.items4you.biz/rapidforex.htmlContinued Success!
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Experienced Forex Traders

If you are an experienced trader then you'll fall in love with these unique trading strategies, and will probably end up getting much of your profits from these strategies. Robert recently received a phone call from a Professional Fund Manager (one of those people who work for a big company trading on behalf of a large pool of investors). He called with a clarification question, and to congratulate him on the "*RAPID FOREX*" package (in particular the " FOREX Surfing " techniques). He told me that his company regularly buys any trading packages that becomes available to see what the techniques are incase they might learn something to be even more profitable in their trades for their clients. He stated that most training packages out there are a big waste of money, even scams, but he was surprised to find such useful techniques in the "*RAPID FOREX*" package. He declared that they will definitely be using these strategies for their clients - the same strategies you can now be using for yourself.
We've developed these various proprietary step-by-step strategies over a year of noticing some interesting things that happen in the markets very often (many times each week), and tried to figure out ways to profit from them. After pondering over the possibilities sooner or later a bright light went off in our heads and EUREKA! We figured it out! We then test out the strategies to make sure they work. For example we went right ahead and tried one of the strategies and made 30 pips in less than 5 minutes! (Lots of Money) We could have gotten more but we just wanted to test out the systems. We then continued to refine the strategies until they became "killer strategies" to consistently capture 20 to 150 pips, or even more, often many times a week! (Lots and Lots of Money)
Trond
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Forex for beginners

FOREX is the abbreviation for the Foreign Exchange market. FOREX is basically an exchange market where currencies from all over the world are bought and sold for profit. The market today began in the 70’s. FOREX is a very unique market because it is not based in any particular place, and it also has very few qualifications for investing. FOREX is also free of external controls, and the investors (participants in the market) largely determine how much a currency is worth based on demand. Almost anyone can invest in FOREX, and there are strategies for investors who want to have long-term gains, and strategies for investors who desire short-term gains. The vast array of investors makes FOREX quite unique in the financial community.What is Marginal Trading?Marginal trading is a term used for trading with borrowed capital. FOREX investments can be made without actually having the money. All an investor needs to do is borrow the money for a certain currency. The investor wants to choose a currency that will increase in value quite rapidly. Once the currency increases, the investor pays back the money he or she borrowed and makes sheer profit. This is a high-risk investment, but the rewards are great (as with most high risk investments).Benefits of FOREXFOREX can be very beneficial to a variety of people. FOREX trading can gain investors a large amount of money either over a long period of time, or in a short period of time. Investors who choose to invest in FOREX are generally well informed about the market and understand the current situations in many countries of the world. Investing in FOREX is simple and highly recommended for anyone who wants to enjoy profits from top-notch investments.
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MONEY, CURRENCY, ANDFOREIGN EXCHANGE (FOREX)

The most basic questions and concepts we must address involvethe differences between money, currency, and foreign exchange(FOREX). All too often these terms are interchanged. With equalfrequency, the differences are blurred and misconceptions aredeveloped. Aren’t the three terms one and the same? The answeris no.The Barter Process and the Evolution of MoneyMoney is the primal evolution of barter. It was developed as aconvenient means for exchanging goods and services. If my edu-cation correctly serves me, the first recorded book entries dateback 5,000 years ago to the Sumerians who were defined as thefirst society. Book entries could only become a reality as numericsystems were developed. This is how money allegedly originated.Certainly, there were methods to exchange goods and serv-ices before the Sumerians. The barter process appears in cavewall drawings and remains widely used today. However, barterlacks efficiency because it inevitably involves considerable nego-tiation to consummate a transaction. Value must be determinedthrough a process of bidding and offering. Sound familiar? Forexample, suppose an ancient tribesman trapped a few beaverswhile a fellow tribesman caught several fish. Not needing all the beavers or all the fish, the two may decide to exchange beaver forfish. Depending on the perceived value of beaver pelts in themind of the fisherman versus the relative hunger of the trapper,some ratio of beaver to fish would be agreed upon.Understandably, perceived values will change. The first inklingof seasonality can be deduced from the previous example by over-laying the need for warmth during the winter onto the nonseasonalrequirement for food. Logically, pelts should fetch more fish astemperatures cool. The trapper is likely to fatten up during winter,but go hungry in the summer. This suggests that the trapper willexpand his product line to include meat as well as pelts. This over-comes seasonal problems. Both the trapper and fisherman mustspend the better part of their day accumulating their bounties.Perhaps neither has time to build or maintain shelter. However,another tribesman discovers that his lack of skills as hunter or fish-erman is offset by his ability to construct sturdy huts.The hut builder introduces the concept of cyclical supply anddemand as well as an underlying seasonal influence. He mustbuild huts when the weather is mild and there is easy access tothe ground. His unique challenge derives from his product’s dura-bility coupled with seasonal supply. He develops a prolongedbarter whereby he swaps a hut for a year’s supply of fish or meat.Thus, the hut builder’s commitment to exchange today is carriedforward in payments. Heavens! Was this the first mortgage?The model grows more complex when the hut builder dis-covers that the value of his trade exceeds his requirements forfish and meat. Since he cannot consume all he has bartered for,he decides to use his excess to acquire a wagon from the wagonmaker to transport his building materials and increase his effi-ciency. Perhaps he also exchanges fish and meat for tools. Theincreased efficiency only brings the hut builder more fish andmeat. He decides to train other hut builders with the under-standing that they will work for him and receive a portion of hismeat and fish. The first real-estate tycoon is made. In all likeli-hood, he doesn’t even pay for the land!We see an economic system emerging from barter. All thewhile, however, transactions and relative values must be negoti-ated. Eventually, the hut builder’s tradesmen may decide to gooff on their own. Suddenly, there is competition in the real-estatemarket. With equal certainty, the tribe will have many fishermen, hunters, wagon builders, toolmakers, and other tradesmen.If competition becomes heated, arguments can develop, and,alas, we see the makings of war.This is not necessarily a historically correct portrayal. Themetaphor simply illustrates how a barter economy develops andfunctions. Reviewing and understanding this fundamental eco-nomic system is important when we seek to determine FOREXtrading strategies based upon relative values for global goods andservices. With the decline of colonization, nations have becomeregional. Since global resources are highly regional, nationalwealth becomes a function of location, population, and sophisti-cation. In turn, national wealth determines a currency’s relativestrength or weakness.Although this concept will be covered in later chapters, Iwon’t hold you in total suspense. Some basic examples can beillustrated by Middle East oil or South African gold and plat-inum. These natural and valuable resources provide foundationsfor national economic security. They also fuel currencyexchange. Japan relies upon ingenuity to efficiently convert rawmaterials into finished goods. The yen’s value rises and falls rel-ative to Japan’s innovation and related exports. Each nation reliesupon particular resources to derive wealth. As we will see, thiswealth is a driving force behind fluctuating currency values.However, it is not the only driving force.Returning to our barter example, we can identify a need for amore efficient method of exchange. A toolmaker observes thatsome metal materials have a mysterious attraction. A shiny yel-low metal is far heavier than the harder bronze he uses for an axor hammer. His neighbor takes a fancy to the yellow metal andoffers to exchange his skills as an artisan for a portion of theshiny yellow metal. Incredibly, the entire tribe, as well as othertribes, finds this yellow metal universally attractive. Of course,this metal is gold. After a sufficient quantity of gold becomesavailable, tribal members decide to mold it into uniform piecescalled coins. They examine a fundamental product like fish andsee that one fish fetches two beaver pelts. If they set the value ofone fish equal to one gold coin, then one gold coin buys twobeaver pelts. Thus, the value of a gold coin is established as aratio to a common barter product with a relatively stable per-ceived value.Money, Currency, and Foreign Exchange This example of converting gold into money does not takeseasonal or cyclical values into consideration. It is only a way toexplain the probable transition from barter to money. You areprobably saying, “Tell me something I don’t know.” I emphasizethat basic concepts translate into a more precise understandingof how FOREX works.In reality, gold is a convenient example rather than a histori-cally accurate account of how money emerged. Gold and even sil-ver were too scarce to be effective forms of money. This is why thePhoenicians resorted to shells, while other cultures minted cop-per, tin, and iron or used glass, beads, and stones. This does notimply that gold and silver were not used for exchange. However,gold and silver’s widespread use for day-to-day transactions wasnot common until far more sophisticated economies evolved.As we will see, gold and silver were symbols of wealth andstores of value. These metals were used for more substantialtransactions often involving exchange between kings or noble-men. These metals represented the first significant form ofFOREX. Equally important, gold and silver were used to measureoverall and relative wealth. You may say, “Wealth is wealth.”This truism stands; however, there is a concept of relative wealththat plays an important role in determining modern interna-tional currency trends.The Family Tree of Money, Currency, and FOREXMost of us are familiar with trading cards. Whether trading base-ball or PokĂ©mon cards, children probably develop their first senseof value and negotiating skills by swapping trading cards. Indeed,some of us learned through this same primal exercise in FOREX.We can analyze card swapping in three ways. We can assumeeach card represents a form of currency whereby a specific cardis likened to the yen while another symbolizes the dollar. Weimmediately comprehend that the card’s value is directly associ-ated with its scarcity relative to demand. Children instinctivelyknow that the more rare the card, the more valuable it becomesrelative to other cards or simply for outright purchase.By the same token, children grasp the concept of storingvalue when they refuse to relinquish extremely valuable cards regardless of the offer. Of course, this is where children mayappear irrational. After all, every card should have a price, right?Interestingly, adults and, more significantly, entire societies canenter periods of irrational savings. The concept of storing value,regardless of alternatives, can be seen as a confidence crisis. Inthe child’s case, he or she lacks confidence that he or she willsecure a replacement card. Suddenly, this card is the only suchcard in the child’s mind—a must have or must keep. Whensocioeconomic panic sets in, history suggests we fall back on pri-mal wealth symbolism like gold, property, or essential assets.Today, we call this a flight to quality.Experienced currency traders might legitimately disagreewith equating each unique card with a unique currency. It is notnecessarily the case that the scarcest currency fetches the high-est price or attains the greatest perceived value. In fact, the mostabundant currency, like the dollar, is frequently viewed as themost valuable. Therefore, another viewpoint is that each playingcard represents a unit of currency similar to the $1, $5, $10, and$20 bills going up to the highest denomination. In this example,the trading card becomes money rather than currency. What’sthe difference?Simply put, money represents the means of exchange withinits country of origin. When we think of money, we immediatelyresort to the bills and coins in our pockets or purses. We rarelyconjure up an image of equalizing values between our pocketcash and the money of western Europe or the Pacific Rim. Thedifference is subtle, but consider that money has a fixed valuewithin its place of origin. If baseball cards had a fixed value, theywould not be negotiated. You would simply trade a known Xnumber of cards for a known Y quantity of cards. In turn, theratio of cards to each other permits different mixes of cards tobuy goods and services. Observation tells us this is not the case.Trading cards change value in accordance with the inventories ofthose making the bids and offers.Today, money, currency, and FOREX are like a family tree.Currency is money once removed. They are similar, yet theyoperate in different forums for different purposes. Another wayto view trading cards expounds upon the market concept of thebid and offer. At any given moment, groups of children sportingdifferent card inventories gather in separate markets to set theirMoney, Currency, and Foreign Exchange relative card values. Depending upon the inventories availablewithin each market, the same cards will take on different values.Given the sophistication and indulgence of our newest genera-tions, kids might plan to be in different markets at the same timeby communicating bids and offers via cell phone or email.Behold, children participating in arbitrage!When card values are exchanged in broad markets, we see ametaphoric example of FOREX. Taking this forward anotherstep, money is used to buy local goods and services. Assume abushel of soybeans is worth $6. We know that a $1 bill and $5bill will purchase a bushel of beans. If we use a $10 bill, wereceive $4 in change. A drought may drive soybeans higher,whereas good weather may lower prices. If the price is stable at$6, what is the same bushel worth in pounds (£)? The answer liesin the relative value of pounds to dollars. Consider that if thepound loses value against the dollar, U.S. soybeans become moreexpensive in the United Kingdom, but remain the same price indollars. This is another way to differentiate money from cur-rency. Recognize that this example uses a single commoditypriced in two currencies. When soybeans are sold in the UnitedKingdom, local influences may make the price in pounds higheror lower. Thus, local supply and demand prevails to set localprices.It does not take a great deal of perception to know where theexample culminates. If we remove the soybeans and simply tradepounds against dollars, we are dealing in FOREX. In the FOREXmarket, the supply and demand for different currencies at anygiven moment establishes an exchange value—hence the expres-sion foreign exchange. When you trade FOREX, you attempt toanticipate fluctuations in relative currency values. More oftenthan not, you are not concerned with the price of local goods andservices in local monies. There is an obvious link between localcurrency strength and weakness that is associated with inflationand deflation. If the dollar is inflating while the pound is not,there is a very good chance the pound will appreciate against thedollar. Unfortunately, FOREX relationships have become highlyanticipatory. This means that today’s inflation might be dis-counted by tomorrow’s anticipated price correction. The subtleaspects of forecasting will be explained in later chapters. For now,keep this concept in the back of your mind as we move forward. The Mechanisms of Money, Currency, and FOREXWith a modest understanding of money, currency, and FOREX,the next step in building a trading strategy involves breakingeach component down into its mechanism. Here, distinctionsbetween money and currency tend to blur. With concentration,we can maintain differentiation to develop more profound inter-pretations of intermarket events. Today’s money consists of cashand book entries. Both use common denominations or units.U.S. money begins with the unit of currency called the dollar.This is fractionalized or multiplied as required to refine purchaseprices. The fractions are on a base-10 system beginning with1/100thof $1 called the cent (¢). The physical representation of1¢ cent is the penny. Cent is the unit, whereas penny is the coin.Five cents is coined as the nickel. We are still dealing with thecent, but our physical money can be either 5 pennies or 1 nickel.Of course, 10¢ is a dime, 25¢ is a quarter, and, oddly, 50¢ is a 50-cent piece.I indulge in this elementary-level exercise because it is exceed-ingly important to make the leap from fractional units to currencyunits. The entire process of FOREX trading is based upon commonfractional values known as pips. A pip is the common denomina-tor between currencies much like the cent is the denominator forthe dollar. While writing this text, I could only identify one U.S.product where domestic prices were quoted in fractions of apenny. Perhaps you can identify more. What is it? For somestrange reason, U.S. retail gasoline is priced ending in nine-tenthsof a cent. I’ve always wondered why this is always rounded up tothe nearest cent. Who is keeping all those one-tenths?Those familiar with Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expecta-tions might associate the word pip with that book’s central char-acter. We less-literary folk must direct our attention to the lastsignificant decimal of a quoted currency. Again, this seeminglysimple definition takes on monumental importance because pipsdetermine the most common intraday and interday spreads andare also used to price transactions. The spread in pips can be themarket maker’s commission and, thus, your trading cost. As wewill discuss in further detail, the pip is used when currencies arequoted against each other in the cash, Interbank, or electronicspot FOREX markets. When the reciprocal is correlated to theMoney, Currency, and Foreign Exchange dollar in U.S. futures and options, the pip disappears. Each mar-ketplace has its own language and structure. Once you under-stand each market’s operations, including its advantages anddisadvantages, you can make an educated decision about howand where to participate.When conducting seminars on FOREX trading, I often drawthe parallel between components like money or currency andquantum physics versus cosmetology. Admittedly, this correla-tion is a scientific stretch and is not intended to infringe uponthe territorial imperative of our most brilliant academicians.FOREX trading does not require the CERN particle acceleratorto identify its inner most workings. However, the perspectivesare similar to emphasize a FOREX trader’s required multiplicity.The tiniest particles within our universe were born out of thegreatest cosmological event presumed to be the Big Bang.Money is derived from the most fundamental human prem-ise—faith. This faith that money is, in fact, valuable must begoverned by multiple facilities that include government treasur-ies, central banks, commercial banks, consumer banks, specialtybanks (savings and loans, credit unions, government lendinginstitutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and so on), theInternational Monetary Fund, and international currency mar-kets. In addition, each sovereign’s taxing authority plays a role inthe amount of money citizens have available to spend and theamount governments have to spend or waste as they see fit. Eachlink in money’s governing chain plays a role in determiningvalue. Relationships between money institutions such as banks,coupled with the monetary policy of the governing institutionslike the Federal Reserve or Treasury, determine the money sup-ply. When correlated with demand, money establishes its valuerelative to domestic goods and services as well as its value asinternational currency.The Regulation of Money SupplyAs you can see, our very simple explanations of money, currency,and FOREX begin to become more complex. The amount ofmoney we have is primarily regulated by interest rates and trans-actions commonly called open market operations. In the UnitedStates and many other nations, money supply is also a function of reserve requirements. The focus on money and related bank-ing mechanisms alone can fill a book. Indeed, many texts havebeen written on the subject. A basic understanding of howmoney supply is regulated is another essential piece of theFOREX trader’s strategic puzzle. This is because money becomesa commodity for FOREX trading. Money translates into curren-cies that can be exchanged at rapidly fluctuating values to gen-erate a profit or, heaven forbid, a loss.Three Expressions of Money Supply in the United StatesIn the United States, money supply is expressed as three num-bers referenced as M1, M2, and M3. These three expressionshave different presumed transaction velocities. M1 is cash incirculation plus primary bank deposits called demand deposits.M2 takes savings deposits into consideration. Following theU.S. Savings and Loan Crisis, many analysts discounted M2 asa relic because banking structurally changed to give savingsdeposits more flexibility. With check-drawing privileges, savingaccounts are almost the same as demand deposits with theexception that they pay nominal interest. The advent of moneymarket accounts required a third category encompassed in M3.Together, these three measures of supply comprise the totalamount of local currency capable of circulating within theUnited States.During the 1970s through the 1980s, FOREX traders keenlyfocused on money supply. It was a Friday ritual to bet on thechange in M1 and M2, and therefore the change in U.S. currencyvalue relative to other currencies. The premise was simple. If M1and M2 grew appreciably, the dollar should weaken against othercurrencies —all things being equal. If the supply of U.S. currencyshrank while demand remained stable, the dollar’s value shouldincrease. Also, flooding the money supply implied increasinginflation. Inflation meant devaluation.The Facilities and Principles for Regulating FluctuationThe classic formula for determining domestic price levelspostulates that the price level is equal to the velocity of moneyMoney, Currency, and Foreign Exchange multiplied by the money supply. Referencing college texts suchas the famous 1948 book Economics by Paul Samuelson:P MVPrice Money Supply Transaction VelocityMore money in circulation chasing the same number ofgoods at an increasing velocity leads to inflation (a rising pricelevel). Of course, this is a market truism, too! The price of anycommodity is a function of how much money we throw at it andhow fast we throw it. This is easy to understand if we imaginean auction. If the room is crowded with people holding fists fullof cash, it’s a good assumption the value of auctioned items willbe high. If a small crowd with lousy credit shows up, it isunlikely auctioned items will reach their upset prices.As FOREX trading became more popular and sophisticated,pricing models grew more anticipatory. In other words, traderswanted to get the jump on money supply by examining theunderlying elements driving M1 and M2. Interest rates are firstin line. Central banks have the authority to change lending ratesbetween themselves and commercial banks as well as the loanrates between commercial banks. Lower rates permit more bor-rowing that, in turn, increases cash in circulation. The more cashthere is circulating, the greater the demand for goods and serv-ices. As demand grows, the economy grows.Of course, too much cash creates excessive demand. Whentoo much cash chases a static supply of goods and services, pricesare forced higher. This is the most fundamental market dynamic.The relationship between price and money supply has a role indetermining relative currency value. Money in circulation rep-resents currency.The Federal Reserve’s ability to increase money supply iscomplemented by tools to limit money supply. The most obvi-ous tool is the capacity to raise interest rates to discourage bor-rowing. This drains cash in circulation with the objective oflimiting demand for goods and services.It is essential to understand that these actions and their asso-ciated results are generalizations that have subtle or even bluntharmonics. For example, increasing interest rates also entice sav-ings. Saving money removes it from circulation. Our central bank has a solution to this potential problem. In addition to set-ting interest rates, the Federal Reserve can change the ratio ofdeposits to loans through an adjustment in the reserve require-ment. The reserve requirement is the amount of cash that a bankmust hold to cover immediate withdrawal demands.The mixture of reserves and interest rates becomes a complexeconomic elixir as we examine the theoretical and actual effectsof altering reserves and interest rates. If a bank is permitted to loana portion of its deposits, the amount of money expands by thereserve ratio. This is called the multiplier because the reserverequirement actually multiplies the amount of cash in circulation.Although this book is not intended to be a text on money andbanking, the subject is inseparable from understanding whatmakes FOREX fluctuate. If you learn anything about modernFOREX, it should be that it is part of a regulatory mechanism.For all practical purposes, money as it is created today is a fic-tion. Assets backing much of the world’s currency do not actu-ally exist, although government authorities will beg to differ!Whether we examine operations of the U.S. Federal Reserve(affectionately called the FED),or look at western European cen-tral banks operating under the Maastricht Treaty, the principlesand facilities are designed to achieve the same results—regulatemoney in circulation.Efficient Economic Theory in Modern Currency TradingRecall our first discussion of barter and the evolution of money.We know monetary value is associated with the ratio of a unit ofcurrency such as $1 and the amount it can buy. What is theamount it can buy? Obviously, we must know the referencecommodity. Is it an amount of gold or sugar? Assume it is sugar.Suppose $1 can buy 10 pounds of white sugar. Assume £1 canbuy 20 pounds of sugar. It stands to reason that £1 will have avalue of $2. It is simple algebra.This simplistic algebraic relationship was expressed byNavarro Martin de Azpilcueta who lived during the time ofChristopher Columbus (1492—1586). He postulated that the val-ues of the same goods in different countries created a ratio for theMoney, Currency, and Foreign Exchange relative value of different currencies. In its original expression,the theory was simple and suggested the relationship wasabsolute. The concept of purchasing power parity was remark-able for Azpilcueta’s time since it came at the leading edge of theAge of Mercantilism. Of course, his assumption lacked economicsophistication because it presumed that goods within each coun-try were the same. As mercantilism evolved into internationalcommerce, it became clear that divergent goods exclusivelyavailable from certain countries drove currency parity. Similargoods might be used to define an approximate currency relation-ship. Thus, an ounce of gold could be used as a standard to deter-mine the relative value between currencies. However, the forcesthat determined the gold ratio were independent.Silk and spices came from the Orient. Weapons, ships, andmechanical devices came from Europe. How can these dissimi-lar goods be reconciled? History students know that mercantil-ism was a primary catalyst for colonialism. Nations simply tookover resources in foreign lands. Thus, foreign products could bevalued in local currencies.How does this apply to modern currency trading? The foun-dation of any nation’s wealth was previously established by itsnatural resources. Thus, if silk were an exclusive product ofChina, then China’s wealth would be defined by demand for silkfrom nonproducing nations. A nation rich in gold would be richif other nations relied upon a gold standard. This empiric con-clusion was challenged during the 1980s and 1990s. A phenom-enon labeled Japan Inc. suggested that a nation could becomewealthy based upon its ability to convert another nation’s rawmaterials into finished products.This will be covered in greater detail later. However, the evo-lution of efficient economic theory actually altered the way cur-rencies fluctuated. Most notably, post World War II Germanytook full advantage of a consumer economy to build wealth anddrain gold reserves from other nations. Japan also capitalized onbeing prohibited from building or maintaining a war machine.Radios, TVs, and cars became the measure of the yen anddeutsche mark. Explosive economic growth followed both WorldWars. By the 1960s, Western economies were becoming morediversified and complex. Growth was being restricted by mone-tary standards, primarily gold. Learning from the Great Depression, U.S. and European mon-etary policy looked for an alternative to asset-backed currency.Eventually, gold was abandoned as a standard. Floating curren-cies took gold’s place. Some proponents of asset-backed currencyinsist we must return to a gold standard. Although gold appearsto be demonetized, it continues to play a role in cross-parity cal-culations. As we will see, gold remains a hidden reserve asset andpotential monetary measuring stick.The Ongoing Evolution of FOREXIt is often said that the more things change, the more theyremain the same. Currency markets demonstrate that this is par-tially true. Although the concept of money has evolved toinclude paper bills, coins, checks, credit and debits cards, andelectronic book entries, the essential function remains the same.Although international currencies have progressed from asset-backed valuation to floating parities, currency is still distin-guishable from region to region. However, FOREX has changedits methods and philosophies many times over the past fewdecades. Indeed, by the time you finish this book, there are likelyto be a dozen new twists to FOREX. From strategies to tradingforums, FOREX is a moving target with massive profit possibili-ties. That is why FOREX is emerging as the most exciting andfastest moving market in the world!Money, Currency, and Foreign Exchange .

What is Forex???


FOREX (FOReign EXchange market) is an international foreign exchange market, where money is sold and bought freely. In its present condition FOREX was launched in the 1970s, when free exchange rates were introduced, and only the participants of the market determine the price of one currency against the other proceeding from supply and demand.As far as the freedom from any external control and free competition are concerned, FOREX is a perfect market. It is also the biggest liquid financial market. According to various assessments, money masses in the market constitute from 1 to 1.5 trillion US dollars a day. (It is impossible to determine an absolutely exact number because trading is not centralized on an exchange.) Transactions are conducted all over the world via telecommunications 24 hours a day from 00:00 GMT on Monday to 10:00 pm GMT on Friday. Practically in every time zone (that is, in Frankfurt-on-Main, London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc.) there are dealers who will quote currencies.FOREX is a more objective market, because if some of its participants would like to change prices, for some manipulative purpose, they would have to operate with tens of billions dollars. That is why any influence by a single participants in the market is practically out of the question. The superior liquidity allows the traders to open and/or close positions within a few seconds. The time of keeping a position is arbitrary and has no limits: from several seconds to many years. It depends only on your trading strategies. Although the daily fluctuations of currencies are rather insignificant, you may use the credit lines, that are accessible even to currency speculators with small capitals ($ 1,000 - 5,000), where the profit may be impressive. (You can learn more about it in the section: The main principles of trading.)The idea of marginal trading stems from the fact that in FOREX speculative interests can be satisfied without a real money supply. This decreases overhead expenses for transferring money and gives an opportunity to open positions with a small account in US dollars, buying and selling a lot of other currencies. That is, on can conduct transactions very quickly, getting a big profit, when the exchange rates go up or down. Many speculative transactions in the international financial markets are made on the principles of marginal trading.Margin trading is trading with a borrowed capital. Marginal trading in an exchange market uses lots. 1 lot equals approximately $100,000, but to open it it is necessary to have only from 0.5% to 4% of the sum.For example, you have analyzed the situation in the market and come to the conclusion that the pound will go up against the dollar. You open 1 lot for buying the pound (GBP) with the margin 1% (1:1000 leverage) at the price of 1.49889 and wait for the exchange rate to go up. Some time later your expectations become true. You close the position at 1.5050 and earn 61 pips (about $ 405). For the calculation of 1 pip click here.Everyday fluctuations of currencies constitute about 100 to 150 pips, giving FX traders an opportunity to make money on these changes.In FOREX, it's not obligatory to buy some currency first in order to sell it later. It's possible to open positions for buying and selling any currency without actually having it. Usually Internet-brokers establish the minimum deposit such as $ 2000, for working in the FOREX market, and grant a leverage of 1:100. That is, opening the position at $100,000, a trader invests $1,000 and receives $99.000 as a credit. The major currencies traded in FOREX, are Euro (EUR), Japanese yen (JPY), British Pound (GBP), and Swiss Franc (CHF). All of them are traded against the US dollar (USD).In order to assess the situation in the market a trader has to be able to use fundamental and/or technical analysis, as well as to make decisions in the constantly changing current of information about political and economic character. Most small and medium players in financial markets use technical analysis. Technical analysis presupposes that all the information about the market and its further fluctuations is contained in the price chain. Any factor, that has some influence on the price, be it economic, political or psychological, has already been considered by the market and included in the price. The initial data for a technical analysis are prices: the highest and the lowest prices, the price of opening and closing within a certain period of time, and the volume of transactions.A technical analysis is founded on three suppositions:Movement of the market considers everything;Movement of prices is purposeful;History repeats itself. That is, technical analysis is a statistical and mathematical analysis of previous quotes and a prognosis of coming prices.A number of technical indicators have been installed into the PRO-CHARTS trading system. Analyzing the indicators one can come to the conclusion about further movements of the quoted currencies. For a more detailed description of the indicators, analyzing price charts and volumes of trading, click here.Fundamental analysis is an analysis of current situations in the country of the currency, such as its economy, political events, and rumors. The country's economy depends on the rate of inflation and unemployment, on the interest rate of its Central Bank, and on tax policy. Political stability also influences the exchange rate. Policy of the Central Bank has a special role, as concentrated interventions or refusal from them greatly influence the exchange rate.At the same time one should not consider fundamental analysis just as an analysis of the economic situation in the country itself. A far bigger role in the FOREX market belongs to the expectations of the market participants and their assessment of these expectations. Various prognoses and bulletins, issued by the participants, have a strong influence on the expectations. Very often an effect of the so-called self-filfilling prophecy occurs when market players raise or lower the exchange rates according to the prognosis. But a deep and thorough fundamental analysis is available only for big banks with a staff of professional analysts and constant access to a wide field of information.In spite of these different approaches, both forms of analyses complement one another. Traders who act on the basis of a fundamental analysis, have to consider some technical characteristics of the market (the main rates of support, such as resistance and resale), and supporters of the technical approach to the market must track the main news (interest rates, important political events).

current forex

The 100,000 usd/jpy has been closed 6pips ahead. I'd hoped for a sustained appreciation to 116.40+ but doubt this will happen prior to the session close. The Dow never made it above its open (8,635.31) , and so we've seen a retracement of earlier dollar gains.
eur/jpy has been shorted for 100,000 units from 117.10 , stop 117.55 . I'm expecting a return to 116.5 , perhaps prior to the Tokyo session. Also the usd/chf limit order Long 100,000 from 1.45 has been activated . This currently stands 1pip ahead.
Bal: 101,748.47 ::: P&L: 1,724.51 + (-132.88) short CHF 145,000 , EUR 100,000 ::: long JPY 11,710,000 , USD 100,000
current trades : S eur/jpy from 117.10 , stop 117.55 , tp 116.03 L usd/chf from 1.45 , stop 1.4480 , tp 1.4595

FOREX (gain capital group)

FOREX.com is a division of GAIN Capital Group, a dedicated partner to professional FX traders and fund managers worldwide. Institutional services include IB programs, white label solutions, and asset management. Individual forex traders can take advantage of the market expertise and financial strength of GAIN Capital Group and access an institutional FX trading platform, FOREXTrader, along with our powerful real-time forex charts, professional forex market research, and suite of advanced forex trading tools. For traders new to the currency trading, FOREX.com offers forex training programs, forex minis, and information about trading the foreign currency market.

Monday, April 20, 2009

General Elections of Pakistan 2002



After three years of military rule, Pakistan again headed towards democracy on October 10, 2002. More than 70 parties, big and small, contested the eighth national parliamentary election. The major parties contesting the elections were Peoples Party Parliamentarians, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Group, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-i-Azam also called the "King's Party" for its unconditional support to the government, and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), alliance of six religious political parties. Other known parties contesting at the national level included the six-party National Alliance led by former caretaker Prime Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf and Tahir-ul-Qadri's Pakistan Awami Tehrik. Several regional parties, with strongholds in their own provinces included the Sindh-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Awami National Party, Jamhuri Watan Party, factions of Baluchistan National Movement and Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party.
The National and Provincial elections were held on the same day. More than 72 million registered voters aged 18 and above from a population of 140 million, elected members for the 342 National Assembly seats and 728 seats of the four Provincial Assemblies. A total of 2,098 candidates contested for 272 general seats of the National Assembly. The remaining 60 seats were reserved for women and 10 for non-Muslim minorities. These seats were to be allocated on the basis of proportional representation to parties bagging at least five per cent of the total general seats. In the Provincial Assemblies out of the full 371 seat Punjab Assembly, 66 were reserved for women and eight for minorities, in the 168 seat Sindh Assembly, 29 for women and nine for minorities, in the 124 seat N. W. F. P. Assembly, 22 for women and three for minorities, and the 65 seat Baluchistan Assembly, 11 for women and three for minorities.
Voting was carried out from 8 in the morning till 5 in the evening on some 65,000 polling stations having 164,718 polling booths across the country, with segregated voting booths for women. The elections were observed and monitored by hundreds of local and 300 international observers, including observers from European Union and the Commonwealth, as well as local rights group.

These elections were different from the previous ones due to the number of legislation passed by the Government. Convicted people were barred from taking part in elections under the Representation of the People's Act. Several other politicians were unable to contest the elections, as they did not have a Bachelor's Degree, which was a mandatory qualification in the elections. Pakistan's leading political personalities Benazir Bhutto of the P. P. P. and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Group were barred from standing in the elections under the new electoral laws. And for the first time since 1977, the minority communities that included Christians, Hindus and Parsees contested and voted for all general seats in the National and Provincial Assemblies. The age limit of voting in these elections was also lowered from 21 to 18 years.

The election results issued after inexplicable delay not only led to no major party having an overall majority in the new National Assembly, but also were surprising with an unexpectedly large number of seats won by the Islamic parties. The religious alliance known as Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) secured 51 seats, emerging as the third largest party in the National Assembly elections after P. M. L. (Q) with 76 seats and PPPP with 62 seats. A total of 121 seats were won by three major anti-Government parties, including 62 seats by PPPP, 51 by MMA and the PML (N) won 14 seats. The Islamic parties, which previously had actually won fewer seats, came in strong this time by capitalizing on opposition to Pakistan's partnership with the United States in the bombing of Afghanistan and in the war against terrorism. The MMA got a clear-cut majority in NWFP and Baluchistan provinces where it easily formed a government on its own. In the rest of the Provincial Assemblies coalition governments were formed as no party had come in with a complete majority.

The elections had a low turnout of 20 to 25 percent as compared to 35.42 percent in 1997 general election. Despite government assurances that the elections would be fair, free and transparent, different political parties alleged that the elections were engineered and the government was involved in massive rigging. It was alleged that ballot engineering was behind the sluggish pace of announcements of the election results.
With no party emerging with a simple majority Pakistan faced menace of a hung parliament. A coalition government was, however, set up with Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, the candidate of PML (Q) as the Prime Minister of Pakistan with the help of MQM, a number of independent candidates and 10 members of the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians who defected from the party to form their own Forward Block.

General Pervez Musharraf [Born 1943] formal President of Pakistan




General Pervez Musharraf, the second of three brothers, was born in Delhi on August 11, 1943. His parents chose to settle in Karachi after the creation of Pakistan. He comes from a middle class family, his father having worked for the foreign ministry. He spent his early years in Turkey, from 1949 to 1956, owing to his father, the late Syed Musharrafu-ud-din’s deputation in Ankara. Fluently he can converse in Turkish language and claims that Kamal Ataturk is his hero.
On return to Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf received his education from Saint Patrick's High School, Karachi, and then from F. C. College, Lahore. In 1961, he joined the Pakistan Military Academy and was commissioned in Artillery Regiment in 1964. He fought in the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 as a young officer, and was awarded Imtiazi Sanad for gallantry. He also achieved the Nishan-i-Imtiaz (Military) and the Tamgha-i-Basalat. He has been also on the faculty of the Command and Staff College, Quetta and the war wing of (the) National Defence College. He volunteered to be a commando, and remained in the Special Services Group for seven years. He also participated in the Indo-Pak War of 1971 as a Company Commander in the Commando Battalion.

A graduate of Command and Staff College, Quetta, General Musharraf also distinguished himself at the Royal College of Defense Studies, United Kingdom. During his military career, General Musharraf acquired varied experience in different command and instructional appointments. He also served as Director General Military Operations at the General Headquarters from 1993 to 1995.

General Musharraf rose to the rank of General and was appointed as the Chief of Army Staff on October 7, 1998 when Pakistan's army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, resigned two days after calling for the army to be given a key role in the country's decision-making process. General Musharraf was given additional charge of Chairman Joint Chiefs Staff Committee on April 9, 1999. On October 12, 1999, when through a bloodless coup the military took over the government in Pakistan, he became the head of the state designated as Chief Executive. He assumed the office of President of Pakistan on June 20, 2001. In order to legitimize and legalize his rule, General Pervez Musharraf held a referendum on April 30, 2002 thereby elected as President of Pakistan for duration of five years. In accordance with the deal with MMA (Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal), he agrees to leave the army on 31st December, 2004 but will continue to serve five-year term as President as he got vote of confidence on January 1, 2004, from the parliament and the four provincial assemblies under the provision of the 17th Amendment duly passed by the National Assembly and the Senate.
General Musharraf got married in 1968 and has two children, a son and a daughter. He is a natural sportsman, who loves to spend most of his leisure time playing Squash, Badminton or Golf. He also takes keen interest in water sports and has been an enthusiastic canoeist. Being an avid reader, he is well versed in Military History, his favorite subject.

Twin Study Links Marijuana Abuse, Suicide,And Depression

Men and women who smoked marijuana before age 17 are 3.5 times as likely to attempt suicide as those who started later. Individuals who are dependent on marijuana have a higher risk than nondependent individuals of experiencing major depressive disorder and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The researchers who discovered these relationships, in a recent NIDA-funded large-scale epidemiological study, say that although the causes are not clear, their findings demonstrate the importance of considering associated mental health issues in the treatment and prevention of marijuana abuse.
Dr. Michael Lynskey and colleagues at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, gathered data from four groups of same-sex twin pairs (508 identical, 493 fraternal; 518 female, 483 male) enrolled in the Australian Twin Registry. The groups and findings were:
Among the 277 pairs who were discordant for marijuana dependence (that is, one twin but not the other met the criteria for a diagnosis of marijuana dependence), the dependent twins were 2.9 times as likely as their nondependent co-twins to think about suicide without attempting it, and 2.5 times as likely to make a suicide attempt;
Among the 311 pairs discordant for early marijuana initiation (just one twin in each pair smoked marijuana before age 17), the early initiators were 3.5 times as likely as their twins to attempt suicide, but no more likely to suffer a major depressive disorder (MDD);
Among the 156 pairs discordant for diagnosis of MDD before age 17, fraternal but not identical twins with early diagnosis of MDD were 9.5 times as likely to develop marijuana dependence; and
Among the 257 pairs discordant for having suicidal thoughts before age 17, fraternal but not identical twins with early suicidal thoughts were 5.5 times as likely as their twins to become dependent on marijuana.
"Overall, the associations between marijuana abuse and depressive disorders suggest a relationship that is contributory but not necessarily causal. Depressive disorders in and of themselves do not cause people to abuse marijuana, and marijuana abuse and dependence do not of themselves cause depression or suicidal behavior," Dr. Lynskey says. "Nevertheless, clinicians treating patients for one disorder should take the other into account at initial assessment and throughout treatment. In the context of treatment, both need to be addressed, because it is not necessarily the case that eliminating one disorder will get rid of the other." The fact that two of the relationships were observed in fraternal but not identical twins suggests that the experiences related in each—marijuana dependence and MDD, and marijuana dependence and suicidal thoughts—may share a common underlying genetic basis, notes Dr. Lynskey.
The associations identified in this study are complex, but point to a simple policy implication, observes Dr. Lynskey. "It is important to see that prevention efforts aimed at one disorder may well have the additional benefit of preventing or reducing the other," he says.
"Drug abuse and depression co-occur at rates much greater than chance and constitute a serious public health concern," says Dr. Naimah Weinberg of NIDA's Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research. "Understanding how each disorder may contribute to the development and course of the other, and what factors may underlie their co-occurrence, has important implications for prevention and treatment of these disabling conditions. Genetic epidemiologic approaches, such as those applied by Dr. Lynskey and his colleagues, are very powerful tools to help parse out the etiologic relationships between co-occurring disorders."

Israel, Iran and Fear

NEW YORK — When I lived in Germany in the 1990s, the return of the capital from Bonn to the scene of the crime, Berlin, prompted agonizing over how to memorialize the Holocaust. Germans thirsted for a “Schlussstrich” — closure with Hitler — even as they acknowledged its impossibility.
A large Holocaust memorial was built in Berlin, but not before a leading writer, Martin Walser, had prompted outrage by railing against “the permanent presentation of our shame” and use of Auschwitz as “a moral stick.”
Closure on the Nazi mass murder is of course impossible. There is no such thing as inherited guilt, but inherited responsibility endures. Germans, through responsibility, have built one of the world’s most successful democracies, a wonder from the ashes.
In the German mirror stands Israel, another vibrant democracy birthed from the crime, albeit one, unlike Germany, that has not found peaceful coexistence. Israel, too, craves closure on a past that holds the insistent specter of annihilation.
As Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist, has written, Israel was supposed not only to take the Jewish people out of exile but ensure that exile was “taken out of the Jewish people.” In this, 61 years after its creation, Israel has fallen short.
Uncertainty does not so much hang over the country as inhabit its very fiber. Existential threats — from Iran, from Hamas and Hezbollah, from demography — are forever invoked. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses — for now — to support even the notion of Palestinian statehood.
I’ve been thinking about corrosive Israeli anxiety since I read a response to my recent columns on Iran from Eran Lerman, the director of the Israel/Middle East office of the American Jewish Committee. Lerman framed his piece around his “vulnerable” 17-year-old daughter, who, he wrote, often asks him what he’s done “to make sure that she gets to be 25,” given Iran’s annihilationist rhetoric and nuclear program.
Israel, Lerman suggested, faces “simply the challenge of staying alive in a hostile environment.”
But it’s not that simple. How frightened should an Israeli teenager really be, how inhabited by the old existential terror, the perennial victimhood, the Holocaust fear and vulnerability from which Israel was supposed to provide deliverance?
Yes, Israel is small — all the land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea is scarcely bigger than Maryland — and its environment hostile. This, as former President Jimmy Carter notes in a fine new book, makes it vulnerable. But as Carter also writes in “We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land,” Israel has a “military force that is modern, highly trained and superior to the combined forces of all its potential adversaries.”
Not only that, Israel has a formidable nuclear arsenal; it has made peace with Egypt and Jordan; it has a cast-iron security guarantee from the United States; it has walled, fenced, blockaded and road-blocked the roughly 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza into a pitiful archipelago of helplessness; its enemies, Hezbollah and Hamas, only declared victory in recent wars by preventing their own destruction.
Israel has the most dynamic and creative society in the region, one that does not convict American journalists in shameful secret trials, as Iran has just done with Roxana Saberi; it has never fought a war with Iran; and it knows — despite all the noise — that Persia, at more than 3,000 years and counting, is not in the business of hastening its own suicide through militarist folly.
Some of this, no doubt, Lerman has told his daughter. It should reassure her. Fear is the worst of foundations.
Far from Iran, and the tired Nazi analogies misleadingly attached to it, there is another threat. As Gary Sick, the prominent Middle East scholar and author, suggested to me recently: “The biggest risk to Israel is Israel.”
A core contradiction inhabits Israeli policy. While talking about a two-state solution — at least until Netanyahu redux — Israel has gone on building the West Bank settlements that render a peace agreement impossible by atomizing the 23 percent of the land theoretically destined for Palestine.
As Ehud Barak, now the defense minister, remarked in 1999: “Every attempt to keep hold of this area as one political entity leads, necessarily, to either a non-democratic or a non-Jewish state, because if the Palestinians vote, then it is a binational state, and if they don’t vote it is an apartheid state ...”
That’s right. The population of Arabs in the Holy Land, at about 5.4 million, will one day overtake the number of Jews. So a two-state solution is essential to Israel’s survival as a Jewish state. Persisting in the 42-year-old occupation and the building of settlements gnaws at the very foundations of the Zionist dream.
Netanyahu now wants Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, who have recognized Israel, to go further and recognize it as a Jewish state, even before he accepts a hypothetical Palestinian state. That’s a sign of the Israeli angst occupation has institutionalized.
Closure is the overcoming of horror. It is the achievement of normality through responsibility. It cannot be attained through the inflation of threats, the perpetuation of fears, or retreat into the victimhood that sees every act, however violent, as defensive.

The Green Issue Why Isn’t the Brain Green?



Two days after Barack Obama was sworn in as president of the United States, the Pew Research Center released a poll ranking the issues that Americans said were the most important priorities for this year. At the top of the list were several concerns — jobs and the economy — related to the current recession. Farther down, well after terrorism, deficit reduction and en­ergy (and even something the pollsters characterized as “moral decline”) was climate change. It was priority No. 20. That was last place.
A little more than a week after the poll was published, I took a seat in a wood-paneled room at Columbia University, where a few dozen academics had assembled for a two-day conference on the environment. In many respects, the Pew rankings were a suitable backdrop for the get-together, a meeting of researchers affiliated with something called CRED, or the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions. A branch of behavioral research situated at the intersection of psychology and economics, decision science focuses on the mental proces­ses that shape our choices, behaviors and attitudes. The field’s origins grew mostly out of the work, beginning in the 1970s, of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two psychologists whose experiments have demonstrated that people can behave unexpectedly when confronted with simple choices. We have many automatic biases — we’re more averse to losses than we are interested in gains, for instance — and we make repeated errors in judgment based on our tendency to use shorthand rules to solve problems. We can also be extremely susceptible to how questions are posed. Would you undergo surgery if it had a 20 percent mortality rate? What if it had an 80 percent survival rate? It’s the same procedure, of course, but in various experiments, responses from patients can differ markedly.
Over the past few decades a great deal of research has addressed how we make decisions in financial settings or when confronted with choices having to do with health care and consumer products. A few years ago, a Columbia psychology professor named David H. Krantz teamed up with Elke Weber — who holds a chair at Columbia’s business school as well as an appointment in the school’s psychology department — to assemble an interdisciplinary group of economists, psychologists and anthropologists from around the world who would examine decision-making related to environmental issues. Aided by a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation, CRED has the primary objective of studying how perceptions of risk and uncertainty shape our responses to climate change and other weather phenomena like hurricanes and droughts. The goal, in other words, isn’t so much to explore theories about how people relate to nature, which has been a longtime pursuit of some environmental psychologists and even academics like the Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson. Rather, it is to finance laboratory and field experiments in North America, South America, Europe and Africa and then place the findings within an environmental context.
It isn’t immediately obvious why such studies are necessary or even valuable. Indeed, in the United States scientific community, where nearly all dollars for climate investigation are directed toward physical or biological projects, the notion that vital environmental solutions will be attained through social-science research — instead of improved climate models or innovative technologies — is an aggressively insurgent view. You might ask the decision scientists, as I eventually did, if they aren’t overcomplicating matters. Doesn’t a low-carbon world really just mean phasing out coal and other fossil fuels in favor of clean-energy technologies, domestic regulations and international treaties? None of them disagreed. Some smiled patiently. But all of them wondered if I had underestimated the countless group and individual decisions that must precede any widespread support for such technologies or policies. “Let’s start with the fact that climate change is anthropogenic,” Weber told me one morning in her Columbia office. “More or less, people have agreed on that. That means it’s caused by human behavior. That’s not to say that engineering solutions aren’t important. But if it’s caused by human behavior, then the solution probably also lies in changing human behavior.”
Among other things, CRED’s researchers consider global warming a singular opportunity to study how we react to long-term trade-offs, in the form of sacrifices we might make now in exchange for uncertain climate benefits far off in the future. And the research also has the potential to improve environmental messages, policies and technologies so that they are more in tune with the quirky workings of our minds. As I settled in that first morning at the Columbia conference, Weber was giving a primer on how people tend to reach decisions. Cognitive psychologists now broadly accept that we have different systems for processing risks. One system works analytically, often involving a careful consideration of costs and benefits. The other experiences risk as a feeling: a primitive and urgent reaction to danger, usually based on a personal experience, that can prove invaluable when (for example) we wake at night to the smell of smoke.
There are some unfortunate implications here. In analytical mode, we are not always adept at long-term thinking; experiments have shown a frequent dislike for delayed benefits, so we undervalue promised future outcomes. (Given a choice, we usually take $10 now as opposed to, say, $20 two years from now.) Environmentally speaking, this means we are far less likely to make lifestyle changes in order to ensure a safer future climate. Letting emotions determine how we assess risk presents its own problems. Almost certainly, we underestimate the danger of rising sea levels or epic droughts or other events that we’ve never experienced and seem far away in time and place. Worse, Weber’s research seems to help establish that we have a “finite pool of worry,” which means we’re unable to maintain our fear of climate change when a different problem — a plunging stock market, a personal emergency — comes along. We simply move one fear into the worry bin and one fear out. And even if we could remain persistently concerned about a warmer world? Weber described what she calls a “single-action bias.” Prompted by a distressing emotional signal, we buy a more efficient furnace or insulate our attic or vote for a green candidate — a single action that effectively diminishes global warming as a motivating factor. And that leaves us where we started.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Ramdan, Roza, 30 days of Ramdan

Ramadan is a month of countless blessings and virtues. The word Ramadhaan is derived from "ramdh' which means "burning of the feet from heat" This is because of the fast, which burns the sins of a Muslim into ashes.
Ramadhaan has been given the name of blessed month because:
1. In this month, the whole Qur'aan was sent down to the first sky from Lawhe Mahfooz.2. In this month, there is the night of Qadr which is better than 1000 months.3. In this month, the thawaab of good deed is equal to the fardh of another month.4. This is the month of patience and the reward of this patience is Jannah.5. This month teaches the lesson of kindness towards others.6. In this month, the daily-bread of Muslims is increased.7. In this month, the first ten days are of mercy, second ten days are of forgiveness and the last ten days are of being freed from Hell. 8. The month of Ramadhaan is a month in which the Mercy and Blessings of Allah Ta'ala descend upon us continuously.
This month is so precious that one should fast, recite Qur'aan and keep himself engaged in worship (Ibaadah) day night. One should perform Taraaweeh, Nafl Salaat, make du'aa, etc. In this way, by giving preference to religion over self-desires, a person can acquire the Pleasure and Nearness of Allah. Each day and night of this blessed month can bring the reward of Ibaadah of years.
RAMADHAAN IN THE LIGHT OF AHAADEETH
Ka'b Ibne 'Ujrah radhiyallahu anhu relates that the Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, "Come near the pulpit," and we came near the pulpit. When he ascended the first step of the pulpit, he said, "Aameen." When he ascended the second step, he said, "Aameen." When he ascended the third step, he said, "Aameen." When he descended, we said, "O Prophet of Allah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, we have heard from you today something which we never heard before." He said, "When I ascended the first step, jibra'eel appeared before me and said, 'Woe to him who found the blessed month of Ramadhaan and let it pass by without gaining forgiveness.' Upon that I said: Aameen. When I ascended the second step, he said, 'Woe to him before whom your name is mentioned and he does not read Durood (Salaat) on you. 'I replied: Aameen. When I ascended the third step he said, 'Woe to him in whose presence his parents or either one of them attains old age, and (through failure to serve them) he is not allowed to enter Paradise.' I said: Aameen." (Bukhaari)
Salmaan radhiyallahu anhu relates that Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, "Ramadhaan is a blessed month. In this month is a night better than a 1000 months. Fasting has been made compulsory and Taraaweeh Sunnah. Whosoever tries drawing nearer to Allah by performing any virtuous deed in this month, for him shall be such reward as if he had performed a 'Fardh' in any other time of the year. And whoever performs a 'Fardh' for him shall be the reward of seventy 'Fardh' in any other time of the year. This is indeed the month of patience, and the reward for patience is Paradise; it is the month of sympathy with one's fellowmen; this is the month wherein a true believer's Rizq is increased." Bayhaqi
In this month the doors of Paradise are opened and the doors of hell are closed. And the Shayaateen are chained. Bukhaari, Muslim
This is a month, the first part of which brings Allah's Mercy, the middle of which brings His forgiveness and the last part of which brings emancipation from the fire of Hell. Bayhaqi
During each day and night of this month, Allah sets free a great number of souls from Hell. And for every Muslim during each day and night, at least one prayer is certainly accepted. (Bazzaa)
In this month, the Ummah of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam are given these things specially.
1. The smell from the mouth of a fasting person is more sweeter in the sight of Allah than the fragrant smell of musk.2. On their behalf the fish in the sea seek forgiveness until they break their fast.3. For them, paradise is decorated everyday.4. For them, the evil minded shaytaan is chained.5. On the last night of Ramadhaan they are forgiven.
THINGS TO DO IN THIS MONTH
Four things have been instructed in the Hadeeth which one should continue to practice in abundance:
1. Recite the Kalimah Tayyibah.2. Make Istighfaar.3. Ask for Jannah.4. Seek refuge in Allah from Hell.
In this month one should fast, perform all Salaat with congregation, engage in recitation of the Qur'aan, perform Taraaweeh, give charity and do whatever is possible to acquire the Pleasure of Allah. One should make sure that he does not do anything contrary to the Command of Allah and the teachings of His beloved Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
FASTING
In Ramadhaan, Allah has made fasting compulsory. It is one of the five pillars of Islaam. Just like the flower which outsmarts other flowers in its smell and colour, and like the fruit which surpasses the other fruits in its taste, the Ibaadah of fasting outweighs the other forms of devotions in reward. A person gives up everything whilst fasting, only to please his Almighty Creator. It is one of the most accepted forms of Ibaadah, because Allah Himself will give the reward for fasting.
SEHRI
Allah and His Angels send Mercy upon those who eat Sehri. Allah has made Sehri full of mercy and blessings. People of other religions also fast, but they do not eat Sehri, therefore, to differ from them, it is advisable to have at least a sip of water with the intention of Sehri
IFTAAR
Many virtues have been narrated for those who feed others when breaking fast. A person who feeds another who fasted in order to break the fast (at sunset), for him there shall be forgiveness and emancipation from the fire of Hell. Allah grants the same reward to him who gives a fasting person a mere date or a drink of water to break his fast.
TARAWEEH
In Ramadhaan, Allah has made w0 Rak'at Taraaweeh Sunnah. It is also Sunnah to complete the full Qur'aan in Taraaweeh. Taraaweeh is Sunnah for women too.
LAYLATUL QADR
This is a night of great blessings. It is better than a thousand months. The people of the past had very long lives compared to the much shorter lives of this Ummah. If this Ummah then wished to compete with them in doing of the good deeds, it would mean that because of the shorter lives it would be impossible for this Ummah to either emulate or surpass them. For this reason, Allah in His Infinite Mercy granted this Ummah, this night of great blessing. This night has great virtues i.e.
1. The Qur'aan was revealed in this night.2. The reward of worship in this night is better than the reward of 1,000 months.3. On this night, Jibraeel descends to the earth with a group of angels, reciting salaam and praying for the blessings for those they see in Worship and Praises Allah.4. This is a night of peace. The blessings and mercy descends right until the break of day.
The author of Mazahir-e-Haqq states the following significance and virtues of this auspicious night:
* On this night, the angles were created.* On this night, the matter from which Adam alayhis salaam was created had been collected.* On this night, Jannah and Jahannan were created.* On this night, 'Eesaa alayhis salaam was raised up bodily into the heavens.* On this night, the repentance of Banoo Israa'eel was accepted.* It is stated in a Hadeeth: "Whosoever stands in Ibaadah on this night with sincere faith and with genuine hopes of gaining reward, his previous sins will be forgiven." Bukhaari, Muslim
WHICH NIGHT IS LAYLATUL QADR
There is a difference of opinion amongst the Ulamaa about this night. According to the vast majority of them, the Laylatul Qadr falls on the odd dates of the last ten days of the month of Ramadhaan - i.e. 21, 23, 25, 27, 29. However, one should strive to search for this great night in all nights of the month of Ramadhaan, particularly in the last ten nights.
I'TIKAAF
It was the general practice of Rasoolullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam to perform I'tikaaf in the last ten days of Ramadhaan. The women should also try to perform I'tikaaf in their homes. It is stated in a Hadeeth: Whoever performs I'tikaaf in the final ten days of Ramadhaan, for him is the reward of Hajj and Umrah.
Muslims are encouraged to fast six days in Shawwal, the month following Ramadan that begins after Eid ul-Fitr; these days need not be consecutive. According to hadith, one who fasts the month of Ramadan and six days during Shawaal will be rewarded as though he fasted the entire year.
Days to Remember in Ramadhaan-ul- Mubarak
· 1st Ramadhaan: Birth Date of "Sheikh Abdul Qaadir Jilani Ghous-e-Azam" in Baghdad Shareef.
· 3rd Ramadhaan: Death anniversary of "Khatoon-e-Jannat Fatima Zahra" in Medina Munawwarah.
· 10th Ramadhaan: Death anniversary of "Hazrat Khadija- tul- Kubra ".
· 13th Ramadhaan: Death anniversary of "Hazrat Sirri Saqti" in Baghdad Shareef.
· 14th Ramadhaan: Death anniversary of "Hazrat Sayed Shah Ale Hamza Rehmatullahi tala aleh" in Mahrerah Shareef.
· 16th Ramadhaan: Death anniversary of "Hazrat Syed Shah Ale Muhammad Rehmatullahi tala aleh" in Mahrerah Shareef.
· 17th Ramadhaan: Death anniversary of "Sayyida Aisha Siddiqua" in Medina Munawwarah.
· 17th Ramadhaan: Shuhada -e-Badar.
· 21st Ramadhaan: Death anniversary (Shahadat) of "Hazrat Ali Murtuza" in Najf (Iraq).
· 21st Ramadhaan: Death anniversary of "Imam Ali bin Musa Raza" in Baghdad Shareef.
· 27th Ramadhaan: Expected Laylatul Qadr.