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and is to participate in talks with the Iraqi government about what, if any, American force might beyond that deadline.

the American military mission was to help the Iraqis build “an internal defense capability and a foundation for an external defense capability.”

He praised the capabilities of Iraq’s security forces, particularly in the aftermath of the country’s inconclusive election in March.

The focus of American assistance to Iraqi forces between now and the planned 2011 withdrawal was on their ability to sustain troops in the field and build “an intelligence architecture” able to collect, share and exploit information about threats.

Ultimately, General Austin said, defeating Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks in Iraq would not be solely a military solution, but rather the establishment of the rule of law and the maturation of the country’s government and its ability to oversee even mundane things like issuing license plates and identity cards, which would narrow the space in which terrorists operate.

Now that researchers know these off-the-shelf games can have wide-ranging benefits, they’re trying to home in on the games’ most important aspects, potentially allowing designers to create new games that specifically boost brain power.

“Until now, people have been asking can you learn anything from games?’’ MIT’s Klopfer said. “That’s a less interesting question than what aspects of games are important for fostering learning.’’

Do students learn more with a more narrative game?

is assessing whether games that are novel, include social interaction, and require intense focus are better at boosting cognitive skills. McLaughlin and her colleagues will use the findings to design games geared toward improving mental function among the elderly.

Does this mean that Tetris is good for your brain?’’ Haier said. “That is the big question. We don’t know that just because you become better at playing Tetris after practice and your brain changes . . . whether those changes generalize to anything else.’’

an international team of researchers, including several from Iowa State University, reported that middle school students in Japan who played games in which characters helped or showed affection for others, later engaged in more of these behaviors themselves.

Researchers also found that US college students randomly assigned to play a prosocial game were subsequently kinder to a fellow research subject than students who played violent or neutral games.

Unlike, say, movies or books, video games don’t just have content, they also have rules. A game is set up to reward certain actions and to punish others. This means they have immense potential to teach children ethics and values

(Of course, this is a double-edged sword. Games could reward negative, antisocial behavior just as easily as positive, prosocial behavior.)

Some off-the-shelf games already contain strong prosocial themes

he classic Oregon Trail, which make players responsible for the well-being of other characters and feature characters who take care of one another.

“Ultimately, the video game needs to be an entertaining experience,’’ Seider said. “The game has to be fun.’’

But, people like bay scallops, too! The scallop fishery, which had been thriving for over 100 years, was virtually gone, with scallop catch dropping to only 13% of its high point2. And, scallops were also no longer there to perform their function of filtering and cleaning the ocean water.

Life within the oceans, covering 2/3rds of our planet, has enjoyed a relationship with sharks for about 450 million years.

They may be all gone within only 10 or 20 years.

"The concern is that we human beings are modifying that greenhouse effect by adding to the atmosphere gases that increase the natural abundance of these so-called gases. . . .

burning fossil fuel (coal and oil and natural gas), which releases carbon dioxide

Over time, pressure and heat from the earth compacted the material into layers of sedimentary rock.

Coal is a fossil fuel

1000 B . C .,

Industrial Revolution its use began to soar.

was found to be both plentiful and cheap,

where it was believed the pollutants would disperse without harm." 16

All fossil fuels release carbon whenever they are burned, but coal has a much higher carbon content than either oil or gas.

ommercial flights for 27 year

20 aircraft

represented a substantial economic los

ubsidised by their governments

n the late 1950s, the United Kingdom, France, United States and Soviet Unio

upersonic transport.

Bristol Aeroplane Company

Sud Aviation

Type 223 a

Super-Caravelle

ncreased radiation exposure

high altitude

Concorde

passengers received almost twice the flux of extraterrestrial ionising radiation as those travelling on a conventional long-haul fligh

pposition to Concorde’s noise,

Concorde produced nitrogen oxides in its exhaust,

o produce a net degradation to the ozone layer at the stratospheric altitudes it cruised

service was discontinued after three return flights because of noise complaints from the Malaysian government;

r transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles

sonic boom, takeoff-noise and pollution

but with a history of tyre explosions 60 times higher than subsonic jets.

Safety improvements

specially-developed burst-resistant tyres.

The media reinforces this standard by promoting dolls like barbies which no girl or woman could ever seriously look like.

he proportions are all wrong and the measurements when converted to full size are freakishly absurd.

Girls and teenagers are self conscious enough about their body image without being bombarded with air brushed perfection which sometimes borders on looking cartoon like with their lack of blemishes and freckles.

Young girls are starting to diet at younger ages and exposure from the media promoting beauty contests doesn't help this.

There has been some progress on the promotion of ultra thin models and in some place they've been banned.

Improve Governance Raise Educational Achievement Increase Quality and Quantity of Universities Control Inflation Introduce a Credible Fiscal Policy Liberalize Financial Markets Increase Trade with Neighbours Increase Agricultural Productivity Improve Infrastructure Improve Environmental Quality.

significant bearing on India’s economic policy

economy would be moving towards a single goods and service tax by doing away with differences between rates of service taxes

Are animal experiments useful? Animal experiments only benefit human beings if their results are valid and can be applied to human beings. Not all scientists are convinced that these tests are valid and useful.

Animal experiments are widely used to develop new medicines and to test the safety of other products.

In November 2008 the European Union put forward proposals to revise the directive for the protection of animals used in scientific experiments

The proposals have three aims: to considerably improve the welfare of animals used in scientific procedures

to ensure fair competition for industry to boost research activities in the European Union

The main changes proposed are:

to make it compulsory to carry out ethical reviews and require that experiments where animals are used be subject to authorisation to widen the scope of the directive to include specific invertebrate species and foetuses in their last trimester of development and also larvae and other animals used in basic research, education and training to set minimum housing and care requirements to require that only animals of second or older generations be used, subject to transitional periods, to avoid taking animals from the wild and exhausting wild populations to state that alternatives to testing on animals must be used when available and that the number of animals used in projects be reduced to a minimum to require member states to improve the breeding, accommodation and care measures and methods used in procedures so as to eliminate or reduce to a minimum any possible pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm caused to animals

"the resilience and pervasiveness of giving in our culture,

The USA is only the world's biggest giver because it is rich.

most stingy and self-interested giver in the developed world:

USA is the

America is the world's most generous nation.

absolute figures are less significant than the proportion of gross domestic product (GDP, or national wealth) that a country devotes to foreign aid

long established the target of 0.7% GDP for development assistance