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An Interview with Dancers of Apsaras Arts - Banupriya

D/O Ponnarasu and Mohanapriyan Thavarajah

The Soul in Indian Classical

Dance

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By Li YenEpoch Times Staff

Banupriya D/O Ponnarasu is an under-graduate at Lasalle College of the Arts, majoring in Arts Management, and a part-time dancer at Apsaras Arts.

Apsaras Arts is a local performing com-pany founded in 1977 by Shri S Sathyalin-gam and Smt Neila Sathyalingam.

With over 30 years of prolific local inter-national productions and performances worldwide, Apsaras Arts has gained rec-ognition in Indian dance-theatre.

For Banu, dance is lifelong learning. The 23-year-old’s dance journey began when her parents sent her to learn Indian clas-sical dance in the Bharatanatyam style at the age of five.

The Bharatanatyam style originates from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Out of the eight classical dance forms, Bharatanatyam is India’s most widely per-formed dance style.

After joining Apsaras Arts, Banu’s love and passion for Indian classical dance grew and intensified.

“Then it is a small spark, but now it is a blazing fire,” says the demure and gen-tle lady.

Recently, she went to India to further her knowledge on the Bharatanatyam dance form, which had been an enriching learn-ing experience.

Currently, she is trained in Apsaras Arts to become a teacher, as well as a performer in Apsaras Arts’ productions, which include ANGKOR – An Untold Story.

What is your favourite part of Indian classical dance?Banu: There are so many dance forms right now, contemporary dances, bollywood dances, etc. I like the fact that I am actu-ally learning a traditional dance and a tra-ditional art form.

[Right] now, you can easily find a pool of contemporary dancers [and] folk dancers, but it is quite rare to see youngsters who are interested to practise a traditional art form.

Learning Indian classical dance gives me endless happiness, no matter what kind of challenges it (has) put me through. Though I have cried too many times, but at the same time, I feel happy.

What are the challenges?Banu: Being a part-time dancer is the big-gest challenge for me. My biggest challenge is to plan my practice section into the sched-ule I have as an undergrad. I am still try-ing my best to get the best management.

My fellow dance mates would also feel the same as me. Some of them are teachers,

undergrads or working, and they are still trying to gain work-life balance.

Hence, I think it is more of multi-task-ing between arts, work and life balance. The biggest challenge is to carry on the passion as long as we can.

We do earn, but it is not much. The sal-ary gives me some form of happiness. But if I compare the passion and the money aspects, definitely the passion aspect weighs more. The money aspect is just some form of incentive which encourages you to move on.

What does performing and/or learning Indian classical dance mean to you?Banu: Over the years, through learning and performing Indian classical dance, I came to understand what I want to do in life.

In terms of learning, it has taught me life lessons. In terms of performing, it has taught me how to become a more confi-dent lady.

It takes a lot of energy to perform. It is not easy performing an Indian dance; your brain needs to multi-task you need to remember the steps and to be able to por-tray it in a very soulful manner. In addition, you need to be able to execute expressions that will entertain the audience.

With all these things that are going in

my head, I really have to be very focused when performing. To me, it is very tough. No matter how many times I have gone on stage, I still think it is the most difficult part. Indian classical dance has some forms of depth which is hard to explain.

What are the different movements in Indian classical dance? How can the audience understand the stories behind the movements?Banu: The amazing thing about the move-ment in Indian classical dance is that it incorporates two basic elements. One is the nritta (pure dance) and the other one is the abhinaya (expression).

I remember my mummy (means teacher - Neila Sathyalingam) telling me that when doing dance in Singapore, you cannot be too slow. You have to do it fast, thus, we call it the fire-cracker dance. You need to dance in a fast manner, but at the same time, you need to act out the expressions.

I guess it is in the dancers’ hands to edu-cate and entertain the audience.

If a performer can execute it right and express herself well on stage, and the audi-ence are able to understand her despite the language barrier, I think that is the biggest success for the performer.

(Note: Nritta is dance in its pur-est form, and is

displayed through rhythms and phys-

ical movements to musi-cal phrases. Abhinaya is the expressions and emotions which aim to bring life to the

story behind the dance. Emotions are acted through facial expressions and eye move-ments.)

Has Indian dance taught you something about life?Banu: We live a stressful life today and there are so many commitments. Dance has taught me to be more grounded, to be patient and to put through every challenges that come forth.

It also taught me the ‘never say die’ atti-tude, and to be very determined in what I am doing.

What is your future plan?Banu: For me, my future goal is to further understand the art field in-depth. I would continue my Master’s later on.

At the same time, I want to carry on danc-ing as long as I can. It is a lifelong passion. Because my friends have given up dancing as their top priority when they enter their next phase of life, for me, I would like to always make dance my first priority – which is something I am still fighting for today.

My goal is to keep that going, and at the same time, further pursue the arts so that I could contribute to the arts industry, and spread this classical dance form.

this is singapore

HOME4 November 21 – December 4, 2014 epoch Times

all PhoToS by frEd fan/EPoch TimES

Dancers of Apsaras Arts, Banupriya D/O Ponnarasu (L) and Mohanapri-yan Thavarajah (R). Indian classical dance is able to evoke rasa (emo-tion) in the audience by acting a particular bhava (gesture or facial expression).

An Interview with Dancers of Apsaras Arts - Banupriya D/O Ponnarasu and Mohanapriyan Thavarajah

The Soul in Indian Classical Dance

Mohanapriyan Thavarajah is a full-time choreographer, dance instructor and dance artiste of Apsaras Arts since 2012.

Originally from Batticaloa, Srilanka, the versatile dancer has performed all over India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Europe.

He is a gold medallist for both his Bach-elor’s and Master’s Degrees in Bharathan-atyam awarded by India’s Bharathidasan University, which he passed with distinc-tion.

Some of Mohanapriyan’s choreography contributions include Sita’s Magical For-est, Glimpses of Angkor, The Heroines of Raja Ravi Varma, Aanada Thanavam and Mehala. He also writes regularly on dance for publications in India and Sri Lanka.

Mohanapriyan has learned dancing since the age of 12.

“For a man to do Indian dance, he might be an outcast in my country. Even now, I really admire his courage to do this. So can you see the battle this boy has to go through?” says the founder of Apsaras Arts, Neila Sathyalingam.

“I am happy to be working with Apsaras Arts and prove that artists can stand on their legs, and they can have their own life, in terms of [economic] life,” says Mohanapriyan, a polite and good-look-ing young man.

“This art form and dance enables me to travel to many countries, which I think is not possible if I chose other professions like engineering,” he adds, beaming with pride.

What is your favourite part of Indian classical dance?Mohanapriyan: When I was studying the dance form in college, my teacher always told everybody to work hard, which I didn’t really quite understand why.

We were always dancing and having undergone that kind of intense training, she still said we had to work hard to suceed.

I was exploring for many years. What am I going to get after all these hard work?

Recently, I realised that the recog-nition I got from the audience and the awards I received from various institu-tions and organisations are the outcome of my hard work.

My favourite part about Indian dance is that we have to work very hard to express this art form through our body, mind and soul, which I find the whole process to be something unique.

It is unlike other dance forms like gym-nastic and ballet, where they are trained only to move. But in Indian classical dance, we are also trained to express the essence of this traditional culture, as well as the soul of the dances.

Sometimes, when you watch a ballet or contemporary dance performances, you make ‘awe’, but in Bharatanatyam dance style, it is soul-reaching; you will find soul in the dance.

When you see contemporary dance, they are very coordinated in the dance steps, but in Bharatanatyam dance style, most of the movements can be coordinated, but our facial expressions vary from one dancer to another.

The expressions are how the dancers feel in their hearts. It is totally soulful.

What does performing and/or learning Indian dance mean to you?Mohanapriyan: As an artist, teacher and choreographer, there is no ultimate end-ing point in learning. I still have that mind to pursue further. That learning can be through your life experiences, through other senior artists’ advices, and from the artists whom I am working with. The learn-ing part should be still in process.

What are the different movements in Indian classical dance?Mohanapriyan: Bharatanatyam dance style is said to be produced by the divine and brought to the world.

You can see a geometrical and scientific system in the Bharatanatyam dance form.

When we hold our hands, it should be 180 degrees. And when we do the steps and movements, it should be allocated at 45 degrees and 90 degrees. The dance is formed in mathematical and geometrical ways.

Bharatanatyam dance form is also similar to yoga. I can say that the Bharatanatyam dance style is a divine art form.

(Note: An important feature of Bharatanatyam is the movements which are conceived in either along straight lines or triangles. The gestures of Bharatanatyam comprise the use of the head, eyes, bust, neck, and hands.

Hand gestures known as Hasta Mudra are acted out as a form of sign language to convey a story or demonstrate themes like weather, animals or places.)

What kind of emotion do you give off when you dance? How do you relate to the audience when you perform?Mohanapriyan: When I express my love, my body should be tuned in that mood.

The emotion and the expression is not only on the face but the whole body.

It is about how the whole body changes and tunes in with the different emotions, and this is something unique in Indian classical dance.

Those days when the art forms were per-formed in temples, the artists and the audi-ence were very close; thus, they could see the expression and emotions very clearly.

These days, technology is very advanced. We utilise lighting and technology to enhance and emphasise the performance.

When I was doing my final exam, I had to perform various Indian folk dances and ritual art forms. I danced with the fire, and after I performed, my friend told me that he could see some spiritual aspect in me which made me vibrant.

I discover that if I perform with my ulti-mate effort and strength, the audience could see the differ-ence.

[Note: The 9 emotions (Rasas) in Bharatanatyam include Srin-gara (Love), Hasya (Mirth), Veera (Heroism), Raudra (Anger), Bhayanka (Fear), Bibhasta (Disgust), Adbutha (Amazement), Karuna (Compas-sion) and Santha (Calm).]

Has Indian dance taught you something about life?Mohanapriyan: Indian dance teaches one to respect the gurus (teachers), so from that, one will respect the ordinary men you meet in your life.

What is your future plan?Mohanapriyan: Presently, I am doing my Master’s and research in dance. My father hopes that I could obtain a Doc-torate, which I couldn’t do so because I am into this art profession.

But through this art profession, I can also obtain a Doctorate by doing a PhD. I promise him I would do my PhD, not just for his sake, but also for my personal inter-est, which inspires me to produce books on dance and pass them to future generations.

If I could not be a dancer, I wish to be a good teacher and mould students.

HOMEEpoch TimEs NovEmbEr 21 – DEcEmbEr 4, 2014 5

THIS IS SINGAPORE

This Is Singapore is a fortnightly feature that delves into the life of an inspiring and talented individual in Singapore. Read all our interviews here: http://bit.do/thisissingapore

Dancers of Apsaras Arts, Banupriya D/O Ponnarasu (dressed in brown) and Mohanapriyan Thavarajah (dressed in green). Classical dance in India has developed a type of dance-drama theatre performance, in which the dancer acts out a story through g e s t u r e s and expressions.

HOME6 November 21 – December 4, 2014 epoch Times

Sweet and Savoury Gourmet Food at No-Frills Prices

By Michael NgEpoch Times Staff

From appetizers and meals, to desserts and ice creams, born and bred Singaporean Man-meet Pal Singh is proud to bring affordable gourmet food to locals through his company Melvados – and the 51-year-old and his business partner Karl-Gunter Ableitner have been do-ing that for the past decade.

Starting with a 2,000 square feet rented premise at Bukit Batok, they moved to the cur-rent larger premise in 2008 at Woodlands and rebuilt it into a 20,000 square feet two-storey food factory in 2008, complete with a research and develop-ment unit that churns out inno-vative recipes.

Melvados is not only famous for its cakes, cookies, and pas-tries; it also offers a full spec-trum of food for businesses and consumers, from appetizers and salads, to meals and des-serts. It positions itself as a one-stop outsourced chef ca-tering to five-star hotels, café chains, airlines, and also to on-line and walk-in customers.

Back in 2004, Manmeet no-ticed that gourmet food could only be found in high-end res-taurants and cafés. Customers

pay not only for the food but also for overhead costs in the establishment—rental cost, la-bour cost, etc. They seized the business opportunity to bring no-frills gourmet food to con-sumers and has been experi-encing 10-12 percent annual growth since then.

With rising cost and labour problems, how is Melvados keeping up? Manmeet re-marked that innovation and increasing productivity is the

way to go. The company cur-rently has six departments: cookie, ice cream, pastry, bread, kitchen, sandwich and muffins. The chefs in each department constantly concoct new recipes for company executives to try.

Melvados responds quickly to customer demands. Manmeet shared that an airline had re-cently approached them for a chocolate sorbet. They got their chefs to experiment with new recipes and responded with an

Mr Manmeet Pal Singh, owner of Melvados

Local food producer offers food varieties to consumers and businesses – without the overhead

option for the customer. With-in two days, they secured an order for 100 litres of chocolate sorbet.

To improve productivity, Melvados worked with Spring Singapore to improve the turn-around time and production volume for making ice creams. They innovated a $400,000 high-tech ice-cream making equipment that automates the entire production process—mixing, pasteurising, ageing to cooling and freezing—and churns out 3,000 to 4,000 litres of ice cream per day, compared to their previous 200 to 300 li-tres via manual production.

Melvados prides itself on the high quality ingredients that go into their food. They fly to Eu-rope and North America to se-lect and import the ingredients themselves. They also incorpo-rate local tastes and flavours into traditionally Western des-serts. Among their innovations are durian lava cakes, soursop sorbet, lychee sorbet, durian ice cream, and mango sorbet.

Manmeet is convinced that customers will only buy if they have personally tasted the food. For the past seven years, Melva-

dos offers food sampling to their customers every last Saturday of the month from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at their 26 Woodlands Ter-race premise. They take pride in laying out their food like a feast for customers to sample and provide feedback.

All food sold in Melvados are preservative-free as they are quickly frozen upon produc-tion. They stay fresh for up to three months and are portion-packed. Manmeet commented that the cost savings they gain from basic packaging is di-rectly passed on to consumers, bypassing mid-tiered sales out-lets.

The local market for consum-ers to purchase raw or prepared high quality food products has flourished quickly over the years, as food manufacturers find direct sales a good revenue driver that addresses the chal-lenges of overhead costs and la-bour shortages. In fact, lining Woodland Terrace are diverse food producers offering high quality food choices to con-sumers.

Learn more about Melvados at www.melvados.com

Lychee Sorbet

Durian Lava

Mango Sorbet

Frozen Browney Bars

photos CoURtEsY oF MElvados

WORLD PERSPECTIVESwww.TheepochTimes.com

November 21 – December 4, 2014 7

The Fix Is In: How Banks Allegedly Rigged the S$6.9 Trillion Foreign Exchange MarketBy Carol OslerBrandeis University

Suppose you are in the supermar-ket shopping for groceries. While you are strolling the aisle with your cart, a shadowy figure looms over your shoulder and changes the prices on the items you want to buy before you get a chance to pick them up.

As you reach for some vine to-matoes, you notice the price just jumped 20 cents. When you se-lect some brie from among the cheeses, you witness the number on the sticker change right be-fore your eyes. Ditto when you look for your favourite brand of granola.

This is the essence of what reg-ulators learned might be happen-ing in the foreign exchange mar-ket, where US$5.3 trillion (S$6.9 trillion) of dollars, euros and yen are traded every day. In June 2013, Bloomberg reported that trad-ers at some of the world’s biggest banks worked to manipulate key currency rates, racking up profits and costing investors – including your retirement fund – hundreds of millions of dollars globally.

They are accused of placing their own transactions ahead of trades requested by clients – known as front-running – which was the reason prices kept chang-ing as people tried to make their own trades, like in the shopping analogy above. They bought eu-ros or dollars, driving up the rate, and then profited by selling to other investors at a higher level.

This week, six of the currency-dealers being investigated – in-cluding JP Morgan, Citigroup and HSBC – agreed to pay a total of US$4.3 billion (S$5.6 billion) to regulators in the US, UK and Switzerland to resolve the allega-tions. The deal is likely only the first in a series of settlements and other penalties that will emerge from the ongoing investigations.

The investors most concerned with the alleged manipulation are funds that invest internationally, such as hedge funds, the endow-ments of charitable or cultural institutions and insurance com-panies. But it also includes the mutual funds in which many of your 401K or IRA assets are likely invested.

The Daily FixWhen institutions like these need to buy or sell assets across borders, they call a dealer at one of the big banks, which provides what is ba-sically a wholesale version of the cambio currency kiosks you see at the airport. The dealer quotes a buying price and a selling price, and the fund chooses whether to buy or sell. In addition to trad-ing with customers, the dealers

trade among themselves, some-times to manage their inventory and sometimes hoping to make money by taking speculative po-sitions for a few minutes or even seconds.

And that’s how we arrive at the scandal. Every day at 4pm in Lon-don, the market sets special “fix-ing” exchange rates that are used to value the funds’ international investments. The fixing price is set in a simple way: it’s just the average of all prices paid among dealing banks during the 30 sec-onds before and after the clock strikes 4.

Many international fund man-

agers prefer to trade currencies at the exact fixing price because it is simpler and smarter to trade at the same price used to value your portfolio. To make these transac-tions happen, international funds often place large orders with deal-ers at major banks before the fix.

Suppose, for example, a pension fund with major investments in Europe knows it will receive a lot of new IRA money on November

30, when many US employees get paid. And suppose the fund plans to invest €100 million of that in European stocks. At 3.30 p.m. that day, the fund might instruct its bank to purchase €100 mil-lion at the fixing price. With this kind of advance order, the bank could book its own trades before the fund does, buying the euros it will later sell to the investor.

What the Banks Are Accused OfThe banks – or more accurately, specific dealers at specific banks – are accused of manipulating the fixing prices based on their knowledge of advance customer

orders. In a nutshell, the accusa-tion is that dealers from differ-ent banks got together before the fix and compared notes in chat rooms. Most currency trading is handled by 10 or so mega banks, so if just a few of them compared notes, they would have a good sense of whether the exchange rate would rise or fall during the fixing interval that day. The shadowy figure looking over your shoulder at the supermarket to see what you are going to buy next is like the banks comparing their customer orders before the fix.

To finish the supermarket anal-ogy, we need to know how and why the dealing banks could raise the fixing rate to the disad-vantage of international pension and mutual funds. Suppose once again that many customers have placed big orders to buy euros at the fix, and the banks figure the euro-dollar exchange rate will rise during the window. This would give them an incentive to buy a lot of euros before it is set (remember the golden rule of trading: buy low, sell high).

And they do not have to stop buying when they have enough for their customers. They could buy a lot more euros for their own account, and then sell them at the higher fix price. If they could count on other banks do-ing the same thing, it becomes a lot less risky. That drives up the exchange rate ahead of the fix and means your pension fund has to pay more to buy those eu-ros.

What It Means for YouWhy should you care? If your IRA fund manager pays more to buy euros and earns less when he sells them, your retirement ac-count loses money to the traders, and your investments will suf-fer. And even though the price differences are minuscule, they quickly add up.

Suppose that just 1% of total investor trading happens at the fix and that the fixing price is just 0.005% distorted by ma-nipulation. Those may sound like tiny numbers, but foreign exchange trading by US finan-cial institutions is huge: roughly US$700 billion (S$908 billion) every day, according to the Bank for International Settlements. So losses to US investors from tiny fix-price distortions could be anything but tiny: we could collectively lose almost US$100 million (S$130 million) per year!

Did this really go on? We don’t know. The dealers did have chat rooms and they were reportedly given names like “The Bandits” and “The Cartel”, so it’s not a big stretch to imagine that they compared notes and manipulat-ed prices. But dealers have other important reasons to work to-gether around the fix. It’s a very risky time to trade, since the ex-change rate is unusually volatile, and dealers have to trade such large amounts for their custom-ers. A dealer could easily end up buying euros at an exchange rate above the fix and then taking a loss by selling low (at the fix) to the pension fund.

Several regulators in the UK, US and Hong Kong continue to investigate the activities of the banks, which have all set aside large sums to pay any penalties that arise. JP Morgan alone has set aside US$5.9 billion.

Even with the settlement an-nounced, don’t expect this issue to go away anytime soon.

Carol Osler is a professor of busi-ness at Brandeis University. She does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this ar-ticle, and has no relevant affilia-tions.

This article was originally pub-lished on The Conversation.

ShutterStock

In June 2013, Bloomberg reported that traders at some of the world’s biggest banks worked to manipulate key currency rates, racking up profits and costing investors – including your retirement fund – hundreds of millions of dollars globally.

WORLD PERSPECTIVESEpoch TimEs NovEmbEr 21 – DEcEmbEr 4, 2014 9

G20: Multinational Profit ShiftingBy Shar AdamsEpoch Times Staff

The G20 leaders summit in Bris-bane may not achieve all that is hoped for, but one area where progress may be likely is tax re-form.

Australia, as chair of the G20 this year, set an agenda of eco-nomic growth and jobs. Prime Minister Tony Abbott made it clear that along with trade, infrastructure and banking, taxation will be the focus and particularly singled out tax avoidance by large multination-al companies.

“The G20 will address the is-sue of businesses that generate profits in order to chase tax op-portunities rather than market ones,” he said in a statement.

“For the leaders of countries generating 85 percent of the world’s GDP merely to agree on the principles needed for taxa-tion to be fair in a globalised world would be a big step for-ward,” he added.

Kerrie Sadiq, Professor of Taxation at Queensland Univer-sity of Technology, says it will be a slow and incremental pro-cess, but believes there will be a commitment from countries to address multi-national profit shifting

“I am optimistic there will be positive outcomes, that there will be commitment to certain tax reforms,” she said in a phone interview.

Big Corporations in SpotlightConcerns about tax avoidance by big companies like Apple and Google have heightened with the revelation that around 340 mul-tinational companies had made secret profit shifting agreements with the tiny European country, Luxembourg.

Using complicated finan-cial systems which siphoned off profits from subsidiaries in high-tax countries to financial entities in the low-tax Luxem-bourg, companies like Deutsche Bank, IKEA, Burberry, Amazon and Pepsi have avoided paying billions of dollars in tax.

The findings, which stemmed from leaked government docu-ments, were released by the In-ternational Consortium of In-vestigative Journalists (ICIJ) on Nov 5.

In one finding, the COACH handbag empire paid 250,000

euros in taxes in 2012 on 36.7 million euros in earnings which were channelled into Luxem-bourg. In a secret agreement, the company paid a tax rate of less than one percent, the ICIJ inves-tigation found.

Professor Sadiq said she was not surprised at the findings as Luxembourg was a well known tax haven along with other low-tax countries like Ireland and tax-free regions like Bermuda.

Known as Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), the pro-cess where companies move profits out of high-tax countries into subsidiaries in low- or even tax-free countries is not illegal – and therein lies the problem. The laws, originally formulated to protect companies with for-eign interests from paying tax twice, are now outdated.

“What they are doing is using these existing laws written for traditional multi-national enti-ties to engage in various profit shifting entities,” Prof Sadiq said.

Tax reforms were recom-mended by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and De-velopment (OECD) as part of a joint programme with the G20. The reforms include changes to the corporate tax laws as well as requirements for more transpar-ency and country to country in-formation sharing.

Self Interest a ConcernRev. Tim Costello, CEO of World Vision and chairman of the C20 or Civil Society 20, says he is worried there will be little action on the issue.

Business groups, lobbying for less red tape and restrictions, are putting pressure on some

leaders, he said, while a number of influential countries clearly benefit from the tax loopholes.

“A lot of tax havens have post-age stamps with the Queen’s pic-ture on them,” he said referring to a number of British tax ha-vens including London, Jersey, the Isle of Man plus Bermuda,

the Cayman and Virgin Islands “So self interest is all over the

shop, which is why we are a little worried,” Rev Costello told the ABC.

Reforms around transpar-ency are critical, he said, warn-ing G20 leaders that a growing “trust deficit” was a greater con-

cern than any budget deficit.“People no longer trust the po-

litical process,” he said. “People are asking: ‘If we’re paying our tax, why is it optional for the rich?’”

Professor Sadiq remains op-timistic the G20 countries will recommend action on tax re-form, saying it is in every coun-try’s interest that companies making profits in their jurisdic-tions pay tax.

“All we are really saying is that these companies are profiting from the sales in certain coun-tries but not actually paying tax there,” she said.

She says it will be up to indi-vidual countries to implement G20 recommendations and warned of civilian action should they not.

The US coffee chain Starbucks, which for years declared losses in the UK despite having hun-dreds of stores in the country, is an example. Outed for tax dodging, the backlash through boycotts and protests eventually drove Starbucks to start paying tax in the UK.

Speaking at a press conference following the C20 meetings, Dr Cassandra Goldie, CEO of the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), emphasised the critical role of civil society in driving the reforms.

“The broader public has a key role to play there in putting con-sumer pressure on those corpo-rations, to make sure that we are all contributing to the tax based on a fair and equitable basis around the globe,” she said.

Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott sits with United States’ President Barack Obama during a Call to Country ceremony on Nov 15, 2014 in Brisbane, Australia.

Steve ChriSto/G20 AuStrAliA viA Getty imAGeS

For the leaders of countries generating 85% of the world’s GDP merely to agree on the principles needed for taxation to be fair in a globalised world would be a big step forward.

Tony Abbott

Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott addresses the media at a press conference at the conclusion of the G20 Leaders Summit on Nov 16.

Andrew tAylor/G20 AuStrAliA viA Getty imAGeS

WORLD PERSPECTIVES8 November 21 – December 4, 2014 epoch Times

While World Watched APEC, China Sent a MessageBy Joshua PhilippEpoch Times Staff

President Obama’s former Sec-retary of Defence Robert Gates could very likely give the presi-dent some insight into what was happening last week in China as the world’s political leaders met in Beijing, while representatives of the world’s militaries gathered in the southeastern city of Zhu-hai.

Gates met with military leaders in China in January 2010 for what he believed would be a friendly and necessary dialogue. Close to six months before his trip, he had played down the threat of China’s J-20 stealth fighter jet, saying it would not be in Chinese service until the 2020s.

While Gates was in China in 2010, the Chinese regime ran its first test-flight of the J-20.

The defence community per-ceived this as a message, one not meant for the public, but with a clear and aggressive purpose.

The Chinese regime played the same game again. While the attention of the public and the global media was on the 2014 Asia–Pacific Economic Coopera-tion (APEC) summit meeting in Beijing, the Chinese regime was hosting an arms show in Zhuhai that had the attention of global military and security leaders.

China’s state-run media has been touting a common line that this APEC summit represents a milestone: the APEC meeting heralds a larger Chinese role in global politics. From Xinhua to People’s Daily to China’s Global Times, the Chinese regime is portrayed as a powerful country ready to expand its influence.

While the state-run media por-trays China as a peaceful country taking its rightful place in global politics, the United States is de-scribed as a troublemaker trying to prevent China from achieving its legitimate goals.

So, as the Chinese regime uses APEC to present an image of global peace and prosperity, it simultaneously uses the Zhuhai Air Show China 2014 to project louder than ever a message of ag-gression and military power.

“You don’t put that much new

stuff on display unless you’re try-ing to make a huge statement,” said William Triplett, former chief counsel to the Senate For-eign Relations Committee and an expert on national security, in a phone interview.

At Zhuhai, the Chinese regime seemed to be holding nothing back. It unveiled more than a doz-en cutting-edge weapons systems that could challenge US military dominance, including weapons that defence experts had believed China was far from completing.

Among the new weapons were a supersonic anti-ship missile, new GPS-guided artillery shells, new tactical kill lasers, a new ex-port version of its stealth fighter jet, and its Y-20 heavy freighter, which could help the regime ex-tend its military reach.

“I go to arms shows around the world, and you don’t have that type of splash across the board,” Triplett said. “That doesn’t hap-pen. It doesn’t happen that way normally. I’ve been to all these things.”

When viewed in context of China unveiling its J-20 during Gates’ visit in 2010, Triplett said the Chinese regime’s presenting the new weapons systems all at once while world leaders were at the APEC summit in Beijing sent a very clear message.

“It’s as though we have two re-alities—or a reality and a phan-

News ANAlysis

US President Barack Obama listens to Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott speak during a bilateral meeting in Beijing on Nov 10.

tom,” Triplett said. “The phantom is APEC, and what’s really solid and concrete is Zhuhai.”

Decoding ZhuhaiUntangling what is real and what is for show, however, hinges on the United States’ desire to know – or be ignorant of – the message being delivered at Zhuhai.

According to Richard Fisher Jr., senior fellow with the Interna-tional Assessment and Strategy Centre, decoding an event like Zhuhai for the US government can carry a price.

The Navy Times revealed to-day that a senior US Navy intel-ligence leader was removed from his position for warning US lead-

World leaders posing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit family photo in Beijing on Nov 10.

Mandel ngan/aFP/getty IMages

aP Photo/Pablo MartInez MonsIvaIs

You don’t put that much new stuff on display unless you’re trying to make a huge statement.William Triplett, national security expert

ers about a military threat from China. Capt. James Fanell was the director of intelligence and information operations at US Pa-cific Fleet.

“He was basically told that tell-ing the truth is a mistake,” said Fisher, who noted that the tim-ing of the move is perceived in the military as a sign that China’s pressure can even extend into the US military.

“Fanell is a highly respected analyst,” Fisher said. “His treat-ment really demonstrates the hazards that any American who is charged with telling the truth about China faces in their career. There are scores of us who have suffered professionally because we have told the truth on China.”

The overall picture is that the Chinese regime was wearing two faces during the APEC meeting that took place in Beijing—one meant for the public and another meant for the defence commu-nity.

“These events are not happen-stance,” Fisher said, referring to China unveiling numerous weap-ons systems during the APEC summit. “They don’t happen by chance.”

“The Chinese regime is quite adept at combining multiple mes-sages to multiple audiences,” he said. “It’s a long-standing part of historical psychological warfare practices.”

ASIA & CHINA PERSPECTIVES www.TheepochTimes.com

10 November 21 – December 4, 2014

InterNations the Largest Multinational Expat Community in the WorldBy Bill CoxEpoch Times Staff

With 1.4 million members and operations in 390 cities covering all continents, expat networking club InterNations is the largest multinational expat community in the world.

InterNations, the brainchild of German’s Malte Zeeck and Philipp von Plato, started life in 2007.

In an exclusive interview with Epoch Times during his brief visit to Hong Kong at the end of October 2014, the founder and CEO of InterNations, Zeeck, explained: “The big problem a lot of people have is being alone abroad, and whenever you iden-tify such a problem and manage to provide a good solution to it, then it is very helpful to growing any kind of network.

“When we started, we were global almost immediately as we had communities in 237 centres around the world—but they were empty. What we had to do was fill them!”

Just over one year ago in Octo-ber 2013, Epoch Times reported that InterNations had logged up its 1-millionth member in just six years of operations. Twelve months later in October 2014, the family has grown a further 40 percent to its current 1.4-mil-lion membership level. This is an amazing growth progression.

“Yes definitely,” said Zeeck. “[We] could have grown much faster, but we always try to walk a thin line keeping the quality very high for the network and at the same time [reaching] as many expats out there as possible, lim-iting the people that join our net-work.

“This year, we have not opened up any more communities, main-ly, we have been growing through word of mouth, friends inviting their friends or recommending InterNations to anyone moving abroad or living abroad. We are also doing marketing primarily through Google, so if someone is searching for an expat com-munity, he will find InterNations and come to our website. By this combination, we drive more and

more members to us.”Zeeck went on to explain the

scope for further expansion: “We think there are about 50 million people we consider as being ex-patriates that have some kind of university degree and are highly qualified, that live somewhere around the world. Now we have about 1.4 million members; out of these, 70 percent are expats and 30 percent are locals that plan to work abroad or are repat-riates that have just come back and don’t feel the same at home any more. So there is definitely plenty of room for growing fur-ther.”

From an early age, Malte Zeeck was interested in travel and had the opportunity to study in a number of different counties in-cluding America, Italy, Switzer-land and Sao Paulo in addition to his home in Bonn, Germany. It was during his study years that he met and became friends with von Plato. After doing military service in Holland and Sardinia, he did an MBA at University of St Gallen, Switzerland, worked as a flight attendant for Lufthansa travelling to many world-wide destinations, and worked as a television reporter for Spiegel TV, N24, CNN International and n-tv and ARD. He met up with

von Plato again in 2007 and it was then that they decided there was a great need to provide a networking service to help ex-pats moving from one country to the next to settle in and make friends.

Expat Insider SurveyInterNations has just completed a survey of about 14,000 of its members, where they were asked about various aspects of expat life: Quality of Life, Ease of Set-tling in, Working Abroad, Fam-ily Life, Personal Finance, Cost of Living as well as gender, age and nationality questions. Overall re-sults show the top 10 destinations to be: Ecuador, Luxembourg, Mexico, Switzerland, USA, Sin-gapore, Spain, the Philippines,

Australia and Hong Kong.Friendliness to foreigners and

ease of settling in pushed Ecua-dor to top the list of 61 locations covered.

“The reason that Ecuador is so popular with expats is that it is perceived that people in Ecuador are very friendly towards for-eigners. Settling in is one element that makes Ecuador really popu-lar. [For other] nations like Swit-zerland, which is also a very pop-ular country in terms of quality of life and income, salary is high but people find it harder to settle in to make friends and that com-ponent for us is very important. How you really feel as an expat is very much determined by the level of integration you have in the country and it is particularly strong in Ecuador.

“We see that trend in a num-ber of South American countries and also in southern Europe in countries like Spain and Italy. The feeling that we get from our members is that the locals are very friendly there, open and very welcoming towards foreign-ers living there.

The general impression gained from current media reports is that Mexico is a very unsafe place to be, but this was not reflected in the survey results as it finished in

3rd place.“We also considered how peo-

ple feel safe in countries, and the expats there according to our survey did not, to a very high de-gree, say we feel completely un-safe here. Now, if that is because they are living in expat bubbles or because they are very far apart from where the dangerous drug wars are happening, I couldn’t tell, but it seems they do not feel unsafe.

Hong Kong was placed a com-mendable 10th out of 61 overall locations whereas China was ranked No. 38. Zeeck’s com-mented on the China situation.

“The survey for China ranks 4th for personal finance because on the one hand, the cost of liv-ing is very low but the income of the expats is very high, so that’s why it is ranked very high in the personal finance index. But on the other hand, it ranks poorly overall, one big reason is people have problems settling in and one prominent reason is lan-guage; many people have a hard time learning Mandarin, but knowing the local language is important to get around in daily life, so this makes it really hard for expats initially to get started.

“Medical coverage is one big worry that members have living in China. They don’t think medi-cal, and also education coverage in terms of schooling, is what they would like it to be. This is also a reason it is not ranked so high in our survey.”

Zeeck is pleased with the way InterNations is developing in China: “InterNations is develop-ing very well in China. We have now about 50,000 members in 10 communities in all of China—Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Lhasa, Chongqing, Chengdu… Expats are coming to the events and are being very ac-tive and it seems that they like to meet up with the other foreigners in town and they like our events, as they do not have so many oth-er opportunities.”

Zeeck explained that this is the first big survey that InterNations has conducted. “We have not done a big survey like this before, but if we talk this time next year, we will definitely see changes in

Members of the expatriate club InterNations at a gathering at the Magnum Club in Hong Kong on Oct 30, 2014.

Bill Cox/EpoCh TimEs

Members are encouraged to help with social programmes, as part of another new development at InterNations.

By Sun QixiaoEpoch Times Staff

China’s Ministry of Education has begun to investigate em-bezzlement of research funds at major educational institutions.

Fabricating expenses to em-bezzle scientific research funds has been rampant among Chi-na’s higher education institu-tions, Chinese media has re-ported.

According to a statement on the website of the Central Com-mission for Discipline Inspec-tion, the Ministry of Education will dispatch a total of eight inspection teams this year to audit eight universities or insti-tutions.

Earlier this year, Shandong University, China University of Geosciences in Wuhan City, and the Central Audio-Visual Education Service have already been audited.

Most recently, on Oct 15, five investigation teams were sent to audit the Communications Uni-versity of China, Shanghai In-ternational Studies University, China Pharmaceutical Univer-sity, the Secretariat of the China Scholarship Council, and the Institute of Applied Linguistics Education.

Embezzlement Endemic in China’s UniversitiesChina’s official statistics show that funding of science and technology research in 2013 amounted to 500 billion yuan (S$106 billion). Total funds dur-ing the past eight years was close to 3 trillion yuan (S$635 billion). However, only forty percent of the money was actually allo-cated to research projects, and

60 percent was spent otherwise, China Business News reported on Oct 21.

For example, from 2008 to 2011 Shandong University of Finance filed 283,600 yuan (S$60,070) in travel expenses for two research projects alone. Travel expenses consumed 49.75 percent of the total project funds. The two research pro-jects were the Weishan Tour-ism Planning and the Fucun Township Tourism Investiga-tion. Weishan and Fucun are both historic sites in Shangdong Province.

In another example, Song Maoqiang, a former dean of the School of Software Engi-neering at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunica-tions, embezzled 680,000 yuan (S$144,034) by making up a list of research staff when he served as the primary investigator of a research project at BUPT.

In 2013, Chen Yingxu, a pro-

fessor of Zhejiang University, instructed his doctoral student to forge receipts for non-exist-ing contracts and make up fake expenses. In this way, Chen transferred over 10 million yuan (S$2.12 million) from a research fund into his personal account.

Researchers FiredEighteen university researchers were being investigated for em-bezzlement and removed from their positions in 2014 alone. Six of them had served in manage-rial positions in medical schools or were in charge of medical schools at general universities, The Mirror (fazhi wanbao) re-ported.

One of the six former medical researchers is Wang Guanjun, director of the First Affiliated Hospital of Jilin University and provost of Jilin University. The investigation of Wang began on Aug 3, and on Aug 20 Jilin Provincial Procuratorate filed a

case and indicted Wang for em-bezzlement.

Chen Zhili, a former state councillor and education minis-ter under former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, pushed to com-mercialise the education sector. Driven by financial interests, schools began charging students all kinds of fees, and education became one of the ten most profitable, as well as corrupt, businesses.

When Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, he also used Chen Zhili to persecute Falun Gong practi-tioners in the education system, thus education became a tool for political persecution.

After Xi Jinping became head of the CCP in November 2012, he began waging war against corruption, with members of Ji-ang Zemin’s faction heavily tar-geted. The education sector has naturally become a key sector in this war.

ASIA & CHINA PERSPECTIVESEpoch TimEs NovEmbEr 21 – DEcEmbEr 4, 2014 11

Eighteen university researchers were being investigated for embezzlement and removed from their positions in 2014 alone. Six of them had served in managerial positions in medical schools or were in charge of medical schools at general universities.

China’s Anti-Corruption Squads Crack Down on Universities and Research Institutions

Chen Zhili (foreground), who was Minister of Education from 1998-2003 in the People’s Republic of China before becoming vice-chair of the National People’s Congress, sits at a table with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department on March 28, 2012, in Washington, D.C. Chen pushed to commercialise education in China, which led to greater corruption in the industry.

T.J. KirKpaTricK/GeTTy imaGes

what people say about where they live”.

Help for NGOsAnother new development in In-terNations is that members are being encouraged to help with social programmes.

“InterNations is a for profit company, but we have 1.4 million people that live a very privileged life; most of them have been to university and have good job po-sitions and a good income. What I would like to do, and we are do-ing it already, is to help people make a change at a social level as well. So we have introduced the InterNations volunteer pro-gramme and the idea is to sup-port [at least] one social project in each of our 390 communities through members giving time, through donations, through their know-how … and that is what we are doing. So now we have groups in 32 communities, we also have one in Hong Kong, and the idea is that our members get involved with the NGOs. It is different NGOs that we are supporting: in Beijing it is Autistic Children, in Hong Kong it is (1) Hope World-wide and (2) St James Settlement, in Munich it is refugees, in New York it’s the Soup Kitchen.

“So that is what we are doing and that is what we want to roll out on this platform.”

Malte Zeeck, Founder and CEO of the InterNations expatriate club, addressing members at a meeting at the Magnum Club in Hong Kong on Oct 30, 2014.

Bill cox/epoch Times

ASIA & CHINA PERSPECTIVES12 November 21 – December 4, 2014 epoch Times

Civil Society Targeted by Foreign Cyber Attacks, Report Finds

By Matthew LittleEpoch Times Staff

Non-profits and human rights groups are being hacked by “threat actors” in China with the kind of sophistication that gov-ernments and Fortune 500 companies are dealing with but with a lot fewer re-sources, according to a new report.

Ten groups participated in a four-year study by The Citizen Lab, an interdisci-plinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. The Lab identified 2,814 mali-cious payloads, or virus components that have different subversive jobs, targeting these groups.

The groups are focused largely on hu-man rights-related work in China, many of them on Tibetan issues.

The report found that these attacks were draining their victims, undermin-ing their core communications, and risk-ing the safety of people the groups com-municate with in foreign countries.

Safety and CostThis is one of the concerns of Urgyen Badheytsang, national director of Cana-da for Students for a Free Tibet Interna-tional.

“There have been countless Tibetans arrested because they have shared infor-mation from inside Tibet about uprisings and self immolations,” he said.

The report adds that “in the most seri-ous cases, staff or individuals with whom they are in contact may experience physi-cal intimidation, abuse, detention, or imprisonment by authorities that stems in whole or in part from surreptitiously monitored communications”.

But cost is the most common impact. Paying to prevent or remediate intrusions undermines a group’s efficacy as they spend time and money trying to secure themselves or track down the vulnerabil-ities that led to intrusions.

Psychological DamageDegrading communication can also deeply damage a Civil Society Organisa-tion’s (CSO) work, especially those that depend on vulnerable populations in for-eign countries, like Tibetans in China, to collect information and document abuses.

“If digital attacks of CSOs continue to spread unchecked, we risk the gradual

erosion of many of the core institutions of a vibrant democratic society: NGOs, foundations, independent journalists, activists, and others—all of which have experienced and continue to experience targeted threats,” warns the report.

Human rights groups focused on China are being systematically hacked by well-resourced hackers

Top: Artwork from the cover of Communities @ Risk: Targeted Digital Threats Against Civil Society. The report suggests the private sector, civil society, and government work together, share threat information, and coordinate their efforts to prevent and defend against cyber attacks.

Right: Urgyen Badheytsang, national director of Students for a Free Tibet Canada, seen during a press conference on Nov 6, 2014 in Ottawa, says Tibetans are frequently arrested when the Chinese regime catches them emailing information about abuses to the outside world. A new report published by Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, uncovers widespread cyber attacks being waged against groups in Canada involved in human rights work.

Matthew LittLe/epoch tiMes

screenshot/citizen Lab

ASIA & CHINA PERSPECTIVESepoch Times November 21 – December 4, 2014 13

Larger, Shadier, Riskier: Hong Kong’s Economy After China ReturnsBy Rob Counts, Valentin Schmid, and Wei KanEpoch Times Staff

This Asian tiger is still roaring, but it’s not quite what it used to be be-neath the surface.

As part of Beijing’s bargain with Britain in the Sino–British Joint Declaration of 1984, Hong Kong was to retain its capitalist system and “way of life” for a period of fifty years from 1997.

The recent Occupy Central demonstrations and earlier pro-democracy protests in the 2000s show that the Chinese communist regime cannot be trusted to intro-duce promised democratic reforms in Hong Kong, but socialist Beijing has thus far kept capitalism in the region.

After 1997, Hong Kong’s economy never again reached the fast growth of its development stage, but it did benefit by becoming the investment and trade hub for the mainland.

Integration into the Chinese capi-tal and trade markets has its costs, however, as the Hong Kong market started adopting deceptive and il-licit practices, such as fake invoice trading and official manipulation of export data.

For instance, businesses dis-guised money flowing into the mainland as an investment as a payment for goods exported to Hong Kong, which is technically a “foreign territory”. China’s State Administration of Foreign Ex-change’s inspection department discovered that US$10 billion (S$13 billion) worth of fraudulent trades were made across China since April 2013, most likely a tiny fraction of the real number.

Because Hong Kong’s economy is more closely integrated with Chi-na’s, it has slowed down in times of crisis, such as during the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003 and the 2008 global financial meltdown.

Lastly, the Chinese regime’s con-tinued interference in Hong Kong’s civil liberties and autonomy could have an adverse effect on investors’ confidence in the region, and this would ultimately cost Hong Kong its place as one of the true capitalist centres left in the world.

Infographic by Valentin Schmid and Wei Kan

For those in safe countries, the report says these attacks create a sense of viola-tion, fear of harm for themselves or loved ones, and a loss of morale that has been dubbed “malware fatigue”, the feeling that these attacks cannot be escaped.

That can cause groups to become less diligent and abandon security practices. Groups can also be blamed by others compromised due to the attack.

CrimewareThe report focuses on the ways the Chi-nese regime and others target overseas civil society groups, using approaches that range from customised malware to social engineering, sometimes employ-ing highly skilled “cyber militias”. But it also notes that repurposed crimeware was used by the Assad regime against re-bels during the Syrian civil war, and ex-pensive off-the-shelf solutions provided by companies like FinFisher and Hack-ing Team have also been used by repres-sive regimes.

Such software is marketed as a way for legitimate governments to go after crim-inals, but that isn’t always the case, says the report.

“Citizen Lab research has identified troubling evidence that these products and services are ending up in the hands of regimes that are using these powerful tools to actively target civil society.”

Governments can help by cracking down on the unregulated market for commercial spyware, Citizen Lab says.

SolutionsThe report suggests that the private sec-tor, civil society, and government work together to share threat information and coordinate their efforts to prevent and defend against these attacks.

States that believe in the right to pri-vacy and freedom of expression should address attacks against civil society as seriously as those against defence and the private sector, Citizen Lab says.

“We have not seen the US Attorney General demand an end to the persistent attacks of US-based NGOs that work on China-related human rights issues, de-spite the threats to life and liberty that could result,” the report said.

If digital attacks of Civil Society Organisations continue to spread unchecked, we risk the gradual erosion of many of the core institutions of a vibrant democratic society.

By Heng He Epoch Times Staff

The doctor who has been ap-pointed to make excuses for forced organ harvesting in China has once again flipped his story on the topic of organ sources for transplantation. New findings extracted from medical publica-tions that are published by Chi-nese doctors refute the latest of-ficial claims about organ sources for China’s organ transplantation industry.

On Oct 30, Huang Jiefu, director of the National Organ Transplan-tation Committee and former vice minister of Health announced to the world that “Organs voluntar-ily donated by citizens have be-come the only source of organs for transplants in China. Now all hos-pitals in China have stopped tak-ing organs from executed prison-ers. The relevant laws that pertain to the current organ transplant situation are undergoing updates and revision.”

It seems that this new narra-tive that indicated a change in the source of organs did not last long before it fell apart. On the website of the popular financial

magazine Caixin where Huang Jiefu’s claim was first reported, the first two sentences have been quickly revised to “Chinese organ transplantation has entered a new stage of historical development when organs voluntarily donated by citizens become the only organ source. At present, all the hospitals in China are changing past prac-tice.”

Clearly the original statements do not stand up to scrutiny so that the use of voluntary donations had to be revised from “an accom-plished fact” to a future aspiration. As one of the top magazines in China, it seems unlikely that Caix-in misquoted or misinterpreted Huang Jiefu in reporting such an important claim on their website.

Executed PrisonersThe Oct 30 announcement has an infamous underlining. It was made at the Chinese Transplant Congress, an event that took place without any international transplantation organization’s participation. They pulled out because Huang had backed out in March on a previous pledge to stop using organs from executed prisoners, a pledge formalised in

a document called the Hangzhou Resolution.

It appears that Huang, the most important or probably the only figure to represent the Chinese regime on the issue of transplanta-tion has sought to reclaim through his recent statement the good opinion that China briefly enjoyed in the wake of the signing of the Hangzhou Resolution.

Back in 2006 the Chinese regime suddenly announced to the world that organs for transplantation came from executed prisoners. For the past eight years, Huang had insisted that organs came from executed prisoners. Since making the claim, Huang had to repeat the claim almost every year, each time stirring up hot debates outside China.

Why? Is the regime feeling guilty? Well, it seems. That an-nouncement in 2006 was made in response to an earth-shaking story that The Epoch Times broke about the regime committing forced or-gan harvesting from practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong.

For the past eight years, the re-gime would rather profess to take organs from executed prisoners

than to confess to the pillaging of organs from prisoners of con-science. The claim was always a way to change the topic of dis-course. Now the regime wants to try a different way to confuse the issue—the claim that voluntary donations are providing, or will soon provide, the needed organs.

Medical JournalsSince the first public report on forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, a good deal of evidence has been uncov-ered of these atrocities; compel-ling evidence that moved the Eu-ropean Union parliament to pass a resolution condemning organ harvesting in China and for Isra-el to pass a law forbidding health insurance from paying for organ transplantation in China.

Recently the World Organisa-tion to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) pub-lished a report providing evidence of forced organ harvesting in China—one that is straight from the horses’ mouth. The report studied and analysed more than 300 articles published in Chinese medical journals. These papers are all about organ removals. The

finding is astonishing: Most of the donors were very likely to be still alive when their vital organs were removed!

Forty-six percent of the organs were removed from donors di-agnosed as brain dead, accord-ing to these medical publications. However, Chinese law does not recognise brain death. In 2003, the Ministry of Health published documents on brain-death crite-ria. On May 4, 2004, the Ministry of Health issued a statement that the brain-death criteria may only be applied after the proper law has been passed. This implies that all organs described in the publica-tions as having been harvested af-ter a donor is brain dead have been illegally obtained.

This is not the only point of con-tention. According to the crite-ria, the clinical diagnosis of brain death must satisfy three criteria: deep coma, no brain-stem reflex, and no spontaneous respiration. The last criterion must be affirmed using the apnea test, which re-quires turning off the respiratory equipment for 8 to 10 minutes. This means that all brain-dead patients must be plugged onto respiratory equipment. But from the publica-

Zhou Rong/Epoch TimEs

ASIA & CHINA PERSPECTIVES14 November 21 – December 4, 2014 epoch Times

New Policy Attempts to Hide Ongoing Crimes in China, As Always‘Voluntary donors’ a ploy to mask shocking massacre

Participants in the World Transplant Congress sign a petition calling for the end of forced organ harvesting in China, on July 27, 2014, in San Francisco.

ASIA & CHINA PERSPECTIVESEpoch TimEs NovEmbEr 21 – DEcEmbEr 4, 2014 15

tions, that seems not to have been the case.

Most publications described the following procedures: Once the patient’s brain has been deter-mined to be dead, the patient was immediately intubated and his/her organs removed. Clearly the apnea test, which must be done un-der intubation, was not performed

on these “donors”.

T h i s points to two possibil-ities: Either the brain-death di-agnosis did not comply to the three criteria, or the brain death was fabricated. Both possi-bilities point to a horrific

hypothesis—the donors were still alive when their organs were re-moved.

The authors of the papers of-fered more evidence to support the above hypothesis: an ex-

tremely short warm-ischemia time. Warm-ischemia time is the duration from the termination of circulation to an organ to the cold perfusion of the organ (an organ intended for transplantation is filled with cold fluid).

Most publications described the warm-ischemia time as less than 10 minutes, and some even listed the time as zero. How is it possible for a country with neither brain-death regulation nor a function-ing organ donation system to control the warm-ischemia time to within 10 minutes?

The ‘Donors’The publications studied were all published between 2000 and 2014. Many organs from “brain-dead donors” were re-moved before 2003 at a time when the brain-death criteria have not been proposed. Even more “brain dead donors” were reported before 2006, when the first voluntary brain-dead dona-tion has just been officially an-nounced. Who are those donors and what are the real causes of their death?

It is unlikely that the donors were executed prisoners. If their

organs were removed at execution sites, the expositions in the publi-cations do not match. The donors were clearly lying on operating ta-bles with an anesthetist and a cir-culating nurse (a nurse whose job is to monitor surgical procedures) present.

Neither is it possible to perform organ removal under controlled warm-ischemia time. Once a pris-oner was shot, dead or alive, he/she is quickly pulled into a wait-ing van where doctors grabbed the organs he/she was supposed to take and rushed them back to the hospitals.

Most of the published papers de-scribed a much more professional organ removal setting: A surgical operating room. If the donors were truly executed prisoners, then it seems China had changed its execution procedure. The pris-oners would have to be executed on the operating tables by the doc-tors removing their organs.

On the quantitative side, the number of executed prisoners does not tally with the more than 10,000 transplants completed an-nually in China. According to Dui Hua Foundation, China ex-ecuted 2,400 prisoners in 2013.

Considering the high rate of hepatitis B, drug addiction, sexu-ally transmitted diseases, and even HIV among Chinese prison-ers, the number of prisoners with organs suitable for transplant are far less than the number executed. In the publications, the donors were described as healthy with no history of smoking, drug use, drinking, hepatitis, and other dis-eases—contrary to the health pro-files of criminals.

There could not have been vol-untary donors either. The first officially confirmed brain-dead donor appeared in July 2006. Ac-cording to Chinese Red Cross, from March 2010 to March 2012, only 207 people in China agreed to donate their organs after death.

Up till 2010, only 60 brain-dead organ donations were recorded. Even if the 1,290 organ donors announced at this year’s Chinese Transplant Congress is true, the number is still far below the num-ber needed in 2014. And the num-bers in 2014 do nothing to explain the source of organs in previous years.

WOIPFG inferred that the or-gans were most likely from Falun Gong practitioners. Before 2000,

there were almost no publications on organ removal. After the Chi-nese regime started persecuting Falun Gong in July 1999, there appeared many publications on organ removals published from 2000 onwards.

This sudden surge matches the patterns of organ transplant num-bers well and also the severity of the persecution of Falun Gong. The use of Falun Gong practi-tioners as sources for organs is one consequence of the regime’s decision in 1999 to eradicate this practice. It is to note that back in 1999, there were more than 70-80 million Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Perhaps the day might come when all organs used for trans-plantations in China are from vol-untary donors and fully accounta-ble. Even if this day were to come, there would still be no reason to rejoice because someone would have to be held accountable for the many, many past and current cases of forced organ harvesting.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Epoch Times.

Thousands of Chinese people are quitting the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliate organisations every day through a special website established by The Epoch Times. Others are quitting by calling an international hotline, posting statements

on public walls and poles, or writing on banknotes.

Read the full “Nine Commentaries” book, as well as recent statements from Chinese people who have quit the Party, at www.theepochtimes.com

QUITTING THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTywww.NineCommentaries.com

as of November 18, 2014.

184,012,077people have renounced the CCP

The regime would rather confess to taking organs from executed prisoners than confess to pillaging organs from prisoners of conscience.

NINE COMMENTARIES

It was famously said that Communist regimes turned mass crime into a full blown system of government. Each of them has received its just verdict in history – all but the Communist Party of China which has persisted to this day.

The “Nine Commentaries” is an award winning editorial series that offers a vivid and perceptive account of the CCP from its inception to the present. By unmasking its perversion, Nine Commentaries seek to recall the Chinese people and the world from the slumber of ignorance and inaction.

Thus far, the series first published in November 2004 has led more than 170 million Chinese to renounce the CCP and its affiliations, trailblazing a massive yet peaceful movement for China’s transformation and change.

Read more of this g roundbreaking editorial series at:

http://goo.gl/yQ2Jox

Corruption is the strongest cohesive force within the CCP today. CCP bureaucrats and officials know that if the Communist regime falls, they would lose their opportunities to connive for personal gain. More importantly, they might be held accountable for their past abuse.

Such systematic corruption has also generated a wider social decay. The modern Chinese society is plagued with harmful commercial products, prostitution, drugs, organized crime and gambling. The masterminds in this carnival of depravity

often have political links and operate under the shelter of the Communist authorities. Cai Shaoqing, an expert studying organized crime at Nanjing University, reveals that organized crime members in China numbers at least 1 million and captured members always expose figures of authority within the Communist regime.

In a twisted sense, the CCP does not allow political freedom and democracy, but it allows the freedom to indulge in moral and social depravity. Under the CCP, you may

fulfil your desires in all ways and manners as long as you do not pose a threat to the party leadership.Adapted from Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.

STR/AFP/GeTTy ImAGeS

A gold-plated Infiniti luxury sports car outside a jewelry store in Nanjing, in East China’s Jiangsu Province, March 31, 2011. Corrupt officials, who often use their stolen money on extravagant luxury items like this, are a problem for the CCP as such officials plunder wealth and flee the country.

TeCHNOLOGY & SCIeNCe November 21 – December 4, 2014 17epoch Times

What Microsoft Did Right With Windows 10

By Miguel Leiva-Gomezwww.maketecheasier.com

Windows 7, Windows 8, then Windows… 10?! As my colleague Maria Krisette Capati said in her overview of Windows 10’s Technical Preview, Microsoft decided not to follow a chronological number labelling for its new version of Windows. But let’s put aside this little quirk and look at what Microsoft did right with this new operating system.

Some are saying that Windows 8 is the new Vista and Windows 10 is the new Windows 7, but why? What makes Windows 10 so special that it’s starting to reinvigorate the public’s opinion of Microsoft, if ever so slightly?

Windows 10 Presents Itself in One PackagePerhaps the biggest pet peeve of people who explored Windows 8 was the forced “Metro” or “(Post) Modern” interface. The operating system gained lots of negative attention due to the fact that every time you boot into Windows 8, all of your tiled applications would appear in front of you before you ever saw the desktop.

Microsoft’s argument for this

is that they want to shift into a more mobile-centric platform, though this has since proven to be a rather ambitious idea that largely went wrong.

In what seems to be an attempt to shift public opinion of the operating system’s destiny, the company has now implemented the old “Metro” interface as part of the Start menu in Windows 10.

This means that all of the apps

you’re using in Windows 8 will still be available, albeit through the desktop. The Start menu, instead of taking up your entire screen, is back to looking like the legitimate menu we’ve all been accustomed to in previous iterations of Windows.

Windows 10 Makes Concerted Effort to Reconcile with DesktopsCapati’s article covers the most

important features of Windows 10 in great detail while also touching on the subject of desktop “fluidity”. The ability to run non-desktop apps in your desktop as resizeable programs like any other is perhaps the most impactful sign that Windows 10 is attempting to appeal once again to desktop users.

But there are also a few things that show improvements that

go beyond just mitigating Windows 8’s features into something more PC-friendly. Pressing “Alt+Tab” brings up an interface that is a bit more elegantly displayed and less clunky.

As a person who uses the command line frequently, I’d have to say that one of the things that has given me goosebumps is the fact that I can actually press “Ctrl+C” and “Ctrl+V” in the command line without seeing the “^C” and “^V” markers. I can finally copy and paste commands without having to rummage through the interface with my mouse. I’m sure that this new feature will make other

command line geeks happy!

ConclusionAs with any other version of Windows, this new iteration will certainly not sit well with everyone. What could be said with certainty, however, is that Microsoft is reconciling with desktops and this is a sign of good things to come. No one can judge whether Windows 10 is worth upgrading to or not – except you, dear reader.

Republished with permission from MakeTechEasier.

Some are saying that Windows 8 is the new Vista and Windows 10 is the new Windows 7, but why?

This image provided by Microsoft shows the start menu of Windows 10, the company’s next version of its flagship operating system. The company is skipping version 9 to emphasise advances it is making toward world-centred mobile devices and Internet services.

aP Photo/microSoft

Acer Is Giving Away One Month of Free International Skype CallsAcer UK is running a worldwide* promotion on its Facebook page – and Singapore is one of the eligible countries! By Steven Johnsneowin.net

Christmas has come early for those of us who use Skype for our international calls. Acer UK is running a worldwide* promotion on their Face-book page called the “Hello?” programme, which is giving away one free month of “Un-limited World” subscription.

The steps and process is fairly simple:1. Navigate to this por-

tion of Acer UK’s Face-

book page: https://www.facebook.com/AcerUK/app_129654453871943

2. enter your first and last name in the specified textboxes

3. enter your email address in the relevant textbox

4. Answer the anti-spam puzzle and check the checkboxes

5. Submit!It takes some time for the

voucher to be sent – in some cases, up to nine hours before users receive the email. The

other caveat is that it requires the user to sign up for Acer UK’s newsletter, but that’s not a bad exchange for what you get and you can always opt out after the first piece of mail they send.

Republished with permission from Neowin.

*Singapore is on Acer’s list of 60 eligible countries. To find out more, visit https://voucher.zerouno.it/privacy/terms_conditions_en.pdf

Technology & science

By Mansoorwww.alltechtricks.org

You must be very much acquainted with the feature “Find My iPhone”, which allows you to locate your stolen or lost iPhone or other Apple devices. However, if your device is running on iOS 8 and your device runs out of battery, then you might not be able to find your iPhone’s lo-cation at all, by just using “Find my iPhone”.

Fear not, because you can apply additional steps along with “Find My iPhone” to track the last location of your iPhone, no matter whether it is ‘on’ or ‘off’.

The feature that lets you track your last lo-cation is known as “Send Last Location”. This is a feature exclusive to users with iOS 8 and above, as the lower versions could be supported by “Find my Phone” itself.

“Send Last Location” sends you the last loca-tion of your iPhone automatically, even though it is running on low battery and sometimes on dead battery. This is the awesome addition to “Find My iPhone” – much to the relief of many iOS 8 users.

By following the simple steps below, you will be able to track the last location of your iPhone, iPad or iPod running on iOS 8 or above.

How to Enable ‘Send Last Location’ to Find iPhone Faster To enable “Send Last Location”, these steps should be followed:• Go to Settings and from the Settings menu,

tap on iCloud• After that, scroll down and then tap on Find

My iPhone• Once you have tapped on Find my iPhone,

you will be able to see some options. First, ensure that Find my iPhone is enabled (if the button is green, it is enabled; if the button is grey, it is disabled). If it is disabled, enable it by swapping. Once it is enabled, proceed to the next step

• You will see Send Last Location. Turn it on by swapping it towards the right

• Now you will be able to receive your last location data on your App store or iCloud.com

Republished with permission from AllTechTricks

Track the Last Location of Your iOS 8 iPhone – Even on Dead Battery

www.TheepochTimes.com

16 November 21 – December 4, 2014

send last location sends you the last location of your iPhone automatically, even though it is running on low battery and sometimes on dead battery. This awesome addition to Find My iPhone has gratified many ios 8 users.

A customer shows off the new Apple iPhone 6 and 6 Plus at a store in Tokyo on Sept 19, 2014.

Shizuo KambayaShi/aP Photo

Technology & science Epoch TimEs18 NovEmbEr 21 – DEcEmbEr 4, 2014

By Tara MacIsaac Epoch Times Staff

The universe is full of mysteries that challenge our current knowledge. In “Beyond Science”, Epoch Times collects stories about these strange phenomena to stimulate the imagination and open up previously undreamed of possibilities. Are they true? You decide.

At Follow the Truth: The Conspiracy Show Summit in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, on Nov 16, Dr Ron Mallett talked about his work on sending information into the past. The summit brought together researchers exploring the power of the mind, past lives, time travel, and more.

Dr Ron Mallett is a celebrated theoretical physicist at the University of connecticut, but he was once a little boy with a copy of “The Time Machine” by h.g. Wells. Mallett’s father died when Mallett was 10 years old, and when he read this book a year later, the idea of travelling back in time to prevent his father’s death gripped his imagination.

it wasn’t a passing fancy. he studied physics in college, with a special

interest in black

holes. he figured that understanding black holes could help him understand time travel. At the time, black holes were considered “crazy, but at least it was a legitimate crazy”, Mallett said. Time travel, on the other hand, was considered “crazy crazy”.

“i used black holes as a cover story,” he said with a laugh.

Describing time as a fourth dimension, Albert einstein said that time and space are connected, thus physicists talk of space-time. it is said that space-time bends and twists around rotating black holes. Mallett wondered if he could replicate these conditions here on earth.

A couple of coincidences helped him figure out how.

When he graduated from college, he wanted to start his research right away, but it was a time of recession and colleges weren’t readily hiring. he ended up working with lasers, learning about their cutting capabilities for industrial use. After two years of this work, he got the job he originally wanted at the University of connecticut.

To understand the progress of his research, one must understand two of einstein’s theories:

1. According to Einstein’s Special Relativity Theory, time is affected by speed. it’s already been proven in the lab that subatomic particles can be

hurled into the future at high speeds. An accelerator has been used on

particles known to disintegrate after a certain amount of time. The particles appear in the future, in a young state, without having disintegrated over the usual time period. The particles’ ageing slows down as they speed up.

2. According to Einstein’s General Relativity Theory,

time is also affected by gravity. it’s already been proven that clocks

on satellites in orbit show a slight difference in time than clocks on earth if they aren’t adjusted to compensate.

Dr Mallett knew that gravity could

affect time, and that light could create gravity. he pondered and pondered, and then his “eureka” moment hit. lasers!

he remembered from his earlier work with lasers that a ring laser creates circulating light. “Maybe circulating light will do the same thing to gravity that a rotating black hole would do,” he thought. he wondered if a ring laser could be used to twist space-time into a loop—present, future, and back to the past.

if the laser could create such a loop, information could be sent to the past in binary form. neutrons spin, Mallet explained. A string of neutrons could be arranged so that some are up and some are down, representing 1s and 0s respectively, thus creating a binary message.

if Dr Mallett had found the research job he wanted right out of college, he wouldn’t have worked with lasers and gained this knowledge that helped him so many years later. “i had something in my background that my colleagues who work in this area didn’t, so it was having that in my background that led me to that breakthrough, which i may not otherwise have had,” Dr Mallett said.

now for the hard part—testing this theory in mathematical equations. That’s where the second coincidence came in. Dr Mallett was diagnosed with a heart condition shortly before he was struck with his inspiration to use

r i n g lasers for

time travel. he was on medical leave from many of his duties at work.

Without having to teach classes or perform committee duties, he was free to concentrate wholeheartedly on his research.

“if i hadn’t had that time, i don’t know if i would have been able to not only have the breakthrough, but also the time to work it out,” he said.

it took him six months to prove that circulating light could twist space. it took another couple of years to prove that the twisting of space could also twist time. Though it was a long, laborious effort, Dr Mallett noted that it took einstein 10 years to show that gravity affects time.

“it was worth it … to actually see the equations and to see that they predict that [time travel is possible] is a thrilling thing,” Dr Mallett said.The next thrill came when a refereed journal published his first article on time travel.

With trepidation, he presented his findings to relativity experts at a conference held by The international society on general Relativity and gravitation. he was particularly nervous to talk about time travel in front of Dr Bryce DeWitt, a prominent no-nonsense physicist who worked with einstein. Dr DeWitt spoke right before Dr Mallett, a tough act to follow.

At the end of Dr Mallett’s presentation, however, Dr DeWitt got up in front of the whole audience and said, “i don’t know if you’ll get a chance to see your father again, but he’d be proud of you.”

in one short sentence, years of labour were validated, his aspirations realised, and his initial purpose fulfilled. Though he had dreamt as a child of preventing his father’s death, he feels the discoveries he has made, motivated by his father’s memory, are more than sufficient.

in the young Dr Mallett’s life, his father was the object of great love and

It’s up to society to decide how time travel is used; it’s not up to an individual.Dr Mallett

A scientist’s journey through grief, aspiration, af rmation, and a loop in time

Dr Ron Mallett, who has mathemati-cally shown that binary messages could be sent to the future.

Courtesy of Dr. ron Mallett

ww.iphoneogeniC.worDpress.CoM anD www.2.DjyiMg.CoM / photo illustration By epoCh tiMes

Time Travel is Possible:

How to Send a Message to the Past

Technology & science NovEmbEr 21 – DEcEmbEr 4, 2014 19Epoch TimEs

admiration. his mother worked hard to support Mallett and his three siblings in the Bronx borough of new york city. it wasn’t easy especially as an African American woman in the 1950s to earn a living, and the family fell into poverty. he realises how hard it must have been for her, only 30 years old at the time, to lose her husband to a heart attack so young and to work to raise her children.

Dr Mallett wrote about his personal journey as well as his discovery in his book, “Time Traveller: A scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality”.

How Long Will It Take to Make a Time Machine?We must make it clear that Dr Ron Mallett is not tinkering in his garage with a Delorean and a flux capacitor like Doc Brown in “Back to the Future”. he’s a theoretical physicist, not an experimental physicist. That means he has developed the mathematical evidence that time travel to the future should work, but it is up to experimental physicists to get the hardware and build the time machine.

That could cost some Us$250,000 (s$324,000) just to get started, he said. The Us$250,000 would cover the feasibility study, and the feasibility study would determine how much the experimental phase would cost.

Donations are being made to the University of connecticut Foundation. “over time, nearly Us$11,000 (s$14,300) in funding has been received from a great many generous contributors ranging from Us$15 to Us$25 from enthusiastic middle school and high school students to Us$500 from a concerned young couple to Us$1,000 from a grieving parent,” Dr Mallett said.

he expects that once the

feasibility study starts, the whole process would take about five years.

Philosophical Questionsif one day a time machine is built based on Dr Mallett’s design, what may happen when the switch is flipped? A message from the future could instantly appear.

The time machine would only be able to send information along the timeline from when the machine is first turned on until when it is turned off. so, if it stays on for 100 years, binary messages could be sent to any time within those 100 years. someone from the future may know that the machine will be activated on a given date and send a message through to that time.

in a BBc-Discovery channel documentary featuring Dr Mallett’s work, the narrator said that with time travel, “at stake is nothing less than what it means to be a human being”.

if we could go back in time and fix all the suffering of the world, if we could go back and prevent the bad things that happen in our lives, what would that do for personal growth and wisdom? how would our society change?

Dr Mallett said the movie “Time

cop”, starring Jean-claude Van Damme, explored this idea well. Van Damme’s character was tasked with regulating time travel so that people couldn’t use it for their own purposes. his wife had died and he had to restrain himself from going back to save her.

“it’s up to society to decide how time travel is used; it’s not up to an individual,” Dr Mallett said. The large hadron collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, is run by a consortium of nations. he imagines a time machine would be controlled in a similar manner. he doesn’t imagine time machines will become any more common than nuclear reactors. People won’t have time machines in their backyards for casual use.

For Dr Mallett, the best use of time travel would be to warn people of natural disasters—to prevent, for example, the thousands of deaths caused by tsunamis and hurricanes.

Follow @TaraMacIsaac on Twitter, visit the Epoch Times Beyond Science page on Facebook, and subscribe to the Beyond Science newsletter to continue exploring the new frontiers of science!

A concept illustra-tion of how a time machine could look like. The lasers would create a cir-cular movement of light, bending the time-space with-in the machine. (Screenshot of footage in Profes-sor Chandra Roy-choudhuri’s labo-ratory.)

Courtesy of Dr. ron Mallett

Technology & science Epoch TimEs20 NovEmbEr 21 – DEcEmbEr 4, 2014

By David Gutierrez www.naturalnews.com The universe is full of mysteries that challenge our current knowledge. In “Beyond Science”, Epoch Times collects stories about these strange phenomena to stimulate the imagination and open up previously undreamed of possibilities. Are they true? You decide.

in the largest such study ever con-ducted, researchers have found evi-dence that consciousness continues even after brain activity has ceased. This evidence of life after death came from a study led by researchers from the University of southampton and published in the journal Resuscita-tion.

“contrary to perception, death is not a specific moment but a poten-tially reversible process that occurs after any severe illness or accident causes the heart, lungs and brain to cease functioning,” lead researcher Dr sam Parnia said. “if attempts are made to reverse this process, it is re-ferred to as ‘cardiac arrest’; however, if these attempts do not succeed, it is called ‘death’.”

nearly 40 percent of those inter-viewed recalled experiencing some form of awareness after cardiac arrest (being pronounced clinically dead).

Wide Diversity of Near-Death ExperiencesThe AWARe (AWAreness dur-ing Resuscitation) study sought to use the scientific method to in-vestigate the experiences typically described by the imprecise terms

near-death experience (nDe) and out-of-body experience (oBe). Re-searchers interviewed 2,060 patients who had survived cardiac arrest from 15 hospitals across Austria, the United Kingdom and the United states.

“in this study, we wanted to go beyond the emotionally charged yet poorly defined term of nDes to ex-plore objectively what happens when we die,” Dr Parnia said.

The researchers found that 39 per-cent of cardiac arrest survivors inter-

viewed descr ibed

a sense that they had been “aware” following

cardiac arrest. But many had no spe-cific memories associated with the perception.

“This suggests more people may have mental activity initially but then lose their memories after recov-ery, either due to the effects of brain injury or sedative drugs on memory recall,” Dr Parnia said.

of those who reported a percep-tion of awareness, only two percent described an experience consistent with the popular idea of an oBe, such as seeing or hearing events tak-ing place around their bodies. nine percent reported experiences con-sistent with the popular idea of an nDe, such as feelings of warmth or the presence of a light. 46 percent, however, reported experiences that were not consistent with either an oBe or an nDe, including fearful or persecutory experiences.

Clinical Confirmation of Out-of-Body ExperiencePerhaps the study’s most significant finding was what may be the first-ev-er clinical confirmation of an oBe. in this case, a 57-year-old social worker accurately reported things that were happening around him after his brain

activity had ceased.“This is significant, since

it has often been assumed that experiences in relation to

death are likely hallucinations or illusions,” said Dr Parnia, “occur-

ring either before the heart stops or after the heart has been successfully restarted, but not an experience cor-responding with ‘real’ events when the heart isn’t beating.

“in this case, consciousness and awareness appeared to occur during a three-minute period when there was no heartbeat. This is paradoxi-cal, since the brain typically ceases functioning within 20-30 seconds of the heart stopping and doesn’t re-sume again until the heart has been restarted. Furthermore, the detailed recollections of visual awareness in this case were consistent with verified events.”

The man’s memories were not only accurate, but even helped the researchers place his experience in time.

“The man described everything that had happened in the room, but (more) importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. so we could time how long the [experience] lasted for,” Dr Parnia said.

“he seemed very credible and eve-rything that he said had happened to him had actually happened.

“The researchers are to be congrat-ulated on the completion of a fasci-nating study that will open the door to more extensive research into what happens when we die,” wrote Dr Jerry nolan, editor-in-chief of Resuscita-tion.

Life After DeAth Is Real, Concludes Scientific Study of 2,000 Patients

ww.iphoneogenic.wordpress.comand www.tytnetwork.com

photo illustration By epoch times.

The researchers are to be congratulated on the completion of a fascinating study that will open the door to more extensive research into what happens when we die.

Dr Jerry Nolan

Technology & science NovEmbEr 21 – DEcEmbEr 4, 2014 21Epoch TimEs

By Genevieve Belmaker Epoch Times Staff

For the first time in more than four decades, water use in the United states was at the low-est level ever recorded, despite a steadily growing population. The Us geological survey (Usgs), the world’s largest provider of water data and the leading water re-search agency in the federal gov-ernment, released its findings in early november.

The basis of the report was data collected and analysed from 1970 to 2010, during which water use in the United states went down by about 355 billion gallons of water per day.

“Reaching this 45-year low shows the positive trends in con-servation that stem from im-provements in water-use tech-nologies and management,” stated Mike connor, Deputy secretary of the interior, in a release about the data. “even as the Us popula-tion continues to grow, people are learning to be more water con-scious and do their part to help sustain the limited freshwater re-sources in the country.”

in 1970, the country’s popula-tion was 203.2 million. By 2010 it had gone up to 308.7 million, ac-

cording to the Us census.The Usgs said that much of the

decrease in water use can be at-tributed to a 20 percent decline in the use of thermoelectric power. less use of water for irrigation and public supply were also contribut-ing factors. it is the first time that a drop in the public supply of wa-ter has ever been recorded.

even california, the largest user of water due to population and ir-rigation needs, decreased its water use between 2005 and 2010. other states also learned to use less wa-ter for irrigation, using tactics that included higher-efficiency ir-rigation systems.

california now faces one of the worst droughts in its history.

By Jack Phillips Epoch Times Staff

A report going viral says scien-tists have invented a “hangover-free beer” that can hydrate peo-ple and has added electrolytes.

however, it’s worth noting that the development took place more than a year ago when Australian scientists developed the beer.

“To make their wonder beer, scientists at griffith University’s health institute added electro-lytes—substances that affect the amount of water in your body—to two different commercial beers, one regular strength and one light. They then gave the beverages to volunteers that had just completed a rigorous work-out,” a report from iFl science says.

But it notes that the beer can’t completely eradicate the effects of a hangover.

“We know that beer is a very

popular drink with people, par-ticularly after sport or exertion,” researcher Ben Desbrow was quoted by ABc news as saying at the time. “From our perspec-tive, it’s about exploring harm minimisation approaches that may still allow people to poten-tially drink beer as a beverage, but lower the risks associated with the alcohol consumption—and hopefully improve rehydra-tion potential.”

They found that the beer was about three times more hydrat-ing than normal beer.

And the effect only works in beers that have a lower alcohol content.

“Alcohol in a dehydrated body can have all sorts of repercus-sions, including decreased awareness of risk,” Desbrow add-ed, according to the new york Daily news. “so, if you’re go-ing to live in the real world, you can either spend your time tell-

ing people what they shouldn’t do, or you can work on ways of reducing the danger of some of these socialised activities.”

A report from Vice in late oc-tober says that a craft beer made from seawater gives next-to-no-hangover.

“i’ve smugly stumbled on a great craft beer near Valencia called er Boqueron, which is made from the purest Mediter-ranean sea water. it unassum-ingly contains one of the best mineral contents of any beer yet to rehydrate as you drink, and unbelievably it’s really refresh-ing, tastes a little hoppy, and comes with an alcoholic kick. it even helps replenish electro-lytes after sports, and seems to be accidentally making ground on the impossible quest for one of the holy grails of brewing: a tasty, alcoholic beer with not too noxious a hangover,” writes the website.

Joe klamar/aFp/getty images

ap photo/dpa, seBastian kahnert, File

People are learning to be more water conscious and do their part to help sustain the limited freshwater resources in the country. Mike Connor, Deputy Secretary of the Interior

Water Usage Drops to Lowest Level in 45 Years

‘Hangover-Free Beer’: What’s the Catch?

The Hoover Dam on the border between Arizona and Nevada shown in an April 13, 2014.

Bottles stand in rows at the bottling facility of the Radeberger Export Beer Brewery in Radeberg, Germany, on Nov 19, 2013.