Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Mohammad Ali Wins The Olympic Gold medal
After fighting his way to the top of amateur boxing by winning the 1959 International Golden Gloves heavyweight title, Cassius Clay, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali, earned a place on the United States 1960 Olympic boxing team. Clay’s powerful jabs and graceful footwork earned him a gold medal, and his entertaining personality established him as a favorite of Olympic fans.
Ali Wins Olympic Gold Medal
When Cassius Clay stepped into the ring for the final match in the 178 lbs (80.7 kg) class at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy, it marked the dawn of a new era.
At 18, Clay was still a relatively unknown young boxer from Louisville, Kentucky. It was 4 years before he would win the heavyweight championship of the world, over Sonny Liston; 6 years before he would convert to Islam and change his name to Muhammad Ali; and 11 years before the first of his three epic battles with Joe Frazier. To most Americans, Vietnam was still a remote and unfamiliar country in Southeast Asia. John F. Kennedy had not yet been elected president. The social turmoil of the 1960s, which would catapult Muhammad Ali to fame far greater than that of the boxing ring, had yet to begin.
But the young Clay was already brash and mercurial, a magnetic personality whose boundless energy and ceaseless boasting, along with his mesmerizing skill and speed in the ring, captivated the Olympic crowds.
A natural fighter, Clay was rangy and powerful, with uncanny hand and foot speed for a man 6 ft 3 in. His great natural gifts allowed him to ignore some of boxing's fundamental rules: He often threw punches while moving backward, and instead of ducking under punches he would lean back, out of range. His long arms and his gliding, dancing style kept him beyond most opponents' attacks, and he could put together dazzling combinations of punches.
His personality suited his style. Clay was one of the first athletes to see himself as a performer, and he played his part to the hilt. His confidence and verbal ingenuity were evident early on: In 1957 the trainer Angelo Dundee, who would occupy Ali's corner in many of his greatest bouts, was sitting in a Louisville hotel room with light heavyweight Willie Pastrano when the phone rang. Dundee answered. It was Clay, phoning from the lobby.
“My name's Cassius Marcellus Clay,” the 15-year-old said. “I'm the Golden Gloves champion of Louisville, Kentucky. I'm gonna win the (national) Golden Gloves, and I'm gonna win the Olympics in 1960, and I want to talk to you.”
Under Dundee, Clay compiled a 100-8 win-lose record, won two consecutive national Amateur Athletic Union of the United States (AAU) championships as a light heavyweight, and captured two straight Golden Gloves titles, as a light heavyweight in 1959 and as a heavyweight in 1960.
In Rome, Clay was the toast of the Olympic Village. A reporter of the time wrote, “If anyone had held an election for mayor of the Olympic Village, Cassius Clay would have been a prime candidate.” He won his first bout, against Yan Becaus of Belgium, in a second-round knockout. In succeeding rounds he won decisions over Gennady Schatkov of the Soviet Union and Tony Madigan of Australia.
In the final, the New York Times reported, “Clay battered the Pole (Polish fighter Zbigniew Pietrzykowski) mercilessly in the last round with a flurry of left and right combinations that had his rival groggy. He opened a cut over the Pole's left eye and almost finished him.”
The decision was unanimous, 5-0 in favor of Cassius Clay. Clay had danced and taunted his way to victory, showing the world a new kind of fighting and a new kind of fighter: voluble, cocky, and rebellious.
And the brash young fighter who won gold in Rome in 1960 would become one of the most celebrated athletes of the 20th century.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Forex News: Portugal's Jobles Rate
Portugal's jobless rate remained unchanged in the second quarter from the previous quarter, a report by the Statistics Portugal showed on Tuesday.
The jobless rate was 10.6% in the second quarter, same as in the previous quarter. A year earlier, the jobless rate was 9.1%.
The number of unemployed persons totaled 589.8 thousand persons in the first quarter, smaller than the 592.2 thousand persons in the previous quarter. The number of unemployment decreased 0.4% compared to the previous quarter and increased 16.2% over a year ago.
The labor force participation rate was 52.5% in the second quarter, down from 52.7% in the first quarter. The labor force totaled 5.58 million persons.
Portuguese labor cost growth slowed in the second quarter from the previous year. The labor cost index, excluding public administration, rose 1.2% annually in the second quarter, but slower than a 4.2% growth in the previous year. The average costs of labor increased 1.6% and number of hours worked grew 0.3%.
Mars Climate
Mars Climate Orbiter
Mars Climate Orbiter, United States spacecraft launched in 1998 to explore the planet Mars. A navigational error caused the spacecraft to orbit too close to Mars, where it was apparently destroyed by friction with the Martian atmosphere. Mars Climate Orbiter was one of a series of U.S. Mars probes that began with Mars Global Surveyor 96 and Mars Pathfinder, a pair of spacecraft launched in 1996 and 1997. The probe was part of the Mars exploration strategy of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA’s exploration of Mars focuses on learning about climate and on finding signs of life and useful resources.
Mars Climate Orbiter was designed to provide a global view of the climate of Mars from an altitude of 400 km (250 mi) for an entire 687-day Martian year. It was to study clouds, dust storms, hazes, water vapor, and ozone in the Martian atmosphere. Mars Climate Orbiter was also designed to relay radio signals between Earth and Mars Polar Lander, a probe launched in 1999 that was to land on the Martian surface.
NASA launched Mars Climate Orbiter toward Mars on December 11, 1998. The spacecraft had two main parts: a propulsion module and an equipment module. The propulsion module contained the main engine, four large thruster rockets, four small thrusters, and propellant tanks. The equipment module contained scientific instruments, batteries, computers, low-gain and medium-gain radio antennas, radio equipment, guidance systems, and reaction wheels for turning the spacecraft. A large solar array was attached to the orbiter and unfolded during flight. The array provided power to the craft and its systems. The orbiter also included an attached, high-gain dish antenna that was to provide a radio link to Earth once the craft was in orbit around Mars.
Mars Climate Orbiter carried two scientific instruments for measuring conditions in Mars’s atmosphere. The Pressure Modulator Infrared Radiometer (PMIRR) was to measure the temperature of Mars’s atmosphere and observe the concentration of dust and water vapor in the atmosphere. The second instrument, the Mars Color Imager (MARCI), consisted of a wide-angle camera and a medium-angle camera. The cameras were to gather images in visual light and ultraviolet radiation. Visual light and ultraviolet radiation are different types of electromagnetic energy (vibrating electric and magnetic waves). MARCI weighed only 1 kg (2 lb), making it the lightest camera ever sent to Mars.
Mars Climate Orbiter traveled to Mars without any apparent mishap, reaching the planet in September 1999. Just as it was supposed to enter orbit around Mars on September 23, however, navigators lost touch with the spacecraft. Investigations of the failure revealed that two different teams working on the spacecraft had used two different systems of units for the same measurement. Engineers at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Denver, Colorado, had built the spacecraft and used the English unit of pounds-seconds to describe the power of the spacecraft’s thrusters. Meanwhile, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, had used the metric unit of newton-seconds for thrust power in their calculations of the spacecraft’s trajectory.
\The difference in units led to a miscalculation of the orbiter’s trajectory. Because the thrusters contributed only a small amount to the spacecraft’s trip, the mistake set the 670-million-km (416-million-mi) journey off by just 100 km (60 mi). However, the difference was enough to send the craft too close to the Martian surface, where it was destroyed by friction with the Martian atmosphere.
In reaction to the loss of Mars Climate Orbiter, NASA appointed a board of investigators to look into factors that contributed to the mission’s failure. The board found a fatal lack of communication between the company that had built the spacecraft and the company running the mission. While previous missions to Mars involved spacecraft built and run by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA tried to save money on the Mars Climate Orbiter mission by contracting out the building of the spacecraft to Lockheed Martin. Another significant factor was that the mission used computer software that was not robust enough to find discrepancies in the expected and actual calculations of the spacecraft’s path. Many experts attributed these and other factors that contributed to the mission’s failure to a lack of sufficient funding. The mission cost NASA $125 million, less than half that of its predecessor
Monday, August 16, 2010
About Forex
What Is Forex
Forex is an inter-bank market that took shape in 1971 when global trade shifted from fixed exchange rates to floating ones. This is a set of transactions among forex market agents involving exchange of specified sums of money in a currency unit of any given nation for currency of another nation at an agreed rate as of any specified date. During exchange, the exchange rate of one currency to another currency is determined simply: by supply and demand – exchange to which both parties agree
Advantage
Liquidity:
the market operates the enormous money supply and gives absolute freedom in opening or closing a position in the current market quotation. High liquidity
the market operates the enormous money supply and gives absolute freedom in opening or closing a position in the current market quotation. High liquidity
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Mona Lisa
OTTAWA, Sept. 26 — The first major scientific analysis of the “Mona Lisa” in 50 years has uncovered some unexpected secrets, including signs that Leonardo Da vinci changed his mind about his composition, French and Canadian researchers said Tuesday..
Photographs taken with invisible infrared light and a special infrared camera suggest that at least one of the details was hiding in plain sight, the scientists and conservators said.
The sitter in the Louvre Museum’s 16th-century masterpiece, believed to be Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant, was originally painted wearing a large transparent overdress made from gauze, they said. Under normal light, part of the garment is visible on the right-hand side of the painting, but appears simply to be part of the background.
“You can see it when you know what you’re looking for,” said Bruno Mottin, a curator in the research department of the Center of Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, known as C2RMF. He spoke at a news conference with researchers from the National Research Council of Canada.
Mr. Mottin said such transparent robes were worn by expecting or nursing mothers in 16th-century Italy. The robe’s reappearance in the “Mona Lisa” would dovetail with scholarly research indicating that the painting might have been commissioned to commemorate the birth of Lisa Gherardini’s third child.
The imaging also shows, although less clearly, that some of the sitter’s hair was rolled into a small bun and tucked under a tiny bonnet with an attached veil. (The images are too cloudy to be reproduced on newsprint.)
“That is not surprising,” Mr. Mottin said. “The bonnet was usually worn by women in the 16th century.”
More generally, the researchers said they realized that centuries of grime had obscured some elements of the painting.
“You’re seeing a lot more fine detail, showing that this remarkable painting is actually more remarkable than we believed,” said John M. Taylor, an imaging scientist and conservator with the National Research Council of Canada.
Mr. Mottin said that two pieces of clothing had faded from view, largely because of the application of now-discolored layers of lacquer over the centuries.
While the “Mona Lisa” has become famous for the sitter’s calm, some say enigmatic, smile, it appears that the composition was not always so restful. For example, the new images show that at one point one of her hands was painted in a clenched rather than a relaxed position.
“It was as if she was going to get up from a chair,” Mr. Mottin said of the version Leonardo ultimately changed.
David Rosand, a Renaissance art historian at Columbia University, said it was not surprising that the “Mona Lisa” contained hidden secrets. “This is a painting that has never been cleaned, that is remarkably dirty,” he said. “This is exactly what one would expect.”
For security and conservation reasons, scholars have rarely been able to view the painting other than through heavy glass, the researchers noted.
Indeed, Mr. Mottin, whose laboratory is within the Louvre palace complex, said that the “Mona Lisa” last received a complete examination after being vandalized in 1956.
Among other cutting-edge technologies, the scientists used a newly developed Canadian laser camera to construct an extremely detailed three-dimensional model of the painting.
It reveals that while the “Mona Lisa” may be old and dirty, it is not, as had long been thought, particularly fragile.
“We have a good handle on the physical state of the painting,” Mr. Taylor said. While the wood panel on which it is painted is quite warped at points, he said, the 3-D model shows that it is sound and that the paint remains well bonded to its surface.
The 3-D scanner is a variation on equipment used by American astronauts earlier this month to check the space shuttle for damage before it returned to Earth. The Canadian research council, which has worked with museums around the world since the 1980’s and with the French for a decade, developed a model able to resolve fine details in artworks at the limit of known optical technologies.
The pictures it produced, during two scanning sessions in 2004 when the Louvre was closed in the evening, are so detailed that special monitors had to be created to view them.
Researchers hope that their newfound ability to measure and reproduce fine detail will allow conservators and art historians to settle longstanding debates about Leonardo’s sfumato painting technique, which resulted in a painting with no obvious brush strokes.
Mr. Taylor said the scan showed, as expected, that the “Mona Lisa” had been created by using many extremely thin layers of paint.
Mr. Mottin said many scholars believed that Leonardo first executed the light portions of his painting and then gradually built up the dark areas.
A computer-generated relief map of the painting made with the scanned data shows that, in fact, the dark areas around the sitter’s mouth and eyes have the thickest layers of paint. Yet other dark areas are comparatively thin.
Over time, Mr. Mottin said, he hopes that the detailed digital image will help yield even more specific information.
“What I’d still like to know is really how the painting was done,” he said.
Many of the researchers’ findings and images are reported in a book by Jean-Pierre Mohen, Mr. Mottin and Michel Menu that has just been published by Harry N. Abrams, “Mona Lisa: Inside the Painting.”
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Forex News:The Australian and the New Zealand dollars fell today after the jobless claims in the US rose
The Australian and the New Zealand dollars fell today after the jobless claims in the US rose unexpectedly and equities dropped, damping the investors� willingness to risk and decreasing the appeal of the higher-yielding currencies. The initial unemployment claims rose to 484,000 from the previous week as revised figure of 482,000. The analysts were totally wrong, expecting the decrease to 465,000. The MSCI World Index dropped as much as 1.1 percent. The Australian dollar also weakened after the unemployment rate unexpectedly increased from 5.1 percent in June to 5.3 percent in July, while the economists expected it to remain on the same level. There are more and more evidences appear every day about the deteriorating of the global economy and the talks about the possible double-dip recession persist. In this kind of environment the riskier currencies have hard times to find the support. AUD/USD traded at 0.8945 today as of 18:00 GMT after opening at 0.8969. NZD/USD fell from 0.7144 to 0.7078
Also effected the world's economy
Also effected the world's economy
ForexBusiness News The Japanese yen slipped today against most other major currencies
The
Japanese yen slipped today against most other major currencies after the central bank�s official said that they would closely monitor the currency�s movement, leading to the speculations that the central bank would limit the yen�s gains. The current grim outlook for the global economy is generally favorable to the yen as the safe currency. The US unemployment claims rose unexpectedly last week. The Standard & Poor�s 500 Index dropped 1.2 percent before and the MSCI World Index went down 0.6 percent. But much of the Japanese currency�s appeal was lost after Masaaki Shirakawa, the Governor of the Bank of Japan, said that Japan�s policy makers would watch the currency markets and their impact on the nation�s economy, hinting that they are worried about the strong yen�s gains. Omer Esiner, chief market analyst of Commonwealth Foreign Exchange Inc., said: The fact that officials are becoming a little more vocal about the risks of yen strength to their very fragile economy, that has for the near term slowed its ascent. The comments overnight by various Japanese officials have limited the yen�s near-term gains. USD/JPY rose from 85.31 to 85.88 as of 20:50 GMT after it slumped to 84.92. EUR/JPY traded at 110.16 and GBP/JPY traded near 133.80
Japanese yen slipped today against most other major currencies after the central bank�s official said that they would closely monitor the currency�s movement, leading to the speculations that the central bank would limit the yen�s gains. The current grim outlook for the global economy is generally favorable to the yen as the safe currency. The US unemployment claims rose unexpectedly last week. The Standard & Poor�s 500 Index dropped 1.2 percent before and the MSCI World Index went down 0.6 percent. But much of the Japanese currency�s appeal was lost after Masaaki Shirakawa, the Governor of the Bank of Japan, said that Japan�s policy makers would watch the currency markets and their impact on the nation�s economy, hinting that they are worried about the strong yen�s gains. Omer Esiner, chief market analyst of Commonwealth Foreign Exchange Inc., said: The fact that officials are becoming a little more vocal about the risks of yen strength to their very fragile economy, that has for the near term slowed its ascent. The comments overnight by various Japanese officials have limited the yen�s near-term gains. USD/JPY rose from 85.31 to 85.88 as of 20:50 GMT after it slumped to 84.92. EUR/JPY traded at 110.16 and GBP/JPY traded near 133.80
Forex News
The Great Britain pound declined today against the US dollar and the Japanese yen as the concerns about the possible slowdown of the nation�s economic growth weakened the currency. The Nationwide consumer confidence index dropped to 56 in July from the previous value of 63. The median forecast value was 60. The pound was also weakened as the forecast of the Federal Reserve about the slower US economic growth increased the concerns about the global economic recovery. GBP/USD dropped from 1.5849 to 1.5776 today as of 8:54 GMT, while GBP/JPY fell from 135.43 to 134.40
Forex Pakistan's Economy - overview
Economy - overview
Pakistan, an impoverished and underdeveloped country, has suffered from decades of internal political disputes and low levels of foreign investment.
Between 2001-07, however, poverty levels decreased by 10%, as Islamabad steadily raised development spending. Between 2004-07, GDP growth in the 5-8% range was spurred by gains in the industrial and service sectors - despite severe electricity shortfalls - but growth slowed in 2008-09 and unemployment rose. Inflation remains the top concern among the public, jumping from 7.7% in 2007 to 20.8% in 2008, and 14.2% in 2009. In addition, the Pakistani rupee has depreciated since 2007 as a result of political and economic instability.
The government agreed to an International Monetary Fund Standby Arrangement in November 2008 in response to a balance of payments crisis, but during 2009 its current account strengthened and foreign exchange reserves stabilized - largely because of lower oil prices and record remittances from workers abroad.
Textiles account for most of Pakistan's export earnings, but Pakistan's failure to expand a viable export base for other manufactures have left the country vulnerable to shifts in world demand. Other long term challenges include expanding investment in education, healthcare, and electricity production, and reducing dependence on foreign donor.
Floods Also affected Pak's Economy.
foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market)
Forex
The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a worldwide decentralized Over the counter financial market for the trading of currencies. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of different types of buyers and sellers around the clock, with the exception of weekends. The foreign exchange market determines the relative values of different currencies.
The primary purpose of the foreign exchange market is to assist international trade and investment, by allowing businesses to convert one currency to another currency. For example, it permits a US business to import British goods and Pound sturling
, even though the business's income is in US dollars. It also supports speculation, and facilitates the Carry trade, in which investors borrow low-yielding currencies and lend (invest in) high-yielding currencies, and which (it has been claimed) may lead to loss of competitiveness in some countries.
About Forex.com
About Forex.com
With FOREX.com retail traders have access to the global foreign exchange market with the reassurance of trading with a market leader committed to fair and transparent pricing and quality trade execution.
With FOREX.com retail traders have access to the global foreign exchange market with the reassurance of trading with a market leader committed to fair and transparent pricing and quality trade execution.
Friday, August 13, 2010
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