Kissinger ordered low-key response to India's nuclear test, reveals book

Washington: In spite of his perceived personal animosity against the former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and the United States' decision to rearm Pakistan, the former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, had intervened to make the American response to the Indian nuclear explosion in May 1974 low key.

This revelation was made in a book by the former U.S. Senator and American Ambassador to India, late Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

The book will hit the stalls in the U.S. on October 12.

Titled “Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letter of an American Visionary,” the book is a collection of personal letters and journal entry of the former Senator.

Mr. Moynihan was informed about India's nuclear test while he was travelling in Britain.

Journal entry

In his journal entry dated May 18, 1974, Mr. Moynihan gives a glimpse of the instant response of the then U.S. administration.

“The (State) Department proposed to issue a statement that the U.S. ‘deeply regrets' the development, while noting India's reaffirmation of its commitment not to use nuclear energy for military purposes, we nonetheless considered this an unfortunate step, I cabled my approval and was off to Cambridge,” he wrote, adding that this was quickly stopped by Mr. Kissinger who was in Damascus at that time.

Michael Jackson memorabilia fetches $1 million in Macau

An auction of some 100 items of Michael Jackson memorabilia has fetched more than $1 million, with a basketball autographed by the late singer and Michael Jordan netting $245,000.

Showing the lingering appeal of the "King of Pop," the sale Saturday in the southern Chinese city of Macau drew bidders from around the world.

An unidentified Internet bidder paid $180,000 for a black crystal-studded glove and an arm brace Jackson wore while filming a promotional video for his 1995 album "HIStory." An Internet bidder also bought the basketball.

Of the 435 total items up for sale, other non-Jackson items sold included a costume worn by Bruce Lee during the filming of "Game of Death" and a costume Madonna donned during her Girlie Show world tour.

Randy Moss and Tom Brady had heated argument before trade

According to Charley Casserly of CBS, Randy Moss and Tom Brady had to be separated in the locker room recently after getting into a heated argument.

The real impetus for the Patriots' surprising willingness to deal Moss? Brady reportedly told Moss to cut his beard, at which point Moss told Brady to cut his hair because he looks like a girl. If the story is true, it's hard to blame Moss for telling Brady to essentially mind his own business. The Pats had no choice but to side with their franchise QB, though, to keep peace in the locker room.

Boudou: “It’s hard to imagine a more serious sanction from IMF than the ones we stood by all these years”

Amado Boudou, Minister of Economy, said the chances of there being a penalty by the International Monetary Fund are almost nil and that anyway, “it is difficult to imagine a greater punishment than that we suffered all these years.”

“The IMF has already passed in Argentina in ‘78, with Martinez de Hoz destroying the productive apparatus, with standby credits of the ’80s, with supporting the 1 to 1 (dollar-peso) of the ‘90s, leaving 25 percent of unemployed population, with the debt swap that led to the explosion of 2001″ said Boudou.

The chairman of the Economy Ministry said that “it’s hard to imagine a more serious sanction from IMF than the ones we stood by all these years.”

Anyway, the minister explained that “Argentina can not be technically sanctioned by article four because it is not mandatory.”

On this day, he will meet with the director of Western Hemisphere Department of the IMF, Nicolas Eyzaguirre.

Not yet confirmed whether Eyzaguirre will try to pass Article IV as “mandatory” or not. The Article provides regular reviews of the Fund on member countries.

What is known is that from this organism it is expected that the meeting will be “very pleasant and safe positive.”

Photo story: Born behind bars

A photographic journey inside a prison where babies live with their incarcerated mothers.

BOSTON — Behind the ominous barbed wire fences and concrete walls of the Santa Martha Acatitla prison in Mexico City, you may be surprised to find a cheerful nursery school with colorful walls, a maze of swings and slides and a gaggle of giggling toddlers.

The inmates at the female penitentiary include women serving sentences for murder, drug dealing, and kidnapping. But there are also about 50 children, living inside the prison with their incarcerated mothers.

Photographer Caroline Bennett stepped inside the prison walls to see what life was like within Santa Martha's gates. Here is what she found:

Inside "Cellblock H" where an inmate lives with her 18-month-old child and cellmate. The Mexican government has decided it will allow babies born behind bars to stay with their mothers until age 6, rather than be turned over to foster homes or unprepared relatives. 

A territorial controversy heats up in a classroom while inmates await their teacher. When children are not present, it quickly becomes clear that Santa Martha is indeed a prison where inmates live in extremely close quarters and where tensions can escalate quickly.

Tensions can quickly escalate among women living in such close quarters. The presence of resident children often subdues a scene before conflicts get out of hand.

A group of inmates listen to instructions before a small birthday celebration for a child in the classroom. The women of Santa Martha have formed a very communal, sometimes cliquish way of life, offering one another protection and support. 

Curious children looks out through the bolted gates of Santa Martha's daycare. Often with little  family on the outside, many of the children in the prison know nothing beyond the prison walls until they are cast out upon reaching their 6th birthday.

A prisoner watches the children of other inmates play with their mothers in the prison yard and longs for her own young children who live with their grandmother. As their babies were not born in the system, they are not permitted to live in the prison with their mother. 

The New Pythagoreans: The Secret Society of Modern Math

Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land

When I was a child, I remember seeing a Disney short about mathematics called Donald in Mathmagic Land. In it, I learned about the Pythagoreans, a secret math society from Ancient Greece who believed that all the universe consisted of countable numbers.

Pythagorus, the founder of the society, never published any mathematical work. Or at least, nothing survives that can be attributed to him. Pythagorus started the group after discovering that musical harmony at its root was a ratio of whole numbers. Pythagorus wondered if all orderings of the universe were in truth ratios of countable numbers (what today we would call rational numbers) and formed his society with the task of unlocking these secrets.

The story is that Pythagorus was passing a blacksmith when he heard what sounded like musical notes each time the blacksmith hammered on his anvil.  Pythagorus stopped in to investigate and discovered that that the blacksmith had three anvils of different sizes.  One anvil was 1/2 the size of the largest and the smallest was 2/3 the size of the largest.  

Modern Mathematics: A New Secret Society

On the surface, mathematics seems to be in the open. After all, it's required study in both high school and college. But, deeper down, if you think about it, it is a secret society.

On the surface, mathematics is about problem solving. You are given a formula, then a word problem, and then you must use the formula to solve the world problem. The goal of mathematics seems to be to challenge your problem solving skills and logic.

The way that mathematics is taught, it is perhaps very surprising to learn that the problem solving aspect has little or no interest to the professional mathematician. Indeed, the basic mathematics of school: algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus, are for the most part, completely ignored. They are after all well established and not in need of expansion.

The technique of interest to the mathematician is the mathematical proof. While on the surface, math seems to be about intellectual development and problem solving, it is for the practitioner, a search for underlying patterns and harmonies. Mathematics, the way it is studied by mathematicians, is really about beauty and truth. While it may appear to be about engineering and accounting, mathematics really has more in common with art and science.

Math Papers: A secret code

It is as if all math papers are encoded in unfathomable mathematical terminology. According to the Disney documentary, each Pythagoreans need to show the symbol of the pentagram in order to gain admittance to Pythagorean gathering. In todays, mathematics, to gauge the underyling logic requires far more substantial knowledge.

The reason that the Pythagoreans chose the pentagram is for me very interesting. The ratio of the sides of the pentragram represent the golden ratio. The details of this ratio can be found here.

Professional mathematicians today seem to feel little or no obligation to share their knowledge with the uninitiated. Indeed, it seems to me that the true wonders of mathematics, today, are only communicated to other mathematicians. If you are not a member of the Modern Pythagoreans, then you are not invited to share in their wisdom and their insights.

There is a coterie of brave souls who try to translate mathematics for the general reader. They try to write on topics that will appeal to the general reader and share some of the amazing ideas which has been part of the last two hundred years of mathematics. Unfortunately, because of the math drillings in school, they have a difficult market. Few people are open to hearing about math voluntarily.

Facebook takes and stores data, numbers from your iPhone

People using the iPhone Facebook app could unknowingly be sharing their number, their friend's numbers and their friend's friend's numbers thanks to a syncing feature. 

Facebook's "Contact Sync" feature synchronises your friends' Facebook profile pictures with the contacts in your phone, but instead of keeping them safely on your handset it imports all the names and phone numbers you have on your phone, uploads them to Facebook's Phonebook app and lets you and your mates view everyone's details. It's taking data from your handset.

As The Guardian's Charles Arthur points out: "The implications are huge, and extremely worrying. All it takes is for someone's Facebook account to be hacked (perhaps via their phone being stolen) and lots of personal details are revealed."

According to The Guardian, a bloke called Kurt von Moos wrote up his privacy concerns this year. He says that there are a number of reasons to be concerned.

Firstly, Facebook doesn't warn users that they are uploading their phone's address book to Facebook.

As Facebook doesn't sync contact numbers or email addresses to phones, most users wrongly assume that Facebook Contact Sync only syncs user pictures. In reality though, they are flashing your address book, without your consent.

Facebook says you can remove your mobile contacts, but it's not clear that that will remove your mobile if someone else uploads it.

On the Facebook Phonebook page it says: "If you would like to remove your mobile contacts from Facebook, you need to disable the feature on your mobile phone and visit this page."

However, when we had a go, the page said "Please try again later".