eirinnphotography.com

Chile is one of South America's most stable and prosperous nations. It has been relatively free of the coups and arbitrary governments that have blighted the continent.

But it faces the challenges of having to diversify its copper-dependent economy – it is the largest world producer – and of addressing uneven wealth distribution.

Chile's unusual, ribbon-like shape – 4,300 km long and on average 175 km wide – has given it a hugely varied climate.

This ranges from the world's driest desert – the Atacama – in the north, through a Mediterranean climate in the centre, to a snow-prone Alpine climate in the south, with glaciers, fjords and lakes.

Chile is a multi-ethnic society, including people of European and Indian ancestry.

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg – a small country landlocked by Belgium, France and Germany – is a prominent financial centre.

Luxembourg became a founder member of a customs union with Belgium and the Netherlands in 1948, and of the European Economic Community, a forerunner of the European Union, in 1957. Around one-third of Luxembourg's population are foreigners.

Luxembourg's prosperity was formerly based on steel manufacturing. With the decline of that industry, Luxembourg diversified and is now best known for its status as Europe's most powerful investment management centre.

But the country's strict laws on banking secrecy produced a system that was open to exploitation for the purposes of tax evasion and fraud.

Concern over Luxembourg's reputation as a tax haven – especially in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis – prompted the G20 group of countries to add it to a "grey list" of nations with questionable banking arrangements in April 2009.

Luxembourg responded by taking steps to improve the transparency of its financial arrangements. By July 2009 it had signed agreements on the exchange of tax information with a dozen countries, and was commended by the OECD for its prompt efforts to implement the internationally agreed standard.

Luxembourg's politics are characterised by stability and long-serving administrations.

This tranquillity was interrupted in 2008, when Grand Duke Henri said his conscience would not allow him to sign into law a bill approving euthanasia.

The crisis was resolved by a constitutional reform which removed the need for laws to be approved by the monarch, reducing the post to a largely ceremonial role.

QNET, a prominent Asian Direct Selling company with regional headquarters in the United Arab Emirates is planning to expand its warehouse capacity to serve the entire MENA region. QNET currently has offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and a logistics facility in Mussafah which currently ships products to 8 countries in the region.

With the expansion of this facility by the end of the year, QNET aims to serve more than 20 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region and ship approximately 120,000 products annually, making it QNET’s second largest logistics facility after Malaysia, in terms of space and variety of products.

“With its excellent infrastructure and a dynamic business environment that caters to the needs of the burgeoning e-commerce industry, UAE is an obvious choice to centralise our operations for the region. It is already considered the main hub for MENA regional trade. We want to take advantage of these aspects and better serve our customers in the region that contributes to approximately 48% of our global sales,” says Khaled Diab, Regional General Manager of QNET.

QNET has had a presence in UAE for more than a decade and has approximately two million customers in the MENA region. The top selling products shipped from the logistics hub in UAE are QNET’s Swiss watch brand Bernhard H Mayer and the HomePure water filtration system.

Release Date: 03/26/2013Contact Information: Dawn Harris-Young, (404) 562-8421, harris-young.dawn@epa.gov

ATLANTA – Seven organizations in Georgia were honored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with 2013 awards from the Energy Star Program. This award was given because of their outstanding leadership and commitment to protecting America’s environment through energy efficiency.

“EPA congratulates this year’s Energy Star award winners,” said EPA Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe. “Their commitment to superior energy efficiency makes these organizations valuable partners in our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.”

The winners were chosen from nearly 20,000 Energy Star partners, including manufacturers, retailers, public schools, hospitals, real estate companies, and home builders, for their long-term commitment to climate protection through greater energy efficiency.

Organizations are recognized in the following categories:

Partners of the Year–Sustained Excellence
Ivey Residential, LLC of Evans was recognized for leading the way in energy efficiency and sustainability in new home construction.
Servidyne of Atlanta was recognized for continuing to champion ENERGY STAR and the central role
of benchmarking whole-building energy use in effectively managing energy performance.

Partners of the Year
Burton Energy Group of Alpharetta was recognized for creating and managing client energy plans that improve energy efficiency and environmental performance, mitigate price risk, stabilize utility budgets, and lower overall energy operating costs.
Grayhawk Homes, Inc. of Columbus was recognized for its commitment to building ENERGY STAR certified homes.
Hoshizaki America, Inc. of Peachtree was recognized for actively supporting the ENERGY STAR
specification development and test method development process, and for its marketing and outreach to a wide audience on the benefits of ENERGY STAR certified equipment.
The Home Depot of Atlanta was recognized for driving consumer awareness and adoption of ENERGY STAR throughout every aspect of its retail business—from product assortment to marketing and promotions that have generated more than 1.4 trillion ENERGY STAR impressions; more than any other retailer.
Wells Real Estate Funds of Norcross was recognized for the continued expansion of its energy management program, including active communication and engagement of property managers and tenants on energy efficiency.

For more than two decades, American consumers and businesses have continued to save energy and protect the environment through the Energy Star program. In 2012 alone, Americans, with the help of Energy Star, saved $24 billion on their energy bills and prevented greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of 41 million vehicles. To date, more than 1.3 million new homes and nearly 20,000 office buildings, schools, and hospitals have earned the Energy Star. Since 2000, more than four billion Energy Star certified products have been sold.

Complete list of winners: www.energystar.gov/awards

Receive our News Releases Automatically by Email

Search this collection of releases | or search all news releases

Get news releases by email

View selected historical press releases from 1970 to 1998 in the EPA History website.

The prevailing Shariah view is that certain type of stock market investments are acceptable.

By Kaushiq Kodithodika, Advent

Equity-based securities — may be acceptable

Equity-based securities—shares in businesses—do not guarantee any return and in fact, the investor has a real chance of loss, so this is in line with Islamic principles. However, for a conventional equity investment to be Shariah-compliant the business must not be one that is engaged in forbidden activities, and the capital structure of the firm must conform to Islamic financial principles. These requirements are further discussed below.

Debt-based securities – unacceptable

Much of the capital markets consist of debt-based securities. Because these types of securities carry a fixed return until maturity, they are inconsistent with Islamic financial principles. Essentially, all government and corporate bonds are seen as interest-based instruments.
Instrument Classification Brief Description
Murabaha Asset or a Type of Financing Cost price (or deposit amount) plus a defined profit that may be repaid on a deferred basis. Can be used either as financing or customer time deposit.

Sukuk Communal Investment Vehicle On the “buy-side” have similar financial characteristics to conventional bonds. Often some variation of SPV owning (for the term) the asset that creates the profits. Certificates (sukuk) represent ownership in SPV.

Mudaraba Profit Sharing One partner invests funds, the other expertise. Profits are shared on an agreed basis, but not losses. Often used where an investor deposits funds with a manager (mudarib) who makes a profit from an acceptable form of investment.

Musharaka Profit Sharing Multiple partners invest funds, while a manager provides expertise. Normally, parties share profits on an agreed basis but losses are shared on a pro rata basis.

Ijara Islamic Leasing Islamic leasing arrangement. The bank acquires an asset and gives the client the right to use it in return for agreed lease payments.

Salam Agricultural Finance Buyer agrees to the advance purchase of agricultural produce to finance its planting, growing and harvesting.

Istisna’a Manufacturing Finance Buyer agrees to the advance purchase of specified goods to finance manufacture or construction.

Some primary Islamic transaction types

Preferred stocks – unacceptable

If the business goes bankrupt, preferred stockholders have priority in getting their money back over ordinary shareholders, which is unacceptable under Shariah. The provision for paying fixed dividends is also unacceptable, so these investments cannot be considered.

Derivatives – generally unacceptable

The arguments regarding the compliance of derivatives are many and complex. Financiers are attempting to create structures that may deliver the characteristics of certain derivative types. However, for the Shariah requirements of investing in real assets (not just money), the price must be certain, delivery must occur and, although there must be an element of risk and no fixed returns, there should be no speculation in the transaction. These all conspire to generally prohibit derivative-type instruments, although in some markets some emerging contract types may be deemed permissible.

Similarly for hedge funds, although financiers are trying to replicate the characteristics of hedge funds, the Shariah requirements relating to selling of assets that are not actually owned (short-selling), the requirement that income is obtained from the use of real assets and avoidance of speculation (gharar) would all act as barriers to Shariah compliance.

For the offense of inappropriately touching his 8-year-old sister when he was 12, Gravens, 26, has spent almost half his life as a registered sex offender. The designation subjects him to residency and zoning restrictions that dictate where he can live and spend time. It has also made him the target of harassment, death threats and hampered his ability to find a job or keep a home, he said.

As he sees it, his wife and four children are still paying the price for what he did as a child.

“The biggest effect is obviously not being able to provide stable housing and a stable environment,” said Gravens, who lives in Dallas. “I have missed two first days of school, experiences which can never be re-lived.”

Related: Mothers share burden, stigma of sex offender status

The collateral effects of life on the registry are the subject of a new Human Rights Watch report challenging the view that registration and related restrictions are appropriate measures for dealing with children who commit sex offenses. “Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the U.S.,” recommends adolescents be exempt from registration and community notification in the absence of empirical data showing that doing so makes communities safer.

Gravens said he does not want to minimize the severity of his actions, for which he spent 3½ years as a teen in the custody of the Texas Youth Commission for one count of aggravated sexual assault, followed by 10 years of parole. But it seems like the older he gets, the consequences become harsher.

“I admit that I did something wrong. I didn’t understand the consequences and while I regret every day what I did, I can’t go back. I can only go forward,” he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court held in a 2003 ruling that sex offender registration is a public safety tool not intended to punish offenders. But the report suggests that restrictions associated with life on the registry do more harm than good and amount to continued punishment with little evidence to suggest the public is any safer.

“Good public policy should deliver measurable protection to the community and measurable benefit to victims. There is little reason to believe that registering people who commit sexual offenses as children delivers either,” Soros Senior Justice Advocacy Fellow Nicole Pittman said in the report.

Related: No longer a registered sex offender but the stigma remains

Juvenile registration has long been a thorny issue even among supporters of the registry and the rules have evolved over time.

The federal Adam Walsh Act, which was passed in 2006, requires registration for juveniles 14 and older in cases of serious sexual assault involving force or threat of violence. Sixteen states have formally adopted the Adam Walsh Act’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, a comprehensive set of minimum standards for sex offender registration and notification in the United States. The other 34 states have their own laws, creating a patchwork of guidelines and procedures governing sex offender management nationwide.

The lack of uniformity is part of the problem, victims rights advocate Linda Walker said. Her daughter Dru Sjodin was kidnapped from a North Dakota mall parking lot in 2003 and killed by someone who had recently been released from prison after serving 23 years for attempted kidnapping and assault.

Sjodin’s death led her mother to push for Dru’s Law, which created the first national public sex offender registry. She believes the registry should be reserved for the most serious offenses, even in the cases of juveniles.

“The registry is intended for the worst of the worst. We’re talking about violent offenders, not teens who were sexting or got involved in a sexual relationship,” said Walker, a member of the Surviving Parents Coalition.

In cases involving siblings, she said it’s important to weigh the lasting harm of the victim against the desire to “make excuses for offenders” and give them second chances.

“The scars are very deep for those victims,” she said.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has also acknowledged that weighing the rights of offenders and the need for public safety is a tough balancing act.

It’s important for juveniles to be brought to the attention of authorities to prevent them from reoffending and to ensure they get the services they need, said Carolyn Atwell-Davis, vice-president of policy and governmental affairs.

“The goal of the juvenile justice system is rehabilitation,” she said. “In addition to those goals is the need to protect other children who may be victimized by juvenile offenders who have already been found to commit offenses against children.”

But the Human Rights Watch report says children who commit sex offenses should be treated in a manner that reflects their age and capacity for rehabilitation, consistent with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that barred juveniles from being eligible for the death penalty, in part for similar reasons.

“Protecting the community and limiting unnecessary harm to youth sex offenders are not mutually incompatible goals. Instead, they can enhance and reinforce each other,” the report says. “Society’s goal should be returning them to the community, not ostracizing them to the point that they and their families are banished from any semblance of a normal life.”

Public mug shots: A constant reminder

Based on interviews with 281 adult and teen sex offenders whose median age of offense was 15, the report examines the long-term effects of subjecting adolescents to restrictions originally intended for adults convicted of serious sex offenses.

What began as a list of “usual suspects” for law enforcement expanded to include juveniles in the late 1980s and early 1990s under the premise that teens who committed sex offenses were “destined to become sexual predators,” said psychologist Mark Chaffin, professor of pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, who specializes in sexual behavior in youth.

Since then, a number of studies have found that youth sex offenders are less likely to reoffend than adult sex offenders, who also have extremely low recidivism rates when compared to people convicted of robbery, burglary, larceny, murder and other non-sex offenses.

“There’s a number of widely held but erroneous notions about this population that have arguably driven public policy over the years,” Chaffin said. “There was this sense of inevitability that (juvenile sex offenders were) an unusually high-risk population.

“Those of us doing the research know this is not accurate.”

The utility of the registry is becoming increasingly questionable because statistics show that most sex offenses are committed by relatives or people known to victims. Plus, research has shown that adolescents commit sex offenses for different reasons than adults, said Elizabeth Letourneau with the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Mental Health, who has written several reports on juvenile sexual offenders.

Adolescence can be a volatile stage in which teens are sexually curious, prone to risk-taking and susceptible to peer influence, which can lead to impulsive and inappropriate behavior, she said. The fact that teens learn the consequences of harmful behavior as they age is part of why recidivism rates are low among youth offenders, including those who have committed sex crimes, especially as more time passes since the offense, she said.

“A lot of youth who we see engage in awful crimes mature out of those behaviors thanks to cognitive development,” she said.

Also, contrary to common public perceptions, other studies cited in the report suggest that putting youth offenders on registries does not advance community safety, because it overburdens law enforcement with large numbers of people to monitor, undifferentiated by their dangerousness, and fails to target resources where they are needed.

The report reveals insight into offenders’ struggles to become productive members of society while bearing the sex offender label. At a point in their lives when stability and family support is crucial to their rehabilitation, some youth offenders said they could not attend school or live with their families because their victims were siblings or relatives. As Gravens and others can attest, the stigma remains and even worsens into adulthood.

As soon as Gravens was released on parole in 2003 as a registered sex offender, it was clear his life wouldn’t be the same. He returned to the home of his family, also the home of his sister — his victim — which meant a lot of stipulations.

His parents had to lock him in his room each night and place locks on his windows that would set off an alarm if he tried to open them during the night. If he had to go to the bathroom he would have to bang on the door until someone let him out.

The family’s struggle to lead a normal life took a toll on his sister, who felt she deserved some of the blame for the upheaval, he said.

He was allowed to go to high school, where no one knew about his status until two weeks before prom, when a list of sex offenders in his ZIP code went out to neighbors. Soon, everyone knew and almost no one would talk to him, he said. College brought a similar experience: He was doing well until a local radio station broadcast his name and address in a recurring segment alerting the public to sex offenders in the area.

He dropped out of college and began navigating a winding path of jobs and homes that took constant, unexpected turns with each new dictate about where he could live. A bright spot arose when he met his wife through church. When he told her his story, she responded with a kiss. They married a few months later.

They tried to start fresh by opening their own restaurant in 2009 in Wichita Falls, Texas, about two hours from his home in Abilene. A few months later, police came by his restaurant and informed him he was not allowed to spend more than 40 hours in another jurisdiction without notifying law enforcement. He was charged with felony failure to register and sentenced to lifetime parole, according to court records. He lost his restaurant in the process.

There have been other ups and downs, but Gravens doesn’t want to focus on the past. Last year he found a sex offender support group, Texas Voices, and began reassembling his life. His family moved to Dallas last year, where he found a job in a coffee shop and a place to live that, so far, has been OK with his status.

He decided to go public with his story to put a face on an issue, using his first and last name and offering to provide a family picture to accompany this story.

“I think there is no other way to illustrate that it affects everyone without showing everyone.”

Greenland is the world's largest island. Formerly a province of Denmark, it gained the status of an autonomous Danish dependent territory with limited self-government as well as its own parliament in 1979.

Recent environmental studies have raised fears that global warming is causing Greenland's ice cover to melt increasingly fast and that this could have serious implications for future sea levels and ocean currents unless the process is rapidly halted and then reversed.

US plans for a national missile defence system have highlighted the strategic importance of Greenland. The Americans have expressed interest in using their Cold War radar base at Thule in the north of the island as part of this defence system.

Dozens of Inuit families were forced off their lands in 1953 to allow expansion at the base. Many Greenlanders would like to see it closed down. Others see economic reasons for keeping it.

A substantial proportion of Greenland's population favours independence. However, the former colonial power, Denmark, has the final say on the matter.

In 2008 Greenlanders voted in a referendum for more autonomy. The deal gave them greater control over their energy resources, treated Greenlanders as a separate people under international law, and granted the native Inuit language Kalaallisut (Western Greenlandic) official status in place of Danish. The Danish subsidy is to continue.

Early elections were held just before that deal came into force in June 2009 in order to decide how to implement it. The pro-independence Inuit Ataqatigiit party beat the Social Democratic Siumut party, which had governed for 30 years.

But they may not always know when they’re legally drunk.

If states heed the new recommendations of the National Transportation Safety Board, it will be easier for motorists in the U.S. to be arrested for drunken driving. The NTSB wants states to reduce the blood-alcohol content threshold used by law enforcement to prosecute drunken driving from 0.08 to 0.05.

In plainer language, that means drivers could be subject to arrest after downing as few as two recent drinks.

How do you know when it’s safe to get behind the wheel and when you should hand the keys to someone else? Here are some tech tools that can help.

Blood-alcohol calculators

If you have access to a computer, there are sites that can estimate your blood-alcohol level. You enter information such as your body weight, the types of drinks you’ve had and how long you’ve been drinking, and these online calculators will spit out a number.

For example, a 180-pound man typically will hit the 0.05 threshold after two or three drinks over an hour, according to an online blood alcohol calculator published by the University of Oklahoma. But a 125-pound woman would register an estimated 0.092 after three glasses of wine over the same period, according to BloodAlcoholCalculator.org, whose slogan is “Check yourself before you wreck yourself.”

If you’d prefer to estimate your BAC on your phone, there are calculator apps such as DrinkTracker and IntelliDrink.

Keep in mind that these numbers are only estimates and that many factors besides gender and weight influence a person’s blood-alcohol content. Don’t treat the results as legal advice.

Hand-held breathalyzers

Breathalyzers aren’t just for law enforcement anymore. Many manufacturers make small, hand-held versions for people who want to monitor their alcohol intake, or just use them for party games.

The battery-powered gadgets, about the size of a cellphone, contain a breath tube and an internal alcohol sensor that gives instantaneous readings. Prices range from $4 for a one-time disposable model to $29 for small keychain devices to $200 or more for more sophisticated “professional” models used by police.

Beware, however: Some of the cheaper models have been known to produce inconsistent readings. The pricier ones employ fuel-cell sensors, which turn your breath into electrical current that can be precisely measured for levels of booze.

The devices are available at sites such as Breathalyzer.net and Alcotester.com.

Apps/devices for your phone

If you’re looking for a less expensive alternative and want to track your results online, these may be for you. Matchbook-size devices such as the Breathometer and the Alcohoot plug into the audio jack of your iPhone or Android phone. You download the accompanying app, blow into the device’s mouthpiece and view the results on your phone.

There’s only one problem: They’re not readily available yet. The Breathometer is available for pre-order for $49 and will ship to customers this fall. The first batch of the $75 Alcohoot sold out, and devices ordered now won’t be delivered until at least October.

When used over time, the apps give you a history of your drink consumption and blood-alcohol levels to help you understand how your body reacts to alcohol. (In case you didn’t know.) If you’ve had too much, you can also call a taxi via the Alcohoot app.

A similar $149 device, the BACtrack, works wirelessly with your phone via Bluetooth and is available now.