Malaysian Authorities say washed up debris from Missing MH370

Malaysia said on Thursday paint color and maintenance-record matches proved that a piece of wing found on the shore of an Indian Ocean island was part of the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which vanished without trace last year.

Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said investigators on the French island of Reunion had collected more aircraft debris, including a plane window and aluminum foil, but there was no confirmation they also belonged to the missing plane.

With the first trace of the plane confirmed, Malaysia has asked the governments of neighboring Mauritius and Madagascar to help widen the search area, he told reporters.

Earlier, Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed that the piece of debris was from the Boeing 777 airliner that was bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur with 239 passengers and crew on board when it went missing.

"Today, 515 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts have conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Reunion Island is indeed from MH370," Najib said in a televised address.

The airline described the find as "a major breakthrough".

The first piece of direct evidence that the plane crashed in the sea closed a chapter in one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history.

But exactly what happened remains unknown and Najib's announcement did not appear to represent any kind of resolution for the families of those on board, most of whom were Chinese.

The fragment of wing known as a flaperon was flown to mainland France after being found last week covered in barnacles on a Reunion beach.

Despite the Malaysian confirmation, prosecutors in France stopped short of declaring they were certain, saying only that there was a "very strong presumption".

Deputy Paris Prosecutor Serge Mackowiak said this was based on technical data supplied by both the manufacturer and airline but gave no indication that experts had discovered a serial number or unique markings that would put the link beyond doubt.

Representatives of manufacturer Boeing confirmed that the flaperon came from a 777 jet, he said, and Malaysia Airlines provided documentation of the missing aircraft.

Mackowiak told reporters more analysis would be carried out on Thursday, and a fragment of luggage also found in Reunion would be examined by French police.

"We appreciate the French team and their support and respect their decision to continue with the verification," Liow said, adding that Malaysian experts were convinced the flaperon was from MH370 because a seal on the part matched a maintenance record and the paint was the same color.

A group of families from China said French investigators and Boeing must also say definitively the wing piece was from the plane.

"We are not living in denial ... but we owe it to our loved ones not to declare them lost without 100 percent certainty!" the families said on their microblog.

China's foreign ministry urged Malaysia to keep investigating and to "safeguard the legitimate rights and interests" of relatives.

Investigators looking at the wing flap at an aeronautical facility in the French city of Toulouse are likely to start by putting slices of metal under a high-powered microscope, to see clues in its crystal structure about how it deformed on impact, said Hans Weber, president of TECOP International, Inc., an aerospace technology consulting firm.

They would probably then "do a full physical examination, using ultrasonic analysis before they open it up to see if there's any internal damage", Weber said.

"That might take quite a while. A month or months."

John Goglia, a former board member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, told Reuters much could be learned from examining the metal and how the brackets that held the flaperon in place had broken.

However, other experts cautioned that the cause of the disaster may remain beyond the reach of investigators until other debris or data and cockpit voice recorders are recovered.

"Debris such as the flaperon can only increase our understanding of the last seconds of the flight," said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at industry publication Flightglobal.

Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, and is believed to have crashed in the Indian Ocean, about 3,700 km (2,300 miles) east of Reunion.

Investigators believe that someone may have deliberately switched off the aircraft's transponder, diverted it off course and deliberately crashed into the sea.

An initial search of a 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq miles) patch of sea floor has been extended to another 60,000 sq km.

 Culled from Reuters News

Canada On The Verge Of a Recession

The latest economic data from Canada shows that it is inching toward recession, after its economy posted its fifth straight month of contraction.

Statistics Canada revealed on July 31 that the Canadian economy shrank by 0.2% on an annualized basis in May, perhaps pushing the country over the edge into recessionary territory for the first half of 2015.

"There is no sugar-coating this one," Douglas Porter, BMO chief economist, wrote in a client note. "It's a sour result."

The poor showing surprised economists, who predicted GDP to remain flat, but it the result followed a contraction in the first quarter at an annual rate of 0.6%. Canada's economy may or may not have technically dipped into recession this year -- defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth -- but it is surely facing some serious headwinds.

Attempts to rebound: Canada's central bank slashed interest rates in July to 0.50%, the second cut this year, but that may not be enough to goose the economy. With rates already so low, there comes a point when interest rate cuts have diminishing returns. Consumer confidence in Canada is at a two-year low.

There are other fault lines in the Canadian economy. Fears over a housing bubble in key metro areas such as Toronto and Vancouver are rising.

"In light of its hotter price performance over the past three to five years and greater supply risk, this vulnerability appears to be comparatively high in the Toronto market," the deputy chief economist of TD Bank wrote in a new report.

A run up in housing prices, along with overbuilding units that haven't been sold, and a high home price-to-income ratio has TD Bank predicting a "medium-to-moderate" chance of a "painful price adjustment." In other words, the bubble could deflate.

Housing markets in the oil patch have already started losing value. The Calgary Real Estate Board predicts that the resale value of homes will fall by 0.2% by the end of the year. And total home sales could fall by 22% in 2015. That is a dramatic downward revision from the group's prediction in January that home sales would rise by 1.6%.

It's all about oil: But that's because the economic situation is much worse in the oil patch than many had predicted six months ago. And oil prices have crashed again, a detail not yet captured by the disappointing GDP figures. Crude oil (WTI) is now below $50 per barrel, and Canada's heavy oil trades at a discount to even that low figure due to pipeline constraints and lower quality.

That's bad news for companies like Canadian Oil Sands (COSWF), which owns a 36.74% stake in the Syncrude project, Canada's largest producer of synthetic oil made from Canadian oil sands. The company lost $128 million in the second quarter due to lower oil prices and higher corporate taxes in Alberta.

Recessionary conditions along with low oil prices could lead to "deteriorating" asset quality for some of Canada's largest banks, according to Moody's.

What's next? The grim oil price picture is forcing companies to slash spending and delay projects. Canada's oil sands tend to come from large-scale, multibillion dollar projects. The high cost puts them on the frontlines for cancellations when oil prices sink.

According to the Financial Post there have been 33 major oil and gas projects that have been delayed or cancelled so far this year, and 16 of them are located in Canada's oil sands. Many, if not most, of these cancelled projects will need much higher oil prices in order to breakeven.

For now, it is unclear when that might happen. Oil price predictions should be taken with a large grain of salt, but Again Capital's John Kilduff, appearing on CNBC, said that oil could dip into $30 territory later this year.

"Christmas time we'll probably be rebounding off new lows off of the mid to low 30s," he said on Squawk Box. "We have a lot to go. We're going to take out the March lows of $43 and trade down to the 30s in my view."

And of course long-term projections are not worth much, but Goldman Sachs now says that oil could remain around $50 through 2020.

That is not something Canada's oil producers want to hear.

Culled from CNN

US To Lift Arms Embargo On Nigeria

THERE were strong indications on Monday that the United States would soon lift the current arms embargo placed on Nigeria.

The Head of a Delegation of the US Congress Committee on Judiciary to the country, Mr. Darrel Issa, said this while speaking with journalists after an indoor meeting with the nation’s defence and military chiefs at the National Defence College, Abuja.

Issa said that the US had commenced the process of lifting the restrictions of the Leahy Law on Nigeria because of the recent moves to professionalise the military by the Chief of Defence Staff, Maj. Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin, and the service chiefs.

The Leahy Law is a human rights law of the US, which prevents the US State Department and the Department of Defence from selling arms and ammunition to countries whose military are believed to have committed brazen acts of rights violation.

The refusal of the US government to sell arms to the country because of the Leahy law had made Nigeria under former President Goodluck Jonathan to explore other options, including the Black Market, to get desperately needed arms and ammunition to halt the advances of the Boko Haram insurgents in 2014.

Issa added that most of America’s support for Nigeria in the area of training, technical support and equipment provision was not tied to the Leahy and had not been stopped.

He said that the US was relying on President Muhammadu Buhari and the military chiefs to rebuild the trust of Nigerians in the military as an institution that would protect the citizenry.

The US congressman said that Nigerian military chiefs and the American delegation had discussed the issue of additional support, especially in the area of aerial surveillance critical to the fight against insurgency and the theft of the nation’s crude oil.

He said, “There are a number of things that we discussed today. Basically, there was the need for additional technical support, including overhead surveillance. This is important for Boko Haram but it is also important to stop the theft of this country’s oil by pirates and others.

“The fact is that this new regime with the new general staff has begun the process of ensuring that military professionalism in all post-civilians and combats has been made in a way that we can both be confident that the rule of law is being obeyed.

“So the process has begun to lift the restriction of the Leahy. But let’s understand that the vast majority of support that the US provides and would provide would be provided regardless of those. Our technical support, our training and most of the equipment we supply have never stopped and will continue.

“But we are looking forward to the President, with the new General Staff to work to make sure the people of Nigeria can have the confidence in the professionalism of the military, something the people rely on when the military is trying to clear insurgents and protect civilians.

“That is important to the new President; that is important to our President. So those are some of the areas that we discussed but we are very much looking forward to a great difference in the relationship, a proactive relationship and one in which we can provide a much greater level of support. Many of the items we discussed today are new and enhanced items that would be provided to this government.”

Issa said that the leadership of the military had been showing an understanding that the war against terrorism involved getting the people out of the insurgency and securing the communities as well as creating the environment for them to have trust in the government rather than the Boko Haram.

He stressed that the Boko Haram had not only disrupted the peace of the area, it had also caused famine in the affected communities.

He added that USAID “would be providing assistance as the military close areas and make it safe for communities to be rebuilt.”

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Alhaji Aliyu Samaila, said that the visit of the American delegation to the country was a follow-up to President Buhari’s recent visit to the US.

Samaila said that the President’s visit was of great gain to the country and that it rekindled the hopes and aspirations of both the US and Nigeria.

He said, “This is a delegation from the United States Congress; they are on a visit to Nigeria and this is a follow-up to Mr. President’s visit to the US. We have said it again and again that the visit of Mr. President was of great gain to this country. It has rekindled the hopes and aspirations of the two countries.

“The United States believes in Nigeria; they have trust in our President and the government of the people of Nigeria. And they are also very concerned about the security situation in Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin area.

“And that is one of the reasons they are here to discuss with us and the military, that is, the services. We have discussed the issues concerning the insecurity in Nigeria and also the issue of human rights. They are pleased with the discussions. We hope that at least we would continue to build on this. Gaps that had been created before have been identified and they are definitely going to work on them.”

Culled from PUNCH News

A Former US Army Sniper Shares A Trick For Staying Focused

Here’s a question for you: Do you control your day or do you simply react to it? Or to put it another way—how often do you feel like all you did was keep your head above water? 

Nodding along right now? You’re not alone.

When transitioning from being in the army to a 9-to-5 desk job, time management and feeling in control of my work day was one of the hardest challenges I had to overcome.

That was, until I applied a trick from my military training to my office job. The great part about it is that it’s so easy to do, anyone can do it (without holding a a loaded weapon)! 

The trick

Once upon a time, before emails and office life, I was a sniper in the Army. As a sniper, I was trained to go into a dangerous area, collect reconnaissance, and get out without ever being seen. This is the hardest part of the job. Most people think it’s all about shooting from really far away, and while that’s certainly an important skill, it’s not the most difficult.

Staying virtually invisible, while moving from point to point with 75+ pounds of gear in extreme weather, while being completely exhausted, requires a tremendous amount of focus. The fatigue, the discomfort, the racing thoughts are all distractions that can throw off your focus and your cloak of invisibility that keeps you alive. 

So how do you brush off distractions and maintain your focus? 

Well, when the external stimuli take over and you begin to lose focus on your priorities, my sniper instructors taught me an extremely simple and profound trick to regain control. 

SLLS: Stop, Look, Listen, and Smell

They said, “When the heat, weight, and fatigue take your focus off moving in silence and invisibility, take a SLLS break — Stop what you are doing. Look around. Listen to your surroundings. Smell your environment.” 

The purpose of this is to take a timeout and refocus. This allows you to stop reacting to the external stimuli, be mindful of your environment, and focus on what really matters. 

Yes, it works. It helped me be invisible as a sniper. And later on, at my desk job, I discovered that it helped me regain control of my workday when all I was doing was reacting to emails and other people’s priorities.

One particular day, I was attempting to buckle down and knock out several hours of important, but monotonous work. It was crucial I completed it that day, but my mind was struggling to stay focused, and my attention bounced around from other people’s conversations to my phone to anything but what I needed to do. Time for a SLLS break! After five minutes of stopping and refocusing with SLLS, I was able to sit down with resolve and accomplish my work.

Bonus: It even helped me in my personal life to be more mindful and focused. I was able to soak up and fully experience a recent backpacking trip to the Yucatan peninsula.

So, how do you use this trick to immediately make an impact and help you regain control of your workday and personal life?

The challenge

Set a recurring alarm on your phone for every two hours, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., that simply says “SLLS.” This is your cue to take a SLLS break. Stop whatever you’re doing, look around, listen to your surroundings, and smell your environment. Whether it’s for 30 seconds or five minutes, take as long as you need to regain clarity on the present moment. 

By doing this you’ll stop the reaction cycle and be able to focus on the present — allowing your mind to breathe and enter a higher state of thinking where you decide what’s important and worthy of your time. You’ll regain mindfulness and purpose by taking back control of those elusive thoughts that usually escape you during stressful moments.

The every-two-hour alarm is just a starting point. Practice this until it’s a habit, then turn off the alarm. Use this trick whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed, when you’re just reacting to the world around you, and when you want to take control of your day and your life.

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India 'To Overtake China's Population By 2022' - UN

A new UN study of global population trends predicts that India will overtake China to become the world's most populous nation by 2022.

The report also says that Nigeria will replace the US as the world's third most populous country by around 2050.

Africa is expected to account for more than half of the world's population growth over the next 35 years.

The current world population of 7.3 billion will reach 9.7 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, it predicts.

The new projection has India overtaking China's population six years earlier than previously predicted.

The reports says half of the world's population growth between 2015 and 2050 is expected to be concentrated in nine countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the United States, Indonesia and Uganda.

The populations of 28 African countries are projected to more than double, and by 2100, 10 African countries are projected to have increased by at least a factor of five.

"The concentration of population growth in the poorest countries presents its own set of challenges, making it more difficult to eradicate poverty and inequality, to combat hunger and malnutrition," said John Wilmoth, Director of the UN's Population Division.

Culled from BBC

Gmail's 'Undo Send' Option Officially Rolled Out By Google

Every one of us has experienced an email blunder at some point whether it was accidentally hitting reply to all, sending a message to the wrong person or forgetting to attach a file. For example, I sent a cover letter to the wrong recruiter back when I was in college – which is likely one of the reasons why I did not hear back from that company. Now Gmail has rolled out a feature that lets you recall a message within 30 seconds of it being sent. Gmail originally launched the “Undo Send” feature in March 2009, but it was hidden as an experimental “Labs” feature.

“Previously a popular feature in Gmail Labs, and recently added to Inbox by Gmail, today we’re adding ‘Undo Send’ as a formal setting in Gmail on the web,” said Google in an announcement. Inbox is a mobile app for iOS and Android that keeps your email organized by highlighting important information and bundling similar messages.

In the web-based version of Gmail, you can activate the “Undo Send” option by tapping on the gear icon at the top right and selecting “Settings” from the drop-down menu. Under the general settings, make sure that ”Enable Undo Send” is check-marked. You will notice that the number of seconds can be changed between 5, 10, 20 or 30. I recommend setting up “Undo Send” for 30 seconds because 5 seconds does not seem like enough time. The “Undo Send” feature will remain activated for your account if you switched it on while it was still an experiment.

Some of the other Gmail features available through “Labs” includes an Unread message icon, a Google GOOGL -3.07% Calendar widget, custom keyboard shortcuts and Google Maps previews inside of messages. To test out some of those features, you have to manually enable each one and hit “Save Changes” at the bottom of the Gmail Labs website.

To recall a message after enabling the “Undo Send” feature, you simply have click on the “Undo Send” text at the top of the Gmail website once the email is sent. The “Undo Send” option will disappear even if you click on a link within Gmail before the recall time expires so use this feature with caution. “Undo Send” may not work if you are experiencing connection issues too. Here is what the “Undo Send” text looks like:

Unfortunately, “Undo Send” is not available for the Gmail mobile app. But Mashable reported Gmail is planning to roll out the “Undo Send” feature for the mobile app eventually.

Culled from Forbes