Monday, February 28, 2011

the naked.


10 Best places to get naked in 2011

ANI, Feb 28, 2011, 11.26am IST

Woman in spa.jpg
10 Best places to get naked in 2011
(Thinkstock photos/Getty Images)
A list of the ten best places where one can get naked in 2011 has been revealed, and it includes a French city dedicated to naturalism, a naked cruise, and a nude beach. 

The list by global hotel rating website HotelsCombined has also listed some nude outdoor activities, an art festival, a bike ride in the buff, and spa treatments or hot springs, News reported.

First on the list is the World Naked Bike Ride, which is held annually on March 12 in cities around the world. People hop on their bikes naked to celebrate cycling and the naked body.

Second is the Naked Hot Springs Bathing in Ooedo-Onsen-Monogatari, Toyko, Japan, where tourists are able to strip off and soak in onsen - natural mineral-rich hot springs - as part of the Japanese tradition.

Thirdly, if you want to awaken your senses, all you need to do is go for Naked Spa Treatments in Ayana Resort Bali and Spa, Indonesia where indulgent therapies will leave you refreshed.

At number four is the Naked Sauana in Kotiharjun Sauna in Kallio, Helsinki, Finland, where the only remaining wood-burning sauna, which dates back to 1928, still exists. Visitors can enjoy a scrub-down and massage too.

Fifth is the Naked Art Festival in Portschach am Worthersee, Austria, which is held annually. The World Bodypainting Festival is the biggest art event in bodypainting theme. It is held from June 27 to July 3.

In sixth place is the Naked City in Cap d'Agde, France, where people go about their businesses in the buff. The entire town is clothing-optional and it is known as the world's capital of naturism.

Seventh place goes to the Naked Park in Englischer Garten, Munich, Germany. It is one of Europe's biggest city parks covering an area of nearly four square kilometres, and nude sunbathing has been permitted in the park since the 1960s.

At number eight is the Naked Beach in Haulover Beach, Miami Beach, Florida, which is one of the few government sanctioned clothing-optional beaches in the US.

In ninth place is the Naked Cruise in Split, Croatia, by cruising company eWaterways. The eight-day naked cruise takes one along the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia.

Lastly, at number ten is the Burning Man Event in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, US. The famous annual festival is held from August 29 to September 5, and many participants have described it as an "experiment in community, radical self-expression and self-reliance".

The event is clothing-optional and people are encouraged to use art forms and projects to express themselves. 

Follow us on Twitter for more stories  (the times of india)

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Healing herbs

Reena Singh & Sonal Srivastava, Feb 28, 2011, 12.46pm IST

Mint plant.jpg
Healing herbs
After a lifetime of dependence on modern medicine, it is a trifle difficult to think of ayurveda as a viable alternative or complementary option. But in Rishikesh, where swamis, healers and scientists were meeting and sharing experiences together with Indian and western ayurvedic experts, it was not all that difficult to get convinced. 

We began to understand what ayurveda was all about. It was evident that with its stress on herbs, yoga, meditation, chanting and spirituality, ayurveda looked at the whole rather than the part and so is designed to enable followers achieve holistic well-being. There seems to be a kind of resurgence, a renewal of interest in ancient healing systems; both in India and abroad, Ayurveda is coming back in a big way, thanks to growing popular as well as scientific interest in its positive impact on lifestyle.

'Ayurveda and Yoga: Where Science Meets Consciousness' was the theme of a five-day international conference in Rishikesh, (February 17-21), organised by the Coimbatore-based Punarnava Ayurveda Trust. A yagna or sacred ritual fire was done to invoke Lord Dhanwantari, the god of healing, complete with the chanting of Vedic mantras and burning of incense, setting the mood.
Ayurveda's western face 
The tall and willowy Robert Svoboda, the first licensed western practitioner of ayurveda in 1980 was clearly the star attraction at the conference. The Hindi-speaking, urdu poetry-quoting American Sanskrit scholar, yoga, astrology and meditation expert is a household name in the west.

Canadians Frank and his partner happily meditating in South Goa promptly enrolled for the conference when they learnt, on googling Svoboda, that he would be lecturing at Rishikesh. Ditto, Coen van der Kroon who runs an ayurvedic academy inAmsterdam. A dozen of his students were also in attendance.

Svoboda believes that allopathy scores in "trauma care and in a life-threatening crisis, but is of little help in teaching people to live healthy and avoid life-threatening crises. I salute modern technology, but air is still air, food is still food, and water is still water, and western medicine can't understand how these interact with living organisms." Ayurveda, on the other hand, encourages people to live right, to alter their lifestyle so that they stay fit. "Ayurveda would have been much more intact today if the British hadn't actively discouraged all forms of traditional knowledge," he adds.

If western science stymied ayurveda in the country of its origin, it was westerners who later rediscovered it and exported it back to their homeland. "India's richness of spirit", is what first attracted Hawaiin Myra Lewin to India to learn yoga and meditation. Soon, she was sold on ayurveda too.

"Don't sweat the small stuff," she now tells her students back in the US, while emphasising the importance of living a life in gratitude — for food and our health. "Treat food as something sacred, not as something mechanised and impersonal. Bring its richness back into your life," she advises. People are finally taking such advice seriously.

Ramkumar of Punarnava is grateful for this. "But it still needs a greater boost especially from the government," he stresses. "Conferences such as these inspire young ayurvedic doctors and students to delve deeper into ancient texts, while exposing them to the global need from ayurveda today," he says. "Look at lifestyle diseases today — allopathy hasn't a comprehensive solution," Ramkumar points out. "But ayurveda is excellent for conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic conditions," he adds.
Mind, body and soul 
"Ayurveda combines all three: sharira or body, manas or mind and atman or spirit. It emphasises that their symbiotic balance helps a person become stable and strong mentally, physically and spiritually," says ashtavaidyan AN Narayanan Nambi. To lead an ayurvedic way of life, you should know your dharma, fulfil kama or desires in a dharmic way, and practice sukha sadhanam — that is, live right. For good health, necessary for sukha sadhanam, ayurvedic specialists use special healing herbs.

"Besides herbs, Ayurveda also uses minerals, metals, animal products or anything in the world that can be understood in a logical way and can be utilised to treat a certain condition. Ayurveda believes that there's nothing useless in this world; all letters are mantras and all roots are herbs; only that the person who knows it all, is rare," says Nambi. The ancient healing system doesn't offer quick-fix solutions. It explores the real cause of the disease and attempts to eradicate it completely.

Also largely unknown is the fact that ayurveda has comprehensive treatment for emotional and mental wellbeing. Meditation, yoga, and herbs that make your brain strong is the treatment prescribed — not suppressants for the overactive brain as in allopathy.
Customised treatment 
Modern biotechnology promotes designer drugs best suited to the genetic makeup of an individual. Interestingly, ayurveda has always advocated customised treatment. "The vaidya gives specific medication in specific doses in accordance with the specific needs of the patient after careful examination of his naadi or pulse, and his tongue, eyes and ears. Instead of relying on lab reports, the vaidya uses his mind and insight as a tool to test and investigate the problem at hand," says Nambi.

Ranjit Pawar, a delegate, who graduated last year and now practises ayurveda in Mumbai, says: "My treatment plan includes guidance on lifestyle and spirituality as suggested by ayurvedic texts".

In ayurveda, costs are lower and remedies are non-invasive with very few side-effects, if any. Critics point out that random studies have shown high metal content in ayurvedic preparations. "However," says Renu Gulati, an Ayurvedic practitioner in Rishikesh who did her Masters in the UK, "metals have a powerful healing effect, but the process for preparing medicines with metals is time-consuming and intricate, and some fly-by-night outfits have bypassed ethical manufacturing guidelines and unwittingly increased the volume of such components that are meant to be just a miniscule part of the medicine. But such concoctions are exceptions." Gulati suggests that patients should avoid self-prescription and visit only a reputed practitioner who will prescribe safe brands.
Harmony healing 
Ayurveda works at a holistic level, addressing the physical, mental, spiritual, social, and environment conditions — leading to complete mind-body harmony. Subhash Ranade from Pune has till now trained 3,000 European doctors in ayurveda, evidence that ayurveda is viewd as a serious option abroad. "Maharashtra had 16 ayurveda colleges earlier. Now it has 55," he says. Alternative healing systems like that of ayurveda can be complementary; there is no great divide that demands abandoning one system for the other. The good news is that they can all co-exist in a spirit of co-option, and not competition. It's all about achieving a comfortable rhythm that's life-enhancing.
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(source:the times of india)
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Sexuality

Fox on Sex
How to Talk About Sex
By Kristen Mark
Published February 28, 2011
FoxNews.com
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So much sex advice out there revolves around communicating with your partner. What many people don’t realize is that there are different types of communication. There is non-verbal communication, where you can tell what your partner is feeling just by catching a glimpse of her facial expression from across the room. There is verbal communication, where you talk directly about everyday issues. And then there is also sexual communication. No, I don’t mean talking dirty between the sheets. At Good in Bed, we believe it’s essential to verbally communicate your sexual wants and needs to your partner -- outside of the bedroom.

Sexual communication has been a widely ignored extension of verbal communication. That’s a shame, since it could seriously improve the sex lives of countless couples. The good news? Researchers are paying more attention to this approach. In fact, one recent study from Indiana University found that sexual communication is a more significant contributor to sexual and relationship satisfaction than non-sexual verbal communication.

But there’s one problem: Not everyone feels comfortable talking about sex, especially when the talk happens outside of a sexual context. Here are some tips to help get you talking:

Polish your vocabulary

One of the greatest difficulties couples have when it comes to sexual communication is an inadequate sexual vocabulary. Some of us may never have had anything more than locker-room talk to discuss sex. Start by learning the proper words for body parts. This might seem too clinical at first, but it offers a way to talk about sex when you’re not having sex without offending anyone with slang.


Ease in with texting

A great thing about technology is its ability to allow us to say things that we may not feel as comfortable saying in person. You can type something, think about it for a bit, decide if you’ve adequately captured your thoughts, then hit ‘send’. Try sending your partner a text that lets them know something about your sexual preferences. For example, say, “When you do ____, it gets me in the mood for sex.” Or, think about an issue you’re having, come up with a solution in your mind, and then express it using positive sexy terms via text. By doing this, not only will you get them excited to see you later, but you’ll also be practicing sexual communication and letting them know what you like.

Use the phone

If texting just isn’t your thing, try using the phone to talk to your partner about sex. Randomly call and communicate what your favorite sexual position is and why. This doesn’t have to turn into phone sex -- in fact, it shouldn’t. If you’re shy, call your partner and tell her that you had a really sexy dream about her and describe what you want in very sexy terms as though it was part of the dream. If you’re introducing something taboo, you can always blame your subconscious!

Practice with each other

This might be a little bit awkward the first time you do it, but it’s worth it. Sit down and practice using your newfound vocabulary with your partner. Talk about sex outside of the bedroom, in a non-sexual setting, and practice getting comfortable using sexual communication as a way to converse. You can still make the sex talk sexy by expressing your desires in positive sexy terms.

Once you can communicate your sexual needs and wants to your partner, you’ll be one step ahead of the many couples that expect their partners to understand their sexual thoughts through mind reading or subtle non-verbal cues. Research shows that couples that can communicate openly about sex are more sexually satisfied. This has also been shown to impact their overall relationship satisfaction, with couples that successfully communicate about sex showing higher levels of satisfaction than those who don’t. So go forth, learn some new sex words, bring them out of the bedroom, and practice the art of sexual communication!

(Kristen Mark is currently completing her Ph.D. in Health Behavior with concentrations in Human Sexuality and Statistics at Indiana University. She is an associate instructor for Health and Human Sexuality courses at IU and is a project coordinator for the Center for Sexual Health Promotion. Kristen's research is largely focused on sexuality in the context of relationships, maintaining sexual desire, and sexual quality, pleasure and satisfaction. To get in touch with Kristen, visit her at goodinbed.com.)

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Somali pirates

28 February 2011 Last updated at 16:58 GMT

Somali pirates 'seize Danish children' in Indian Ocean

An armed Somali pirate (archive image)Somali pirates usually target cargo vessels for the ransoms often paid out by shipping firms

PIRACY CRISIS

Three Danish children and their parents have been snatched by pirates who hijacked their sailing boat in the Indian Ocean, Danish officials say.
Denmark's foreign ministry said the children were aged between 12 and 16, and that two Danish crew members were also captured during the attack.
Pirates seized the boat on 24 February and were said to be heading to Somalia.
Piracy is a highly lucrative trade in Somalia, where gangs can often demand millions of dollars in ransoms.
As of last week, the EU's anti-piracy naval force said pirates were holding a total of 31 vessels, and 688 hostages.
Many of the vessels they target are cargo ships sailing near the Gulf of Aden - one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Increasing violence
The foreign ministry told the AP news agency that the ship sent a distress signal on Thursday: "It has now been confirmed that the sailboat was hijacked by pirates."
The Danes are be the second group of non-commercial sailors seized by pirates in recent weeks.
A group of Americans was seized earlier in February, and four of them were killed as the US Navy tried to rescue them.
US forces say the pirates shot them.
Analysts say the piracy industry is becoming increasingly lucrative - Somali gangs recently hijacked a tanker with $200m (£136m) worth of crude oil on board.
International naval forces patrolling the area are becoming more willing to send in commando teams to free hostages.
But the pirates also appear to be responding with increasing violence - two Philippine sailors were murdered last month by pirates angered at an attempted rescue.
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28 February 2011 Last updated at 16:21 GMT

Thousands of Gmail accounts accidentally wiped

Gmail pageGoogle says 0.08% of Gmail users were affected by the problem

Related Stories

Thousands of Gmail users have been left with empty inboxes after their accounts were accidentally wiped clean.
As well as missing e-mails, many reported that their contacts had also disappeared.
Google, which operates Gmail, said that a small percentage of its users had been affected.
Some accounts have already been restored, suggesting the data was not permanently deleted.
In a statement, Google said: "This is affecting less than .08% of our Gmail user base, and we've already fixed the problem for some individuals."
The company said that engineers were working to restore service.
Google does not release official figures for the number of Gmail accounts, however it is believed to be between 150 million and 200 million.
That would mean that around 150,000 users were affected by the problem.
Gmail outages on this scale are rare, according to Alex Chitu, whose blog Google Operating System, charts the company's cloud computing initiatives.
He told BBC News that although service was being restored, many users were angry about the way the outage had been handled.
"Today's issue shows that Gmail is far from perfect and Google should do a better job at communicating with users.
"When you can't access your message and your Google account is disabled, it's nice to know why," he said.  (BBC)
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Egypt News:


Egypt bans Mubarak from travel, freezes assets

GALLERY
Egypt- and Tunisia-inspired protests spread through Middle East, North Africa
Motivated by recent shows of political strength by neighbors in Egypt, demonstrators in the Middle East and North Africa are taking to the streets of many cities to rally for change.
» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, February 28, 2011; 5:24 PM

CAIRO - Egypt's top prosecutor on Monday barred former president Hosni Mubarak and his family from leaving the country and seized control of Mubarak's assets as the new government moved ahead with an investigation into charges of corruption.
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Mubarak, who fled Cairo more than two weeks ago, is accused by opponents of diverting millions of dollars from official coffers.
The office of prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud did not disclose details of the investigation involving the family. But it said the travel ban applied to Mubarak, his wife Suzanne, his two sons and their wives.


The pro-government newspaper Al Ahram, citing military sources, reported on its Web site Monday that the former president's son Gamal Mubarak had been stopped by the military Sunday when he attempted to leave the country.
News of the sanctions, and the possibility that they could lead to a formal prosecution, gave a boost to activists who had grown frustrated with what they see as the slow pace of reforms since Mubarak's fall. While the delay may have allowed the former ruling family time to conceal some of its wealth, an official sanction of any kind against the man who dominated the government for three decades was welcome news, they said.
"It's important, even just symbolically," said Hala Mustafa, editor of Democracy Review, an Egyptian quarterly. "It's hard to imagine the government would ask Interpol to go and find him if he left, but at least it shows they understand what happened here was a real revolution," she said. "Now they need to go further."
In Tarhir Square, center of the massive uprising that forced Mubarak from office, the development was greeted as a victory, even if an incremental one.
"We pressured the government to do this and the government responded," said Ahmed Muhammed Zayed, who had been sleeping under a suspended blanket in the square for two nights. "That is why we need to pressure them some more. This is a drop in the ocean."
Experts in the field said tracking down Mubarak's millions is not as easy as simply freezing his assets, or those of his family. Just finding the assets can be time-consuming because they likely are hidden in shell companies and entities incorporated in countries known as tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions, they said.
After Mubarak was forced out of office, Switzerland sent notices to banks with a list of Mubarak family names and asked that their assets be seized. But specialists in the area said it is likely that many, if not most, accounts are not in the family name.
"It isn't sitting all in one account where they can go and freeze it," said Jack D. Smith, a former U.S. banking regulator who is now a law professor at George Washington University. "If you don't get it quickly, stuff that's not frozen disappears. You have to ask the banks to help you, but it can be done. I'll bet you a lot of banks are still looking."
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The legal process of returning them to Egypt could take years, Smith said. Cases involving other leaders have taken longer than a decade.


Estimates of Mubarak's wealth have ranged between $1 billion and $70 billion, and Smith said most are likely wild guesses.
Between 2000 and 2008, about $57.2 billion flowed out of Egypt because of graft and corruption, according to Global Financial Integrity, a program of the nonprofit Center for International Policy. Economists at the nonprofit have developed a methodology to track criminal flow of money from countries globally based upon worldwide figures reported to agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. But the data are for the country as a whole and do not show individual transfers.
The overall number, about $6.4 billion a year, is a staggering number compared with the average income of about $2 a day in Egypt. Yet it places Egypt at No. 21 on a ranking of illicit capital leaving countries. China, Russia and Mexico top the list, and in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar rank ahead of Egypt.


Numbers for Libya are incomplete because the country does not report balance of payments and trade data to the IMF, the group said.
Global Financial Integrity economist Dev Kar estimate that corrupt funds flowing from the Middle East and North Africa between 2000 and 2008 outpaced the world's other regions of developing countries. But the region still trails Asia for overall siphoning of money from domestic economies.


Mubarak is not the first member of his ruling clique to face investigation by the interim government. Several former ministers, party leaders and businessmen close to Mubarak have been jailed in the last two weeks on charges that include money laundering and profiteering.


But neither those arrests nor the fledgling investigation into Mubarak himself have been enough to satisfy protesters, who have remained massed in central Cairo by the hundreds. Even as students returned to class over the weekend and the Egyptian stock exchange was slated to open Tuesday, activists have called for faster changes. The list of demands they have been pressing includes the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, a former Mubarak ally, the release of political prisoners and the arrest of those who opened fire on protesters early in the revolt.


On Monday, one of the leading protest groups threatened to cut off negotiations with the military council running the interim government unless it agreed to a timetable for its key demands.


Following a five-hour meeting with the council over the weekend, the Coalition for Revolution Youth gave officials two days to set a schedule or face the return of huge crowds in the streets, according to a posting on its Facebook page.


"In the event that a timeline is not set in response to said demands," the statement said, "the coalition will stop all negotiations with the supreme council and will work with the masses of revolutionaries in Egypt to pressure for their achievement."


hendrixs@washpost.com Grimaldi reported from Washington.
(source:the washingtonpost)
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