Who said it: tech CEO or communist leader? Take our quiz

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This week Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to advance human potential and promote equality. But hes not the only tech billionaire in a Che Guevara shirt

Capitalism is catechism in Silicon Valley. The civic religion is entrepreneurism and evangelism is a marketing tool. But for an industry that worships at the altars of the marketplace, the rhetoric of billionaires has gotten a bit confusing.

Just this week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his latest plans to invest $3bn from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, an organization whose mission statement Our hopes for the future center on two ideas: advancing human potential and promoting equality would not sound out of place coming out of the mouth of a die-hard communist.

Zuckerberg is not the only billionaire who sounds like he has a Che Guevara shirt in his closet. Take our quiz and see if you can tell the source of the quote: techie or communist?

We have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

In every struggle for human dignity and social justice in every struggle for better wages and working conditions, against racism and patriarchy, for protecting our living environment, and for our rights to adequate health, education, and housing (among our other needs), the concept of human development is implicit.

Workers rights are human rights.

Childhood should not be spent in a factory.

Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.

Working too many hours isnt just unfair, its unsafe.

We pave the sunlit path toward justice together, brick by brick. This is my brick.

The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

The system is that there is no system.

If we have a correct theory but merely prate about it, pigeonhole it and do not put it into practice, then that theory, however good, is of no significance.

Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution!

The most fundamental issue is economic equality.

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.

You got

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/23/quiz-who-said-it-a-techie-or-a-communist

Period pain affects ‘most women workers’ – BBC News

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Image copyright Own picture
Image caption Nancy Eccles says painful periods contributed to her decision to leave full-time work

Most women workers have experienced period pain that affects their ability to work, a survey suggests.

A YouGov survey of 1,000 women for BBC Radio 5 live’s Emma Barnett programme found 52% had, but only 27% had told their boss period pain was responsible.

Of the 52%, nearly a third had taken at least a day’s sick leave as a result. And one doctor has suggested employers should offer “menstrual leave”.

Nine out of 10 of the women reported having period pain at some point.

‘Suffering in silence’

Dr Gedis Grudzinskas, a London-based consultant gynaecologist, said women should be more open about period pain – and employers more understanding.

She added: “Menstruation is normal, but some women suffer terribly and they suffer in silence.

“I don’t think women should be shy about it, and companies should be accommodating with leave for women who are struggling with painful periods.”

‘I always soldiered on’

Nancy Eccles left full-time work partly because of her painful periods.

“Two weeks before my period I cry at the drop of a hat, feel low, think the world is ending and feel overwhelmed by everything,” she says.

“As soon as I ovulate, there is a surge in progesterone and I fly into rages at the most trivial thing.

“I always soldiered on at work, but in my last two years of teaching full-time, I struggled to get through an hour’s lesson before I had to go to the toilet and change myself.”

The 48-year-old teacher and maths tutor has suffered from PMS (premenstrual syndrome) and painful periods since she was a teenager.

She is now due to have a hysterectomy to remove her womb.

Fiona Morrison, an employment lawyer at Brodies LLP in Aberdeen, said, in some cases, severe period pain could be considered a disability.

“Under UK law, if someone is in extreme pain and it is stopping them from working effectively, a tribunal could say that this woman is disabled,” she said.

“It is judged on the impact on the woman without treatment or painkillers.

“This is about extreme cases of severe pain,” she added, “and it would always be case specific, so I can’t see it opening the floodgates on claims.”

‘I want to be old with hair on my chin’

Image copyright Own picture

Katy Wheatley, 44, is a former marketing executive who has struggled with period pain for all of her adult life.

“For me, migraines are the real killer,” she says. “I can go blind in one eye as part of the migraine, and sometimes in both. You don’t get much notice.

“When I was employed full-time, I would dose up on pain relief on bad months, use heat pads [and] take changes of clothes.”

Ms Wheatley, who is now a blogger, says: “I gave up work after my third child was born because of the childcare costs, but I do worry that it will be an issue if I return to the workplace.”

She says GPs refuse to offer her a hysterectomy.

“They say I’m too young. I go away and, when it’s bad again, I go and beg them again – and they refuse again,” she says.

“I must be one of the few people really looking forward to old age.

“I want to be old with hair on my chin – and no periods.”

Dr Grudzinskas said one option was to offer female employees “menstrual leave”, already granted to women in countries such as Japan.

“Menstrual leave would make people feel more happy and comfortable in the workplace, which is a positive thing,” she said.

“There is also a lack of awareness about when painful periods mean that something is going wrong, like endometriosis.

“People forget that women make up half the workforce.

“If they feel supported, it will be a happy and productive workforce.”

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37438767

How Li Na and the $225 million Wuhan Open took on the world

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London (CNN)Take one of Asia’s biggest sports stars, a multimillion dollar investment and a Chinese city determined to compete domestically and internationally and what do you have?

The Wuhan Open.
    The tennis tournament, which starts Sunday in the hometown of Asia’s first major singles winner Li Na, is only in its third year.
    Yet it has spent 1.5 billion renminbi ($225 million) on facilities that wouldn’t look out of place at any of the four majors and the entire women’s top 10 are due to take part.
    “This is very much a city branding exercise,” professor Simon Shibli, head of Sheffield Hallam University’s Sports Industry Research Centre in England, said in a phone interview.

    Li

    Big sports events

    “Shanghai and Beijing have done it and so have places like Bahrain and Qatar. They realize that there is a global market and appetite for big sports events,” such as tennis, Formula One and soccer.
    The event, owned by sports management and marketing agency Octagon, replaced Tokyo as one of the tour’s Premier 5 — a step down from the WTA’s Premier Mandatory tournaments. It was leased for 15 years to the Wuhan Sports Development Investment Co.
    Last year, in an area that was far from developed three years ago, the Wuhan Open built a 1 billion renminbi ($150 million) state-of-the-art center court, complete with retractable roof, modeled on the Australian Open. It can accommodate 15,000 tennis fans, as many as Wimbledon’s Centre Court.

    “New frontier”

    None of it would have been possible without Li’s victory at the 2011 French Open.
    “It was the new frontier for tennis in China, a new era,” Fabrice Chouquet, co-tournament director of the Wuhan Open, said in a phone interview. “What was not possible before, became possible then.”
    “She has made tennis so popular in China,” Chouquet said about Li, the two-time grand slam singles winner.
    “It really has taken the game to the next level, at the level of basketball, and the national sports such as badminton and table tennis.”
    According to the International Tennis Federation there are nearly 15 million tennis players in China. In comparison, almost 10 million people in the US play at least 10 times a year.

    Economic powerhouse

    Located at the convolution of the Yangtze and Han rivers in Hubei province, central China, Wuhan is using sports as a way to put itself on the map.
    However the city of 10 million played an important role in China’s economic and cultural history and has a long track record as a trading hub due to its central location.
    Wuhan is rapidly becoming an economic powerhouse that is outpacing national economic growth rates thanks to its fast-growing automotive industry — Nissan, Honda and Peugeot Citroen all have joint ventures in Wuhan with Dongfeng Motor, title sponsor of the tournament — high-tech industries and trade links.
    The Wuhan Open, won by Venus Williams last year, is the first international top-level sports event held in the capital of Hubei. Wuhan is also home to the country’s first college of tennis. Tennis is one of three sports — soccer and swimming are the other two — that are taught in local schools.

    Venus

    “We want more tennis fans to come to tournaments, and want more companies to come to Wuhan,” Yi Guoqing, Wuhan’s other tournament director, said in an interview during the French Open in Paris in May.
    The event attracted 75,000 fans in the inaugural edition of 2014, when it was won by two-time Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova. That year, however, Li retired from tennis on the eve of the tournament due to chronic knee injuries, two-time grand slam champion Victoria Azarenka withdrew due to injury and Serena Williams retired from her opener because of illness.
    Williams hinted to CNN in an interview this week she wouldn’t be returning to the circuit anytime soon after sustaining a knee injury at the US Open, putting her participation in Wuhan next week in doubt.
    After tripling the size of its 5,000-seat main stadium in 2015, it welcomed 120,000 visitors last year. Yi forecast 130,000 spectators in 2016.

    Revolution

    In 1911, an uprising in Wuhan ended up overthrowing the Qing dynasty, ending imperial rule in China. More than a century later, the city is planning another big bang: turning itself into a mega-city cluster of 30 million people by 2025.
    “The city’s tagline is ‘Wuhan, different every day’ and it literally is true,” said Chouquet, who spends about half of the year in the city. “Wuhan is growing, its economy is booming. It is transforming.”
    Chouquet pointed to the Optic Valley area where the Wuhan Open is located, which is “a completely new city” with a new hospital, hotels and subway all being built.
    Five years ago on the clay of Roland Garros, Li created a revolution of her own when she beat Italy’s Francesca Schiavone to become the first Chinese player to win a grand slam singles title.
    Li’s victory, which was watched by 116 million television viewers in China alone, turned her into a global star overnight and the world’s second best-paid female athlete, according to Forbes. Known for her aggressive playing style on the court and humor off it, Li also took the 2014 Australian Open title and rose to No. 2 in the world.
    Hailed as a “pioneer” by former WTA boss Stacey Allaster, Li played a pivotol role in boosting the development of the game in the world’s most populous nation. Some five million people now play tennis in China, up from one million when tennis returned to the Olympics in 1988. The WTA currently hosts eight events in China, up from two in 2008.

    Retirement

    Earlier this year, Li became a global brand ambassador for the Wuhan Open, which flew the city’s most famous resident to Paris for an event during the French Open in May.
    After playing tennis on a boat on the river Seine with fellow former French Open winner Mary Pierce, Li held a speech full of banter about her youth in Wuhan in front of an audience of French and Chinese dignitaries and dozens of members of the international press.
    “Li Na in a way is a stronger brand than Wuhan to the western world,” Shibli said. “It may sound strange, because she is one person and they are a city of 10 million. She adds to the brand value of the event. It increases the appeal of the event and of the location.”

    Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/22/sport/li-na-wuhan-open-china-tennis/index.html