World's Most Expensive Cities To Live

 

Twenty spots where it's hardest to make ends meet.

The ride on a bus or subway in Tokyo costs $3.25. Grab a newspaper and a cup of coffee on the way and the total comes to $11.70. That's more than anywhere else in the world--24% more than what those same things cost in New York, even.

Tokyo is the world's most expensive city, according to Mercer's 2009 Worldwide Cost of Living survey released today, with the cost of living up 13.1% from 2008; the city ranked at No. 2 in 2008's survey. Japan's capital is followed by Osaka and Moscow, which held the top spot in last year's rankings. Geneva comes in fourth.

Yahoo! BuzzThe significant changes from last year are due to massive swings in exchange rates, with many currencies at their weakest in years against the U.S. dollar, during the March 2009 survey period. Because of this, New York moved up 14 spaces to No. 8 from No. 22. London dropped to No. 16 from No. 3 as the pound dropped as low as 1.37 against the U.S. dollar during the study period. Six months earlier, one pound was worth $1.86.

"Changes in exchange rate tend to be one of the major drivers, I would argue the major driver, in cost of living," says Rebecca Powers, a principal consultant at Mercer.

Even with the U.S. dollar weakening over the past four months--it's now worth $1.65--due in part to the Obama administration's stimulus package, the cost of living in London, when measured against the value of the U.S. dollar, is significantly lower than it was a year ago, when the pound was worth more than $2.

All U.S. cities included in the ranking also experienced a rise, including Los Angeles, up 32 places, and Washington, D.C., up 41 places.

Report By ARSALAN JILANI

Chocolate is Yummy and Funny

If you are feeling depressed, then reaching for a bar of chocolate will put the smile back on your face. There is now a definitive link between chocolate and your mood, say a group of US based researchers.


Scientific Proof Exists That Chocolate is Good For You
Dr. Natalie Rose from the University of California along with her colleagues observed that depressed people ate about 8 servings of candy whereas cheerful people ate only about 5 servings of chocolate over a similar period of time. Severely depressed people ate about 11 servings. One serving equates to 1 ounce of chocolate or just a small bar.

          Yummy By ARSALAN JILANI          

The Man With No Face

For the past 35 years, 51 year-old Jose Mestre, from Lisbon, has been losing his face to a massive growth, distorting it out of all recognition – and it's still growing. 

The tumour on Jose's face is a vascular malformation, a collection of blood vessels that have expanded, producing a raised red area on the skin. Jose was born with a strawberry-coloured birth mark on his upper lip; at puberty his face started growing, eventually smothering his lips, nose and one of his eyes.  It's now about 33cm long and weighs around 3kg.

The Man with No Face meets the man behind the 'mask' and attempts to understand what it is like to have such an affliction. How does he cope with day to day life - with  the stares, the ridicule and people taking photographs?

Surrounded by a loving family, it seems incredible that he has not been treated and his face was allowed to grow so big. However, through years of medical misinformation, some misdiagnosis, lack of finances, and reluctance to undergo treatment due to religious beliefs, the growth has continued to obliterate his face.

My Shocking Story follows Jose on a journey through Europe to seek medical advice for one last chance to stop his face from suffocating him. In this journey of a lifetime he will discover the truth about his condition, as he travels by train, via Paris, to Britain, to meet the top experts in London. He will go through a series of tests, consultations, and meet other patients with a similar affliction.  Here he will also spend time with his brother and the rest of his family, enjoy being a tourist in London, while making the biggest decision of his life:

Jose's dream is to live a long and normal life. Will he decide to change his religious beliefs, and risk an operation to remove his malformation, or will he decide against surgery and accept that he will continue living the rest of his life without a face?

Arsalan Jilani has collected some more links to this shocking story.

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My Message

We must respect all the people in this world without discrimination of age, gender, religion etc. I saw full documentary of Mr. Mestre and really shocked when I saw that people treat him as Alien, taking photos, making videos etc. He is also a normal person like us and wanted to do job, play football and live life like us.

          Cover By Arsalan Jilani          

David Beckham

     SOME PEOPLE ARE BORN TO PLAY FOOTBALL     

After attending the Bobby Charlton Soccer School aged 11, impressing coaches with his natural ability (and becoming skills champion for his age group), David’s future was effectively secured when he signed for Manchester United as a trainee in 1991.

Following a short spell on loan at Preston North End, David fulfilled a dream when he made his Premier League debut with Manchester United in 1995 against Leeds. During the 1996/97 season, he famously scored from the halfway line (a feat not even the great Pele accomplished) against Wimbledon.

By the turn of the millennium, David was a household name. Not only as a treble winner with United, but also as a world renowned free-kick specialist and an England regular.

It was only a matter of time before he was granted the England captaincy, a major achievement and personal milestone for the player.

Now regarded as one of the world’s premier footballers and a hero to fans across the globe, he has established The David Beckham Academy in both London and Los Angeles, an exciting new football school focusing on the development of young players.

Through hard work and determination David realised his dream to be a professional footballer. It’s a journey that has taken him around the world to play on the greatest footballing stages for some of the biggest clubs.

And it is a journey that is not yet over….

     HIGHLIGHTED BY ARSALAN JILANI     

7 Things to Stop Doing Now on Facebook

Following are the 7 things that should be avoided on Facebook otherwise it would be not safe for you and for your love ones.

1. Using a Weak Password

Avoid simple names or words you can find in a dictionary, even with numbers tacked on the end. Instead, mix upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. A password should have at least eight characters. One good technique is to insert numbers or symbols in the middle of a word, such as this variant on the word "houses": hO27usEs!

             2. Leaving Your Full Birth Date in Your Profile             

It's an ideal target for identity thieves, who could use it to obtain more information about you and potentially gain access to your bank or credit card account. If you've already entered a birth date, go to your profile page and click on the Info tab, then on Edit Information. Under the Basic Information section, choose to show only the month and day or no birthday at all.

3. Overlooking Useful Privacy Controls

For almost everything in your Facebook profile, you can limit access to only your friends, friends of friends, or yourself. Restrict access to photos, birth date, religious views, and family information, among other things. You can give only certain people or groups access to items such as photos, or block particular people from seeing them. Consider leaving out contact info, such as phone number and address, since you probably don't want anyone to have access to that information anyway.

4. Posting Your Child's Name in a Caption

Don't use a child's name in photo tags or captions. If someone else does, delete it by clicking on Remove Tag. If your child isn't on Facebook and someone includes his or her name in a caption, ask that person to remove the name.

5. Mentioning That You'll Be Away From Home

That's like putting a "no one's home" sign on your door. Wait until you get home to tell everyone how awesome your vacation was and be vague about the date of any trip.

6. Letting Search Engines Find You

To help prevent strangers from accessing your page, go to the Search section of Facebook's privacy controls and select Only Friends for Facebook search results. Be sure the box for public search results isn't checked.

7. Permitting Youngsters to Use Facebook Unsupervised

Facebook limits its members to ages 13 and over, but children younger than that do use it. If you have a young child or teenager on Facebook, the best way to provide oversight is to become one of their online friends. Use your e-mail address as the contact for their account so that you receive their notifications and monitor their activities. "What they think is nothing can actually be pretty serious," says Charles Pavelites, a supervisory special agent at the Internet Crime Complaint Center. For example, a child who posts the comment "Mom will be home soon, I need to do the dishes" every day at the same time is revealing too much about the parents' regular comings and goings.

          Research By Arsalan Jilani          

Iran sentences Bahari to 13 years in prison, 74 lashes

New York, May 10, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a 13-year prison sentence handed down to Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari in absentia on Sunday.

Newsweek correspondent Bahari, who was held in detention for four months on manufactured anti-state charges in 2009, was sentenced by a Tehran Revolutionary Court on Sunday to 13 years in prison, in addition to 74 lashes.

Bahari received a sentence of five years in prison for “congregation and mutiny with the intent to commit crimes against national security,” four years for “collecting and keeping confidential and classified documents,” one year for “propagation against the regime,” two years for “insulting the [Supreme] Leader,” six months for “insulting the President,” and one year and 74 lashes for “disruption of public order.” 

Authorities interrogated Bahari for four months, he told CPJ, and coerced him to “confess” to a host of serious criminal acts on Iranian television. He was then convicted for an entirely different set of crimes.

“We condemn the conviction of Maziar Bahari,” said CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, Mohamed Abdel Dayem. “Bahari’s trial bears absolutely no resemblance to a legal process. The sentence is arbitrary and punitive and is unrelated to the initial charges, which were themselves falsified. The conviction is a reminder to us that the dozens of Iranian journalists who remain in jail are at the mercy of a cruel and vindictive regime.”

Bahari has been part of an international campaign that includes CPJ called “Our Society Will Be a Free Society,” advocating for the release of imprisoned Iranian journalists and writers, and has made numerous statements and appearances on their behalf.

Today CPJ and the Overseas Press Club of America sent a letter to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling on him to bring an end to a nearly year-long campaign of harassment and intimidation of critical Iranian journalists working domestically and abroad. The letter was signed by nearly 200 prominent media figures who attended the Overseas Press Club’s awards ceremony in New York on April 22.

 

          Cover By Arsalan Jilani          

Inside Sandra Bullock's New $2.25 Million Mansion

 

When Sandra Bullock revealed in last month's jaw-dropping cover story in People that she'd adopted a baby boy from New Orleans, she spoke about raising him there, saying: "It's his city." Just a few weeks later, the actor  and single mom followed through on that promise. Bullock recently moved herself and baby Louis into a historic Victorian mansion in the city's Garden District.

The mansion, known as the Koch-Mays house, was built in the 1860s. It boasts 6,615 square feet, five bedrooms, four and a half baths, ornate chandeliers, and a lagoon-like pool in the backyard. Bullock bought the house for $2.25 million last June with her now-estranged husband, Jesse James. (She filed for divorce from James in April.)
Dramatic photos of the mansion, which were posted on a real estate site after her June 2009 purchase of the home, show rooms bedecked with opulent antique furniture, Victorian wallpaper, and huge, gold Gothic mirrors. But Bullock has most likely filled the home with her own décor by now: Moving vans were spotted late last month moving furniture, including a leather sofa, into the mansion.