Magnus Carlsen

Magnus playing against Viswanathan Anand, in the final game on November 22, 2013, which ended in remis, and making Magnus world champion, 6.5-3.5


  Magnus, at 12, in 2003, beating 18 out of 19 opponents in Tønsberg      
.                                                                       Map of Oslo and Oslofjord area

Like me, Magnus Carlsen was born in Tønsberg, Norway, and grew up in the surrounding region.   Yesterday, not only did he become the firsst Norwegian to become world champion in regular chess, but also the first in the Nordic countries to do so.  In 2009 he became the youngest champion ever in speed chess, only 19 years old.  He will turn 23 on November 30, a week from today.  

Both his parents are engineers.  His father was engineer at the Esso refinery, close to the area marked A in the map above, where the family lived till Magnus was six years and a half, when they moved to Bærum, a suburb to Oslo, the national capital.  

A chess prodigy, in 2004 Carlsen became a grandmaster at the age of 13 years, 148 days, making him, at that time, the second youngest grandmaster in history, although he has since become the third youngest.

Carlsen defeated former World Champion Anatoly Karpov on 17 March, 2004. The blitz tournament was a preliminary event leading up to a rapid knockout tournament beginning the next day. In that event, Carlsen was paired with Garry Kasparov, then the top-rated player in the world. Carlsen achieved a draw in their first game and lost the second one, and was thus knocked out of the tournament.  As a 16 year-old, in 2007, he beat Veselin Topalov, the top-ranked player.  In 2009 he became world champion in rapid chess, the youngest of all time.

As you can readily see from his history and record, he is not a "flash in the pants" kind of guy:  In 2006 he was ranked among the world's top 100 players.  As 19 year-old, in 2010,  he  was ranked as the top world player himself.  On the January 2013 FIDE rating list, Carlsen reached 2861, thus surpassing Garry Kasparov's 2851 record from July 1999, more than 13 years earlier.

In 2008 he was interviewed by Tønsbergs Blad, a local newspaper, in which he said that he had enjoyed a great adolescence in his hometown, as did I.  Like him I played a lot of soccer, and swam in the sea, with many good friends.  These things make for an important building block in life.  He characterized his hometown as a pleasant city, and so would I.   I will always cherish the first 20 years of my life that I spent there, and it was nice to see it again last summer, during a one-day visit, which you can view in this YouTube video, if you have not already done so:  my hometown. Toward the end of that video you will see tankers at the refinery, where Magnus' father used to work.

Supranational law and the U.S.

You may well have failed to read Karen de Young's article, Judge backs Obama administration on secrecy of targeted killings of terrorism suspects, in The Washington Post, on January 3, 2013.  However, it raises a couple of very important important issues, the first of which is: whether the U.S. (Obama) administration has the right to refuse to disclose information about its target killings of terrorism suspects, including the 2011 drone strikes that killed three U.S. citizens in Yemen.

Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the administration acted lawfully.  

She found that the administration's arguments sufficiently compelling that "public statements made by Obama and others had referred only to the broad outlines of their legal rationale, including international covenants on armed combat and a 2001 congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against al-Qaeda and associated organizations, but had not referred to any specific operations or documents.  She therefore granted the government's request for a summary judgment against the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the New York Times. 

She acknowledged, however, having been confronted with a "veritable Castch-22" of security rules that allow the executive branch to declare legal "actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret."

She added that "The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me."

The ACLU lawsuit, filed last February, said the Justice and Defense Departments and the CIA were illegally using secrecy claims to deny requests in 2010 for information about the legal basis for the killings and the selection process for targets.  The suit cited public comments made by President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and other officials about the drone program in arguing that the government could not credibly claim a secrecy defense

McMahon wrote that "the case raised constitutional questions about executive power" and "whether  we are indeed a nation of laws, not of men.  The administration has engaged in public discussion of the legality of targeted killing, even of citizens, but in cryptic and imprecise ways."

This case raises, however, a much higher issue than that raised by ACLU and the New York Times, and dealt with by McMahon, and that is international law or more precisely supranational law.  

The first paragraph of this Wikipedia article states it quite clearly:  "Supranational law is a form of international law.  It is distinguished from public internationa law because in supranational law nations explicitly submit their rights to make judicial decisions by treaty to a set of common tribunal.  The United Nations Security Council and subordinate organizations such as the International Court of Justice are the only globally accepted supranational tribunals."

Currently there is no international set-up that would deal with cases such as the terrorist suspects referred to in the first paragraph above. The judicial organ that comes closest is the International Criminal Court (ICC).

ICC is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression (although it cannot, until at least 2017, exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression).

Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nüremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, U.N. Doc. A/CN.4/SER.A/1950/Add.1 (1950) clearly manifests through its Principle V that "Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law."

Many states wanted to add terrorism and drug trafficking to the list of crimes covered by the Rome Statute; however, the states were unable to agree on a definition for terrorism and it was decided not to include drug trafficking as this might overwhelm the Court's limited resources.

Moreover, three nations - the U.S., Israel, and Sudan, have informed the UN Secretary General that they no longer intend to become states parties and, as such, have no legal obligations arising from their former representatives' signature of the Statute.

41 nations, among them major states, such as China and India, have neither signed nor ratified the Rome statute, and a further 32 countries, including Russia, have signed but not ratified it.

The Court can generally exercise jurisdiction only in three cases, viz. if the accused is a national of a state party, if the alleged crime took place on the territory of a state party or if a situation is referred to the Court by the United Nations Security Council. It is designed to complement existing national judicial systems: it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes.Primary responsibility to investigate and punish crimes is therefore left to individual states.

Well, we have seen too many occations when the Americans have taken "justice" in their own hands and just liquidated terrorist suspects on their wanted lists, as they did not want to wait till their targeted people were apprehended and brought before the court. We have also seen numerous cases where suspects have been held prisoners at Guantanamo for years, without getting a chance of having their cases heard before a tribunal.

The on-line magazine Salon reported in an article titled The killing of Awlaki’s 16-year-old son on October 11, 2011 that "Two weeks after the U.S. killed American citizen Anwar Awlaki with a drone strike in Yemen — far from any battlefield and with no due process — it did the same to his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, ending the teenager’s life on Friday along with his 17-year-old cousin and seven other people. News reports, based on government sources, originally claimed that Awlaki’s son was 21 years old and an Al Qaeda fighter (needless to say, as Terrorist often means: “anyone killed by the U.S.”), but a birth certificate published by The Washington Post proved that he was born only 16 years ago in Denver. As The New Yorker‘s Amy Davidson wrote: “Looking at his birth certificate, one wonders what those assertions say either about the the quality of the government’s evidence — or the honesty of its claims — and about our own capacity for self-deception.” The boy’s grandfather said that he and his cousin were at a barbecue and preparing to eat when the U.S. attacked them by air and ended their lives. There are two points worth making about this:

(1) It is unknown whether the U.S. targeted the teenager or whether he was merely “collateral damage.” The reason that’s unknown is because the Obama administration refuses to tell us. Said the Post: “The officials would not discuss the attack in any detail, including who the target was.” So here we have yet again one of the most consequential acts a government can take — killing one of its own citizens, in this case a teenage boy — and the government refuses even to talk about what it did, why it did it, what its justification is, what evidence it possesses, or what principles it has embraced in general for such actions. Indeed, it refuses even to admit it did this, since it refuses even to admit that it has a drone program at all and that it is engaged in military action in Yemen. It’s just all shrouded in total secrecy.

Of course, the same thing happened with the killing of Awlaki himself. The Executive Branch decided it has the authority to target U.S. citizens for death without due process, but told nobody (until it was leaked) and refuses to identify the principles that guide these decisions. It then concluded in a secret legal memo that Awlaki specifically could be killed, but refuses to disclose what it ruled or in which principles this ruling was grounded. And although the Obama administration repeatedly accused Awlaki of having an “operational role” in Terrorist plots, it has — as Davidson put it — “so far kept the evidence for that to itself.”

The author of this article, Glenn Greenwald, goes on to say " Even with Senators in the President’s own party warning that the administration’s secret interpretation of its domestic surveillance powers under the Patriot Act is so warped and radical that it would shock the public if they knew, Obama officials simply refuse even to release its legal memos setting forth how it is interpreting those powers.

Greenwald's excellent article brings up several excellent questions, however, in my view it is best to deal with them separately, in another post or two.

Before concluding this post, however, I want to briefly mention Israel and its use of drones, which I consider a very special case, as I consider it more of a proper retaliatory measure, to stem the assaults from Hamas, but more about that later.

Obesity becoming a problem in China

Debra Brun opens her extremely interesting and informative article, In China, obesity becomes a problem that’s foreign to survivors of its great famine, published by the Washington Post, on December 31, 2012, with the following words:
"Older people in China remember the Great Famine of 1958-61, when 15 million to 45 million people died of hunger and related causes."

Today, nearly every street corner in Beijing and many other cities seems to boast a McDonald’s. There are KFC outlets (see photo below) in almost every Chinese city, 3,700 in all. Meanwhile, newly minted members of the Chinese middle class have rushed to buy cars, leaving bicycles that were once a major source of exercise rusting on the street. Pizza Hut is considered a fancy date-night restaurant, T.G.I. Friday’s has several branches in Beijing, and cans of Coca-Cola are sold at every corner stand.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the percentage of adults who are overweight and obese rose from 25% in 2002 to 38.5% in 2010, a perriod of just 8 years, in a population of 1.37 billion. Urban dwellers account for much of this. WHO projects that 50 to 57% of the Chinese population will be too heavy by 2015. (By comparison, 69% of Americans age, 20 and older, are overweight or obese.) Frightening figures, indeed, and a disturbing development. In a very short time the Chinese will not only have caught up with the Americans in terms of their economy, but also in terms of being overweight and obese.

There’s a standing joke, notes Lyn Wren, a physician with International SOS Beijing Clinic, that “Chinese waistlines are growing faster than the GDP.”

The onset of obesity has been even more explosive than the national economic growth. Even as recently as five years ago, obesity wasn’t recognized as a problem by health professionals in China.

The Chinese Health Ministry claims to have introduced healthful eating programs in schools and the construction of more playgrounds to promote exercise, but nationwide campaigns about eating healthfully and exercising are not evident.

More importantly, officials have failed to get their priorities right. When Paul French, a Shanghai-based author of “Fat China: How Expanding Waistlines are Changing a Nation.” spoke with officials he was told that "Right now we’re trying to tell them to do and not do a lot of things, such as not spitting on the street, not dropping trash everywhere and not driving 'like complete idiots.”

Moreover, although the era of famine is long past, many grandparents and parents still push their children to eat a lot.

Setsuko Hosoda, a family doctor at Beijing United Family Hospital, says the parents and grandparents she sees are “always worried that their child is not eating enough.” A 2012 Penn State study of 176 Chinese children ages 6 to 18 found that 72% of mothers of overweight children thought their children were normal or underweight.

Sissi Zhong, a 26-year-old Beijing secretary, recalls that her grandparents got angry if she left food on her plate when she was a child. “They said, ‘Do you know, in my time of food shortages, people didn’t have food, so how can you waste your food?’ ” Zhong says. So she cleaned her plate even if she was very full.

When her father came home from business trips with boxes of a Chinese soft drink called Jianlibao, she started to put on weight. Drinking four and five cans a day made her weight jump to 143 pounds by the time she was 18. At 5-foot-3, that would put her barely into the “overweight” category by U.S. standards, but she was miserable, getting kicked off her school’s dance team for being too fat and being teased by boys who liked her skinnier pals. Today, Zhong says she spends many hours at the gym to stay slim.

Obesity has tended to be an issue that grows along with affluence. Prosperity means bigger paychecks, which can mean more meat, fast foods and bigger meals. Meanwhile, long hours at desk or factory jobs instead of agricultural ones mean less physical activity. The obesity problem is primarily an urban one in a population that is rapidly urbanizing.

China also has particular problems associated with contaminted food, that tend to add to the obesity problem. A recent study found that scares about contaminated milk, fruit and vegetables have made consumers feel more safe buying and eating packaged foods, which are perceived to be less tainted. If it’s packaged and done by Nestle, they’re thinking and hoping that there is not going to be poison” in the food. Yet, the fat and sugar content of many packaged foods is often much higher than that of fresh food.

Additionally, the Chinese often display an odd fascination for obesity. Two years ago, a shopping mall in the city of Shenyang held an obesity competition to celebrate International Women’s Day. Contestants stood onstage in frilly white wedding dresses.

Like many people in western nations, Chinese are turning to surgical solutions for weight loss. Huiqi Yang, a general surgeon at Beijing United Family Hospital, has just started offering an operation in which an adjustable band is surgically tied around the stomach to constrict it, leading patients to eat less. Chinese doctors have been doing such bariatric surgeries for 15 years, but Yang says there is a growing interest in gastric surgery. She said she performed about 100 gastric-band surgeries in recent years at her previous hospital, in the city of Tianjin.

Meanwhile, as obesity rises so do the ills associated with it.

A recent World Bank report said diabetes, heart disease and hypertension are among several noncommunicable diseases threatening China and other countries. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that there are 92.3 million diabetics in China. No other country has as many diabetics — not surprising, given that China is the most populous country in the world — and even China’s outgoing president, Hu Jintao, is rumored to have diabetes.

Transformed church

When you see this building you immediately think that it an old church, and it used to be, dating back to 1928.  However, this old Dutch Reformed evangelical church in Harloo, outside Veldhoven in the Netherlands, has been transformed into a modern family home, thanks to the architects at Leijh Kappelhof Sechel van den Dobbelsteen.

 Clicking on the image below will connect you to the video that I have created and uploaded to YouTube, and which shows the transformation that has taken place.

Building exterior

It was important to both the new owners of this former church, as well as to the architects that much of what was old and unique with respect to this building should be retained.  Most of the old building was in good condition with respect to its technical construction.  Only the facade and the tower required some restauration.   

The family that bought the building was particularly taken with its size, its location in an idyllic part of the residential area in the outskirts of the town , and the great details of the woodwork in the ceiling.  The old doors and the windows with their coloured glass remained intact.  

The family also did not want to divide the space too much, to retain the unique feeling of room and space.  The church measured 1,100 m³.

By keeping as much of the rooms open, as possible, and avoiding unnecessary walls, maximized the day light that flows through the building. 

The architects describe that the concept of this project was to strip back, isolate, and furnish the place.

The result represents, in every way, the motto of the family that lives there:  "Take care of your inner child, live simply, play, explore, and always remain somewhat naughty."

Few additions were built into the big open space within the church.  It was a deliberate choice to avoid filling up the residence with rooms.

The objective was to minimize the need to live over many different rooms, but a mezzanine was built to create a more private and relaxing zone, with a sofa area, bedroom area, and bath.

The most noticeable interior detail in the big room is the unique, specially built staircase, seen below:

Staircase

The staircase is both essential and a distinguishing feaure of the house.

Not only does it function as a room divider, but it also hides a room and functions as wardrobe cabinet, cot (small storage space), and a built-in kitchen. In addition one of the walls functions as an exhibition wall, where the family can display its big collection of modern art.

The most striking aspect of this special staircase - which leads up to the mezzanine, and a little corner, where you can seek some rest and quiet, on your own - is the colour, deep red.  Deep red, is a colour often associated with sin and lust., not normally found in a church.  

The choice of colour was that of the married couple, that thought that it would be both exciting and a humourous feature of the interior.

The red colour is also found in other details of the house.  The main colour is without a doubt white, but in addition colours such as dark grey and materials like concrete and wood are used.

All materials used in the house are simple, fuctional and economic.

The floors are concrete, and original wooden boards from the church were used to cover the stairway steps.  In the kitchen a lot of stainless steel was used, and in places glass was used to maintain the flow of room andlight, but also because it fit in with the simple and tight expression desired.

There is no doubt that the project to create a residence of the church shows both humour, respect for the building, love for design, and not least creativity.

This is reflected in the name of the staircase - Starway to have fun, the swing with the print Swinging sister, and not least the Holy Shit print on the toilet (see photo below).  Note the cross on the wall, with the words Holy Shit.  These people do not take things too seriously.

Holy shit

 In the garden outside there is a gang of wooden sheep to represent the bible's "Lost Sheep".

The garden is also modern, with flower pots made of bricks, left over from the restauration of the building.

The shed is made from an old container.  It is integrated in the wooden fence, and has been given a grass-covered roof, which also can be used as a garden.