Split (1)

train · 2.6M rows

text stringlengths 12 27.8k
"I don't know where I'll go -- to the kindergarten or Bezininsk prison number 5. That's where they cram in anyone who has nowhere to go. Some of our people from Keshi are staying with relatives. Where you go, how you live, no one cares. They just say ‘get out!'"
These may be pleasing additions to some Turkmen who make their home in Ashgabat. But for others, the coming attractions are already the source of bitter resentment.
That is because hundreds of capital dwellers have been ordered to vacate their homes, which will eventually be destroyed in order to make room for Turkmenbashi's grand projects.
Ashgabat's renovation project was launched in 2001. But it received a sharp push forward in June, when Niyazov visited a city suburb where residential buildings had replaced what had once been the sweeping corn and wheat fields of Soviet Turkmenistan's state farms (sovkhozi).
Turkmenbashi accused the residents of illegally seizing the land following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In a meeting with his advisers, the Turkmen president made his views on the matter clear.
"First they fall into this -- taking land. Then they build a house! They have no documents [for either the land or the house]. No one is controlling this and you aren't asking the police to do anything about it," Niyazov said. "So, who should answer for this? Right in front of your eyes, in [the neighborhood of] Baghir...
The officials set themselves to their task. And on 16 July, the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) released a statement criticizing what it said were "widespread violations of property rights on the rise outside the [Turkmen] capital."
The IHF statement said close to 900 residents living in 100 houses in the Ashgabat suburb of Keshi had received eviction notices.
The statement said the city plan also called for another 400 houses in Keshi to be "dismantled."
Furthermore, the IHF cited anecdotal evidence that appeared to indicate the Keshi residents are receiving little or no government compensation for the loss of their homes.
Aaron Rhodes is the executive director of the IHF. He tells RFE/RL it is a common scenario in countries with autocratic governments like Turkmenistan.
"These people are being forced out of their homes in order to accommodate various government projects. Like many totalitarian governments, the government of Turkmenistan has very ambitious building plans in the capital," Rhodes said. "And they require sometimes more space, and they have to displace private houses and s...
It is not clear how many Ashgabat neighborhoods beyond Baghir and Keshi are being swept away by Turkmenbashi's renovation project.
The IHF statement mentions the Bergenzi, Goekdep, Bakhardan, and Kipchak areas -- as well as the Vanov settlement and the Furjusa Gorge -- as places that are soon likely to be affected.
The Moscow-based human rights organization Memorial has also reported that last year some 500 Turkmen citizens near the Caspian port city of Turkmenbashi were illegally evicted and 100 houses demolished.
With no compensation, most of those evicted are forced to move in with relatives. Asked by RFE/RL's Turkmen Service about the eviction process, one homeless man, who has no relatives with whom he could shelter, responded this way: "First they destroyed the house. Then they tell you to leave. I don't know where I'll go ...
The demolition project is unpopular. Public protests are rare and quickly suppressed in Turkmenistan, but the Ashgabat evictions have sparked neighborhood demonstrations.
In late June and early July, the IHF said a number of women tried to appeal to the Russian Embassy, but were detained and warned not to express their opinion publicly. Later, around 70 women gathered on the main street of Keshi but were surrounded by police, threatened and told to disperse. Police detained some briefly...
In fairness, there are arguments against the residential developments in at least one neighborhood -- Baghir.
Baghir is adjacent to the ancient ruins of Nisa, once the capital of the Parthian Empire (247 B.C. to 228 A.D.). As far back as 1992, some residents in Baghir were sectioning off parcels of farm land left unused after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Some were also using bricks from the Nisa ruins to build homes on their new land. People openly admitted they had no contract for the land, or the buildings. It was, they said simply, "privatization Turkmen style."
Some observers say discontent over the neighborhood evictions has fueled the recent circulation of antigovernment leaflets in Ashgabat bazaars.
But for the time being, Turkmenbashi's urban renewal project shows no signs of slowing. The architectural ambitions of the Turkmen leader require the best locations the desert capital has to offer.
The LG watch phone has been floating around the tech world for a while, but up till now, it has existed more as concept than a reality. Well LG have just announced an actual UK release date, which means this will be available for Bond wannabes and super villains alike. So what’s inside this rather stylish shell? Well, ...
I can imagine a camera would be an appreciated add on, as people would love to take snaps secretively, but considering the dimensions you’d be looking at something very basic, with no flash. Still the G910 is a lovely looking piece of kit and you don’t even need a Bluetooth headset to use it as the watch has a built in...
They say it will be available on Orange later this year, but with no word on price plan we can only assume it will be a free on contact jobby.
Though They Now Include A Camera, Shame It’ll Cost Loads I Woulda Loved One!
Are banks equipped to replace 2,300 crore pieces of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to disallow use of existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from this midnight caught everyone by surprise. Here’s some quick numbers on the implications of this move.
According to Reserve Bank of India data, the total outstanding currency in circulation in the Indian economy as on October 28 stood at Rs 17.77 lakh crore. We don’t know how much of this comprises Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
But an indicator of what it could be can be seen from the RBI’s latest Annual Report. This data shows that out of the total Rs 16.42 lakh crore value of bank notes in circulation as on March 31, 2016, as much as Rs 14.18 lakh crore, i.e. over 86 per cent, consisted of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. In terms of volumes, out...
Simply put, the de-monetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, which is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced will happen from Tuesday night, would mean more than Rs 15 lakh crore worth of high-value legal tender being withdrawn from circulation. It is likely that the bulk of this would simply be deposited by ...
The people who would be really hit are the ones who have stored their ill-gotten wealth in the now useless Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination notes. It will be virtually impossible for them to exchange all this money or even deposit these in banks, as taking wads of Rs 1,000 notes day after day is going to at some point ...
But even for the Aam Aadmi, there will be issues. If the Rs 500 notes with him/her are deemed worthless unless re-deposited or exchanged with smaller denominations, it would either way translate into large queues before banks and post offices. The temporary disruption to trade – we are not talking here of just real est...
3 Would a Grand Alliance in UP help the SP and Congress?
TEENS are unfriending Facebook in droves as they move to cooler social media platforms, a new study says.
The percentage of American 13-to-17-year-olds on Mark Zuckerberg's social network now sits at 51 per cent, down from 71 per cent in 2015.
TheNew York Postreported that new numbers come from a Pew Research survey of teens and technology use, which found that Facebook now trails significantly behind Instagram and Snapchat - which 72 and 69 per cent of teenagers say they use, respectively.
It was a 20 per cent jump for Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, and a 28 per cent pop for Snapchat.
The most popular platform for teens, however, was the video streaming site YouTube, which 85 per cent of teens said they use for music and video.
The dip wasn't unexpected for Facebook - the social network has struggled to stay relevant with younger audiences as their parents signed up to monitor their child's social presence and stayed after the kids moved on to the visual nature of Snapchat and Instagram's picture-based services.
Facebook has attempted to stay relevant by cribbing popular features such as "stories" from Snapchat, but it has done little to move the needle.
The survey found that Facebook was popular among lower-income teens, with 70 per cent of teens living in households earning less than $US30,000 ($40,000) using Facebook, while only 36 per cent of teens in households that brought in more than $US75,000 ($99,000) used the platform.
Pew's survey reported that nearly half of the teens they surveyed say they are using the internet "almost constantly," up from 24 per cent in 2015, while 90 per cent go online multiple times a day.
But despite being online all day, every day, teens are divided on whether or not their relationships with social media are a good thing.
Pew found that 45 per cent of teens were neutral about social media's presence in their lives, while 31 per cent called it positive, and 24 said it is negative.
A teenager killed in a crash in Walsall has been named as Liam Ball.
The 17-year-old, from Malvern, died after the car he was a passenger in hit parked cars in Weston Street in the early hours of Thursday morning.
His devastated family said: "This little man left us too soon and will leave a big hole in our family and hearts, god bless you Liam."
A 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared in Dudley Magistrates' Court on Monday morning charged with causing death by dangerous driving, driving without a licence, having no insurance and failing to stop at the scene.
Two 14-year-old girls travelling in the Volkswagen Golf were also injured in the crash at 12.10am.
One suffered a broken arm and the other minor injuries.
The boy was remanded in local authority accommodation, with a electronically monitored curfew, to appear before Wolverhampton Youth Court on Wednesday morning.
Alarmed by the high death toll and level of destruction caused by the recent Bam earthquake, top policymakers are considering moving Iran's capital away from quake-prone Tehran.
"The Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) will shortly discuss a plan to move the capital from Tehran," SNSC chief Hassan Rohani was quoted as saying by the Hayat-e No newspaper.
Rohani said a plan to move the capital, which lies on a major seismological fault, was proposed by the SNSC in 1991, "but due to resistance from certain entities in the establishment, the plan was halted."
Rohani said the SNSC would update its 1991 proposal on moving the capital and submit it for consideration by the end of the current Iranian calendar year in March 2004. He did not say to where the capital could be moved.
Government spokesman Abd Allah Ramazanzadeh said moving the capital had been under discussion since 1989 due to Tehran's heavy overcrowding, chaotic traffic, chronic pollution and earthquake risk.
"There have been contradictory views and still our experts have not been able reach a conclusion," Ramazanzadeh told a news conference on Monday.
Even before the 26 December earthquake in Bam, which measured 6.8 on the Richter scale and killed more than 30,000, seismologists had warned a strong earthquake in Tehran would be catastrophic for the city of 12 million people.
Bahram Akasheh, professor of geophysics at Tehran university, has said a quake of similar magnitude of that in Bam would kill over 700,000 people. Government buildings would be destroyed, leaving the state powerless to respond.
Akasheh has written to President Muhammad Khatami to propose moving the capital to the central city of Isfahan, which was the country's capital in the late 16th century under monarch Shah Abbas the Great. The capital was moved to Tehran in 1788.
Government officials have acknowledged in recent days that building regulations in Tehran and other Iranian cities have not been adequately enforced - meaning that most buildings were vulnerable to even moderate earthquakes.
Ramazanzadeh said some efforts had been made to make Tehran less of an earthquake risk, but much more needed to be done.
"The government's latest move was securing Tehran's natural gas pipeline network. But we still have a long way to go to make Tehran a safe place to live".
Tehran was last hit by a major earthquake in 1830, but seismologists say a major fault line is located along the base of the Alborz mountains in the north of the capital.
Numerous small tremors jolt the city each year.
The Aftab-e Yazd newspaper on Monday reported Health Ministry estimates that a quake measuring seven on the Richter scale would destroy 90% of the city's hospitals.
A man accused of impersonated a police officer has been arrested in Storm Lake. Police say a man showed up early Tuesday morning at two Storm Lake homes, saying he was an officer and showing a badge. At one home he allegedly stole over seven-hundred dollars and fled. At the other, police say he assaulted the two reside...
Ian Palmer, 21, had to act fast when a man in his 60s collapsed at a Wilmingham, Massachusetts Planet Fitness mid-workout.
A typical Thursday morning at Planet Fitness in Wilmington took a scary turn when a man using a cardio machine suddenly collapsed.
Someone called 911 and an off-duty nurse helped tear off the man’s shirt as 21-year-old gym employee Ian Palmer went to work.
However, when the chest compressions didn’t work they tried an AED to shock his heart.
A Planet Fitness employee in Wilmington, Massachusetts is credited with saving the life of a man in his 60s who lost consciousness.
“The other (chest pad) didn’t stick, because he was sweaty from working out, so someone actually grabbed a paper towel and wiped him off,” Palmer said.
Despite the shocks, the 60-year-old man was still unresponsive when first responders arrived and took over. He eventually regained consciousness in the ambulance and is in recovery.
Police said the quick thinking and quick actions of Ian and other bystanders likely helped save that man’s life.
Employees at the gym are trained every two years on CPR and how to use an AED.
Africa on the cusp of an aviation boom?
A member of the ground crew directs an Ethiopian Airlines plane at the Bole International Airport in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa (file). Weak infrastructure, high ticket prices, poor connectivity and lack of proper liberalisation are some of the headwinds on African aviation’s path, albeit the continent currently se...
Continent Africa comprises some 54 countries. Africans total more than 12% of the global population, but surprisingly they make up only 3% of the world’s air travellers.
Africa has 731 airports and 419 airlines with an aviation industry that supports around 6.9mn jobs and $80bn in economic activity, data show.
And according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Africa is set to become one of the fastest growing aviation regions in the next 20 years with an annual expansion of nearly 5%.
While it is evident that aviation has the potential to fuel economic growth in Africa, several barriers do exist.
Weak infrastructure, high ticket prices, poor connectivity and lack of proper liberalisation are some of the headwinds on African aviation’s path, albeit the continent currently sees an economic boom with tourism benefiting from greater prosperity.
But African aviation industry may get the much-needed thrust with the continent getting on to the ‘Open Skies’ trajectory , which is at the heart of the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), a flagship project of the African Union (AU).
Industry experts say implementing the SAATM, which is similar to the European Union’s (EU) single aviation market, would go a long way towards making African air travel more competitive by reducing what many describe as “protectionist policies”.
The movement is indeed promising and will yield greater results once all African countries are onboard.
IATA’s data show some 28 countries have already signed up for SAATM. They are Benin, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Capo Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Conakry, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaz...
These countries represent more than 80% of the existing aviation market in Africa.
An IATA survey suggested that if just 12 key Africa countries opened their markets and increased connectivity, an extra 155,000 jobs and $1.3bn in annual GDP would be created in those countries.
High ticket prices are cited as a major disincentive for Africa’s air transport sector. It is expensive travelling to and from Africa, and worse still, tickets are exorbitantly priced for travel within Africa, which is an obvious off-shoot of inadequate competition in the continent’s air transport sector.
Some argue it is almost 50% more expensive to fly across Africa than it is in other regions, which reportedly discourages Africans from flying.
According to the African Airlines Association (AFRAA), fuel cost remains a major component of the operating expense of every airline, accounting for between 40-50% of total direct operating costs.
African countries are yet to fully open up their skies to one other, yet some of them have opened up to carriers from other continents. Non-African airlines currently fly about 80% of intercontinental traffic to and from Africa.
As a result, it is often cheaper to fly from an African city to a neighbouring city via London, Amsterdam, or Doha than to travel direct!
The lack of domestic flights causes significant issues, with stopovers causing double or triple the journey times on many routes.
For example, when travelling from Abidjan to Kampala, one has to fly mostly via Istanbul and reconnect, because there are no direct flights.
Several African countries established national airlines after their independence, mainly focusing on flights to destinations outside the continent.
Many of these carriers have been propped up financially by the state exchequer and protected by regulation, stifling competition and leaving domestic and regional routes undeveloped for a long time.

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.