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“After that, he joined three lynxes from Slovakia and another three from Switzerland,” stated Zoo Bojnice in an announcement, quoted by TASR.
The Eurasian lynx is one of the biggest felines in Europe. It can be found in several isolated areas of central and north-eastern Europe and in small area of northern Asia. Today, it is rare and endangered in some areas.
According to the official report for the European commission, 300 to 400 individuals live in Slovakia and belong to the animals protected year round..
Nevertheless, as Occupy Wall Street enters its fifth month, dislodged from most of the public spaces it had staked out around the country last fall, the movement seems weakened, its future uncertain. It sometimes appears to be driven by a series of tactics designed to maintain its public presence with no discernible strategy or goal--a kind of muddled, loose-themed ubiquity. The movement has proven adept at provoking media attention, but one may wonder what it amounts to, apart from its ability to reaffirm its status as a kind of protest brand name. Some core organizers are painfully aware of the situation.
"When I step out of the Occupy bubble, I discover that people have no coherent idea of who we are. They think we're a bunch of angry kids," Katie Davison told me. Amin Husain, a graduate of Columbia Law School who worked eighteen hours a day in corporate financing and property law before quitting to devote himself to the movement full time, expressed frustration at the fact that people were having trouble "grasping what we stand for..."
Jackie DiSalvo, Occupy Wall Street's labor expert, felt that after the encampment in Zuccotti Park was uprooted "a set of demands was needed, to define the movement to itself, to bind it together." One demand DiSalvo would like to see is for a WPA-like jobs project funded by taxes on corporations and the wealthiest. "But I know it would never pass the General Assembly," she said, referring to the informal body comprised of anyone who showed up that made decisions in Zuccotti Park. She also hoped that OWS would run candidates in 2012, as the Tea Party did in 2010. But again, she admitted, "OWS would never endorse them."
In October, a "Demands Group" did spring up among the protesters. When members of the group went public with a few suggestions, the General Assembly attempted to vote them out of existence and by some accounts succeeded. Today, a version of the group exists with 410 members who, according to the movement's website, are "developing the concept of demands" (italics mine). Instead of debating actual demands, they are asking how a group "can create a process where their wants & needs can be communicated."
When I asked Amin and Katie what Occupy Wall Street's ultimate goal was, they said, "A government accountable to the people, freed up from corporate influence." It seemed that this pointed to a simple, single demand, something that many in the movement had been seeking since September: a campaign finance law that would ban private contributions and restrict candidates to the use of public money. Several detailed proposals for such a law already existed, including one from Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig that, though imperfect, would attack, in Lessig's words, "the root, the thing that feeds the other ills, and the thing that we must kill first."
As I spoke, I could sense the impatience of my listeners. I wasn't getting the point. Any such demand would turn them into supplicants; its very utterance implied a surrender to the state that went against Occupy Wall Street's principles. Katie maintained that Occupy Wall Street didn't yet have "a broad enough base" to make such a demand with any reasonable expectation that it could be met. And Amin said, "It doesn't matter what particular laws you pass. We're not about laws."
I think that's the crux of the problem. There's an argument that the process of federal legislation, at this point, is crippled by deep systemic problems. The filibuster is an obvious example. It's also worth pointing out that there is a space for activism beyond electoral politics.
But laws exist for a very good reason. They are--roughly put--a compact between citizens and the state detailing the guidelines for governance. Laws--and their alteration or abolishment--are the means by which we change the compact. The alternative, to my mind, is revolution.
At the end of the piece Greenberg notes that the leadership is seeking to emulate the Civil Rights movement of the 60s. I hope no one told him that directly. If they did, Occupy reflects a poor understanding of that movement's lessons. The Civil Rights movement neither eschewed the hard work of mapping out concrete goals, nor shied away from changing laws.
The sit-ins were an attempt to desegregate public and private facilities. Segregation was made possible by law. The Civil Rights movement sought the overthrow of those laws and the establishment of new ones. The Voting Rights Act delivered the South out of quasi-feudalism into democracy. People who were alive then will gladly testify that this was a real and historically significant accomplishment.
To my mind, Occupy's greatest contribution was placing the wealth gap on the radar. But the Civil Rights movement didn't merely seek to put segregation "on the radar." It sought to end it. To merely highlight the problem, and then to refuse to engage would have been everything the Civil Rights movement wasn't. It would have been cynical.
Cynicism wasn't an actual option for John Lewis. I don't know if the same can be said for Occupy. But then they lost me at Trinity.
News.Az reprints an article from NEW EUROPE.
The unpredictable decision by Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan that Yerevan will join a customs union with Russia has raised doubts over Armenia’s EU integration path and caused concern in Brussels about Europe’s relations with its eastern neighbours.
Armenia was poised to sign a key political and free-trade deal with the EU at a summit in November but both Russia and the EU have said countries can’t have both.
Armenia’s decision prompted a planned debate and vote at the European Parliament in Strasbourg this week on Russian pressure on ex-Soviet countries to drop EU integration plans. MEPs were expected to criticise growing Russian pressure on the EU’s eastern neighbours, such as Armenia and Ukraine, not to seek to deepen economic and political ties with the EU at this November’s Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius.
“I think it was bad news to see that Armenia was falling into this and we have a growing concern about this,” a high-ranking official told New Europe in Strasbourg on 10 September. “I think that we should rebuild a new strategy in order to regain the Eastern Partnership influence of the European Union and not to lose more possible and potential partners for the future,” the official added, calling for defending the European Union as a protagonist in the Eastern Partnership.
Experts note that Armenia took the easy way out by choosing to join the Customs Union and point out that Yerevan’s political decision shows this country is interested in preserving status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.
On the other hand, Azerbaijan, which has rich energy resources, plans to help the European Union lessen its reliance on Russian gas and is seeking to deepen its ties with Brussels, increasingly becoming a reliable and predictable partner for the European Union.
Brussels indicated its reluctance to accept Armenia’s offer to renegotiate a planned Association Agreement with the EU. “In light of Armenia’s declared choice to join the Customs Union it is difficult to imagine the initialling at Vilnius summit in November of the Association Agreement with Armenia as it had been negotiated,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele said after talks with visiting Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian. “Based on the information we presently have, the compatibility of obligations to the Customs Union with those under an Association Agreement/DCFTA (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area) with the EU looks problematic,” Fuele added in a statement.
Europe is also concerned by Georgia’s statement that Tbilisi may, in due course, also join the Russian Customs Union.
Speaking on national TV on 4 September, Georgia’s Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili said: he is keeping a close eye on the Eurasian Union “and we are studying it. At this stage we have no position at all. If in perspective we see that it is in our country’s strategic interest, then, why not? But at this stage we have no position at all”.
More than a dozen new school buses will be added to the Cleveland County Schools fleet next year.
At the Nov. 26 school board meeting, the Cleveland County Board of Education voted to spend just over $1.5 million on 13, 72-seat school buses which should arrive sometime next spring. The new buses will be used to replace old buses that were first purchased in 1999.
While the invoice for the buses is addressed to the school district, the actual cost for the buses is being covered by the state Department of Public Instruction.
According to David Pless, CCS director of transportation, when a district buys a bus once, the state is responsible for replacing it, but will only do so after it has been in service for 20 years or reaches 250,000 miles.
The district will be responsible for the cost of outfitting buses with internal and external cameras, GPS trackers and other equipment. Outfitting a bus with that equipment costs the district about $4,000. Multiplied across 13 buses that�s a cost of around $52,000 � some $20,000-$30,000 less than the cost of buying a single bus.
Buses purchased by CCS will be used to take students to and from school each day. The district maintains a fleet of about 169 buses. The 13 new buses will be used to replace buses that have been on the road since 1999. Those old buses will be kept by the district for use as spares in the event another bus breaks down or can�t be used for some reason.
Routes each new bus will run remains to be seen.
The new buses will get their first miles on the road over the summer. That will give the district time to identify any possible issues or defects and get them fixed under warranty.
Dustin George can be reached at 704-669-3337 or dustin.george@shelbystar.com or on Twitter @DustinatTheStar.
Spring, though full of Smith’s trademark puns, is a more sinister novel.
Kingsolver manages to make her characters simultaneously believable individuals, and embodiments of a generation.
The crime was set up to look like a burglary gone wrong, but the police realised that the murderer had to be one of the household.
With the full complement of Homesian injuries, accidents and illnesses, these stories are at once melancholy and absurd.
If social politics dominates these stories, national politics nibbles at the edges of them.
Elif Batuman's novel follows an 18-year-old aspiring writer through her first year at Harvard.
Did a lack of empathy cause both Brexit and Trump?
Since Barack Obama declared that America has an "empathy deficit", empathy has become a political buzzword. But is it always a force for good?
April Ayers Lawson’s debut collection is both forensic and mysterious.
Eimear McBride's second novel deserves all the success of her first.
Like Shriver's previous offerings, The Mandibles: a Family – 2029-2047 takes on a difficult topic: this time, American debt.
Australian actor, comedian and satirist Barry Humphries is set to join the cast of The Hobbit, which is filming in New Zealand.
Director Peter Jackson announced on Facebook that Humphries will play the role of the Goblin King.
‘‘Barry is perhaps best known for his business and social connections as the long-time manager of Dame Edna Everage. He has also been an ardent supporter of the rather misunderstood and unfairly maligned Australian politician, Sir Les Patterson,’’ Jackson said referring to Humphries’ alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and Sir Les Patterson, a politically incorrect cultural attache.
‘‘However, in his spare time, Barry is also a fine actor, and we’re looking forward to seeing him invest the Goblin King with the delicate sensitivity and emotional depth this character deserves,’’ Jackson wrote.
Also joining the cast of The Hobbit is Evangeline Lilly who will be playing the new character, the Woodland Elf, Tauriel.
Another recent signing is British comedian Stephen Fry who will play The Master of Laketown.
With the first round of shooting over, The Hobbit has started scouting locations for the second block of shooting for which Humphries and Lilly will be joining the cast.
The $US500 million ($A474 million) Hobbit movies, a two-part prequel to blockbuster The Lord of the Rings trilogy, began filming in New Zealand in March.
Australian actress Cate Blanchett will return as Galadriel, Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Christopher Lee as Saruman, Elijah Wood as Frodo and Andy Serkis as Gollum.
Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov and NASA astronaut Mike Fincke have successfully completed a five-hour space walk outside the International Space Station.
They were wrapping up maintenance work that began a few months ago and comes ahead of a visit by NASA's shuttle Discovery. The launch is scheduled for Wednesday night and, if everything goes smoothly, Discovery will arrive at the ISS on Friday.
During the space walk, the American commander and his Russian colleague also installed test equipment to study how plant seeds, bacteria and fungus behave in space.
Also, the astronauts took photos of the Russian section of the station as well as of each other in front of the ISS and the Earth.
According to Lonchakov, our planet looks splendid and magnificent at night from outer space. He took Fincke’s photo with the Indian Ocean in the background.
The third crewmember of the 18th expedition to the ISS – NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus – was staying aboard the Zvezda service module.
Tuesday's space walk was the 120th walk in support of the ISS assembly and maintenance.
Meanwhile, on Earth the preparation for the Discovery launch is underway. The shuttle will deliver solar panels for the ISS. Its arrival will be a relief for the crew since it’s bringing new toilet facilities for the ISS, including a urine processor for the station's water-recycling system.
Twelve years will have passed between the release of Grand Theft Auto III in 2001 and Grand Theft Auto V in 2013. Those 12 years have seen ten releases of major GTA games and DLC, each putting its own spin on the series' classic vector art look.
The 71 official images pulled from Rockstar's website cover GTA3, Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories, GTA4, The Lost and Damned, Chinatown Wars, The Ballad of Gay Tony, and GTA5, including the images released just last night.
So by the numbers: what do the faces of Grand Theft Auto look like?
…and 1 has a dog that will eat your face. Twice.
Flipping through the full gallery is also just a neat way to look at how a signature style of art has evolved and changed over the past decade.
The government in Uzbekistan has unveiled its own social network to rival Facebook in the former Russian state.
Muloqot, which means ‘dialogue’ locally, is set to launch publicly on the country’s twentieth anniversary of independence on 1 September.
Like many countries Facebook is the most popular social network in Uzbekistan with an estimated user base of 83,100, according to web measurement site SocialBakers.
However unlike Facebook’s open-to-all approach, access to Muloqot is severely restricted. The site is open for Uzbekistan citizens only, all of whom require an Uzbek mobile phone number to which sign-up instructions are sent via SMS.
The site is rumoured to have been pre-launched with around 1,700 Uzbek’s invited to join although the level of censorship and interference will be key factors that dictate whether it can grow.
Colleagues in RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service managed to register on the first day and post RFE/RL content (blocked in Uzbekistan) to a general Wall (at that point there were only about 400 users). Within 15 minutes, however, their profiles were deleted. Another RFE/RL staffer posted some comments praising the president’s daughter, Gulnara Karimova, and their profile has remained active.
With many government in developing markets keen to assert greater control online, and particularly within social networks, Uzbekistan is not alone in launching its own, home-branded, state rival.
It will, however, hope for greater success than the Vietnamese government whose go.vn site struggles in its domestic, Facebook-dominated market, despite the fact that the social network giant is officially blocked in the country.
When control of messages and people’s behavour are the key targets of a social network, its chances of it finding success and overthrowing the established giants are slim. And that’s without taking into account the considerable challenge that the industry’s big boys pose.
Stephen Colbert mocked President Donald Trump for hiring his daughter during his monologue on “The Late Show” on Thursday.
The White House announced on Wednesday that Ivanka would be taking an official role in the Trump administration as assistant to the president, joining her husband Jared Kushner, who currently serves as senior adviser.
“So he’s hired his daughter as assistant to the president, his son-in-law as his senior adviser, and put Eric and Donald Jr. in charge of the national hair gel reserve,” Colbert joked, throwing a barb at the Trump sons over their hairstyles.
“This week, Ivanka’s on domestic policy, Jared’s on foreign policy, and looks like the president is loading the dishwasher again. It’s a lot of responsibility,” he said.
Chinese technology company ZTE Corp, which this month suspended its main operations after a US Commerce Department ban on American supplies to its business, paid over US$2.3 billion to 211 US exporters in 2017, a senior ZTE official said on Friday.
[NEW YORK] Chinese technology company ZTE Corp, which this month suspended its main operations after a US Commerce Department ban on American supplies to its business, paid over US$2.3 billion to 211 US exporters in 2017, a senior ZTE official said on Friday.
ZTE paid over US$100 million each to Qualcomm Inc, Broadcom Inc, Intel Corp and Texas Instruments, the official said.
As one of the world's largest telecom equipment makers, ZTE relied on US companies such as Qualcomm and Intel for components.
The extent of the impact of the Commerce Department ban on US suppliers was noted by the ZTE official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, as Chinese and US government officials discuss a Washington visit next week by China's top economic official.
In March last year ZTE paid nearly US$900 million in penalties for exporting US technology to Iran and North Korea in violation of sanctions.
American companies are estimated to provide 25 per cent to 30 per cent of the components used in ZTE's equipment, which includes smartphones and gear to build telecommunications networks, analysts noted.
ZTE paid over US$100 million each to other US suppliers in 2017 including chip makers Xilinx Inc and optical component company Acacia Communications and memory chip maker Sandisk, the ZTE official said.
Citing the slumping economy, federal officials Wednesday said they would continue blocking collection of a $35 container fee designed to fund replacement of polluting diesel trucks serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
By a 2-1 vote, the Federal Maritime Commission ruled that such a fee may produce a “substantially anti-competitive” business climate at the nation’s largest port complex.
They argued that more time was needed to review the proposal, which port authorities first laid out 18 months ago.
The fee was supposed to go into effect Oct. 1, but has been twice delayed by the Washington-based FMC.
Facing a ground squirrel infestation that at least theoretically could spread the bubonic plague, county workers today will begin exterminating the furry critters at the Entradero Sump in West Torrance.
It’s the first time ground squirrels have been seen, much less eradicated in the city in years, he said. Wilson theorizes that they came through the drainage system.
There are believed to be roughly 90 squirrels at the adjacent park.
Burrow fumigation and four applications of a pellet bait called blue oats over the next two weeks – weather permitting – is expected to bring the squirrel population down to “manageable levels,” Wilson said.
The pellets are dyed blue to prevent birds from eating them.
City officials said the process is “completely safe” for both people and pets and will not require the closure of any city property.
The event encourages shoppers to forgo plastic and paper sacks, think about conservation and change their consumption habits.
After years of giving gifts to kids at a local hospital for Christmas, a Lomita couple has decided to open their home – well, their garage anyway – to kids from across the South Bay.