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Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email The magical world of Harry Potter completely mesmerised a generation of children and adults alike. JK Rowling 's stories transported people into a world of spells, invisibility cloaks, flying cars and giants. While the first few books were obviously aimed at children, as the series went on the tales became a lot darker - with many believing they were no longer suitable for youngsters. But however scary they became, it's a far cry from the 'alternative' version of the books one rather confused reader accidentally bought. Journalist Chris Chappell somehow managed to escape the Harry Potter madness when the books and movies first came out. (Image: 2009 Warner Bros) But after seeing someone watching the first film during a flight he decided it was finally time to give in and see what the fuss was about, reports BuzzFeed . He managed to find a deal online for six of the books, and started to read them straight away. He now admits he found a few parts very weird, but it wasn't until he had a confusing conversation about Dudley Dursley that he really understood why. Because it turns out Chris wasn't actually reading JK Rowling's famous novels. Instead, he had accidentally ordered six books of Harry Potter fan fiction - which tell a much darker version of The Boy Who Lived's time at Hogwarts. It was his colleague Shelley Zhang who had to break the bad news. (Image: @shelzhang/Twitter) And, unsurprisingly, she found the whole thing thing hilarious and posted their messages on Twitter. And for this, we are extremely grateful. Because they are truly amazing. Anyone remember Dudley dying? Nope, neither do we... (Image: @shelzhang/Twitter) At least they clarified the wizarding world's age of consent. (Image: @shelzhang/Twitter) No, Draco and Ginny were never a thing. (Image: @shelzhang/Twitter) "The rape scene was super weird." (Image: @shelzhang/Twitter) No. Just no. (Image: Twitter) To prove he wasn't make it up, Chris shared a longer extract from one of the books. (Image: Twitter) "There was no on-page sex education in Harry Potter." (Image: Twitter) Things are getting very weird now. (Image: Twitter) Sorry Sandy, you've got nothing on Hedwig. (Image: @shelzhang/Twitter) Actually, this part would have been quite cool... (Image: @shelzhang/Twitter) Shelley actually gave up explaining at this point. (Image: Twitter) By the end of it Shelley wanted to know what happened in the other books. And we don't blame her. (Image: @shelzhang/Twitter) The conversation carried on like this for some time, until Chris made a worrying point. (Image: @shelzhang/Twitter) We're still not entirely sure how Chris thought he was reading children's books. But we really hope he now makes the time to read the real books. |
Metro, Culberson announce agreement on transit Metropolitan Transit Authority leaders and U.S. Rep. John Culberson on Monday announced details of a new agreement to help the agency move forward with transit projects. The Houston Republican, who has long been at odds with Metro over its plans for a rail line on Richmond, has agreed to help Metro obtain funds for a proposed commuter rail line on U.S. 90A and other projects. Rail on Richmond west of Shepherd Drive or on Post Oak Boulevard north of Richmond would be contingent on voter approval. Culberson lauded the agreement as a "historic breakthrough" in addressing Houston area traffic congestion and rebuilding his fractured relationship with Metro. "Above all, what today symbolizes is a new era of cooperation between Metro, under Gilbert Garcia's leadership, and the Houston area congressional delegation," Culberson said. "We will all be working arm in arm to make sure that metro and the elected officials in the region solve our transportation problems by looking to every kind of transit and transportation available, beginning with commuter rail out 90A." Garcia, Metro's board chairman, said the potential for hundreds of millions in additional federal funds could also help to add back buses and improve the existing fleet, among other wish list projects. "We know we've got to do something to ease mobility in the region and it has to be multimodal," Garcia said. Garcia said the agreement "might very well be the biggest, most important thing we've ever accomplished to improve mobility in this region." Culberson and Garcia signed a "letter to our fellow Houston area citizens" outlining the agreement. The text follows. May 13, 2015 The Houston economy is so strong that we have created more jobs than any other city in Texas, and the Texas economy is so strong that more jobs have been created here than in any other State in the Union. Our success is a great blessing and a testament to our devotion to the core principles that have made America so successful — hard work, self-reliance and thrift. Our success also inspires over 3,000 people a month to move into the Greater Houston area. As we continue to grow, it becomes increasingly important that we find ways to improve mobility.Today, we have both signed and are sending out this joint letter to announce our mutual commitment to work together to relieve traffic congestion so Houston Area citizens can spend more time with their families and on the job. We have identified several areas we can work on right away that will help reduce traffic congestion, and we want this agreement to set the tone for our future cooperation. First, Congressman Culberson supports METRO's proposed legislation pending in the State Legislature that expands the size of the METRO Board, increases the eligible length of Board member service and allows the existing board to elect a chairman in October with an odd initial term. These changes will help ensure better regional cooperation in designing and building successful transportation projects while smoothing the transition from the current board size to the larger board size that current law will require in the near future. Second, Congressman Culberson will begin work right away to change federal law so that METRO can use all of the federal dollars not yet drawn down from the $900 million in previously approved federal transit grants for corridor specific transit projects, particularly the new North and Southeast rail lines as well as the 90A commuter rail line. These proposed changes will be consistent with the goals of the FTA in order to allow METRO to match these funds with credits from the original Main Street Line or other Transportation Development Credits so that local funds will be freed up for new projects to improve mobility in the Houston area. Third, Congressman Culberson will begin work right away to change federal law so that METRO can count $587 Million in local funds spent on the East End Rail Line as the local matching credit for a commuter rail line along 90A, and secondarily for any non-rail capital project, or any other project included in the 2003 Referendum. Rail on Richmond Avenue west of Shepherd Drive or Post Oak Boulevard would only be eligible to utilize these credits once approved in a subsequent referendum. Fourth, Congressman Culberson will begin work right away to help secure up to $100 million in federal funds for three consecutive years for bus purchases, park and ride expansion and HOV lane improvements. These funds will also facilitate METRO's expanded use of the 2012 referendum increment to pay down debt. All of these efforts will enhance and improve the bus system that is already one of the best in the nation. Fifth, METRO wants to eliminate confusion for property and business owners on Richmond Avenue west of Shepherd Drive and on Post Oak Boulevard. Therefore, the METRO Board will adopt a resolution pledging not to use any federal or state funds to build rail on Richmond Avenue west of Shepherd Drive or on Post Oak Boulevard north of Richmond unless METRO service area voters approve it as part of a future METRO service area referendum. Likewise, no local funds can be spent on such a rail project without a referendum except expenditures of local funds necessary for the proper studies and engineering to present to the voters in the required referendum. Any such referendum will be part of a multi-modal transportation plan including reasonable cost estimates and a description of the project's pathway and end points, realizing that pathways could undergo minor adjustments as a result of unforeseen environmental problems. Sixth, Congressman Culberson will begin work right away to memorialize this agreement in both federal and state law. Thus, METRO does not oppose Congressman Culberson's language amending Section 164 of the FY16 THUD appropriations bill to memorialize this agreement. And, Metro does not oppose his efforts to memorialize this agreement in state law. Seventh, if METRO service area voters approve the referendum, Congressman Culberson pledges to support the will of the voters and he will work to secure the maximum level of federal funding available for the transit projects described in the referendum. We expect that this will be the first of many future examples of our commitment to find common ground and to work together to find transportation solutions that will give Houstonians more free time to spend with their families and on the job. As Houstonians have more free time to pursue happiness and prosperity, the Houston economy will grow even more than it has. Sincerely, Gilbert Andrew Garcia, CFA, METRO Board Chairman John Culberson, member of Congress, Texas |
For all the Republican assaults on Michael Cohen’s character and credibility – an easy thing to pull off against someone convicted of both fraud and lying to Congress – President Trump’s ex-fixer had a warning for them: You’re going down the road that led me here. “I can only warn people,” the disgraced ex-attorney said, “the more people that follow Mr. Trump as I did, blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering.” Cohen, testifying to the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, said that throughout his decade-long tenure as Trump’s attorney, the “conman” instructed him to lie. Those lies including covering up to Congress the extent and campaign-time duration of a nine-figure deal to build a Moscow Trump Tower and arranging hush-money payments to silence women during the 2016 election who said they had sex with Trump. Cohen’s account of deceit put Trump closer to legally perilous terrain of the sort that will soon send Cohen to prison: obstructing congressional investigations and violating campaign finance law. He told the panel that in meetings with Trump and attorney Jay Sekulow ahead of his deceitful 2017 congressional testimony, Trump told him: “‘Michael, there’s no Russia, there’s no collusion, there’s no interference.’ I know what he wants because I’ve been around him for so long” – that is, to lie to Congress. Cohen said “there were several changes that were made” to his congressional testimony, “including how we were gonna handle that message, that message being the length of time the Trump Tower Moscow project stayed alive.” But Cohen put the apparatus of lies he worked for years to construct in a broader and ominous civic context. “Lying for Mr. Trump was normalized and no one around him questioned it. In fairness, no one questions it now,” Cohen told a panel that quickly and predictably became a circus. Following the lead of a president who has spent months bashing as a liar the man who used to lie on his behalf, the committee’s Republicans spent their time aggressively impugning Cohen’s truthfulness. “It seems to me there’s not much that you won’t lie about when you stand to gain a bit,” said North Carolina’s Virginia Foxx. Arizona’s Paul Gosar called Cohen a “pathological liar.” Mark Meadows of North Carolina said he would make a criminal referral to the Justice Department over a detail concerning Cohen’s conviction. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committee’s ranking member and pointman for the offensive against Cohen, summed it up by saying Cohen was a disgruntled man motivated by sour grapes for not getting a White House job – something Cohen said he didn’t want – and painted the hearing as a political sham advanced by the Clintons. Cohen tried meekness, repeatedly apologizing for his lies to Congress and the public. But Cohen, who famously told a Daily Beast reporter he would retaliate in a “fucking disgusting” way, isn’t a meek person. He’s an aggressive and brazen one, as his baroque assortment of lies revealed by federal prosecutors in New York testified. As the attacks accumulated, Cohen showed the sort of teeth that endeared him to Trump in the first place. “Shame on you, Mr. Jordan,” said a visibly angry Cohen as cameras clicked in the room. He at times responded with sarcasm, asking a GOP legislator who asked about Cohen’s future sources of income if he was receiving an offer. “ I’m responsible for your silliness. ” — Cohen to Republicans But Cohen was warning those Republicans as well. Just as Cohen lied to Congress and the public on Trump’s behalf, out of what he called “intoxication” out of being around the “icon” Trump, now they were doing the same sort of “always stay on message, always defend” Trump that Cohen performed for over a decade. Trump gave Cohen financial power; Trump gives the Republican Party political power. “I’m responsible for your silliness,” Cohen said of what he called GOP questioning that was “really unbecoming of Congress.” He was responsible, he said, “because I did the same thing that you are doing now, for ten years.” Later, Cohen said he “just find[s] it interesting” that amongst the panel Republicans, “not one question has been asked about President Trump.” Characteristically, Cohen mixed bullshit into his attempt at playing Ex-Trumpist Cassandra. Asked by Tennessee Democrat Jim Cooper what occasioned Cohen’s break with a man Cohen called a racist, a conman and a cheat. “Helsinki, Charlottesville, watching the daily destruction of our civility to one another,” Cohen answered, hours after he said he, as the son of a Holocaust survivor, should never have worked for a racist. But whatever reservations Cohen may have had about working for a man who sidled up to Vladimir Putin and defended violent white supremacists as “very fine people,” that wasn’t why Cohen severed his ties with Trump. It was reportedly because Trump in 2018 wasn’t covering Cohen’s legal bills as Cohen’s legal woes coalesced. As Cohen told the oversight committee in his opening statement, Trump’s “fundamental disloyalty” was the wellspring of Wednesday’s explosive hearing. “He’s becoming an autocrat,” Cohen warned. But with the possible exception of Michigan’s Justin Amash, no Republican on the panel showed signs of breaking with a man Cohen cautioned would not show them similar loyalty. |
Nearly 200 pilot whales stranded themselves on New Zealand's South Island on Friday, and hordes of rescuers rushed to the remote area in a bid to guide them back to sea. At least 24 whales from the pod of 198 that beached themselves at Farewell Spit had died, and rescue workers were trying to refloat the survivors, the Department of Conservation (DOC) said. "Re-floating stranded whales is a difficult and potentially dangerous job,” DOC spokesman Andrew Lamason said. “Community group Project Jonah has 140 volunteers in the Golden Bay area who are trained to do this, and we’re working alongside them." If the re-float attempt late Friday failed, then the rescuers would have to wait 24 hours for another high tide before trying again, Lamason said. Farewell Spit beach, at the northern tip of the South Island, has been the scene of many mass pilot whale strandings over the years. There have been at least eight in the past decade, including two within the space of a week in January last year, although the latest stranding is one of the largest. Scientists are unclear why they strand themselves in large groups, with some speculating that healthy whales beach themselves while trying to help sick or disoriented family members that are stranded. Others believe the topography of certain places, such as Farewell Spit, somehow scrambles the whales' sonar navigation, causing them to beach. Once stranded, the whales are vulnerable to dehydration and sunburn until rescuers can use the high tide to move their massive weight back into deeper water. Once refloated, the whales often simply swim back ashore and have to be euthanized. Pilot whales grow up to 20 feet long, weighing up to 3 tons, and are the most common species of whale in New Zealand waters. Wire services |
Applicant tracking systems are a useful and oftentimes necessary tool for companies who receive hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions of resumes per year. A service that breaks down the information on each resume and subsequently groups candidates into easily-searchable fields? It’s a no-brainer (when it works). Sometimes, however, a Captain America candidate will get chewed up by a company’s ATS simply because his resume is not formatted properly. This happens so often, in fact, that a whopping 72% of resumes are never even seen by the intended hiring manager or human resources representative. Does that sound a little high? Well, it is. The fact of the matter is, most candidates do not take the time to format their resumes so that they may endure the grueling, “Lord of the Rings”-length journey through the average ATS. Considering 75% of large companies use applicant tracking systems to review resumes, candidates should heed this advice. It is not only a candidate issue, however. Recruiters must work with their candidates to ensure their resumes are met with the maximum amount of success. Considering how pervasive this problem is with job-hopefuls and recruiters alike, we’re going to cover the best tips and tricks to give a resume the absolute best shot at getting through an organization’s applicant tracking system. 1) Get Rid of All Images Listen, it doesn’t matter how good you looked in that picture from last Fourth of July or how funny you think a particular meme is. Nor does it have any business being on a resume. Applicant tracking systems read the information they are given and then place resumes into similar groupings. Thus, they are unable to process images. Pictures of any kind will automatically put a resume at a severe disadvantage and should be replaced with more informative text. That means no logos, creative watermarks, or fancy monograms. 2) Use Traditional Web-Friendly Fonts Again, we're dealing with machines here, and they're only as smart as they're programmed to be. That Brush Script font may make your name look regal, but it also makes it unreadable. Stick to your standard fonts like Arial, Georgia, Impact, or Courier. 3) Use Keywords Listed in the Job Description Applicant tracking systems are looking for keywords listed in the job description, so be sure to use the main ones wherever they apply. For example, if a specific job description requires that its future employee works well in a team environment, that phrase should be on the submitted resume. That’s not to say that a resume should say “Fluent in Spanish” if the candidate doesn’t speak a lick of it; the keywords should have truth behind them. It may be a pain tailoring a resume to each individual job, but it sure beats being unemployed. 4) Use Basic Section Headers Applicant tracking systems parse information by taking it and dropping it into applicable databases. Because of this, section headers should be as simple as possible. If the ATS cannot understand what it is receiving, impressive achievements or specific training may go overlooked. Phrases like “Education,” “Skills,” and “Experience” should be prioritized over more witty headers. Resumes are not the place to get cute with wording. 5) Standard Formatting is King Applicant Tracking Systems typically look for a standard format. Anything outside of a linear top-to-bottom format with all info in the body of the document could cause clipping or disorganization with parsed. From top to bottom, start with your full name followed by contact info, standard section headers followed by standard info. Don't use page headers (not to be confused with the section headers discussed above), footers, or sidebars. If "Education" falls in a sidebar to the left, there's no guarantee that the ATS will associate that header with your Harvard MBA on the right. Wouldn't it be a pity to spend a small fortune on your grad school and then not be able to brag about it? File formats also matter. PDFs can still be unreadable by the ATS. As much as it pains me to say this, Microsoft Word .doc format is your best shot at having your resume parsed correctly and having it seen by the hiring manager. 6) Abandon Irrelevant Information Irrelevant information on resumes winds up as wasted space. Applicant tracking systems are not checking whether a candidate’s outside interests include skiing or culinary exploration, so extraneous information such as that is best left off. If a resume looks sparse without it, a good idea would be to bulk up the skills section with keywords for which hiring managers may search. 7) Keep it Short and Simple Length is not that critical of an issue when it comes to applicant tracking systems, but it is extremely important to hiring managers. The ideal resume is one page long--two if you have at least ten years of work history. Hiring managers don’t have the time or patience to read twelve pages when they open a resume. In fact, I've personally watched an old hiring manager reject candidates because they went beyond one page. When I questioned his logic, he responded with, "If you can't sell yourself in an elevator pitch, how are you going to do it for our clients, or fight for new inititiatives internally. I don't have time for that kind of inefficiency on my team." Remember that a resume should feel more like a snapshot of everything a candidate brings to the table, not a Faulkner novel. If you follow these seven tips on how to get a resume through the ATS, you or your candidate are in pretty good shape. Getting through the gatekeeper and into the right hands won't guarantee anyone a job, but it prevents them from being disqualified for a technicality. It's not a perfect system and technology differs from company to company, but it's best to play it safe. Sharing this information with your candidates and helping them to reformat their resume in an ATS-friendly manner will go a long way towards making your candidate happy and improving your own bottom line. |
Demographics of Israel Population of Israel since 1949 Population 8,855,000 (96th) [1] Density 401/km2 (35th) Growth rate 2.0% [2] Birth rate 21.5 births/1,000 population (101st) Death rate 5.2 deaths/1,000 population (174th) Life expectancy 82.01 years (8th) • male 80.02 years • female 84.0 years Fertility rate 3.13 children born/woman (76th) Infant mortality rate 4.03 deaths/1,000 live births (25th) Age structure 0–14 years 27.3% 15–64 years 62.2% 65 and over 10.5% Sex ratio Total 1.01 male(s)/female At birth 1.05 male(s)/female Under 15 1.05 male(s)/female 15–64 years 1.03 male(s)/female 65 and over 0.78 male(s)/female Nationality Nationality Israelis Major ethnic Jews Minor ethnic Arabs, Druze, Arameans, Armenians, Circassians Language Official Hebrew Spoken Arabic, Russian, Yiddish, French, English The demographics of Israel are monitored by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. The State of Israel has a population of approximately 8,855,000 inhabitants as of the first half of 2018.[3] Some 74.5% are Jews of all backgrounds (about 6,556,000 individuals), 20.9% are Arab of any religion other than Jewish (about 1,837,000 individuals), while the remaining 4.6% (about 400,000 individuals) are defined as "others", including persons of Jewish ancestry deemed non-Jewish by religious law and persons of non-Jewish ancestry who are family members of Jewish immigrants (neither of which are registered at the Ministry of Interior as Jews), Christian non-Arabs, Muslim non-Arabs and all other residents who have neither an ethnic nor religious classification. Israel's annual population growth rate stood at 2.0% in 2015, more than three times faster than the OECD average of around 0.6%.[4] With an average of three children per woman, Israel also has the highest fertility rate in the OECD by a considerable margin and much higher than the OECD average of 1.7.[5] Generally, population trends in Israel reflect distinct patterns of two sub-groups: Jews (around 74.71% of the population) and Arabs (20.7%).[6] Over the past decade, the Muslim annual population growth has fallen significantly, from around 3% to less than 2.2% by 2013,[7] while the overall Jewish growth rate rose from around 1.4% to 1.7%, primarily due to the expanding Orthodox Jewish sector.[8] Definition [ edit ] The territory of Israel can be defined in a number of ways as a result of a complex and unresolved political situation (see table below). For example, whilst the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics defines the area of Israel to include the annexed East Jerusalem and Golan Heights, and to exclude the militarily controlled regions of the West Bank, the CBS defines the population of Israel to also include Israeli settlers living in the Area C of West Bank and the Muslim residents of East Jerusalem and Area C, who have Israeli residency or citizenship. Cities [ edit ] Within Israel's system of local government, an urban municipality can be granted a city council by the Israeli Interior Ministry when its population exceeds 20,000.[23] The term "city" does not generally refer to local councils or urban agglomerations, even though a defined city often contains only a small portion of an urban area or metropolitan area's population. ^a This number includes East Jerusalem and West Bank areas. Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem is internationally unrecognized. Ethnic and religious groups [ edit ] The most prominent ethnic and religious groups, who live in Israel at present and who are Israeli citizens or nationals, are as follows: Jews [ edit ] According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2008, of Israel's 7.3 million people, 75.6 percent were Jews of any background.[25] Among them, 70.3 percent were Sabras (born in Israel), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis, and the rest are olim (Jewish immigrants to Israel)—20.5 percent from Europe and the Americas, and 9.2 percent from Asia and Africa, including the Arab countries.[26] The paternal lineage of the Jewish population of Israel as of 2015 is as follows: Atheism [ edit ] The 2009 survey by the Guttman Center found the following distribution: Believing in the existence of God – 80% Not believing in the existence of God – 20% Fertility rates between secular and religious Jewish groups also differ significantly. Arabs [ edit ] Distribution of Arabic speaking localities in Israel Arab citizens of Israel are those Arab residents of Mandatory Palestine, who remained within Israel's borders following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and the establishment of the state of Israel. It is including those born within the state borders subsequent to this time, as well as those who had left during the establishment of the state (or their descendants), who have since re-entered by means accepted as lawful residence by the Israeli state (primarily family reunifications). In 2006, the official number of Arab residents in Israel was 1,413,500 people, about 20 percent of Israel’s population. This figure includes 209,000 Arabs (14% of the Israeli Arab population) in East Jerusalem, also counted in the Palestinian statistics, although 98 percent of East Jerusalem Palestinians have either Israeli residency or Israeli citizenship.[28] Arab Muslims [ edit ] Most Arab citizens of Israel are Muslim, particularly of the Sunni branch of Islam. A small minority are Ahmadiyya sect and there are also some Alawites (affiliated with Shia Islam) of Ghajar with Israeli citizenship. As of 2008, Arab citizens of Israel comprised just over 20 percent of the country's total population. About 82.6 percent of the Arab population in Israel was Sunni Muslim (with a very small minority of Shia), another 9 percent was Druze, and around 9 percent was Christian (mostly Eastern Orthodox and Catholic denominations). Bedouin [ edit ] The Arab Muslim citizens of Israel include also the Bedouins, who are divided into two main groups: the Bedouin in the north of Israel, who live in villages and towns for the most part, and the Bedouin in the Negev, who include half-nomadic and inhabitants of towns and Unrecognized villages. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as of 1999, 110,000 Bedouins live in the Negev, 50,000 in the Galilee and 10,000 in the central region of Israel.[29] The vast majority of Arab Bedouins of Israel practice Sunni Islam. Ahmadiyya [ edit ] The Ahmadiyya community was first established in the region in the 1920s, in what was then Mandatory Palestine. Israel is the only country in the Middle East, where Ahmadi Muslims can openly practice their faith, which is not recognized as part of Islam by most Sunni and Shi'a denominations. As such, Kababir, a neighbourhood on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel, acts as the Middle East headquarters of the Community.[30][31] It is unknown how many Israeli Ahmadis there are, although it is estimated there are about 2,200 Ahmadis in Kababir alone.[32] Arab Christians [ edit ] As of December 2013, about 161,000 Israeli citizens practiced Christianity, together comprising about 2% of the total population.[33] The largest group consists of Melkites (about 60% of Israel's Christians), followed by the Greek Orthodox (about 30%), with the remaining ca. 10% spread between the Roman Catholic (Latin), Maronite, Anglican, Lutheran, Armenian, Syriac, Ethiopian, Coptic and other denominations.[33] Copts [ edit ] Some 1,000 Israeli citizens belong to the Coptic community, originated in Egypt. Druze [ edit ] The Arab citizens of Israel include also the Druze who were numbered at an estimated 129,800 at the end of 2011.[34] All of the Druze living in what was then British Mandate Palestine became Israeli citizens after the declaration of the State of Israel. Though a few individuals identify themselves as "Palestinian Druze",[35] the vast majority of Druze do not consider themselves to be 'Palestinian', and consider their Israeli identity stronger than their Arab identity. Druze serve prominently in the Israel Defense Forces, and are represented in mainstream Israeli politics and business as well, unlike Muslim Arabs who are not required to and generally choose not to serve in the Israeli army. Syriac Christians [ edit ] Arameans [ edit ] In 2014, Israel decided to recognize the Aramaic community within its borders as a national minority, allowing some of the Christians in Israel to be registered as "Aramean" instead of "Arab".[36] As of October 2014, some 600 Israelis requested to be registered as Arameans, with several thousand eligible for the status - mostly members of the Maronite community. The Maronite Christian community in Israel of around 7,000 resides mostly in the Galilee, with a presence in Haifa, Nazareth and Jerusalem. It is largely composed of families that lived in Upper Galilee in villages such as Jish long before the establishment of Israel in 1948. In the year 2000, the community was joined by a group of Lebanese SLA militia members and their families, who fled Lebanon after 2000 withdrawal of IDF from South Lebanon. Assyrians [ edit ] There are around 1,000 Assyrians living in Israel, mostly in Jerusalem and Nazareth. Assyrians are an Aramaic speaking, Eastern Rite Christian minority who are descended from the ancient Mesopotamians. The old Syriac Orthodox monastery of Saint Mark lies in Jerusalem. Other than followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church, there are also followers of the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church living in Israel. Other citizens [ edit ] Samaritans [ edit ] The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Ancestrally, they claim descent from a group of Israelite inhabitants who have connections to ancient Samaria from the beginning of the Babylonian Exile up to the beginning of the Common Era. 2007 population estimates show that 712 Samaritans live half in Holon, Israel and half at Mount Gerizim in the West Bank. The Holon community holds Israeli citizenship, while the Gerizim community resides at an Israeli controlled enclave, holding dual Israeli-Palestinian citizenship. Armenians [ edit ] About 4,000 Armenians reside in Israel mostly in Jerusalem (including in the Armenian Quarter), but also in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jaffa. Armenians have a Patriarchate in Jerusalem and churches in Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa. Although Armenians of Old Jerusalem have Israeli identity cards, they are officially holders of Jordanian passports.[37] Circassians [ edit ] In Israel, there are also a few thousand Circassians, living mostly in Kfar Kama (2,000) and Reyhaniye (1,000).[38] These two villages were a part of a greater group of Circassian villages around the Golan Heights. The Circassians in Israel enjoy, like Druzes, a status aparte. Male Circassians (at their leader's request) are mandated for military service, while females are not. People from post-Soviet states [ edit ] Ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who were eligible to emigrate due to having, or being married to somebody who has, at least one Jewish grandparent and thus qualified for Israeli citizenship under the revised Law of Return. A number of these immigrants also belong to various ethnic groups from the Former Soviet Union such as Armenians, Georgians, Azeris, Uzbeks, Moldovans, Tatars, among others. Some of them, having a Jewish father or grandfather, identify as Jews, but being non-Jewish by Orthodox Halakha (religious law), they are not recognized formally as Jews by state. Most of them are in the mainstream of Israel culture and are called "expanded Jewish population". In addition, a certain number of former Soviet citizens, primarily women of Russian and Ukrainian ethnicity, emigrated to Israel, after marrying Muslim or Christian Arab citizens of Israel, who went to study in the former Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. Finns [ edit ] Although most people of Finnish origin in Israel are Finnish Jews who immigrated to Israel, and their descendants, a small number of Finnish Christians moved to Israel in the 1940s before the independence and gained citizenship following independence. For the most part, many of the original Finnish settlers intermarried with the other communities in the country, and therefore remain very small in number. A Moshav shitufi near Jerusalem named Yad HaShmona, meaning the "Memorial for the Eight", was established in 1971 by a group of Finnish Christian-Israelis, although today, most members are Israeli, and are predominantly Hebrew speakers, and the moshav has become a center of so-called "Messianic Jews".[39][40] The Bahá'í population in Israel is almost entirely made up of volunteers serving at the Bahá'í World Centre. Bahá'u'lláh (1817-1892), the Faith's founder, was banished to Akka and died nearby where his shrine is located. During his lifetime he instructed his followers not to teach and convert those living in the area, and the Bahá'ís descending from those original immigrants were later asked to leave and teach elsewhere. For nearly a century there has been a policy by Shoghi Effendi and later the Universal House of Justice to not accept converts from Israel. The 650 or so foreign national Bahá'ís living in Israel are almost all on temporary duty serving at the shrines and administrative offices.[41][42][43] A fluctuating segment of Baha'is consists of pilgrims.[44] Vietnamese [ edit ] The number of Vietnamese people in Israel and their descendants is estimated at 150 to 200.[45] Most of them came to Israel in between 1976–1979, after prime minister Menachem Begin authorized their admission to Israel and granted them political asylum. The Vietnamese people living in Israel are Israeli citizens who also serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Today, the majority of the community lives in the Gush Dan area in the center of Tel Aviv, but also a few dozen Vietnamese-Israelis or Israelis of Vietnamese origin live in Haifa, Jerusalem, and Ofakim. African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem [ edit ] The African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem is a small spiritual group of African Americans, whose members believe they are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. With a population of over 5,000, most members live in their own community in Dimona, Israel, with additional families in Arad, Mitzpe Ramon, and the Tiberias area. At least some of them consider themselves to be Jewish, but mainstream scholarship does not consider them to be of Israelite but of subsaharan African origin. Their ancestors were African Americans who after several years in Liberia migrated to Israel in the late 1960s and demanded that Israel give them citizenship in the state. When Israel refused, they relinquished their United States citizenship and de facto became stateless. After some deliberation, the Israeli government granted them citizenship. The African Hebrew Israelites, like the Haredim and most Israeli Arabs, are not required to serve in the military; however, some do so, and they do receive social benefits from the state, including free health care. Most believe in a kind of Paleo-Judaism based on the Torah without the Oral Laws; however, at least one member of the community underwent a conversion to Orthodox Judaism. Naturalized foreign workers [ edit ] Some naturalized foreign workers and their children born in Israel, predominantly from the Philippines, Nepal, Nigeria, Senegal, Romania, China, Cyprus, Thailand, and South America (mainly Colombia). African migrants [ edit ] Meeting between Sudanese refugees and Israeli students, 2007. The number and status of African migrants in Israel is disputed and controversial, but it is estimated that at least 70,000 refugees mainly from Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Ivory Coast reside and work in Israel. A count in late 2011 published in Ynet pointed out the number only in Tel Aviv is 40,000, which represents 10 percent of the city's population. The vast majority is living at the southern parts of the city. There is a significant population in the southern Israeli cities of Eilat, Arad, and Beersheba. Foreign workers [ edit ] There are around 300,000 foreign workers, residing in Israel under temporary work visas, including Palestinians. Most of those foreign workers engage in agriculture and construction. The main groups of those foreign workers include the Chinese, Thai, Filipinos, Nigerians, Romanians, and Latin Americans. Other refugees [ edit ] Approximately 100–200 refugees from Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraqi Kurdistan, and North Korea were absorbed in Israel as refugees. Most of them were also given Israeli resident status, and currently reside in Israel.[46] As of 2006, some 200 ethnic Kurdish refugees from Turkey resided in Israel as illegal immigrants, fleeing the Kurdish–Turkish conflict.[47] Languages [ edit ] Road sign in Hebrew, Arabic and English Due to its immigrant nature, Israel is one of the most multicultural and multilingual societies in the world. Hebrew is the official language of the country, and Arabic is given special status, while English and Russian are the two most widely spoken non-official languages. A certain degree of English is spoken widely, and is the language of choice for many Israeli businesses. Courses of Hebrew and English language are mandatory in the Israeli school system, and most schools offer either Arabic, French, Spanish, German, Italian, or Russian. Religion [ edit ] According to a 2010 Israel Central Bureau of Statistics study[49] of Israelis aged over 18, 8% of Israeli Jews define themselves as Haredim (or ultra-Orthodox); an additional 12% are "religious" (non-Haredi Orthodox, also known as: dati leumi/national-religious or religious Zionist); 13% consider themselves "religious-traditionalists" (mostly adhering to Jewish Halakha); 25% are "non-religious traditionalists" (only partly respecting the Jewish Halakha), and 43% are "secular". Among the seculars, 53% say they believe in God. Due to the higher birth rate of religious and traditionalists over seculars, their share among the overall population is growing as time passes.[citation needed] While the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredim, represented only 5% of Israel's population in 1990,[50] they are expected to represent more than one-fifth of Israel's Jewish population by 2028.[51] Religious makeup, 2017[52] Group Population % Jews 6,554,500 74.50% Muslims 1,561,700 17.75% Christians 171,900 1.95% Druze 141,200 1.60% Other/unknown 368,600 4.19% Education [ edit ] Education between ages 5 and 15 is compulsory. It is not free, but it is subsidized by the government, individual organizations (such as the Beit Yaakov System), or a combination. Parents are expected to participate in courses as well. The school system is organized into kindergartens, 6-year primary schools, and either 6-year secondary schools or 3-year junior secondary schools + 3-year senior secondary schools (depending on region), after which a comprehensive examination is offered for university admissions. Policy [ edit ] As Israel's continued existence as a Jewish state relies upon maintenance of a Jewish demographic majority, Israeli demographers, politicians, and bureaucrats have treated Jewish population growth promotion as a central question in their research and policymaking. Non-Jewish population growth and immigration is regarded as a threat to the Jewish demographic majority, and to Israel's security[citation needed], as detailed in the Koenig Memorandum. Israel is the thirty-fourth most-densely crowded country in the world. In an academic article, Jewish National Fund Board member Daniel Orenstein, argues that, as elsewhere, overpopulation is a stressor on the environment in Israel; he shows that environmentalists have conspicuously failed to consider the impact of population on the environment, and argues that overpopulation in Israel has not been appropriately addressed for ideological reasons.[53][54] Citizenship and Entry Law [ edit ] The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) 5763 was first passed on 31 July 2003, and has since been extended until 31 July 2008. The law places age restrictions for the automatic granting of Israeli citizenship and residency permits to spouses of Israeli citizens, such that spouses who are inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are ineligible. On 8 May 2005, the Israeli ministerial committee for issues of legislation once again amended the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, to restrict citizenship and residence in Israel only to Palestinian men over the age of 35, and Palestinian women over the age of 25. Those in favor of the law say the law not only limits the possibility of the entrance of terrorists into Israel, but, as Ze'ev Boim asserts, allows Israel "to maintain the state's democratic nature, but also its Jewish nature" (i. e., its Jewish demographic majority).[55] Critics, including the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,[56] say the law disproportionately affects Arab citizens of Israel, since Arabs in Israel are far more likely to have spouses from the West Bank and Gaza Strip than other Israeli citizens.[57] In the constitutional challenges to the Citizenship and Entry to Israel Law, the state, represented by the Attorney General, insisted that security was the only objective behind the law. The state also added that even if the law was intended to achieve demographic objectives, it is still in conformity with Israel's Jewish and democratic definition, and thus constitutional. In a 2012 ruling by the Supreme Court on the issue, some of the judges on the panel discussed demography, and were inclined to accept that demography is a legitimate consideration in devising family reunification policies that violate the right to family life.[58] Soviet immigration [ edit ] During the 1970s about 163,000 people of Jewish descent immigrated to Israel from the USSR. Later Ariel Sharon, in his capacity as Minister of Housing & Construction and member of the Ministerial Committee for Immigration & Absorption, launched an unprecedented large-scale construction effort to accommodate the new Russian population in Israel so as to facilitate their smooth integration and encourage further Jewish immigration as an ongoing means of increasing the Jewish population of Israel.[59] Between 1989 and 2006, about 979,000 Jews emigrated from the former Soviet Union to Israel. Statistics [ edit ] Historical population Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1950 1,370,100 — 1960 2,150,400 +4.61% 1970 3,022,100 +3.46% 1980 3,921,700 +2.64% 1990 4,821,700 +2.09% 2000 6,369,300 +2.82% 2010 7,695,100 +1.91% 2019 8,984,300 +1.74% Source: [3][60][61] 2019 data[62] Total population [ edit ] Note: includes over 200,000 Israelis and 250,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem, about 421,400 Jewish settlers on the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), and about 42,000 in the Golan Heights (July 2007 est.). Does not include Arab populations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Does not include 222,000 foreigners living in the country.[64] Group[3][65] Population Proportion of total Growth rate Jews: 6,556,000 74.6% 1.7% Non-Haredi 5,522,598 62.8% 1.2% Haredi 1,033,000 11.8% 5.0% Arabs 1,837,000 20.9% 2.1% Other 400,000 4.5% N/A Total 8,793,000 100% 1.9% Age structure [ edit ] population pyramid that shows the age of the population by sex in 2014 Total: 0–14 years: 28.0% 15–64 years: 62.1% 65 years and over: 9.9% Jews: 0–14 years: 25.5% 15–64 years: 63.1% 65 years and over: 11.4% Arab: 0–14 years: 37.5% 15–64 years: 58.6% 65 years and over: 3.9% (2010 est.) Median age [ edit ] Total: 29.7 Jewish: 31.6 Arab: 21.1 The Jewish median age in Jerusalem district and the West Bank are 24.9 and 19.7, respectively, and both account for 16% of the Jewish population, but 24% of 0–4 year olds. The lowest median age in Israel, and one of the lowest in the world, is found in two of the West Bank's biggest Jewish cities: Modi'in Illit (11), Beitar Illit (11)[66] followed by Bedouin towns in the Negev (15.2).[67] Population growth rate [ edit ] 2.0% (2016) During the 1990s, the Jewish population growth rate was about 3% per year, as a result of massive immigration to Israel, primarily from the republics of the former Soviet Union. There is also a very high population growth rate among certain Jewish groups, especially adherents of Orthodox Judaism. The growth rate of the Arab population in Israel is 2.2%, while the growth rate of the Jewish population in Israel is 1.7%. The growth rate of the Arab population has slowed from 3.8% in 1999 to 2.2% in 2013, and for the Jewish population, the growth rate declined from 2.7% to its lowest rate of 1.4% in 2005, before picking up since then[when?] to 1.7%.[citation needed] Birth rate [ edit ] IV/2016-III/2017 Total: 21.3 births/1,000 population Jews and others: 20.5 births/1,000 population Muslims: 24.6 births/1,000 population Christians: 14.4 births/1,000 population Druze: 17.3 births/1,000 population Births, in absolute numbers, by mother's religion[68] Year Jewish Muslim Christian Druze Others Total % Jewish % Muslim 1996 83,710 30,802 2,678 2,682 1,461 121,333 69.0% 25.4% 2000 91,936 35,740 2,789 2,708 3,217 136,390 67.4% 26.2% 2005 100,657 34,217 2,487 2,533 4,019 143,913 69.9% 23.8% 2006 104,513 34,337 2,500 2,601 4,219 148,170 70.5% 23.2% 2007 107,986 34,572 2,521 2,510 4,090 151,679 71.2% 22.8% 2008 112,803 34,860 2,511 2,534 4,215 156,923 71.9% 22.2% 2009 116,599 35,253 2,514 2,517 4,159 161,042 72.4% 21.9% 2010 120,673 36,221 2,511 2,535 4,315 166,255 72.6% 21.8% 2011 121,520 35,247 2,596 2,469 4,464 166,296 73.1% 21.2% 2012 125,409 36,041 2,610 2,371 4,509 170,940 73.4% 21.1% 2013 126,999 34,927 2,602 2,350 4,566 171,444 74.1% 20.4% 2014 130,576 35,965 2,814 2,366 4,706 176,427 74.0% 20.4% 2015 132,220 36,659 2,669 2,376 4,799 178,723 74.0% 20.5% 2016 134,100 37,592 2,613 2,446 4,654 181,405 73.9% 20.7% 2017 134,630 39,550 2,504 2,350 4,614 183,648 73.3% 21.5% Current natural population growth Births from January-November 2017 = Jewish: 122,874; Muslim: 36,309; Christian: 2,325; Druze: 2,156; Others: 4,232; Total: 167,896 Births from January-November 2018 = Jewish: 123,558; Muslim: 34,826; Christian: 2,477; Druze: 2,198; Others: 3,922; Total: 166,981 Between the mid-1980s and 2000, the fertility rate in the Muslim sector was stable at 4.6–4.7 children per woman; after 2001, a gradual decline became evident, reaching 3.51 children per woman in 2011. By point of comparison, in 2011, there was a rising fertility rate of 2.98 children among the Jewish population.[69] Births and deaths [70][71] Year Population (x1000) Live births Deaths Natural increase Crude birth rate Crude death rate Rate of natural increase TFR 1950 1 370 43 431 8 700 34 731 34.1 6.8 27.3 1951 1 578 50 542 9 866 40 676 34.3 6.7 27.6 1952 1 630 52 556 11 666 40 890 32.8 7.3 25.5 1953 1 669 52 552 10 916 41 636 31.9 6.6 25.3 1954 1 718 48 951 11 328 37 623 28.9 6.7 22.2 1955 1 789 50 686 10 532 40 154 28.9 6.0 22.9 4.03 1956 1 872 52 287 12 025 40 262 28.6 6.6 22.0 1957 1 976 53 940 12 487 41 453 28.0 6.5 21.5 1958 2 032 52 649 11 615 41 034 26.3 5.8 20.5 1959 2 089 54 604 12 056 42 548 26.5 5.9 20.6 1960 2 150 56 002 12 053 43 949 26.4 5.7 20.7 1961 2 234 54 869 12 663 42 206 25.0 5.8 19.2 1962 2 332 56 356 13 701 42 655 24.7 6.0 18.7 1963 2 430 59 491 14 425 45 066 25.0 6.1 18.9 1964 2 526 63 544 15 491 48 053 25.6 6.3 19.3 1965 2 598 66 146 16 261 49 885 25.8 6.3 19.5 3.99 1966 2 657 67 148 16 582 50 566 25.6 6.3 19.3 1967 2 776 64 980 17 463 47 517 23.9 6.4 17.5 1968 2 841 69 911 18 689 51 222 24.9 6.7 18.2 1969 2 930 73 666 19 767 53 899 25.5 6.9 18.6 1970 3 022 80 843 21 234 59 609 27.2 7.1 20.1 1971 3 121 85 899 21 415 64 484 28.0 7.0 21.0 1972 3 225 85 544 22 719 62 825 27.0 7.2 19.8 1973 3 338 88 545 23 054 65 491 27.0 7.0 20.0 1974 3 422 93 166 24 135 69 031 27.6 7.1 20.5 1975 3 493 95 628 24 600 71 028 27.7 7.1 20.6 3.68 1976 3 575 98 763 24 012 74 751 27.9 6.8 21.1 1977 3 653 95 315 24 951 70 364 26.4 6.9 19.5 1978 3 738 92 602 25 153 67 449 25.1 6.8 18.3 3.28 1979 3 836 93 710 25 700 68 010 24.7 6.8 17.9 3.21 1980 3 922 94 321 26 364 67 957 24.3 6.8 17.5 3.14 1981 3 978 93 308 26 085 67 223 23.6 6.6 17.0 3.06 1982 4 064 96 695 27 780 68 915 24.0 6.9 17.1 3.12 1983 4 119 98 724 27 731 70 993 24.0 6.7 17.3 3.14 1984 4 200 98 478 27 805 70 673 23.3 6.6 16.7 3.13 1985 4 266 99 376 28 093 71 283 23.1 6.5 16.6 3.12 1986 4 331 99 341 29 415 69 926 22.7 6.7 16.0 3.09 1987 4 407 99 022 29 244 69 778 22.2 6.6 15.6 3.05 1988 4 477 100 454 29 176 71 278 22.2 6.4 15.8 3.06 1989 4 560 100 757 28 580 72 177 22.1 6.3 15.8 3.03 1990 4 822 103 349 28 734 74 615 22.0 6.1 15.9 3.02 1991 5 059 105 725 31 266 74 459 21.4 6.3 15.1 2.91 1992 5 196 110 062 33 327 76 735 21.5 6.5 15.0 2.93 1993 5 328 112 330 33 000 79 330 21.3 6.3 15.0 2.92 1994 5 472 114 543 33 535 81 008 21.2 6.2 15.0 2.90 1995 5 612 116 886 35 348 81 538 21.1 6.4 14.7 2.88 1996 5 758 121 333 34 664 86 669 21.3 6.1 15.2 2.94 1997 5 900 124 478 36 124 88 354 21.4 6.2 15.2 2.93 1998 6 041 130 080 36 955 93 125 21.8 6.2 15.6 2.98 1999 6 209 131 936 37 291 94 645 21.6 6.1 15.5 2.94 2000 6 369 136 390 37 688 98 702 21.7 6.0 15.7 2.95 2001 6 509 136 636 37 186 99 450 21.2 5.8 15.4 2.89 2002 6 631 139 535 38 415 101 120 21.2 5.8 15.4 2.89 2003 6 748 144 936 38 499 106 437 21.7 5.8 15.9 2.95 2004 6 870 145 207 37 938 107 269 21.3 5.6 15.7 2.90 2005 6 991 143 913 39 038 104 875 20.8 5.6 15.2 2.84 2006 7 117 148 170 38 765 109 405 21.0 5.5 15.5 2.88 2007 7 244 151 679 39 813 111 866 21.1 5.5 15.6 2.90 2008 7 419 156 923 39 484 117 439 21.5 5.4 16.1 2.96 2009 7 552 161 042 38 812 122 230 21.5 5.2 16.3 2.96 2010 7 695 166 255 39 613 126 642 21.8 5.2 16.6 3.03 2011 7 837 166 296 40 889 125 407 21.4 5.3 16.1 3.00 2012 7 984 170 940 42 100 128 840 21.6 5.3 16.3 3.05 2013 8 134 171 444 41 683 129 761 21.3 5.2 16.1 3.03 2014 8 297 176 427 42 457 133 970 21.5 5.2 16.3 3.08 2015 8 463 178 723 44 507 134 216 21.3 5.3 16.0 3.09 2016 8 629 181 405 44 244 137 161 21.2 5.2 16.0 3.11 2017 8 798 183 648 44 757 138 891 21.1 5.1 16.0 3.11 [70] Structure of the population [ edit ] Structure of the population (01.07.2012) (Estimates) : Age Group Male Female Total % Total 3 916 125 3 994 400 7 910 525 100 0-4 417 479 397 686 815 165 10,30 5-9 377 005 358 520 735 525 9,30 10-14 346 662 329 776 676 438 8,55 15-19 314 286 299 211 613 497 7,76 20-24 300 332 289 936 590 268 7,46 25-29 291 710 287 934 579 644 7,33 30-34 276 871 278 321 555 191 7,02 35-39 268 377 270 934 539 311 6,82 40-44 232 269 236 767 469 036 5,93 45-49 201 080 206 786 407 867 5,16 50-54 189 222 201 916 391 138 4,94 55-59 179 379 194 732 374 111 4,73 60-64 165 789 183 357 349 146 4,41 65-69 115 943 130 457 246 400 3,11 70-74 89 904 103 747 188 651 2,38 75-79 68 016 88 979 156 994 1,98 80-84 46 204 67 535 113 739 1,44 85-89 26 669 45 650 72 319 0,91 90-94 10 499 16 451 26 950 0,34 95-99 2 418 4 374 6 792 0,09 100+ 1 012 1 331 2 342 0,03 Age group Male Female Total Percent 0-14 1 141 146 1 085 982 2 227 128 28,15 15-64 2 419 314 2 449 894 4 869 208 61,55 65+ 355 665 458 524 814 189 10,29 Death rate [ edit ] 5.3 deaths/1,000 population (2015 est.) There were a total of 38,666 deaths in 2006. (39,026 in 2005 & 37,688 in 2000). Of this 33,568 were Jews (34,031 in 2005 & 33,421 in 2000). 3,078 were Muslims (2,968 in 2005 & 2,683 in 2000). 360 were Druze (363 in 2005 & 305 in 2000). 712 were Christian (686 in 2005 & 666 in 2000).[citation needed] Net migration rate [ edit ] 1.81 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2013 est.) There were a total of 26,500 immigrants who made Aliyah to Israel in 2014: 11,430 from the Former Soviet Union, 7,000 from France, 3,470 from the United States, 620 from the United Kingdom, 620 from Colombia, 400 from Canada, 340 from Italy, 300 from Brazil, 297 from Argentina, 240 from Belgium, 232 from Eastern Europe (including 126 from Hungary), 200 from Australia and New Zealand, 190 from South Africa, 120 from Germany, 76 from Mexico, 70 from Venezuela, 58 from Uruguay, and 52 from Chile.[72] Emigration [ edit ] For many years definitive data on Israeli emigration was unavailable.[73] In The Israeli Diaspora sociologist Stephen J. Gold maintains that calculation of Jewish emigration has been a contentious issue, explaining, "Since Zionism, the philosophy that underlies the existence of the Jewish state, calls for return home of the world's Jews, the opposite movement—Israelis leaving the Jewish state to reside elsewhere—clearly presents an ideological and demographic problem."[74] In the past several decades, emigration (yerida) has seen a considerable increase. From 1990 to 2005, 230,000 Israelis left the country; a large proportion of these departures included people who initially immigrated to Israel and then reversed their course (48% of all post-1990 departures and even 60% of 2003 and 2004 departures were former immigrants to Israel). 8% of Jewish immigrants in the post-1990 period left Israel, while 15% of non-Jewish immigrants did. In 2005 alone, 21,500 Israelis left the country and had not yet returned at the end of 2006; among them 73% were Jews, 5% Arabs, and 22% "Others" (mostly non-Jewish immigrants, with Jewish ancestry, from USSR). At the same time, 10,500 Israelis came back to Israel after over one year abroad; 84% were Jews, 9% Others, and 7% Arabs.[75] According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, as of 2005, 650,000 Israelis had left the country for over one year and not returned. Of them, 530,000 are still alive today. This number does not include the children born overseas. It should also be noted that Israeli law grants citizenship only to the first generation of children born to Israeli emigrants. Density [ edit ] Population density per square kilometer, by district , sub-district and geographical area Geographic deployment: Sex ratio [ edit ] At birth: 1.05 male(s)/female Under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female 15–64 years: 1.03 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.78 male(s)/female Total population: 1.01 male(s)/female (2011 est.) Maternal mortality rate [ edit ] 7 deaths/100,000 live births (2010) Infant mortality rate [ edit ] Total: 4.03 deaths/1,000 live births Male: 4.20 deaths/1,000 live births Female: 3.84 deaths/1,000 live births (2013 est.) Life expectancy at birth [ edit ] Total population: 82.4 years Male: 80.7 years Female: 84.2 years (2016)[76] Average life expectancy at age 0 of the total population.[77] Period Life expectancy in Years Period Life expectancy in Years 1950–1955 68.9 1985–1990 75.9 1955–1960 70.0 1990–1995 77.2 1960–1965 71.0 1995–2000 78.3 1965–1970 71.8 2000–2005 79.6 1970–1975 72.6 2005–2010 80.9 1975–1980 73.5 2010–2015 81.9 1980–1985 74.6 Total fertility rate [ edit ] 3.11 children born/woman (2017) - Year Jews Muslims Christians Druze Others Total 2000 2.66 4.74 2.55 3.07 2.95 2001 2.59 4.71 2.46 3.02 2.89 2002 2.64 4.58 2.29 2.77 2.89 2003 2.73 4.50 2.31 2.85 2.95 2004 2.71 4.36 2.13 2.66 1.47 2.90 2005 2.69 4.03 2.15 2.59 1.49 2.84 2006 2.75 3.97 2.14 2.64 1.55 2.88 2007 2.80 3.90 2.13 2.49 1.49 2.90 2008 2.88 3.84 2.11 2.49 1.57 2.96 2009 2.90 3.73 2.15 2.49 1.56 2.96 2010 2.97 3.75 2.14 2.48 1.64 3.03 2011 2.98 3.51 2.19 2.33 1.75 3.00 2012 3.04 3.54 2.17 2.26 1.68 3.05 2013 3.05 3.35 2.13 2.21 1.68 3.03 2014 3.11 3.35 2.27 2.20 1.72 3.08 2015 3.13 3.32 2.12 2.19 1.72 3.09 2016 3.16 3.29 2.05 2.21 1.64 3.11 2017 3.16 3.37 1.93 2.10 1.58 3.11 Jewish total fertility rate increased by 10.2% during 1998–2009, and was recorded at 2.90 during 2009. During the same time period, Arab TFR decreased by 20.5%. Muslim TFR was measured at 3.73 for 2009. During 2000, the Arab TFR in Jerusalem (4.43) was higher than that of the Jews residing there (3.79). But as of 2009, Jewish TFR in Jerusalem was measured higher than the Arab TFR (2010: 4.26 vs 3.85, 2009: 4.16 vs 3.87). TFR for Arab residents in the West Bank was measured at 2.91 in 2013,[78] while that for the Jewish residents was reported at 5.10 children per woman.[79] The ethnic group with highest recorded TFR is the Bedouin of Negev. Their TFR was reported at 10.06 in 1998, and 5.73 in 2009. TFR is also very high among Haredi Jews. For Ashkenazi Haredim, the TFR rose from 6.91 in 1980 to 8.51 in 1996. The figure for 2008 is estimated to be even higher. TFR for Sephardi/Mizrahi Haredim rose from 4.57 in 1980 to 6.57 in 1996.[80] Health expenditures [ edit ] 7.6% of total GDP (2010) Physicians density [ edit ] 3.63 physicians/1,000 population (2007) Hospital bed density [ edit ] 3.5 beds/1,000 population (2010) HIV/AIDS – adult prevalence rate [ edit ] 0.2% (2009 est.) Obesity – adult prevalence rate [ edit ] 26% of women and 40% of men are overweight. In both genders, obesity rate is 15% (as of 2011).[81] Education expenditures [ edit ] 5.9% of total GDP (2009) Literacy [ edit ] Age 15 and over can read and write (2011 estimate):[82] Total population: 97.8% Male: 98.7% Female: 96.8% Future projections [ edit ] In June 2013, the Central Bureau of Statistics released a demographic report, projecting that Israel's population would grow to 11.4 million by 2035, with the Jewish population numbering 8.3 million, or 73% of the population, and the Arab population at 2.6 million, or 23%. This includes some 2.3 million Muslims (20% of the population), 185,000 Druze, and 152,000 Christians. The report predicts that the Israeli population growth rate will decline to 1.4% annually, with growth in the Muslim population remaining higher than the Jewish population until 2035, at which point the Jewish population will begin growing the fastest.[85] In 2017, the Central Bureau of Statistics projected that Israel's population would rise to about 18 million by 2059, including 14.4 million Jews and 3.6 million Arabs. Of the Jewish population, about 5.25 million would be ultra-Orthodox Jews. Overall, the forecast projected that 49% of the population would be either ultra-Orthodox Jews (29%) and Arabs (20%).[86] It also projected a population of 20 million in 2065.[87] Other forecasts project that Israel could have a population as high as 23 million, or even 36 million, by 2050.[88] See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] |
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach The Kyoto Protocol is the quixotic attempt by some countries around the world to reduce each participating country’s CO2 emissions to their emission levels in 1990. Since CO2 emissions are a measure of the energy used, that seemed foolish to me, but hey, I was born yesterday. I figured nobody would be that dumb, and although the leaders might agree to such a goofy plan, people would find ways around the restrictions. There are two very different groups of countries who have signed up to Kyoto to reduce emissions. One group is called the “Economies In Transition” (EIT) group. These are the Eastern European countries who were going from communism to capitalism. They are composed of Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. They’ve done well at reducing to 1990 levels, since their 1990 emissions were all high, and have declined since after the fall of the Soviet Empire. They’ve reduced their emissions, but no thanks to Kyoto. Indeed, some signed on just so they could sell their carbon credits, because their countries were already below the 1990 levels by the time they ratified … and they did very well at the scam, too. Russia made big bucks from selling credits to the rest of the fools … The other group, called the “non-EIT” group, is composed of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. This is the group of interest, as they are the group which is like the US—established democracies with generally mature industrialized economies. I took this issue up because of the recent release of the newest CO2 emission figures for 2009-2010. These gave me the opportunity to investigate the question in the title—what difference has Kyoto made? How much has Kyoto affected the emissions of the countries involved? Carbon saved is carbon earned … Figure 1 shows the emissions of the US, and the emissions of the Kyoto non-EIT nations, from 1990 to 2010. Figure 1. Annual Emissions of Carbon. Units are billions of metric tonnes of carbon (C, not CO2). “Kyoto Countries” is the total of all of the non-EIT countries, as listed above. Data Source Up to 2008 and 2008-2010 Photo Source Hmmmm. Other than the post-2007 drop due to the 2008 global financial crisis and ensuing world-wide depression, what can we see in this data? Well, the most obvious thing I see is what’s not there. Looking at the pre- and post-ratification behavior of the Kyoto countries, I don’t see any change in the emissions due to ratification. The trend 1990-1999 is no different from the trend 1999-2007. Curiously, it looks like the US on the other hand slowed down the growth in emissions over the period. Before ratification the US emissions were rising faster than the EU emissions. After 1998, they have changed pretty much in lock-step. This can be tested by fitting a 2nd order polynomial to the 1990-2007 data for both the US and Kyoto countries, as shown in Figure 2: Figure 2. Same as Figure 1, with 2nd order polynomial trend lines fitted to the data up to 2007. So to at least a first approximation, I’d have to say that the total amount of CO2 saved by the Kyoto Protocol to date is … well … not to put too fine a point on it, the CO2 saved by Kyoto seems to be approximately zero. There’s been no change in the rate of rise of the emissions by the Kyoto countries. No difference. Zip. Nicht. Zilch. The US reduced its rate of emission growth over the period more than the Kyoto countries did. In any case, not to worry, the deus ex machina was waiting in the wings all along . What the Kyoto Protocol was incapable of achieving, the 2008 global economic meltdown had no problem doing. Figure 1 shows the total emissions of the Kyoto countries are now well below the 1990 benchmark … so I suppose the unfortunate citizens in the those countries are celebrating their great success, and hoping that the economic depression continues, no? No? w. PS—It is obvious from this data that economic depression causes a reduction in CO2 emissions. What has not been so obvious to the Kyoto folks is that the converse is true—forcibly reducing CO2 emissions comes at a cost to the economy. Advertisements Share this: Print Email Twitter Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit |
Everyone, meet Rowdy–a 13-year-old black Labrador who became a local celebrity because of his rare skin condition called Vitiligo. His condition resulted in the change of color of the fur around his eyes. The strange white patches are perfectly placed around his eyes. And nope, it’s not Photoshop or makeup! Other than his rare condition, Rowdy is truly a special dog. He has escaped death twice; he survived a poisoning and a shooting. In the past, Rowdy was poisoned with river water and had to have his stomached pumped. And he was accidentally shot by a policeman during what they mistakenly thought was a burglary. KPTV 12 wants to air a story about Rowdy!!! Monday night news … Live I think! Next stop is the Ellen Show! Then a movie starring Rowdy Umby!!! Posted by Niki Beiser Umbenhower on Friday, November 13, 2015 Now that Rowdy has strange white patches on his eyes, he has been the talk of the town. But Rowdy didn’t look like this at first. According to Rowdy’s owners, the Umbenhower family, his Vitiligo started around a year ago. The strange but very cool progression of our dogs eyes turning gray… Posted by Niki Beiser Umbenhower on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 The photo above was taken August of 2014. The color change then kept progressing. You can clearly see the changes in the photo below which was taken December of 2014. The strange but very cool progression of our dogs eyes turning gray… Posted by Niki Beiser Umbenhower on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 Rowdy’s rare condition, Vitiligo , is considered to be a genetic disease which manifests in the depigmentation of the dog’s fur. Thankfully, Vitiligo is not life-threatening. Other than Rowdy getting more famous, his life and behavior is completely normal. Watch the video below for the full story! (video may take a while to load) KPTV – FOX 12 Rowdy looks strange but beautiful! And just look how perfect those patches are! Amazing, right? You can read more about Rowdy’s story at The Dodo and at Fox 12 Oregon’s website. Do you want a healthier & happier dog? Join our email list & we'll donate 1 meal to a shelter dog in need! |
Phyllis Chesler, 72, is a feminist scholar and a professor emerita of psychology and women’s studies at City University of New York. In her 14th book, “An American Bride in Kabul” (Palgrave Macmillan) out early next month, she shares for the first time the story of the five months she spent, as a young bride, held prisoner in a Afghan household. Naive and in love, I married a man from Kabul — only to discover the horrible life of a fundamentalist Muslim wife. I once lived in a harem in Afghanistan. I did not enter the kingdom as a diplomat, soldier, teacher, journalist or foreign aid worker. I came as a young Jewish bride of the son of one of the country’s wealthiest men. I was held in a type of captivity — but it’s not as if I had been kidnapped. I walked into it of my own free will. It is 1959. I am only 18 when my prince — a dark, older, handsome, westernized foreigner who had traveled abroad from his native home in Afghanistan — bedazzles me. We meet at Bard College, where he is studying economics and politics and I am studying literature on scholarship. Abdul-Kareem is the son of one of the founders of the modern banking system in Afghanistan. He wears designers sunglasses and bespoke suits and when he visits New York City, he stays at the Plaza. He is also Muslim. I am Jewish, raised in an Orthodox home in Borough Park, Brooklyn, the daughter of Polish immigrants. My dad worked door-to-door selling soda and seltzer. But none of this matters. We don’t talk about religion. Instead, we stay up all night discussing film, opera and theater. We are bohemians. We date for two years. Then, when I express my desire to travel, he asks me to marry him. “There is no other way for us to travel together in the Muslim world,” he says. Like a complete heartsick fool, I agree. My parents are outraged and hysterical. They warn me that no good will come of this union. Little did I know then how right they would be. We marry in a civil ceremony in Poughkeepsie with no family present. For our honeymoon, we travel around Europe with a plan to stop off in Kabul to meet his family. I did not know that this would be our final destination. When we land, 30 relatives await our arrival. Among them, not one but three mothers-in-law. I am too shocked to speak, too shocked to question what these three women might mean for my future. I learn that my real mother-in-law, Abdul-Kareem’s biological mother, is only my father-in-law’s first wife. Her name is Bebugul. There are bear hugs and kisses all around. The family is warm and inviting — I try to forget about my husband’s glaring omission. But before the caravan of black Mercedes-Benzes can leave, an airport official demands that I turn over my American passport. I refuse. Everyone stops. Both the official and my husband assure me that this is a mere formality. It will soon be returned to me, so I reluctantly relinquish it. I will never see my passport again. That means — I would soon learn — that I would not be able to leave Afghanistan at will. I am now subject to the laws and custom of Afghanistan, and as a Afghan woman, that means hardly any rights at all. My husband’s father owns a compound comprised of numerous two-story European-style houses where the various families sleep with patios, expensive Afghan wool carpeting, indoor gardens, and verandas. I am only 20, and I am now a member of this household, which consists of one patriarch, three wives, 21 children (who range in age from infancy to their 30s), two grandchildren, at least one son-in-law, one daughter-in-law and an unknown number of servants and relatives. This is my new home. My prison. My harem. Our arrival is celebrated with a feast of unending and delicious dishes. Because of my foreign stomach, the foods — kebabs, rice dishes, yogurts, nuts — are baked with Crisco instead of ghee, an evil-smelling, rancid, clarified butter that is loved by locals but wreaks havoc on a non-native’s stomach. The smell of ghee alone can make you throw up if you’re unused to it. Abdul-Kareem comes alive during the celebration. He speaks Dari (even though I cannot) and leaves me with the other women. I am unprepared for my first-ever Muslim prayer service. Suddenly, all the men drop to the floor on all fours, prostrating themselves. I had never seen Abdul-Kareem pray before. When I awake the next morning, my husband is gone. I am completely alone. And I will spend every morning and afternoon that follows alone with my mother-in-law and female relatives. As the excitement over our arrival wears off, so does my special treatment. The household meals are now only made with ghee. I can’t eat any of it. Secretly I stow away canned goods that I indulge on in the brief moments that I’m left alone. Two weeks into my confinement and I have only left the compound twice — both times with a calvary of people guarding and watching. I am bored, so bored. One day, I decide to sunbathe on the private terrace that adjoins my bedroom. I don a pink bikini covered in purple polka dots. Then I hear a loud commotion that sounds like men yelling at each other. “What are you doing? You have managed to upset all of Kabul,” my husband says. He explains that a group of workmen a quarter-mile away caught sight of a “naked woman” and could not concentrate on work. A delegation had descended upon our house to demand that all women, especially I, be properly dressed. I start laughing. “Please, please just come in and put something on,” he says. “Rumors spread here quickly. By tonight, they’ll be telling their friends we are running a brothel Later I write in my diary: “I have no freedom at all. No opportunity to meet anyone or go anywhere. His family watches me suspiciously. Am I getting paranoid?” In fact, I have reason to be paranoid. I discover that mother-in-law has instructed the servants to stop boiling my drinking water. Because the sewage system consists of open irrigation ditches that are used as public bathrooms and for drinking water, I contract dysentery. Perhaps she thinks I am already “Afghan enough” to withstand any and all germs. Perhaps she wants me dead. She then begins her conversion campaign. She gives me prayer rugs and prayer beads and urges me to convert to Islam. If I don’t, I think, will she continue her campaign to sicken and kill me? The next day she barges into my room with a servant and confiscates my precious hoard of canned goods. “Our food isn’t good enough for her — she eats from cans,” she says. I am her captive, her prisoner; she, my jailer, might treat me more decently if I find ways to please her. This is difficult for me to write about but I did it. I repeat the words: “There is one God, Allah, and Mohammed was his prophet.” I am now a Muslim — at least in my mother-in-law’s eyes — but that still isn’t enough for her. When she is angry at me, she spits at me. She calls me “Yahud” or “Jew.” When I complain to my husband, he dismisses me as being dramatic. I must escape. Looking both ways, I walk out feeling like a criminal. I board a bus and notice that all the other women are at the back of the bus wearing burqas. I am horrified, slightly hysterical. Meanwhile, all eyes are on me. I am without even a head scarf or a coat. In this country, a naked face is almost the same as fully bared breasts. I am lost and dizzy with fear. My husband is informed of my escape, and he finds me and brings me home. But the desire to flee still nags at me. “I have been here for three months and have been allowed out only five or six times,” I write in my diary. “Is this imprisonment meant to tame me, break me, teach me to accept my fate as an Afghan woman? I want to go home.” Abdul-Kareem is fed up with my unhappiness. “He has begun to hit me,” I write. “Had I known something like this could ever happen, had I known that we would have to live with his mother and brothers, I would never have come here.” I attempt a second escape to the American embassy. But once I arrive, I’m escorted away. Without a US passport, I no longer have any rights as an American. I try twice more to escape — one with a return to the American embassy and another with the help of a friendly German expat. But before I can set any plans in action, I fall deathly ill. My temperature climbs to 105 degrees, but I receive no sympathy from my family. After days of struggling — and falling into a coma—a local doctor is called. He diagnoses me with hepatitis, explaining there’s nothing more he can do. This is my lowest point. I fear that if I die here I will be buried in a Muslim cemetery, forever forgotten. I continue to fight for my survival and beg to see an American doctor. My family agrees, but only if I am closely guarded. The doctor, however, manages to get me alone for a brief moment and tells me that I must return to the States for treatment. Then he orders a nurse to give me fluids. The next thing I remember is someone tugging at my IV line. It’s my mother-in-law. I call out and am rescued by a sister-in-law, who sits with me through the night. I tell my husband about his mother’s attempt on my life. He dismisses it. But he now realizes that if I survive this disease, I will leave him. So he contrives a way to make me stay. That night, a he climbs into my bed when I am feverish and sick and forces himself on me. I’m too weak to fight back. He is trying to impregnate me because if I am carrying his child, I will not be allowed to leave. Slowly, I recover. But I have missed two periods. I have to get out and it has to be now. I have only one card left to play: the royal card. I must appeal to my father-in-law, who alone has the power to return to me to my home. I send word through a servant that I would like to see him. He arrives and almost immediately says: “I think it will be best if you leave with our approval on an Afghan passport, which I have obtained for you. You have been granted a six-month visa for reasons of health.” He must have decided that he did not want a sick — or dead — American daughter-in-law who was trying to flee on his hands. Perhaps he never wanted a Jewish American daughter-in-law at all. He already has the passport in hand: #17384. I have it still. I feel saved; I feel graced. My husband grows incensed and begins to hit me and call me names. But I stand my ground. Even when I board the first plane out, he still believes that as a dutiful wife I will one day return to him. When the plane takes off, I am filled with more fierce joy than my body can contain. And when I finally land on American soil, I literally kiss the ground. I suffer a painful miscarriage shortly after my return. My body made that decision for me. I rush past any anguish, return to college, find a job and apply to graduate school. Two years after returning, I get my marriage to Abdul-Kareem annulled. I’ve never told this story in detail before, but felt that I must now. Because I hear some westerners preach the tortured cultural relativism that excuses the mistreatment of women in the name of Islam. Because I see the burqa on the streets of Paris and New York and feel that Afghanistan has followed me back to America. I call myself a feminist — but not just any feminist. My kind of feminism was forged in the fires of Afghanistan. There I received an education — an expensive, almost deadly one — but a valuable one, too. I understand firsthand how deep-seated the hatred of women is in that culture. I see how endemic indigenous barbarism and cruelty is and unlike many other intellectuals and feminists, I don’t try to romanticize or rationalize it. I got out, and I will never return. Adapted with permission from “An American Bride in Kabul” (Palgrave MacMillan) by Phyllis Chesler, out Oct. 1. The name of her husband and his family have been changeed .”I do as I’m told. |
What? Yet another science blogging network? No, no, no! This is even better. Let me explain. For four years, Scienceblogs.com was the biggest, most popular, most visible and most high-trafficked science blogging network in the world. A couple of other networks existed, known mostly to the connoisseurs. And thousands of independent bloggers, with a couple of early-adopter exceptions, were almost invisible except for the most devout readers. For many people, The Last 24 Hours page at Scienceblogs.com was their browser’s homepage. They would start their day by checking the page out, to see what is new in the world of science. That page was a one-stop-shopping page for all things science-bloggy. But over the last month or two, the world of science blogging changed. Scienceblogs.com is there, big and good, but not as dominant as it once was. Other existing networks suddenly became more interesting and more visible. They started growing. New networks got started and are still being built at an alarming rate of approximately one per week. This is a good thing – many more blogs are now enjoying increased visibility, traffic and influence. But there is a problem for the reader – how to track all those networks and all those blogs? They are scattered all over the place. It takes time to go through all the bookmarks and feeds in order to catch everything. So, Anton Zuiker, Dave Munger and myself decided to do something about it – make a one-stop-shopping place for all things science-bloggy. The result is Scienceblogging.org (also automatically redirected from Scienceblogging.com). Anton was a smart guy and bought that URL years ago! Now we hope that you will set Scienceblogging.org as your homepage in your browser and start your day there, checking out what’s new in the world of science. You should also subscribe to the official Twitter account. So, what is it all about? The page will aggregate RSS feeds from all the major (and some minor) science blogging networks, group blogs, aggregators and services. As the site develops further, it will also encompass other online (and offline) science communication efforts, including Twitter feeds, links to major scientific journals and magazines, ScienceOnline annual conference, and the Open Laboratory annual anthology of the best writing on science, nature and medical blogs. If you look around, you will see feeds for all the networks, several major group blogs, press services (like Futurity), aggregators (like ResearchBlogging.org), blog carnivals, etc. If you are the owner/manager of one of these (or other) sites, and there is something you want to change, let us know – we want the community input as to how to improve the site. Perhaps you have multiple blogs on your site/network but no common feed. We may have included only a feed for one of your blogs instead of all, or used FriendFeed as a temporary solution. You can fix that – make a common feed and send us the URL so we can switch it. You may like the way a pretty logo appears next to the names of various networks, but do not like the ugly red Y of Yahoo next to yours. You can fix that as well – switch from Yahoo pipes to a better feed (RSS or Atom) and your logo will show up as well. Is your network missing? Let us know. Are you building a new network? As soon as it goes live, let us know and send us your feed. If you have (or intend to post) images on Flickr with science themes, please tag them with #scienceblogging and they will also appear on the site. We need your help – we want to include independent bloggers as well. But how do we go about it? There are thousands of them! We cannot include all of those feeds. If we fuse them all into a single feed, that would be a firehose moving at the speed of light. There must be a better system! Of course, indy bloggers will occasionally show up there – when they host carnivals, do guest-posts on networks, or have their posts aggregated on ResearchBlogging.org, but there must be other ways as well – let us know your ideas. We also intend to include some Twitter feeds. For example, just before, during and after major conferences, like Science Online London, or ScienceOnline2011, we will put widgets on the sidebar showcasing tweets with the associated hashtags. But what other feeds? Twitter Lists are limited to 500 accounts – which 3-5 Lists combined cover pretty much all the important science twitterers? Let us know. Likewise for FriendFeed rooms. Any other services we should include (YouTube, perhaps)? What is missing from the Blogroll on the sidebar of the blog? We are also putting together a common feed for all the sciencey blog carnivals and will try to keep the feed up to date. Are any carnivals missing from this list? If so, do they have RSS feeds? If not, can you make one? Finally, check out the blog. For now, we have posts there like Welcome to Scienceblogging, Some thoughts about science blog aggregation, Blog Carnivals: what, how and why? and Just one way. We will use the blog to update you on the news about the site, as well as the news about the science blogging community and its endeavors, including meetings like ScienceOnline and the annual anthology – Open Laboratory. I will do a Q&A with founders, owners and managers of all the networks and other sites we cover so you can learn more about each one of them. We will try to highlight some of the independent bloggers who are not on any networks. And we will likely have some guest bloggers in the future. We appreciate all the other ideas you may have. And we welcome all kinds of feedback: criticisms, suggestions, praise. Subscribe to the blog feed to keep up. I hope you help us spread the word about Scienceblogging.org, link to it from your sites, save it as your browser’s homepage, bookmark it and visit it often. And help us make it better over time. Update: The reaction was overwhelming and overwhelmingly positive. Hundreds of tweets, several blog posts, several new suggestions/applications fo =r getting added to the site. etc. Thank you all so much! See also posts by Dave Munger on ResearchBlogging.org and his own blog, and the comments there. Also see blog posts by DrugMonkey, John Dupuis, PZ Myers, Jason G. Goldman, Zen Faulkes, Jeremy Yoder, Odyssey, Sandeep Gautam, Christina Pikas, Larry Moran (being his grouchy self and not having read our introductory posts, including this one, that specifically address his concern in advance of the launch of the site, eh…, Benjamin Brooks and UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering, and the comments on them – there is a bunch of interesting ideas for future improvement and development in several of those posts. As our posts on Scienceblogging.org blog, including the latest – Adding more blogs to Scienceblogging.org – suggest, we are just getting started and are asking the community for helping out with ideas, and technical know-how for future development, especially considering the need to include independent bloggers without overhwelming the system with thousands of feeds (or a feed containing a thousand blogs). Advertisements |
Donald Trump’s reporter-grabbing campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was fired after the billionaire’s daughter Ivanka told her dad that either he goes or she does, a campaign insider said. “Ivanka was threatening to distance herself from the campaign if Donald didn’t get rid of him,” the source said. “Ivanka has been trying to get rid of Corey for months.” The ax fell swiftly and left campaign chairman Paul Manafort — who had been feuding with Lewandowski — as the undisputed leader of Trump’s campaign. The source said Ivanka Trump had been distressed by news that Lewandowski grabbed reporter Michelle Fields by the arm at a Florida event, and by a Post Page Six item reporting that he got into a shouting match on a Midtown street with campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks. But the final straw came when Lewandowski was “caught red-handed” trying to plant a negative story about Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, the source said. But Hicks insisted her former boss didn’t try anything of the sort. “Absolutely not,” she said. Lewandowski was on his normal morning call with aides Monday, unaware he was about to get the boot. Trump’s son Donald Jr. later admitted he and his siblings played a role in his firing. “We’re obviously involved,” he told Bloomberg Politics. “We’re involved in talking with [our dad] about this, sure. But in the end, my father’s always going to make up his own mind.” The elder Trump praised Lewandowski, but said it was time for a change. “He’s a good man. We’ve had great success,” he told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. “But I think it’s time now for a different kind of a campaign. “We ran a small, beautiful, well-unified campaign. It worked very well in the primaries. But we’re going to go a little bit of a different route from this point forward. A little different style.” Hours after his dismissal, a defiant Lewandowski sat for a lengthy interview on CNN and maintained that he had a “great relationship” with Kushner and the rest of the Trump family. Asked whether he had tried to plant the negative story about Kushner, Lewandowski said, “I have no interest in doing that.” One senior Trump aide told the Associated Press that Lewandowski was forced out largely because he wasn’t getting along with Republican National Committee members and GOP officials. But Lewandowski, surprisingly, claimed Manafort was the one calling the shots. “Paul Manafort has been in operational control of the campaign since April 7. That’s a fact,” Lewandowski said. A Trump campaign official confirmed Lewandowski’s standing was hurt after Page Six reported about the screaming match between him and Hicks last month. “It was the beginning of the end,” an aide said, adding that it had alarmed Trump. “The last three weeks, [Lewandowski] was walking around the campaign with a baseball bat. Giving orders, pointing with it. Tapping people with it. Guy’s f- -king nuts,” the aide said. “Corey was down to just the interns and the airplane.” Lewandowski’s critics made no secret of their joy at his departure. “Ding dong the witch is dead,” Michael Caputo, a senior adviser and Manafort ally, tweeted with a photo of the vanquished Wicked Witch from “The Wizard of Oz.” Caputo officially resigned hours later, saying he didn’t want to become “a distraction.” “In hindsight, that was too exuberant a reaction to this personnel move,” he said in his resignation letter. The firing came a day before Trump was to attend a New York City fundraiser organized by Woody Johnson, owner of the Jets. Republican strategist Ryan Williams, a frequent Trump critic, said the dismissal “shows donors, activists and party officials that he is willing to make significant changes, even if it means parting ways with a trusted political aide.” The 42-year-old Lewandowski had been a controversial figure in Trump’s campaign but benefited from his proximity to the mogul. Often mistaken for a member of the security team, he traveled with Trump on the mogul’s private jet to nearly every campaign event, giving him more direct access than nearly any other staffer. He was a chief proponent of the “Let Trump be Trump” strategy and dismissed the notion that the candidate had to hire more experienced hands, spend on polling and data operations, or moderate his rhetoric for the general election. In March, Fields, then a Breitbart News reporter, accused Lewandowski of grabbing her arm after an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. Lewandowski had mocked her claim, tweeting: “You are totally delusional. I never touched you.” He was arrested, but the charges were dropped. Fields had the last laugh on Monday, tweeting, “Hey @CLewandowski_ I hear @BreitbartNews is hiring.” Meanwhile, new data released by the Federal Election Committee on Monday night showed that Trump’s campaign has only $1.3 million in the bank compared with Hillary Clinton’s $42 million war chest. Trump’s campaign raised only $3.1 million during the month of May, to Clinton’ $28 million. Trump, who self-funded his primary run, has been working with the Republican National Committee and holding events across the country to increase fundraising. |
Every time virtual-reality company Oculus brings a prototype of its Rift headset to a show, it takes another big step forward. And the prototype at this year's CES may be the biggest leap yet. Last January, Oculus arrived at its first CES with a degree of uncertainty. It hadn't yet released the developer-only Rift headset it Kickstarted in the previous fall. In fact, few outside the company had even seen it. Programmer John Carmack had brought an early prototype to videogame show E3 that summer, but since then there'd been radio silence as Oculus' bare-bones staff worked heads-down on the developer unit. Last year's CES was in many ways Oculus' coming-out party. As it turned out, plenty of people attended: the Rift snagged "Best of CES" awards from everyone and their mother (including WIRED, though our mothers weren't involved in the voting). Since then, Oculus has continually improved and refined the Rift en route to a consumer release later this year. The display has been kicked up to 1080p; the form factor has become sleeker. Perhaps most importantly for adoption, potential latency has been greatly reduced, alleviating much of the "simulator sickness" that can accompany wearing VR headsets. And now, with another CES upon us, others are getting in on the act; Sony announced a new head-mounted display for movie viewing and games. It should be noted, though, that this is unlikely to be a direct competitor to the Rift — Sony's unit gives wearers a 45-degree field of vision, compared to the Rift's staggering 110 degrees. Oculus unveiled even more this morning. There's a new demo, courtesy of Epic Games. There's a new AMOLED screen. There's low persistence, a display technology that mitigates motion blur and "smearing," both of which can contribute to user discomfort. For the first time, Rift is capable of positional tracking, which allows users to lean and move within the game environment by simply moving their head. And there's a new prototype — known as "Crystal Cove" — that incorporates it all, getting latency down to around 30 milliseconds (on its way to the sub-20 threshold that Oculus considers the holy grail). "We'll need some seat belts for people. You want to stand up, you want to walk around." — Oculus CEO Brendan IribeThe new demo is visually similar to a previous demo that Oculus used throughout 2013 to show off the Rift's immersive 360-degree playspace. Both were designed by Epic Games, and both occur within the universe of "Elemental," Epic's Unreal 4 game engine demo. The new demo places the user inside the same stone cave, facing the same horned lava-god/monster being as in the previous demo (bear with us here). This time, users play a top-down tower-defense scenario while the horned lava-god/monster guy watches. Like the two previous demos, the visual effects are plentiful. Unlike the two previous demos, however, it monitors the user's head movements in real space, and it's able to translate those movements into not just orientation changes — looking up, down, or behind you — but also as actual motion, which previously was possible only by using a game controller in conjunction with the Rift. It utilizes an "outside-in" system: an externally mounted camera tracks small LED lights on the prototype's faceplate, adding three "degrees of freedom" (forward/backward, left/right, and up/down) to the Rift's tracking ability. Up until now, developers and early Oculus adopters have only been able to accomplish this by taping a Razer Hydra motion controller to the side of their Rift headsets. Now, though, leaning down while playing the demo brings you closer to the tower-defense game, and lets you watch the armies you control firing turrets and launching minions. It's the first look at an untethered VR experience. "We'll need some seat belts for people," says Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe. "You want to stand up, you want to walk around." The demo also highlights the display's low persistence. In previous prototypes, turning your head quickly caused your surroundings to blur, an effect caused by the device registering new movement before the frame had a chance to update. Iribe describes it as "the wrong image being stuck to your face." That's effectively gone now. "In the past," Iribe says, "people would have to stop moving to stare at something. With low persistence, you can continue to stare at an object or read text while you're moving your head." A second demo allows users to play EVE: Valkyrie, a space dogfighting game that's part of the EVE: Online universe. Oculus brought the demo to E3 last year on its non-HD prototypes, but the company has updated it with the new feature set and the 1080p screen. Of course, Oculus being Oculus, how the Crystal Cove prototype accomplishes low persistence and 6-DOF tracking are subject to change. "This is just a feature prototype," Iribe says. "It's not at all representative of the final consumer look and feel. Once we feel like something is good enough and we're confident we'll be able to ship it with the consumer product, we feel good about announcing it. We still may change how it's done, but we feel great about the positional tracking system. It's been a year in the works, we've tried multiple different approaches, and this delivered the experience we were looking for." Even the display is subject to change. That's why Oculus won't even cop to the vendor it's using for the screen. "We first showed HD without committing to what exactly it would be," Iribe says. "It's at least going to be 1080p, but we don’t know what screen we're going to use, what size. We didn’t even know the resolution." Someday, all of those questions will be answered. Until then, there's CES. |
Japan has 34,000 gas stations, and now it has over 40,000 charging points for electric cars. This includes car chargers in homes and stations on the street, according to a financial report from Nissan. That sounds great, and it is, but there are some big differences between filling up with gas and filling up with juice. To begin with, gas is way quicker. You can fill your tank in a few minutes, whereas most car chargers drip-feed the batteries. This in turn changes the way we refuel. Usually we drive until we’re almost empty, then rely on the fact that we’re never far from a gas station (there are between 122,000 and 157,000 retail locations that sell gas in the U.S.). Electric cars need a little more planning. Even Tesla’s supercharging stations, which are claimed to be 16 times faster than typical EV chargers, need more than an hour to fill up a battery, although a half-hour top-up is good for up to 170 miles. That’s why Tesla puts its charging stations near restaurants and shopping centers, so you grab some groceries or a cup of coffee while your car fills up. The barrier to entry for a charging station is also lower than that for a gas station. No digging tanks for the gas, and no need for trucks to make deliveries. In future, it may be practical for a city-center convenience store to set up a few stations on the curb outside. Gasoline is still a great medium for energy storage, though, so it’ll be around in remote locations for a long time yet, but electric cars seem perfectly suited to urban transport, with its short journeys, and abundance of electricity. Let’s see how long it takes for U.S. charging stations to outnumber gas stations. |
Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email A mum who lured a man to a threesome where he was brutally tortured by her boyfriend and another lover has apologised for her part in the terrifying attack. The victim was lured to a Manchester flat by mum Chantelle McCluney, 23, for a sex session before being attacked by her boyfriend Craig Hogan, 28, and Andrew Doyle, 24. Manchester Crown Court heard how the victim, now 42, was tied to a chair, made to drink bleach and burned by a flamethrower. But speaking to the Manchester Evening News , McCluney, who laid the honeytrap by inviting the man to her flat for a kinky session, said she felt ‘guilty’ about what had happened and wanted to write a letter to the victim. She also claimed she had tried to stop the attack. (Image: MEN) McCluney said: “I was thinking of writing him [the victim] a letter to say sorry and saying I was trying to help and telling them to stop it.” The-mum-of-three said she was now in a different relationship and had turned her life around. She said: “It has been better since I got with him in 2011. “I don’t want my kids to know anything about Hogan.” McCluney said that she now wanted to leave Manchester as soon as possible because she did not want her three young children ending up in a gang. She said that she had hoped to return to college one day and study childcare but her part in the attack had put a stop to those plans. “I was talking about going back to college but with everyone saying stuff about me I don’t think I can go out of the house. “I wanted to do childcare but that’s out the window now,” she said. McCluney said that Hogan had made her text the victim to ask him to go to her flat. The court heard she watched and laughed as her boyfriend and Doyle abused the victim, but McCluney denied that. She said she had tried to intervene but the door was slammed in her face. She said: “I kept on getting told to go out the room. “I started getting worried and thinking what have they done to him. “I would not sleep with them while a guy was being battered in my room.” McCluney said that she had met Hogan online when she was 15 years old. She said: “It was an alright relationship at first but my family didn’t like him. “I thought I was in love but it was my first relationship.” The court heard how the relationship became abusive and McCluney said Hogan even made her sign up to swinging sites. She added: “He kept asking me if I wanted to meet couples or single males or single females.” McCluney admitted that she had taken part in threesomes with both the victim and Doyle. She said: “I had a threesome with both of them at some point but I wasn’t involved in the beatings.” McCluney, who admitted false imprisonment, was given an 18-month sentence with supervision, suspended for two years, after it was concluded she was under the influence of Hogan. Hogan, of Brownedge Road, Oldham, was jailed for four years for false imprisonment. Doyle, 24, of no fixed address, was jailed for five years for the same offence. |
It all started with an innocent tweet last night … E is trying to get me to eat a beet and I think everyone should back me and support me in disgust, because NO. — Nova Ren Suma (@novaren) May 18, 2016 People started chiming in support of beets. https://twitter.com/sbrezenoff/status/733068773846962176 I'm on E's side here. — laini taylor (@lainitaylor) May 18, 2016 Or against. beets will forever taste like dirt and horse food to me no matter how fancy the preparation is. — Audrey Coulthurst (@audwrites) May 18, 2016 There were revelations. BEETS ARE TERRIBLE UGH I THOUGHT I KNEW YOU #ImwithNova — Laura Ruby (@thatlauraruby) May 18, 2016 Some had very strong feelings. I've never even tried a beet before. My aversion is so strong I think I was killed by one in a past life. — Alexandra Bracken (@alexbracken) May 19, 2016 Very strong. I wish I had more followers so that my pro beet opinions could spread forth across the earth more rapidly — Maurene Goo (@maurenegoo) May 19, 2016 https://twitter.com/courtney_s/status/733100763581448195 Some wanted to talk about borscht. https://twitter.com/VeronicaRoth/status/733088955193757696 And got hard truths instead. https://twitter.com/rainbowrowell/status/733106925684981760 https://twitter.com/rainbowrowell/status/733107033289850880 They were ready to fight. me preparing for the beet wars pic.twitter.com/E0pteMaIJ9 — Victoria Aveyard (@VictoriaAveyard) May 19, 2016 And make puns. If you can't beet 'em, join 'em. — Adi Alsaid (@AdiAlsaid) May 18, 2016 Can you beet-lieve that I got locked out of my house during the Great Beet Debate of 2016!? What did I miss? Who are my mortal enemies? — Robin Benway (@RobinBenway) May 19, 2016 It quickly evolved into this … Opening YA twitter like pic.twitter.com/h2rGPDMZ8f — Kate Hart (@Kate_Hart) May 19, 2016 Basically. Author: I love beets! Other author: I hate beets! YA Community: pic.twitter.com/KAGDYxn0kc — Victoria Aveyard (@VictoriaAveyard) May 19, 2016 The outcome? I will remember those who had my back. Everyone else: you lost tonight. I didn't eat one bite of beet. I held strong. #TheGreatBeetBeef2016 — Nova Ren Suma (@novaren) May 19, 2016 Will YA ever be the same again?? |
Kacy Catanzaro made history on July 14 by completing the American Ninja Warrior obstacle course and becoming the first woman in the show’s six seasons to land a spot in the finals. Since the groundbreaking victory, the former NCAA gymnast told EW Live about the outpouring of support she’s received from fans and celebrities alike, including a happy-tear-inducing congratulation video from her gymnastics hero, 2008 Olympic All-Around gold medalist Nastia Liukin. One A-lister from whom Catanzaro would like to hear: Arrow star Stephen Amell, a self-proclaimed Ninja Warrior superfan, who has hit the gym with Catanzaro’s boyfriend and trainer Brent Steffensen (himself a four-time ANW competitor). Watching a video of Amell’s Ninja-esque “Superhero Workout,” Catanzaro noted that “his form is just tip-top. Maybe he could teach me some things. I wouldn’t hate that.” Catanzaro also talked about a potential career as a stuntwoman, what she was feeling when Steffensen scaled the Spider Climb to celebrate with her at the Dallas qualifier, and the chances of a quickie wedding after (or maybe even at?) the finals in Las Vegas. UPDATE: Amell responded to Catanzaro’s offer via his official Facebook: “Ready when they are.” Your move, American Ninja Warrior. American Ninja Warrior airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. |
Filipinos face stark choices in candidates for president A woman looks for her name and assigned precint at the Daniel Aguinaldo National High School in Davao City, on the southern island of Mindanao on May 8, 2016, ahead of the presidential and vice presidential elections. Tens of thousands of security forces fanned out across the Philippines on May 8 on the eve of national polls, following a bitter and deadly election campaign plagued by rampant vote-buying and intimidation. / AFP PHOTO / NOEL CELISNOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images less A woman looks for her name and assigned precint at the Daniel Aguinaldo National High School in Davao City, on the southern island of Mindanao on May 8, 2016, ahead of the presidential and vice presidential ... more Photo: NOEL CELIS, AFP/Getty Images Photo: NOEL CELIS, AFP/Getty Images Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Filipinos face stark choices in candidates for president 1 / 3 Back to Gallery MANILA — Millions of Filipinos began voting Monday in a presidential race where a foul-mouthed, crime-busting mayor is favored to win, but who the outgoing president says is a threat to democracy. Plenty is at stake for the Southeast Asian nation, which has turned around under President Benigno Aquino III with one of the highest economic growth rates in Asia. But the Philippines remains saddled by major poverty, inequality and decades-long Muslim and communist insurgencies. Five candidates are vying to succeed Aquino in one of Asia’s liveliest democracies. More than 45,000 candidates are contesting 18,000 national, congressional and local positions in elections that have traditionally been tainted by violence and accusations of cheating, especially in far-flung rural areas. At least 15 people have been killed in elections-related violence and more than 4,000 arrested for violating a gun ban, according to police. “Let us show the world that despite our deep passion and support for our candidates, we can hold elections that are peaceful and orderly and reflect the spirit of democracy,” said Aquino, whose six-year term ends in June. About 55 million Filipinos have registered to vote in 36,000 voting centers across the archipelago of more than 7,100 islands, including in a small fishing village in a Philippine-occupied island in the disputed South China Sea. Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of southern Davao city has led in voter-preference surveys, with a bold promise to wipe out crime and corruption in three to six months if he wins. That has resonated among crime-weary Filipinos but has also sparked alarm and doubts. Aquino, who backs former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, has campaigned against Duterte, saying he could threaten the country’s democracy. The brash Duterte, who has been compared to U.S. Republican front-runner Donald Trump for his propensity to make provocative statements, has threatened to close down Congress and form a revolutionary government if he wins and faces stonewalling legislators. A critical senator has also threatened to file an impeachment complaint against Duterte, accusing him of large-scale corruption. Duterte denies the allegations. In final campaigning Saturday, Aquino warned voters that Duterte could be a dictator in the making and urged them not to support him. Filipinos have been sensitive to potential threats to democracy since they rose in a 1986 “people power” revolt that ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who faced allegations of plundering the poor country and condoning widespread human rights violations by state forces. In 2001, a similar uprising forced Joseph Estrada from the presidency over alleged large-scale corruption. Duterte’s opponents — Roxas, Sen. Grace Poe, Vice President Jejomar Binay and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago — have all criticized him for remarks that threaten the rule of law and the Philippines’ hard-won democracy. Duterte, 71, built a political name with his iron-fist approach to fighting crime in Davao city, where he has served as mayor for 22 years. Despite his devil-may-care way with expletives, obscene remarks and allegations of corruption hurled against him, Duterte has led in election polls by more than 10 percentage points over Roxas and Poe. While it may be difficult for rivals to catch up, analysts say the race remains too close to call. |
Here is something interesting for you… A sloka in which all 33 consonants come in there natural order, (Varnacitras) Another one which is a beautiful Palindrome, read the way you like, (Gaticitras) Impressed ?? NO Ok lets see a semordnilap, If you read it backwards, it translates to an entirely new sloka, with a valid meaning. See how they used to literally play with words, but its not enough. A sloka, formed entirely with one vowel, ‘उ ’ (svarcitras) A sloka of 32 syllables with only single consonant, and yes it has a meaning, a valid meaning, (Sthaanacitras) Meaning: Which comes by breaking the sloka as follows, The most beautiful , Citrabandhs (when letters of sloka are written out , they form interesting geometric patterns). Let’s look at the most interesting one, Knight's tour problem , is an interesting problem in mathematics, relating to chess, where a knight has to visit each and every square of chessboard only once. Euler is considered to be the first one to investigate this problem. But, but wait, before you acknowledges him of his genius (no doubt on that, he was), look at this sloka, from ‘Padukasahashram’ (written in praise of wooden sandals of Lord Rama by Tamil saint Shri Desikan). Lets write them in order on a plain paper, like this, (note each part has same no of syllables) Now another sloka, following this is , Find the syllables of this sloka on the chart we have prepared using syllables of earlier sloka. Let us mark them 1,2,3,4…. If you carefully observe the path followed while going form 1 to 2, 2 to 3, it resembles the path of a knight on chess board. And it traverses all the squares, exactly once. When you reach at 32, the last one, just take your knight one more step to left, and you are ready to traverse the left half of our chessboard. But all these are known as ‘adhamkaavyas’ , meaning ‘poems of lower quality’, as they are slow and difficult to understand. (For meaning of slokas and some other wonderful creations, you can follow the link) Reference: https://who.rocq.inria.fr/Ramakr... |
Good Call GNB, Free Parking Isn't Free Ask your local jaded economist how to get more or less of something, and they’ll give you a simple answer: change the price. If you want more, subsidize; if you want less, tax. Well, until yesterday, the Government of New Brunswick was casting a huge dollar-vote in favour of one of their favourite job-creating commodities: asphalt. Not the “making roads makes work” kind though (that’s a different story), but the kind that paves over the limited amount of land the province’s cities have at their disposal. Yes, we’re talking about boring, old surface parking. By allowing government employees to park for free, we were knowingly or not transforming our cities and dramatically reducing their ability to pay for themselves in the long-run. You don’t need to look much further than a simple map of the surface parking available in the province’s capital city to see the kind of impact that this approach has had: Every red block of parking you see is a space that could be something that actually improves the vibrancy and economic sustainability of the city. Where surface parking lots exist, we forgo the opportunity to fill that land with things we enjoy: people, parks, buildings, businesses, etc. And when you don’t even charge for it, you imply that it is practically worthless. In fact, our urban centres represent the most valuable and productive land in the region (economically, culturally, socially), so it’s important not to waste it. Consider instead if we took the total square footage of parking you see on that map, stacked it vertically in the form of paid parking garages distributed throughout the city, and gradually replaced those parking lots with amenities or buildings which could house people, businesses, and storefronts. Not only would you be generating a lot more tax revenue for the limited downtown space that you have, you’d start to approach a density of activity downtown that would keep the doors of local businesses open and the streets humming with life all year long. You’d also stem some of the demand for parking, because when we build great urban areas, walking and biking become so much more appealing and accessible. So in reality, you wouldn’t even need as much parking as we have today. This shift has to start somewhere, and the government should be congratulated for getting the ball rolling by example. So far we haven’t even talked about the social and health impacts of reducing our dependency on cars. A 2014 study by the province’s Urban & Community Studies Institute found that 9 in 10 people in the province commute by car. And the trend doesn’t look like it’s getting any better. One of the few stats that is going up in the province is the number of vehicle registrations. In fact, it’s slowly by surely converging with the total adult population: Think about that. That isn’t the number of vehicles compared to the number of households. That’s the number of cars compared to the total adult population of the province. All in, the average cost of owning a mid-sized car for a year is about $10100. This means that the population of NB is spending about $5.3 Billion dollars per year just to get around day-to-day. That’s money that could be spent in much more effective and rewarding ways. Imagine if every household in New Brunswick had an extra $10000 to their name each year, and the opportunity to walk or bike on a daily basis. Which of our socioeconomic challenges would not be positively impacted by such a change? Finally, consider the positive impact this may have on the way the province’s cities are actually designed. Consider the last time you went for a casual walk when the weather was nice. Where did you go? Did you go for a nice stroll next to your local parking lot, or along a nearby 4-lane road? I can almost guarantee you didn’t. The human brain is wired to hate those environments. They’re noisy, dangerous and boring. Still, for some reason the province’s capital has three roads cutting directly through the economic heart of it that are classified as provincial highways. (Ever notice on Google Maps that Queen, Brunswick and Regent are coloured yellow? That’s why.) Some, like Regent St, are being prepped for expansion and high-speed throughput. Brunswick has already met that fate. Try reading just page 70 of this traffic engineer report to learn about how making Regent 4-lanes in downtown is supposedly ‘vital to the local economy and quality of life’. The plain fact is that you can’t design something you don’t truly understand or relate to. If what you relate to is being annoyed by not being able to park within a 15 second walk of wherever your destination is or being able to get home in 7 minutes instead of 9, I can guarantee you that you’ll know how to design a fine parking lot and high-speed road. If your daily experience involves avoiding cars in crosswalks, waiting for the next bus in -30 degree weather, or generally enjoying the public space provided by your city (that’s why you live there, right?), you’ll start considering ways to improve each of those. And if you happen to be a civil servant that has the power to change how we build our cities, towns, and neighbourhoods, engaging directly in any of those activities will only improve your decision making. While a small step in that direction, phasing out free parking for all GNB employees is a great way to get that started. __ Ryan Brideau, Gracen Johnson and Connor Jay Like this? Then tweet it or share it! Oh, and follow us too. Please enable JavaScript to view the contact form. Have a question or comment about this piece? Contact Us |
In November of 1937 in a Germany where universal conscription had been introduced two years earlier and the creation of Biker Private Troops had been agreed to the German Oberkommando Heer (OKH) became engaged in discussions with Germany’s two main motorcycle makers, BMW and Zündapp, with a view to creating a purpose built military motorcycle. Prior this military motorcycles had been ordinary civilian models with little or no modification other than painting them with military paint. The German Army was actively preparing to go to war however and the civilian bikes were not the bikes which the Wehrmacht planned to use in their new Blitzkrieg strategy that would require fast troop movements using vehicles and tanks whilst the Luftwaffe engaged in terrifying and destroying their enemy from the air. The Germans had created a new kind of warfare that required vehicles and armor. With typical German thoroughness and attention to detail the German High Command created a set of specifications to ensure these motorcycles fitted their assigned role perfectly. The specifications given to BMW and Zündapp were these:- These were to be motorcycle and side-car units with a load capacity of 500kg divided 250kg on the motorcycle and 250kg on the side-car. Tire size was to be 4.50×16″ (the same as the Volkswagen and its military variants). Fuel capacity had to be sufficient to provide a range of 350 kilometers. Ground clearance was to be a minimum of 150mm (about 6″). Maximum speed with a full load was to be 95km/hr. Normal cruising speed was to be 80km/hr. Mudguards front and rear had to provide sufficient clearance for the easy fitting of snow/mud chains. (Above information courtesy wehrmachtsgespann.de). BMW already had a working prototype of a motorcycle and side-car that would work perfectly which they had built and tested in 1934 in winter conditions. This bike featured a driven side-car wheel with a differential to share the drive between the motorcycle rear wheel and the side-car. BMW found however that the 750cc side-valve engine of their earlier R71 bike would not be suitable for the new military motorcycle so they developed a new horizontally opposed 750cc OHV engine that developed 26hp. Other features from the R71 carried over however including the telescoping front forks and the use of shaft drive. BMW would have been very well informed as to the conditions in which their military motorcycles were going to need to function. Hitler’s propaganda minister Josef Goebbels’s father in law Guenther Quandt had a major share in BMW, a share that was inherited by Josef and Magda Goebbels’ sole surviving son Harald Quandt in the post war era. So the BMW R75 was built with both the rigors of desert warfare in North Africa in mind but also with the ability to function well in the icy conditions expected in the planned invasion of Russia. It turned out to be such an excellent design that the US government got both Harley-Davidson and Indian to create military motorcycles based on it and the Soviet Red Army quietly acquired five military R75’s via Swedish intermediaries which they copied and created their own Dnepr M-72. The BMW R75’s gearbox was a four speed with reverse and it also had an “on-road” range and an “off-road” range similar to a Land Rover so these were a bike that could negotiate almost any terrain, travel at walking pace if needs be in company with infantry, travel as fast as the fastest speeds that military convoys were permitted to go at and travel quickly on the Autobahn. Despite much of the preparatory work for the BMW R75 being already done the motorcycle did not actually go into production until 1941, after the beginning of the Second World War in 1939. Adolf Hitler and his foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop had not expected Britain to declare war on Germany in 1939 and when she did it came as a surprise to both of them. When Joachim von Ribbentrop informed Hitler that Britain had declared war Hitler said to him “Now what?” Indeed from that declaration of war on 3rd September 1939 there was an eight month period of inaction called “The Phony War” which was finally broken by the Germans with their opening of their attack on France and her neighbors on 10th May 1940 subsequently leading to Dunkirk and then the Battle of Britain. The BMW R75 military motorcycle combination in the picture above is coming up for sale by RM Sotheby’s at their Duemila Ruote auction to be held over 25th-27th November 2016 in the city of Milan, Italy. You will find the sale page for this motorcycle if you click here. The BMW R series motorcycles that stemmed from the military R75 have a long history and have developed from a legacy of thoroughness and attention to detail in both their design and actual construction. That they have survived so long and been so widely imitated is a testimony to just how good a motorcycle combination the BMW R75 was. (All pictures courtesy RM Sotheby’s except where otherwise marked). Jon Branch is the founder and senior editor of Revivaler and has written a significant number of articles for various publications including official Buying Guides for eBay, classic car articles for Hagerty, magazine articles for both the Australian Shooters Journal and the Australian Shooter, and he’s a long time contributor to Silodrome. Jon has done radio, television, magazine and newspaper interviews on various issues, and has traveled extensively, having lived in Britain, Australia, China and Hong Kong. His travels have taken him to Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan and a number of other countries. He has studied the Japanese sword arts and has a long history of involvement in the shooting sports, which has included authoring submissions to government on various firearms related issues and assisting in the design and establishment of shooting ranges. |
In Responsive Logos - Part 1, I made the case that applying responsive design thinking to logos and allowing for subtle flexibility can actually support and enhance a brand’s identity. Several tips were then presented, on how logos can be adapted to better fit small screen constraints. This post shows how to efficiently implement responsive logos on the front-end, using the examples from part 1. CSS Sprites and Image Swapping The most common technique used for displaying different images at different breakpoints is CSS sprites. It works well, but requires creating a sprite image with each variation of the logo, and potentially additional images for each pixel density you are targeting. Another option is to use one of the new responsive image techniques, however, they aren’t yet well supported and they require creating separate image files for each variation of the logo. Neither of these options is super efficient. Inline SVG Adaptation Fortunately, there’s a much better way, which gives us resolution independence, and true single file implementation. Inline SVG adaptation utilizes a single SVG file for the logo, CSS media queries for adjustments, and if necessary, just a touch of JavaScript. It goes like this: Logo is present on page as inline SVG. Adjust the size of logo for each state using media queries in CSS. Adjust the position, size, color, visibility, etc. of individual logo elements for each state using media queries in CSS. If the proportions of the logo change in any way, then adjust the SVG viewBox property for each format using JS. For the examples below, resize the browser window or click the size buttons to see the technique in action. Be sure to check out the full Codepen examples to see actual code samples. Example 1: University of Pennsylvania This example displays two versions for the logo: large being the default, and small having the logotype removed and matching the height of the shield and mark. See the Pen Responsive Logo - University of Pennsylvania by Jeremy Frank (@jeremyfrank) on CodePen. Since the mark in the small version needed to be slightly taller to match the height of the shield, the viewBox property on the SVG element had to be adjusted so that the mark would not be cut off on the right side, due to a wider overall width. To get this value, I simply made the above size adjustment in Illustrator, and then rounded up the value from the info panel. Example 2: Argento Wine This example uses three states for the logo: the large state being the default, the medium state using a reduced detail version of the roundel, and the small state displaying the roundel only. See the Pen Responsive Logo - Argento Wine by Jeremy Frank (@jeremyfrank) on CodePen. This example is the most complicated in that there are 2 versions of the roundel contained in the SVG. The differences in version B and C outlined in the style guide were enough to warrant an additional grouping in the SVG element. As in the previous example, the viewBox property needed to be adjusted for each version to match the size of the displayed elements. Example 3: Case-Mate This example uses three states for the logo: the large state using the stacked version as the default, the medium state rearranging the mark and logotype into the horizontal version of the logo, and the small state displaying the mark only. See the Pen Responsive Logo - Case Mate by Jeremy Frank (@jeremyfrank) on CodePen. As in the examples above, the viewBox property on the SVG element had to be adjusted due to different proportions for each state of the logo. Example 4: NOAA This example uses three states for the logo: the large state being the default, the medium state hiding the encircling type, and the small state displaying the mark only without type. See the Pen Responsive Logo - NOAA by Jeremy Frank (@jeremyfrank) on CodePen. This example is the simplest in that CSS opacity is the only adjustment necessary for each state. No JavaScript is required since the proportions are always square. The SVG’s viewBox property can remain unchanged. Bonus - SVG Injection For an even more streamlined approach, you could implement SVG injection. This essentially uses a standard img tag to reference an external SVG file, and JavaScript to load and inject the appropriate SVG markup. This allows for a greater separation of concerns between the logo markup and the page markup. I highly recommend using Iconic’s lightweight SVGInjector library for this purpose. Conclusion SVGs are a perfect fit for resolution-independent logos. Combined with CSS media queries, a touch of JavaScript, and SVG injection, you have a robust solution for implementing responsive logos! |
A CHEAP bottle of Aldi whisky has taken out the top prize at the Melbourne International Spirits Competition. Receiving the Double Gold prize, the Highland Black Eight-Year-Old Scotch Whiskey was judged the top drop of its price category because of its “good body, nice colour and soft finish”. “This whisky is phenomenal for its price,” competition judge and founder, Adam Levy told news.com.au. “For its price point [34.99 for 700ml] it’s a wonderful whisky to buy.” The MISC is in its fourth year of judging, and is the first major international spirits competition in the Pacific Region with trade-only judges. Consisting of a judging panel of buyers, restaurant owners, distributors and importers — the competition works by placing submissions in its product category but also its pricing category. Therefore a spirit will be judged in its category along with other spirits in its same price range by its retail price. According to Mr Levy, while the Aldi whisky received the Double Gold in it’s category — if it was $20 more expensive, it probably would’ve only walked away with a silver medal. “At its price point, it compares to a good quality mass produced whisky,” he said. “To get the double gold award, it means the spirit is in the top 10% of the whole competition.” It’s not the first time the whisky has walked away with a top prize. In May, the same brand was awarded the silver medal in the whisky category at the International Spirits challenge — which has been described as the “most authoritative” competition in the world. The Highland Black Eight-Year-Old Scotch Whiskey beat some rivals valued three times more in price, with judges claiming it was a “rich blend of the finest grain and malt whiskies from Scotland”. In London this week, Aldi’s Oliver Cromwell London Dry Gin won a gold medal at the International Wine and Spirits Competition — meaning it’s one of the best in the world. Earlier this year, the $8 Aldi Côtes de Provence Rosé won the prestigious silver medal at the International Wine Challenge — also making it one of the best drops in the world. Unfortunately, both the wine and Gin haven’t quite made it to Australian stores. |
“David and I have had numerous discussions regarding his future. Based on our conversations, I believe it is in the best interests of our organization for David to pursue other opportunities and to not renew his contract,” said Shero. “I would personally like to thank David Conte for his 31 years of service to the New Jersey Devils organization. His contributions to the success of the hockey operations department have been immense. The search for his successor will begin immediately.” Conte, 66, served as the Devils’ director of scouting for 22 seasons. He was promoted to executive vice president of hockey operations in September 2006. Conte also spent eight years as assistant director of scouting. He originally joined New Jersey as a full-time scout in 1984-85. Conte was a member of the organization for all three of New Jersey’s Stanley Cup Championships. His former draft picks include Brendan Shanahan, Bill Guerin, Martin Brodeur, Scott Niedermayer, Brian Rolston, Sergei Brylin, Patrik Elias, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta. Additionally, Conte was influential in the signing of undrafted players such as John Madden and Brian Rafalski. |
Just excuse me as I roll through to burst a bubble for Fallout fans, because what I’m saying shouldn’t surprise anybody. Pete Hines, the public face of Bethesda, recently said that he’s “not going to GDC 2015”, which of course points towards the lack of a Bethesda appearance at the conference. So yeah, we all kind of knew that he was going to say that long before he actually had to say it. And not too surprisingly, when asked how many games Bethesda Game Studios have in production, he said “I am not providing any info or hints of any kind until we are ready to talk about what they are working on”. Is it disappointing? Not not really, it just seems like another bump in the road of Bethesda’s recently increasingly rocky road. Let’s not forget that, as a vast swathe of us predicted, ESO is going subscription free post purchase and that Bethesda are still trying to get “Battlecry” out the door. So if you are hoping for a Fallout 4 announcement at GDC 2015, as we were a couple of weeks ago, be ready for a disappointment as it’s not happening. But Hines did vaguely hinted that they will announce their games when they are ready. I guess we have to keep waiting then. |
Militants loyal to Yemen’s exiled government ride atop a tank they seized from Houthi militiamen in the country’s central city of Taiz, on Aug. 17, 2015. (Reuters) The past five years in Yemen offer a bleak opportunity to reckon with failure. When protests began in January 2011, many Yemenis dared to hope for meaningful political change. Today, after the collapse of a poorly designed political transition and a year of ferocious war, the country’s urban areas have been rendered unlivable, 21.2 million people are in need of immediate humanitarian aid, residents of Yemen’s largest city live under siege conditions, and a civilian population with close to 2.5 million internally displaced persons is effectively trapped as the result of a naval and air blockade. Yemen’s horrific conditions today directly follow from the systematic conceptual and political failures of those who designed and administered the plan for a managed transition from the regime of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. This Gulf Cooperation Council plan directly contradicted the primary goals of the 2011 uprising. After sustaining an 11-month uprising against prodigious odds, Yemenis found themselves shackled to a transitional agreement designed by a coterie of monarchs to protect the vested interests of a plutocratic elite. It is safe to say that five years on, the GCC transition plan has fully failed – for many of the reasons about which Yemeni activists warned from the outset. A central organizing slogan of the 2011 popular uprising in Yemen was “No tribes, no parties — our revolution is a youth revolution.” Although it was catchier in Arabic, it is easy enough to see that the popular protesters rejected the partisan landscape, including the formal opposition, as a whole. Those protesters were not a marginal or elite phenomenon. They included hundreds of thousands of diverse Yemenis, not only in the capital, Sanaa, but also in rural areas who flocked to local “change squares” across the country. Yemen has the youngest population in a very young region. It’s clear why Yemenis might take issue with an ossified political class that had delivered little in the face of two decades of encroaching authoritarianism dressed in parliamentary clothes. Indeed, from the vantage of 2016, the whole of the 2000s reads as a record of the regime’s gradually tightening grasp over the only node of opposition it could effectively manage and suppress and its failure to deal with the escalating crises of insurgency (in the north), secession (in the south) and episodic acts of extremist violence. Yet the transitional agreement invested in precisely that partisan political class, crafting a transitional government composed of members of the former ruling party and a handful of allied opposition parties known as the Joint Meeting Parties. This left the bulk of the population unrepresented, with “outreach” efforts mandated by the transitional framework only partially and imperfectly undertaken. The parties, for their part, created more distance between themselves and their members by suspending internal democratic practices when their constituents wanted more accountability. Major insurgent and secessionist groups were left out of the new governing coalition, and the security-sector reforms necessary to successfully combat violent challenges to the transition were late arriving and similarly incomplete. The National Dialogue Conference played a pivotal role, both signaling Yemen’s political unraveling and contributing to it. Marred by obstructionism, it unfolded in a climate of increasing everyday violence. While the NDC was far more inclusive than other institutional components of the transitional framework, that inclusivity only cast into bolder relief how few voices were included in the substantive processes of transitional governance. In effect, the NDC provided groups with a voice but no real role in decision-making. When the NDC proved unwieldy, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi simply worked around it with more manageable — but still less representative and wholly unaccountable — working groups. After the NDC’s conclusion, participating Yemenis were sent back to their corners in order to await the real work of governing, much of it done by presidential appointees and, in some cases, ad hoc committees. The release of a plan for federal districting by one such committee is often cited as the proximate cause of the war, as the draft was categorically rejected by the Houthis and their armed takeover of Sanaa soon followed. But it also speaks to fundamental tensions produced by a transitional framework that sought to contain “spoilers,” without mechanisms to ensure accountability to large sections of the population. The current war’s consequences will be far-reaching in ways that require Yemeni and international actors alike to rethink some of their assumptions about who and what matters in Yemen and why. The organized political parties — already substantially challenged during the uprising and transition— are now arguably irrelevant. The goal of “restoring the Hadi government,” as such, has increasingly given way to other imperatives for all concerned. Going into this war — the first five months of which, the head of the Red Cross concluded, caused as much destruction as three years of war in Syria — Yemeni lives and livelihoods were already precarious, as the country ranked last or at the bottom of the region in a whole host of human development indicators, and it was already struggling with the effects of pervasive insecurity during the transitional period. That said, the scale of destruction of infrastructure, housing and resources produced by 11 months of open war means that an already impoverished population will struggle to account for an internal displacement crisis and to secure the most basic of needs in at least 10 governorates that are experiencing a Phase 4 food emergency and are on the edge of famine. None of the current factions in Yemen’s internationalized civil war show the willingness to prioritize these first-order civilian needs. Instead, there is evidence that both the Saudi-led coalition backing President Hadi and the Houthi-Saleh alliance control access to resources and the movement of goods and people. Most damning is that fact that the region with the least violence and greatest food security is Hadramawt, under the local control of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) since April 2015. All parties, from the members of the Saudi-led coalition and its U.S. and British allies to the Houthis themselves, should be able to coalesce around the rejection of this condition. Instead, internally displaced Yemeni people are finding shelter in Mukallah under AQAP governance. It is hard to envision an end to this war that either side — assuming there are only two, which is true only at the very broadest level — would consider a victory in military terms. The window for victory for the Saudi-led coalition has already passed. Ground forces aligned with the Houthis and Saleh loyalists — mainly irregular forces, albeit with some heavy weapons — have held a coalition with clear air and naval superiority at bay for nearly a year. Yet even in the unlikely case that either of these two groups managed to secure a military victory, there is little reason to believe that the Yemen they would inherit would be one that they could govern in any real sense. At the same time, many Yemenis will be loathe to turn to international actors to resolve this crisis, given the role of the United Nations and the GCC in laying the foundations for the conflict to begin with. In light of serious allegations that coalition forces have been deliberately targeting Yemeni civilians and have used prohibited cluster munitions, several countries are now publicly questioning arms sales to Saudi Arabia and considering ways to promote greater accountability through the United Nations. British members of Parliament have called from the floor of the House of Commons for a halt to weapons sales, Germany has backed out of a weapons deal and Canadian support for existing deals is wavering. Recently, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, called on his colleagues to consider the same. While such moves might help to bring about more serious negotiations to end the war, any internationally brokered post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction process will have to contend with the same issues of inclusivity and accountability that were neglected in the 2011 transitional agreement. This time, however, the stakes will be higher, as planners will have to face the dual challenge of demobilizing militias and serving a polarized and devastated society. Until that time, the war goes on. Stacey Philbrick Yadav is an associate professor of political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and author of “Islamists and the State: Legitimacy and Institutions in Yemen and Lebanon” (I.B. Tauris, 2013). This piece is part of a series of reflections on the Arab uprisings after five years. |
Remember the good ole' days of MTV… when it was actually about music? You could discover or become a fan of bands just based off their music videos that was shown, a marketing tactic that has beat the test of time transitioning now to Youtube. From claymation and CGI to wacky skits and the traditional mock performances, there are music videos we identify with or are inspired by. For the first time, Metal Injection is running a poll for the 'Best Music Video of 2016.' We understand that voting on this sort of topic can lead to a popularity contest or be reflective of one's interest in the song over the actual music video, so we encourage all the peruse the videos rather than voting purely on their favorite songs. Also, in order to maintain the amount of choices to a reasonable number, we chose the music videos that provide a creative or original narrative rather than the majority of footage being the band performing. Don't see your favorite music video down there or think we forgot a good one? If the comment section shows a large enough demand, we will likely add the option as soon as possible. You may vote from the choices below with up to a total of 3 votes. |
Music museum and art gallery in Lubbock, Texas The Buddy Holly Center is a performance and visual arts center in Lubbock, Texas, dedicated to Buddy Holly as well as the music of Lubbock and West Texas more broadly. The building in which it is located opened as the city's Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway depot in 1928. In 1996, the City of Lubbock obtained a sizable collection of Holly-related artifacts from his estate, and the next year it purchased the former depot. In 1999, the new Buddy Holly Center opened as the home of the newly acquired Buddy Holly collection as well as a replacement for the city's Fine Arts Center, which had been established in 1984. The Center features a permanent gallery for the Buddy Holly collection, which showcases artifacts and documents from Holly's childhood as well as his professional career, as well as the Texas Musician Hall of Fame, the Lubbock Fine Arts Gallery, and three additional visual arts galleries that host traveling exhibits. In 2002, an oversized sculpture of Holly's distinctive horn-rimmed glasses was installed outside the Center's main entrance, and in 2013 Crickets drummer Jerry Allison's restored house was relocated to the site and opened to the public. History [ edit ] Building [ edit ] The Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway Depot building in 2013 The building in which the Buddy Holly Center is located opened as Lubbock's Fort Worth and Denver South Plains Railway depot in 1928. It was designed by Fort Worth-based architect Wyatt C. Hedrick in the Spanish Renaissance Revival style.[1][2] The depot, which provided the city with both passenger and freight service, was the largest built on the Lubbock–Estelline branch of the Fort Worth and Denver, itself a subsidiary of the Burlington Route.[2] It operated as a railroad station until 1953, when it was closed and subsequently used for salvaging and warehousing.[1] In 1976, the building was reopened as the Depot Restaurant,[1] which is regarded by the City of Lubbock as "one of the first successful examples of adaptive use in the city".[2] In 1979, it became the first structure to be designated a Lubbock Historic Landmark by the Lubbock City Council,[2] and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.[1][2] The restaurant closed in 1997, and later that year the city purchased the former depot.[1][2] Center [ edit ] In 1984, the City of Lubbock established a Fine Arts Center; although it developed successful artistic and popular programs, it was housed in "an aging structure that was never intended for museum or gallery functions". In 1996, the city obtained a large number of Buddy Holly-related artifacts from his estate.[1] The next year the city then purchased the recently closed Depot Restaurant, and began restoring, renovating, and expanding it into a facility that could both replace the Fine Arts Center and serve as a home for its newly acquired Buddy Holly collection.[1][2] The original depot building was restored to its original specifications, and while the addition was largely built to match it, it also features a frieze with steel forms shaped like Holly's iconic Fender Stratocaster electric guitar.[1][2] The new Buddy Holly Center, envisioned as a municipal performance and visual arts center dedicated to Holly as well as the music of Lubbock and West Texas more broadly,[1][3] opened on September 3, 1999, four days before Holly's birthday.[1] The guitar-shaped permanent gallery of the Buddy Holly collection is featured alongside the Center's other attractions: the Texas Musician Hall of Fame (which often features temporary exhibits dedicated to West Texas musicians), the Lubbock Fine Arts Gallery, and three additional visual arts galleries that host traveling exhibits.[1][2][4] In May 2002, an oversized sculpture of Holly's distinctive horn-rimmed glasses created by Steve Teeters was installed next to the Center's main entrance.[1] In 2010, the western wing of the Center underwent a major renovation that resulted in the replacement of doors and windows, the repointing of exterior bricks and stone, new flooring, lighting, and paint for the interior gallery space, the removal of freestanding exhibit walls, the addition of black-out shades to windows to protect artifacts from exposure to sunlight, and a new permanent education space.[2] Crickets drummer Jerry Allison's house, which had previously been restored and then relocated to the site of the Buddy Holly Center, opened to the public for the first time on September 7, 2013.[4] The structure, which was where Allison and Holly wrote many of their songs, is available for tours.[1] Collection [ edit ] The Buddy Holly Center's Buddy Holly collection, which the City of Lubbock acquired in 1996,[1] is headlined by the Fender Stratocaster that Holly played during his final concert and the pair of glasses that he was wearing at the time of his death.[5] It also includes numerous other artifacts from his career as a professional musician, including a recording microphone, performing outfits, a guitar strap customized by Holly himself, and numerous albums.[6] Furthermore, the collection includes numerous photographs (both promotional and personal in nature) as well as documents, such as postcards, fan mail, original tour itineraries, and business cards. A handwritten letter from Holly to A.V. Bamford and correspondence with Decca Records are among the numerous letters in the collection. Various artifacts and documents from Holly's childhood, including homework assignments, a slingshot, a leather-crafting kit, and his personal collection of 45-rpm records are also on public display.[6] The Center also has Holly's 1958 Ariel Cyclone motorcycle on long-term loan from Lubbockite George McMahan; after Holly's death, the motorcycle was owned by country musicians Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter before being sold at auction.[7][8] Exhibits and events [ edit ] Temporary exhibits hosted by the Buddy Holly Center have included visual arts exhibitions showcasing subjects ranging from underwater photography[9][10] to watercolors from children's literature.[11] In October 2014, Paul McCartney played a concert at the Center, during which he recounted Holly's musical influence on the Beatles.[12] It also hosts an annual Summer Showcase Concert Series, which offers free performances in its Meadows Courtyard from May to August featuring bands of various musical genres, including rock, rhythm and blues, funk, soul, country, metal, and mariachi.[13] In August 2015, Latin roots rock musician Patricia Vonne played a concert in the Meadows Courtyard.[14] The Buddy Holly Center offers free admission, as well as free trolley tours of various Holly-related sites in Lubbock, on February 3, "The Day the Music Died" (the day Holly was killed in an airplane crash along with Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson).[15] The Center has also waived admission fees for other occasions, including for its participation in the City of Lubbock's First Friday Art Trail (on multiple occasions, including in August 2011, May 2015, and August 2015),[16][17][18] as well as on the occasion of its 15th anniversary in September 2014.[19] The Center has additionally hosted various other community events, including workshops on wire drawings,[20] a Music, Art and Drama Camp open to children between the ages of 8 and 12,[21] and various Day of the Dead events, including an art gallery, a family art workshop, and a concert by a Tejano band.[22] See also [ edit ] |
Nottingham broke the world record for dancing zombies in 2008 Nottingham's annual video game festival GameCity will return for a fifth year on Tuesday, 26 October 2010. The event is aimed at the general public, compared with other related festivals, and held mainly in the Old Market Square, for free. Organisers have admitted that they never thought it would last this long. Co-founder of GameCity, Iain Simons said: "I'm surprised but delighted. It was always a risky project for the city to get behind." He added: "Credit [also] goes to the public for getting behind something that was potentially leftfield, and untried, as GameCity." Iain Simons, who works at Nottingham Trent University, also directs the festival and in 2008 oversaw a new world record for dancing zombies, in Old Market Square. "That was a really turning point for us. It kind of tipped over from a marginal games event to a really public facing one. "It was a great night for us. In every bar in town, for the rest of the night, it was just full of zombies." Broadening out the mandate for the whole show is really important to us. Iain Simons, GameCity director The difference with this year's GameCity is to make it even more inclusive. "The thing with video games is there is no single audience. "The people who play Wii Fit are different to those who play World of Warcraft, they don't necessarily talk to each other. "Broadening out the mandate for the whole show is really important to us." Harry Potter premiere One the highlights this year is an attempt to create the world's best health club, in partnership with the Nottingham Primary Care Trust and EA Sports, as well as offering the public the first play of Sports Active 2. There will also be a Harry Potter concert with video games composer James Hannigan making an appearance. Mr Hannigan's score for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will get its premiere during the event. "We've just confirmed some owls!" said Iain. There will also be a stand-up comedy evening, talks from video game industry experts and a tea party to celebrate 30 years of Pac Man. Game City is a city-wide event taking place from 26 - 30 October 2010. For more information please visit the official festival website. Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version |
Literature TE OVY COVEERED WALLLS OV HOGWrts chapte 1 Athurs notee: i DONT own hhry poter (lol dat wood b awsum if id id rite?) iby is MIEN! DINT USE HER UNLES I SAY SOO! Heather I luv u ur da best thx 4 editin it 4 meh! Hi im Ivy Caroline Celestia Allison Marissa Claire Bieber. Im rly fukin hot nd skiny nd I hav blomd curly hair dat gose all da way 2 muh nees and mi boobs r big nd hot nd I hav long leg dat r rly long nd supr hot and im rly tan nd tall nd hot nd I hav ruby lips and mah teeth r wite nd perfect nd a prfect noes nd my eyes r rly hot nd dey r dark brown nd my eylashes r rly long and hot. I go 2 a wizerd skool calld hogwarts nd im a wich der. Im frum amrika but I wanted 2 go heer instead bcuz british guyz r so fucing sexah. Im 15 so ill b in muh 5 year der bcuz im transferrin frum my normul skool heer 2 da witch scool der. I went in2 da greta hal wer de little kids wer bein sorted. Wen da last kid wer sortid da principal guy stud up. “we hav a nu student frum amerika soo she neds 2 b surted. Evry1 giv a wsrm welcum |
ASHTON Wood bought a $49,000 Jeep - and hated it so much he demolished it. Stuck with a “lemon” that Fiat Chrysler won’t refund or replace, the Wood family today staged a protest by smashing, burning and destroying the car. Starting tentatively, they ripped out seats and shot arrows to deflate the tyres. As the destruction ramped up, the windows were shattered with crowbars and the doors ripped off. CAMPAIGN: He bought a Jeep and then his life turned to hell Then it was time to bring out the heavy machinery. Angle grinders cut off the roof before a 35 tonne excavator ripped out the engine and dashboard. media_camera Ashton Wood gets help to destroy his Jeep that was a lemon from the moment he drove it out of the dealership. Bli Bli. Pic Megan Slade The excavator ceremonially dumped the crumpled remains onto a wood pile for the raging bonfire finale on the rural Sunshine Coast property. The Wood family organised the “Destroy My Jeep” demolition to highlight the need for laws forcing car companies to refund or replace problem vehicles. So-called lemon laws would mean drivers who had suffered more than three faults would not be left with a useless car. The Wood family jeep suffered 22 faults starting on the night they collected it from the Noosa dealership in 2010. Before they had even left the showroom, the engine had stopped and fuel was gushing from underneath. media_camera Ashton Wood gets help to destroy his Jeep. Pic Megan Slade Despite relentless breakdowns, meetings and mediation, Vanessa Wood said Fiat Crystler had refused to replace or refund the faulty vehicle. “It has been a problem ever since we picked it up from the dealership,” said Mrs Wood. “The kids were sitting in the car ready to go, the gentleman was showing us the controls on the steering wheel and all of a sudden it stopped. media_camera Ashton Wood gets help to destroy his Jeep that was a lemon from the moment he drove it out of the dealership. Bli Bli. Pic Megan Slade “The engine stopped, he was looking at it and I heard this gush and all the diesel was coming out of the car. “So it had to stay and we had to go home without a car, and here we are 22 issues later and many many breakdowns.” media_camera Ashton Wood with daughter Romy,11. Pic Megan Slade Mrs Wood said lemon laws would protect consumers who had been sold a dud. “We want lemon laws like they have had in America since the early 70s, so if there are three major faults you either get your money back or you get it replaced, it’s as simple as that. “Apart from your house, your car is your next biggest purchase. “You buy any white goods, whether it’s a toaster or a kettle, if there’s anything wrong with it, they just replace it so why can’t they do that for cars? “These are legitimate issues. The Jeep should have been replaced or we should have got our money back, but the law doesn’t support that at the moment and it’s not good enough.” Earlier, The Courier-Mail reported: Hammers — check. Archers — check. Karate Club- check. Excavators- check. media_camera Ashton Wood gets help to destroy his Jeep that was a lemon from the moment he drove it out of the dealer ship. Pic Megan Slade Ashton Wood has destroyed his “lemon” Jeep after raising over $18,000 through a viral campaign. The Maroochydore man said his 2010 model Jeep Cherokee had been trouble from the start, with a fuel line dropping the day he was meant to drive it out of the dealership. According to Mr Wood, the 4WD has been towed four times and has 20 defects including windscreen wipers that triggered by turning corners. media_camera Ashton Wood gets help to destroy his Jeep that was a lemon from the moment he drove it out of the dealership. Pic Megan Slade A spokesman from Chrysler Australia said the company had fixed any issues under the car’s warranty. “We have, and always will, treat Mr Wood and his concerns in a fair and professional manner. “Mr Wood’s concerns have been resolved under warranty, free of charge. We have also extended the warranty on Mr Wood’s vehicle an extra year as a gesture of goodwill,” he said. “Mr Wood has also sought independent ruling on his concerns through the Queensland Office of Fair Trading. The Office found that there was insufficient evidence to require any action by them.” media_camera Ashton Wood gets help to destroy his Jeep that was a lemon from the moment he drove it out of the dealership. Bli Bli. Pic Megan Slade When Mr Wood asked Chrysler Australia for a refund or replacement vehicle they said they could only repair the car. Unsatisfied Mr Wood flew to Chrysler Australia head office in Melbourne. “We talked for two hours at the end of that time they said they’d replace the battery and I’d be good to go, that’s all they were going to offer us.” media_camera The Jeep set to be destroyed. The next week Chrysler offered to buy Mr Wood’s car at market price, $22,000, less than half of what he bought it for. Earlier this year a Chrysler spokeswomen told the ABC the offer was fair and “well above the market rate” for a car that had travelled more than 50,000km. After the Queensland Office of Fair Trading did not rule in Mr Wood’s favour, he decided to launch the Destroy my Jeep campaign. About 150 people donated generously to the Kickstarter appeal raising $18,956 to fuel Ashton’s fire. Supporters were rewarded with special wrecking privileges like using a hammer to create dents or smashing the headlights with a crowbar. The Jeep has also been covered in the names of pledgers, drawn on with permanent marker. “I have been totally consumed by this,” he said. “I travel a lot for work and spend a lot of time wondering if my wife’s going to get stranded again while I’m away. “I want some closure on the weekend and I want to put this behind me.” Mr Wood hopes the stunt will ultimately result in the creation of a Lemon Law in Australia. “Since I went public I’ve had a lot of vehicle owners come to me and say good on you fight the good fight for us, we’re all in the same boat,” he said. “I think I have to go through this to make a very, very big point and get people talking about it and get the State Government to seriously consider making the law.” It is estimated over 100 people will turn up to watch and participate in the demolition today. The three-hour spectacle will see the tyres slashed, interior torn up, and arrows shot throw the metal. A karate club will also be unleashed on the lemon and a number of people will take to the car with hammers and crow bars. Finally, excavators will pulverise the vehicle before it is set on fire. A man has already bought the wreck for $200 on eBay. |
Sixty-five million years ago, disaster struck the Earth. An asteroid or comet around 10km in diameter slammed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. While the idea was ridiculed at first, this event is now widely believed to be the reason the dinosaurs became extinct. This realisation led to a rallying of scientists and engineers around the world to detect and monitor the asteroids in the heavens, and if need be, to be prepared to deflect one from hitting us. Today, we have a Planetary Defense Coordination Office under NASA whose sole mission is to prepare us for this unlikely but devastating possibility. It is believed that we have found all of the asteroids the size of that which killed the dinosaurs (at least those near Earth). Recent impacts But there are many smaller asteroids that can still do a lot of damage which are undetected. In 1908, the Tunguska event flattened about 2,000 square kilometres of forest in Siberia. This asteroid was only about 50 metres across, but we have only found about 1% of the near Earth objects (NEOs) of this size. Despite being so rare, if a large asteroid did hit Earth, it would cause extraordinary damage. In fact, you’re more likely to be killed by an asteroid than die in a shark attack. We know about a number of recent asteroid impacts, but we’re still discovering more in the geological record. Currently it’s estimated that NEOs which can cause global ecological effects occur around once every 500,000 years. Right now, despite being able to detect and track large asteroids (you can look at current known asteroid positions yourself using online databases), we know very little about their interior. Much of what we do know is based on meteorite samples which have fallen to Earth. But it is difficult to extrapolate small samples to understanding what asteroids look like as a whole. Asteroid types Asteroids have several types based on mineral composition, but their internal structure can also potentially take several forms. Some might be rubble piles, weakly held together by gravity and electrostatic forces, while others might be solid bodies of rock. Different structural types would require different methods of deflection. For example, a rubble pile might break up if we hit it with an object, with each smaller piece still posing a threat. This might dictate a more finessed approach, such as hitting it with a smart cloud of smaller particles released by a space craft. The use of explosive devices to move an asteroid is expected to be about 100 times less efficient on porous asteroids compared to more solid bodies. Inside an asteroid My research involves repurposing geophysical techniques used for more than a century on Earth to determine the strength and structure of asteroids. To test whether these techniques will work requires simulating asteroid conditions in a lab. This means we have to recreate the gravity, atmospheric and temperature conditions. We also have to find a material that matches the properties of an asteroid surface to test our equipment on. NASA performs experiments in low gravity using a parabolic jet, which is temporarily in free fall. Atmospheric conditions can be modified in a vacuum chamber. Researchers have developed simulant materials that are similar in chemical composition to various classes of asteroids. As well as being useful for testing mining equipment that might be used on asteroids, they can also be used to test geophysical equipment might be able to determine useful properties, such as structure. Once this technology is proven, it can potentially be used to land on an asteroid and peer into its interior. By understanding its structure, porosity and strength, we can then start to plan deflection strategies for individual asteroids, and for asteroids in general. Being prepared The dinosaurs went extinct because they didn’t have a space program. Luckily, we are more prepared (although Australia is still one of just two OECD nations without a space program, the other is Iceland). If we were to detect an inbound asteroid with warning of at least several years, we can send a mission to find out what it’s made of. Then we can plan the optimal strategy complete with backup plans. In 1995, a workshop with ex-Cold War US and Russian weapons designers was held to propose a way of deflecting an asteroid if it was detected at the last minute. They came up with (though never built) a nuclear weapon capable of instantly vaporising a 1km asteroid. It would also have the potential to move an extinction class asteroid out of our path given at least a few months notice, or a comet given two years notice. Given any less time, we may have to be content with evacuating as many people as possible from the predicted landing site. Asteroid impacts aren’t the only event that might wipe us out. Nuclear warfare, biological terrorism and artificial intelligence all have the potential to destroy us. Some researchers have even suggested that the probability of humanity surviving until 2100 is just one in two. Given this level of risk, one thing is certain: we can and should spend more time and resources trying to reduce these risks. |
Buying second-hand products is always green, but it’s easy to be discouraged by the stories of broken laptops from eBay or Craigslist. To quell these fears, here is a 10-step checklist on how to find a used laptop that isn’t just a high-tech lemon. Most wouldn’t flinch at the idea of buying a used car, but the thought of a used computer sends them squirming. The tech industry tries their hardest to keep it that way: they advertise new products in such a way to render the previous models perceptually obsolete; they block even the simplest hardware upgrades; and they sell bottom-of-the-line models that simply break within a couple years. This shouldn’t scare you away from a used computer purchase, but know that they are imperfect machines; some research, determination, and basic knowledge is required. To make this list, I used both my own experience along with some tips from Peter Montesano of Peter’s PC Repair, one of the most highly regarded repair shops in San Francisco. Step 1: The Decision – Finding The Best Used Laptop Decide what computer you want and then change your mind. Like most people, you probably dream of the newest, hottest thing on the market—maybe a Macbook Air or Dell’s new Studio Hybrid? No. Instead, check out some of the best computers from last year or earlier this year. These are the laptops you should choose from in the used market—and generally, they’ll perform the same tasks that this year’s models do. As an added bonus, you can try to find a computer from 2007 with Windows XP installed instead of Vista! Step 2: Where to Buy Determine where you will buy your computer. There are four options: eBay, Craigslist, local dealers, and straight from the manufacturer. Buying refurbished models from the manufacturer or a local dealer is often more expensive, but they’ll come with attached warranties that will calm your worried hearts. The remaining two options are a bit trickier, but also cheaper. If you plan to use eBay, make sure to find a seller with no less than 100% feedback rating. If the computer arrives broken, a seller with a flawless rating will happily allow a return in order to prevent negative feedback—that’s the beauty of eBay. For a Craigslist exchange, make sure to arrange a public meeting spot like a coffee shop where you can inspect the computer fully before purchasing. Step 3: Cracks and Imperfections Now you need to check for damage. First check for cosmetic issues—and then realize that it doesn’t matter whatsoever. As long as the computer still works, that little chip on the bottom corner will not be a problem. But if you’d like, you can try to get a few bucks knocked off the price because of it. Step 4: No Purple Haze One of the most expensive things to replace on a laptop is the screen. Check for any purple or pink discoloration, and if you find any, send the computer back. It’s not worth the hassle or cost of repairs. Step 5: Testing the Inputs Check all plugs, sockets, and wireless connections like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Many of these are attached to the motherboard, which is costly to replace. If one USB port is broken and you can live with the other three, then do it. If the headphone jack is broken but you have Bluetooth headphones anyway, then rejoice. Step 6: Check for a Faulty Hard Drive. Test the hard drive(s) for errors and remember that replacement drives are generally cheap. Step 7: Check for a Faulty CD Drive Try burning all types of media that the drive should support—CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R DL, etc. Step 8: Test the Battery Life Read as many of my posts on Green Options as you can until the computer’s battery dies. If goes out too fast, try to get the seller to discount the price to make up for the cost of a replacement battery, which can often carry a big price tag. Step 9: Seek Help If you don’t want to do all these tests yourself or you want an expert opinion, most repair places would not charge more than $80 for a complete diagnostic check-up. When your used computer cost less than half the original retail price, $80 isn’t much. Step 10: Wrap it up For eBay buyers, don’t leave feedback until you’ve checked everything out. If there are any major problems, do not be afraid to return the computer. Don’t get frustrated if everything isn’t perfect right from the start. Remember that people have problems with their brand new computers pretty often as well. Even if you have to fork up some money for small repairs or upgrades, rest assured that your decision was environmentally and economically sound. Photo Credit: Declantm on Flickr under Creative Commons license. Other Posts Relating to Green Computers & Used Laptops: |
Within the 24 hours surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of the government’s new, pro-manufacturing “Make in India” policy, the nation also boasted a successful mission to Mars and a credit rating that had been raised from “negative” to “stable” by Standard & Poor’s. Suddenly, a lot of things seemed to be going India’s way — but for “Make in India,” at least, there are plenty of hurdles ahead. The campaign, which focuses on the manufacturing sector, is not going to be easy to deliver, despite the enthusiasm that accompanied the launch of the effort’s new logo and website. FDI (foreign direct investment), Modi, told investors, should stand for First Develop India. “India is the only country in the world which offers the unique combination of democracy, demography, and demand,” he said. In the audience were CEOs from abroad — Maruti Suzuki’s Kenichi Ayukawa and Lockheed Martin’s Phil Shaw — and home, including Tata Group chief Cyrus Mistry, Reliance head Mukesh Ambani, Kumar Mangalam Birla of the Aditya Birla Group and IT tycoon Azim Premji. Modi followed the launch with meetings with other CEOs, such as Mary Barra of General Motors, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and (earlier) Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo. They all gave the appropriate soundbites to the media. But the key question is: Will they bite? Will they be able to convince their boards and companies to invest in India? Will Make in India work? “This is a great idea,” says Jagmohan Raju, professor of marketing at Wharton. “The Indian consumer has come of age, and domestic demand will continue to increase to justify the production of goods in India. Twitter If goods are produced in India, it creates manufacturing sector jobs. It creates an infrastructure of ancillary industries. More jobs will be created in the industrial sector and the economy will get a boost. Japan started its growth path by making goods for the U.S. China has a strong manufacturing base. India can achieve the same.” Getting Rid of Red Tape “There are several hurdles to Modi’s Make in India campaign,” counters Ravi Aron, professor at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. “The reason that there is very little manufacturing investment in India is not because the country has done a poor job of marketing itself. Twitter India today is a bad choice for foreign investment in manufacturing. It is not surprising that manufacturing accounts for only about 15% of the Indian GDP.” “Poor infrastructure, crony capitalism and corruption have likely done more to dissuade investment than labor laws.”–Janice Bellace Modi has not yet initiated many policy changes to improve the business climate in India, although he has assured investors that a red carpet will replace red tape. India is currently ranked 134th in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business list. According to government officials, as part of the Make in India initiative, all hurdles related to starting or doing business in India will now be resolved in a maximum of 72 hours. The government has created a panel of experts and representatives from various departments to hear issues related to domestic and global investment. To put that in perspective, Vodafone has been fighting the government in the courts for several years. Walmart is still waiting on the sidelines, having abandoned its partnership with the Bharti Group. Almost a month after the new policy was announced, the government amended some of the labor laws. The changes pertain to the system of inspection of companies, known as the Inspector Raj. Under the new system, inspectors will no longer be able to visit companies of their choice and stay there for as long as they want. A computerized database system will decide who goes where. There is also a time limit for filing reports. An online Shram Suvidha portal has been unveiled for employers to submit one compliance report for 16 labor laws. “These facilities are what I call minimum government, maximum governance,” Modi said at the launch of the campaign. There were a few other measures, such as portability of provident funds, designed to benefit employees. But the Industrial Disputes Act, which does not allow a company to close down a loss-making unit, remains intact for now. “Modi has taken the position that India must be transparent and efficient,” says Janice Bellace, professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton. “Poor infrastructure, crony capitalism and corruption have likely done more to dissuade investment than labor laws. What Modi needs to do is eliminate outdated legislation and replace them with up-to-date laws, where appropriate, and streamline compliance and enforcement procedures. Most importantly, Modi should commit the government of India to ‘decent work,’ an International Labor Organization term that includes opportunity, security, adequate remuneration and freedom of association.” A Mindset Shift Modi is trying to change mindsets — that of labor, of bureaucrats and of employers. “The policy offers few tangibles except acceptance of self-certified documents, a 72-hour window to get clarifications on the Make in India website and 25 defined focus areas,” says Radhicka Kapoor, fellow at the Indian Council for Research and International Economic Relations and the author of a recent paper titled, “Creating Jobs in India’s Organized Manufacturing Sector.” “While the PM has acknowledged that India is indeed a difficult place to do business due to the large number of regulatory bottlenecks and has set a target of elevating India’s ranking by 85 rungs in the World Bank’s Doing Business survey, he has not outlined a specific strategy to achieve this goal,” Kapoor notes. “What the policy does, however, is to send signals of vigor and enthusiasm. But it will take a lot more than a flashy new website, a new lion symbol and catchy phrases to make India a manufacturing powerhouse and create productive jobs for India’s rapidly-expanding workforce.” Adds C.S. Rao, chief economist at apex chamber Assocham: “At this point, the policy mirrors Modi’s thoughts. It needs to be seen how it turns out.” According to Kumar Kandaswami, senior director at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India, so far the campaign is “a statement of intent.” That said, he adds, “it is a very important one as it will mobilize activity and direct the attention of stakeholders. The government has brought on board industry leaders. The fact that this is held out as an important initiative of the prime minister means that there will be serious follow-up action.” No one is quarreling with the need to boost manufacturing, but Pankaj Chandra, professor of production and operations management at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, says that the government must take a proactive approach if it wants to get results. “In the past, the bureaucrats didn’t do their part of the job. They did not have the strategic framework,” Chandra notes. “There were the big manufacturing investment zones. But the bureaucrats couldn’t see beyond a real estate play. And manufacturing is everything but a real estate play. The world over, manufacturing has changed. Modern manufacturing is about science and technology, R&D, new processes, innovation, skills and quality. If we can’t do all this, I don’t think the Make in India project will work.” “Make in India is a great idea. The Indian consumer has come of age, and domestic demand will continue to increase to justify the production of goods in India.”— Jagmohan Raju But Babu Khan, senior director (manufacturing & infrastructure) at apex chamber the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), says that “Make in India” is more than a statement of intent. “[Make in India] underscores a sound strategy and the strong reforms process that the new government is committed to,” Khan says. “The Indian economy is at a major turning point, as we can now look back at the global financial crisis and move ahead toward economic revival.” Khan adds that recent statistics show how critical it is for India to focus on boosting manufacturing. “After growing at 10.1% during the five-year period 2005-2006 to 2009-2010, the manufacturing sector slowed down sharply, growing at just 4.2% in the past four years,” he explains. “As a result, its share in GDP has declined to 14.9% in 2013-2014 from a peak level of 16.2% in 2009-2010.” Déjà Vu This is not the first time that India has tried to boost its manufacturing prowess. In 2004, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and McKinsey produced a report titled, “Made in India: The Next Big Manufacturing Export Story.” According to the report, “Manufacturing exports from India have not taken off even though India has several advantages, including engineering skills (process, product, quality and capital), a growing domestic market, a raw material base and a large pool of skilled labor.… India has the potential to increase manufacturing exports from $40 billion in 2002 to $300 billion by 2015.” In 2004, the government set up the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC). In 2006, the NMCC came out with a national strategy for manufacturing. The objective: to raise the share of manufacturing in GDP from 17% to 30%-35% by 2015. The council dubbed 2006-2015 as the “decade of manufacturing in India.” In 2012, McKinsey wrote: “If India’s manufacturing sector realized its full potential, it could generate 25% to 30% of GDP by 2025.” In May 2011, the department of commerce finalized a strategic paper on doubling India’s exports from $246 billion to $500 billion in the next three years (2011-2012 to 2013-2014). Merchandise exports needed to grow at 26.7% to achieve this target. For the record, the manufacturing sector saw a decline of 1.4% in August 2014. The figures have not changed materially; only the target year has moved from 2015 to 2025. A more recent FICCI report dated August 2013 notes: “In the current scenario, to expect manufacturing to grow at 14% (as targeted) on a long-term basis may not be feasible.” (Incidentally, Modi has appointed former McKinsey India chairman Adil Zainulbhai as chief of the Quality Council of India, which will spearhead the Make in India effort.) Aron says that there are several things fundamentally wrong with India that will continue to stifle manufacturing. “There are four classes of deficits,” he explains. First are the factors of production. India faces crippling shortages in, for example, power. Businesses are forced to rely on expensive and inefficient ways of producing power. India’s labor laws make it hazardous for businesses that face seasonality in their demand to set up mass production facilities. By telling industry that it cannot retrench a part of the workforce in accordance with falls in demand, India has succeeded in making original equipment and component manufacturing extremely unattractive, Aron notes. “The window for growth through export-led manufacturing may well have closed for India.”–Ravi Aron Second, continues Aron, are the enablers of production — such as surface transport and ports. “Manufacturing requires a significant edifice of infrastructure support. This edifice is absent in India,” he points out. “The third set of issues has to do with the legal regime. Laws are made to suit the extremely myopic and expedient objectives of the regime in power,” Aron notes. “The Vodafone retroactive taxation is a case in point. Even after the Supreme Court ruled that the company did not owe taxes, Parliament passed a retroactive law to claim the money from Vodafone in what must surely seem to foreign investors like state-sponsored larceny. Walmart, Amazon and Nokia are all faced with capricious tax and business laws being implemented by a corrupt bureaucracy. Is it any surprise that Microsoft did not include Nokia’s manufacturing facility in Chennai in its deal for Nokia’s phone and tablet assets. The reason? Tax terrorism again.” Finally, there is chronic, all pervasive corruption. It is only the fourth deficit that Modi can tackle to some extent, says Aron. Raju contends that Aron is too pessimistic. On infrastructure, for instance, “many manufacturing companies in India and elsewhere do create their own infrastructure. Look at Jamshedpur [a city with a population of more than 600,000 built by the Tatas over 100 years].” But he sees other problems. “I am less worried about labor laws, and more worried about the availability of a skilled workforce,” he says. Kandaswami says the Make in India policy can bring in more FDI, make the sector more competitive, create good quality jobs and enhance the quality and quantum of exports. “But the vision statement has to be followed up by action on the policy and implementation fronts,” he explains. Not delivering on the promise would be a significant setback for manufacturing in India. Has Time Run Out? Considering that India realized the manufacturing imperatives several years ago and did nothing but produce a series of reports that gathered dust, it may already be too late. “The window for growth through export-led manufacturing may well have closed for India,” says Aron. There are two reasons for this, he adds. First are supply efficiencies: Large volume component manufacturers move to a region because they wish to co-locate with other firms in the same supply chain. “Between 1985 and 2000, many manufacturers went to China because of cheap labor,” Aron notes. “But their growth in the second phase — from 2000 through 2012-2013 — was because an ecosystem of suppliers comprising members … of many business verticals — semiconductors, medical equipment, heavy electrical, molded plastics and toys — had sprung up in China. In other words, many firms took their manufacturing to China because their supply chain partners were already there. Companies first went to China for cheap labor, but stayed for supply chain efficiencies.” The second issue is the extent of automation in production, continues Aron. “In industry after industry, we have seen automation in the form of robotic production, digitization of business processes and precision manufacturing techniques,” he points out. “Manufacturing is returning to the U.S. much faster than manufacturing jobs are. The growth in manufacturing jobs is not really about where unskilled laborers swing their hammer at a widget moving on the assembly line; it is about workers that calibrate, operate and manage machines as a part of the manufacturing routine. Even with all these challenges, Modi could still attract some manufacturing FDI to India, Aron says, though it would be nothing like China’s “spectacular gains” made between 2000 and 2010. “But nonetheless, [it could be a] significant amount,” he notes. “Before he does that though, he will need to build roads, ports and power plants — the manufacturing infrastructure. Perhaps a CEO could tell the PM: ‘If you build it, they will come.’” |
Sean Bean’s done a Reddit Ask Me Anything. And the Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and Legends star was completely brilliant. Advertisement Among jokes about how often he finds himself dying on TV and film (ie LOADS), there were some real gems. Here are 10 fantastic facts you probably didn’t know about Bean… 1. He is often confused for Mr Bean, the comedy character. Seriously. “I used to get his fan mail, actually! I think they had the wrong address. I have gotten a couple of letters meant for Mr. Bean aka Rowan Atkinson. These letters would say things like ‘You’re so funny, you make me laugh, with your big rubbery face’ and I would say ‘you can’t mean me!’ “Whenever I call people up and they say ‘who’s calling’ and I say ‘Mr. Bean’ and you can hear people giggling on the other end of the phone… he’s got a lot to answer for, that Rowan Atkinson.” 2. He once witnessed Nicolas Cage smash a prehistoric bear skull “I went back to Nic Cage’s house [while filming National Treasure], and we’d had a few drinks, we were playing pool and he accidentally knocked over his prehistoric cave bear skull and smashed it. And he was really upset about it, and the next day went and buried it in a field.” 3. He’s got a pretty good reason for not teaching Jon Snow anything. And might have just given away a massive Game of Thrones spoiler… “HAHAHAHAH! Because he’s not mine! Little bastard!” 4. He likes comfort food. A lot. “I like chocolate. Yeah. I do like chocolate. And I guess it’s that and tomato soup. And tinned custard. With bananas. And I guess that’s it really! I love milk, as well. And milkshakes. Mmm. Mashed potatoes. Yeah. Meat & potato pie with gravy. Like a Cornish pasty. With Henderson’s relish, yes. That’s very important to me. It IS!” 5. He’d ditch Lord of the Rings’ Aragorn for Game of Thrones’ Robert Baratheon in a real life fight “He’s from Yorkshire. That’s why. Why not Aragorn? If Robert got a hold of you, he’d crush you. You’d be careful not to get caught.” 6. If he could go undercover in ANY organisation, he’d choose… Camden Council Advertisement “I’ll tell you what I would infiltrate: Camden Council in London. To find out their plans… Muwahahaha.” |
Argentina vs. Brazil – it’s one of the most heated rivalries in sports. And in 2007, they played in the Copa América Final. It’s a game Júlio Baptista will never forget. “To play in a final is already incredible, and one against Argentina made it a lot more special,” Baptista remembers. “At the time, the press was saying that we weren’t going to win because Argentina had a really strong team.” It didn’t take long for “The Beast” to prove them wrong. In the fourth minute, Brazilian midfielder Elano launched a ball across the pitch to Baptista, who corralled it in the box. Argentine defender Roberto Ayala gave him too much space, allowing Baptista to control the ball and fire it in the net. Júlio Baptista Getting Involved with Orlando City Foundation Read He didn’t know it then, but Baptista’s goal proved to be the game-winner, as Brazil cruised to a 3-0 victory and their eighth Copa América title. It was Baptista’s second Copa América crown. “It was very important because it gave us a lot of energy, and the players, we all felt more confident that we would win the final. To score the first goal – the goal that started all of that – I will never forget that moment.” Copa América Centenario will be coming to the United States in June, marking the first time in its 100-year history that the tournament will be played outside of South America. It’s a chance for American soccer fans to see some of the best players in the world compete in one of the game’s biggest tournaments. “It’s a big opportunity for the United States,” said Baptista, who has played his entire career in soccer hotbeds in around the globe. “It’s a very high level tournament and people can become more familiar with the game. Soccer is growing a lot here, so I think it’s great for the United States to host Copa América.” Thanks to its immense support of MLS’ newest team, Orlando was chosen as one of just ten sites from across the country to host the tournament. Costa Rica and Paraguay will play the first game at the newly dubbed Camping World Stadium on June 4. Panama and Bolivia will play here on June 6 before Brazil plays Haiti on June 8. Tickets for this once-in-a-lifetime tournament are available here. |
A sailor from the cruiser Shiloh whom Navy officials said fell overboard last week, triggering a massive search-and-rescue effort, has been discovered on board. Presumed dead after going missing June 8, Gas Turbine Systems Technician (Mechanical) 3rd Class Peter Mims reportedly hid himself in one of the engine rooms, according to two sources familiar with the situation. It is unclear how Mims survived a week in the engineering space or where he was hiding. He will be flown off Shiloh for evaluation soon. Mims' disappearance prompted a massive, 50-hour search-and-rescue effort off the coast of Japan that included Japanese Coast Guard and naval forces. Helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft from the carrier Ronald Reagan along with a Navy P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, the destroyers John S. McCain and McCampbell, and the Reagan itself all assisted Shiloh in the search for the missing sailor, according to releasse from U.S. 7th Fleet during the search. Japanese Coast Guard ship Kudaka also assisted in the search. A Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship and a second Japanese Coast Guard ship assisted early in the search that combed more than 5,500 square miles of water off Japan. Navy officials from U.S. 7th Fleet did not immediately comment Thursday about the status of Mims. |
PADDY MILLS A battlefield; an abusive parent; the ongoing struggle to make ends meet; a pile-up of unanswered e-mails — stress can take many forms. But stressful situations have something in common: they trigger reactions such as fear and a surge of hormones. These responses can be beneficial in the short term but, if severe or prolonged, can damage the mind, triggering conditions ranging from depression to post-traumatic stress disorder. That much has been known for decades; now researchers are getting to grips with how stress can alter the biology of the brain, and tip a mind into illness. Here, Nature takes a look at what they have learned, and at the gaps that remain. Modern life — with more people, more pressure and more gadgets — certainly seems more stressful than life in the past, but how does it affect the mind? Some scientists are seeking answers by examining how the brains of city- and country-dwellers process stressful situations (see page 162). Others are looking for the molecular scars left by stress. Neuroscientist Eric Nestler argues that stress may influence the brain through epigenetics, mechanisms that change how genes behave (see page 171). Biologists Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel, meanwhile, suggest that stress causes chronic diseases in part by shortening telomeres, structures that cap and protect the ends of chromosomes (see page 169). Still others hope to draw lessons from people who can bounce back from stress — even from experiences as devastating as abduction and rape. By tracing the social and biological factors that help these people to recover, the research could yield ways to make the rest of us more resilient (see page 165). |
New Zealand duo Malakai Fekitoa and Sam Cane have been cited for "allegedly tackling an opponent dangerously" in Saturday’s 21-9 win over Ireland. Wing forward Cane's tackle on Robbie Henshaw was reviewed by the officials during the game and referee Jaco Peyper awarded a penalty against New Zealand at the time. The Leinster centre was unable to continue and was replaced by Garry Ringrose. Centre Fekitoa, who scored the final try in the 66th minute, received a yellow card for a tackle on Simon Zebo in the 49th minute. Fekitoa goes in the bin for a high tackle on Zebo. https://t.co/nMJpcNgAEX — RTÉ Rugby (@RTErugby) November 19, 2016 The hearings will be heard tomorrow, Six Nations officials, who manage disciplinary matters for the November Tests, told RTÉ Sport. England second row Joe Launchbury (allegedly kicking) and Argentina's Nicolas Sanchez (allegedly striking) were also cited from their games against Fiji and Scotland respectively. Launchbury's Wasps play Connacht in the Champions Cup on 11 December. The incident is alleged to have taken place in the second minute with Launchbury appearing to aim for the ball only to strike centre Asaeli Tikoirotuma. The low-end sanction for the offence is four weeks, the mid-range eight weeks and the top-end 12 weeks plus, with Launchbury's hearing scheduled for Monday afternoon. A statement from 'Autumn International Disciplinary' read: A total of four players have been cited for alleged foul play following the weekend's Autumn Internationals: Joe Launchbury, the England lock forward, for allegedly kicking an opponent in the 2nd minute of the second half of the match between England and Fiji at Twickenham (Law 10.4(c) ) Nicolas Sanchez, the Argentina outside half, for allegedly striking an opponent in the 38th minute of the second half of the match between Scotland and Argentina at BT Murrayfield (Law 10.4 (a) ) Sam Cane, the New Zealand flank forward, for allegedly tackling an opponent dangerously in the 11th minute of the first half of the match between Ireland and New Zealand at the Aviva Stadium (Law 10.4 (e) ) Malakai Fekitoa, the New Zealand centre, for allegedly tackling an opponent dangerously in the same match (Law 10.4 (e) ) Disciplinary hearings for the four players will be held in the next two days in front of independent disciplinary committees of three. |
The past 50 years have seen rapid evolution in medical opinion on sun exposure. My mother tells stories of spending entire summers lying on the beach coated in baby oil. I recall using sunscreen as a kid, but I also remember that I typically got one really bad sunburn per summer. In contrast, my 3-year-old daughter is not permitted to leave the house without a heavy coating of sunscreen and ideally a large, floppy hat. When she was a baby, I forced her to wear a “bathing suit” with long sleeves and pants. This change in behavior has been prompted in part by the growth in skin cancer rates, and the increasing recognition that sun exposure and skin cancer are linked. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, treatment of non-melanoma skin cancers in the U.S. increased nearly 77 percent between 1992 and 2006, and melanoma diagnosis increased by 1.9 percent annually between 2000 and 2009. Dermatologists and pediatricians alike emphasize the importance of avoiding the sun and using sunscreen. But lately we’ve seen the inevitable backlash. Some parents note that they turned out fine despite rarely wearing sunscreen in their youth, and wonder if it’s really necessary to be quite so aggressive in applying it to their own children. Companies hawk sunscreen with ever-higher SPF values, despite the fact that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has acknowledged there is no evidence that raising SPF above 50 makes any difference. Layered on top of this general skepticism are further health concerns. Sunscreen is made of chemicals, and a selective read of media reports would have one believe that these chemicals cause both cancer and hormone disruption. (“The Dr. Oz Show’s” take on the issue warned, “Your sunscreen might be poisoning you.”) So does sunscreen prevent cancer or cause it? The fact that sun exposure and skin cancer are linked is well accepted and the evidence is compelling. Skin cancer rates vary across the United States: Those areas with more year-round UV exposure have higher skin cancer rates. People who are fair-skinned have higher skin cancer rates, and their pigmentation matters more than where they live. What is less well established, at least in the data, is whether sunscreen mitigates these risks. The theory behind sunscreen is very sound. Sunscreen absorbs UV light, blocking it from reaching the skin, and UV light exposure is linked with cancer. In practice, however, the evidence on the relationship between sunscreen use and skin cancer is more limited. One randomized trial in Australia evaluated the effects of daily sunscreen usage among adults over a period of four and a half years on the diagnoses of basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, which both describe abnormal cell growth in the upper layer of the skin. (Basal cell is the less dangerous of the two, since growth is typically more limited.) Participants were mainly of fair or medium skin color, and those in the treatment group were told to apply sunscreen every day. Participants in the control group were not given this instruction. By the end of the period there was no difference in the share of people diagnosed with either type of skin cancer, though there was evidence of a smaller number of squamous cell tumors in those using sunscreen. In the case of melanoma, the more dangerous form of skin cancer, there’s no data that tells us whether sunscreen works. Again, it’s worth saying that the theory behind sunscreen is pretty compelling, but the evidence just isn’t as strong. One possibility is that it takes a lifetime of sunscreen use to make a difference. Another possibility is that people who use sunscreen spend more time in the sun, which mitigates some of the benefits. Now let’s turn to the risks. There are many chemicals in sunscreen but popular concerns revolve around two: oxybenzone and retinyl palmitate. Concerns about oxybenzone surround its possible disruption of the endocrine system, the system in the body that manages hormones. Endocrine disruption can cause developmental issues, both cognitive and sexual. Concern about oxybenzone in the case of sunscreen can largely be traced to this particular paper on an experiment in rats. In the experiment, young rats were fed a diet of food mixed with oxybenzone and other chemicals. After several days they were killed and their uteruses were removed and weighed. (Higher uterine weight is indicative of endocrine disruption.) The study found that at high doses of oxybenzone, uterine size increased. An obvious initial complaint in applying these findings to humans is that people typically do not eat sunscreen. Our skin can absorb about 1 percent to 2 percent of the oxybenzone in sunscreen, meaning the results of the rat study are applicable in principle. However, studies of rats like this one are often better for proving possibilities than for allowing us to make actual risk statements, since the rats were exposed to doses of oxybenzone much higher than humans ever see. In a helpful follow-up study, several authors showed that it would take between 35 and 70 years of daily full-body sunscreen usage to achieve the dosage experienced by the rats. And small studies in humans do not show evidence of hormonal changes in response to daily sunscreen use. So yes, in principle oxybenzone is an endocrine-disrupter, but practically this finding isn’t important enough to inform sunscreen use. The second chemical — retinyl palmitate — has prompted concerns about links with cancer (the debate is nicely summarized here). In studies that looked directly at skin cells, a combination of retinyl palmitate and UV light was shown to generate free oxygen radicals (the opposite of antioxidants, these have long been linked to cell disruption and cancer). No direct links with skin cancer have been seen, however. Some limited evidence from studies of mice produced conflicting results. The cellular evidence may be a little concerning but, again, applying this to humans directly is difficult. And probably the strongest reason to believe in the safety of retinyl palmitate is that this chemical has been in use in many makeup and facial products for 40 years or more with no published evidence suggesting it is risky. The bottom line is that although there are holes in our knowledge, there is no concrete evidence of any chemical risks of sunscreen at typical doses. As to whether I should be slathering my kid with sunscreen or not, the good news is that I’m not causing any damage by doing so, and I’m certainly sparing her the painful sunburns of my youth. On the other hand, it may be dangerous to be lulled into thinking that sun exposure is without risk when she wears sunscreen. Protective clothing, hats and shade may have as much — or more — of a direct role to play. Perhaps it’s time for another full-body bathing suit. |
Man Arrested After Jars and Jars Of Human Penises Discovered In His Apartment Brace yourself because this story is truly horrifying. A 52-year-old man nicknamed the “Penis Collector” has been arrested by police in Slavonski Brod, a small city in eastern Croatia, on suspicion of possessing a collection of human body organs. The man was apprehended earlier this week. When authorities entered his apartment they found jars and jars of human penises soaking in formaldehyde. According to sources, the man, whose name has not been released, works as a registered nurse at a city hospital. He has no criminal record and has been described by some as “a family man,” though others say he is an alcoholic who often showed up to work drunk. “On behalf of all employees of the hospital, I have to say that we are very unpleasantly surprised by an event that threw a shadow over this hospital,” a hospital spokesperson said. “Our apologies to families of the deceased.” It is unclear how exactly police learned about the “collection.” Also unclear is how the man got his hands on so many human penises, though it is believed they were cut off from the dead bodies of hospital patients. The man, who has since been released from custody, now awaits criminal charges for disturbing the deceased, which has a maximum sentence of up to two years in jail. Related stories: The Year’s Craziest, Most Unbelievable News Stories About Penises (So Far) Huge Crowd Turns Out To See Smallest Penis In Brooklyn Watch Males Strippers Have Their Penises Measured, Learn To Hump Chairs h/t InSerbia |
President Donald Trump on Monday is expected to sign a round of executive orders that could shake up America's standing in the North American Free Trade Agreement. Evan Vucci/AP On his first full weekday in office, President Donald Trump is expected to sign a series of executive orders that will shake up U.S. participation in international trade deals – notably the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump tweeted early Monday morning about his " busy week " that will include "a heavy focus on jobs and national security" as reports surfaced that he is preparing to sign executive orders that will effectively withdraw the U.S. from involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and shake up its participation in NAFTA. Both moves were generally expected to happen under a Trump presidency, especially the country's withdrawal from a TPP deal that former President Barack Obama helped negotiate. Toward the end of Obama's tenure in the White House, TPP began increasingly looking like a pipe dream against strong Republican opposition. But the NAFTA retooling, though promised by Trump throughout his presidential campaign, could have more immediate ramifications with Canada and Mexico – two of America's most significant trade partners. Between January and November 2016 – the most recent month for which data were available – Canada was the top buyer of American exports worldwide, according to the Census Bureau . Mexico was No. 2. Collectively, the two countries accounted for more than 34 percent of the U.S. export market. Mexico and Canada also combined to account for more than 25 percent of the country's total imports over that window. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week issued a statement congratulating Trump on his inauguration and highlighting an "enduring partnership" between the U.S. and Canada that "is essential to our shared prosperity and security." "Together, we benefit from robust trade and investment ties, and integrated economies that support millions of Canadian and American jobs," he said. "We both want to build economies where the middle class and those working hard to join it have a fair shot at success." Trump, however, has argued that the American middle class has been hurt by the existence of NAFTA, which he says encouraged U.S. companies to offshore labor to Mexico without facing high import taxes. A 2014 study from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that NAFTA's implementation increased the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico by $160 billion between 1993 and 2013, in the process wiping out more than 850,000 U.S. jobs. But other research has produced less extreme results when examining NAFTA's impact. A 2015 study from the Congressional Research Service found that "the agreement may have accelerated the trade liberalization that was already taking place" but that "many of these changes may have taken place with or without the agreement." "Not all changes in trade and investment patterns within North America since 1994 can be attributed to NAFTA, because trade has also been affected by a number of factors," the report said. The rise of China as a trade behemoth and increased manufacturing automation, for example, have both surfaced as contributing factors to U.S. job losses in recent decades outside of the effects of NAFTA. The trade agreement was implemented under former President Bill Clinton back in 1994 and has helped drive trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. But it has recently seen bipartisan opposition develop, as Trump has hit NAFTA hard in recent months and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., lashed out at the deal repeatedly during his run for the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential nomination. Where the U.S. goes from here with its decades-long trade allies is uncertain. Trump is scheduled to sign executive orders in the Oval Office at 10:30 a.m. EST after a meeting with manufacturing executives – at which time TPP withdrawal and NAFTA renegotiation could be on the table. He said during a swearing-in ceremony for his advisers over the weekend that he and his team "will be starting negotiations having to do with NAFTA" relatively soon. White House trade czar Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary nominee Wilbur Ross are expected to be key architects behind new or revised trade negotiations. |
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The trial of Joan of Arc, which was overseen by an English-backed church court at Rouen, Normandy in the first half of 1431, was one of the more famous trials in history, becoming the subject of many books and films. It culminated in the execution of the person known to history as Joan of Arc, the young French peasant girl who was the defendant in the case. The trial verdict was later reversed on appeal by Jean Bréhal, the Inquisitor-General in 1456, thereby completely exonerating her. Considered a French national heroine, she was declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 1920. Background and context [ edit ] In the spring of 1429, in obedience to what she said was the command of God, Joan inspired the Dauphin's armies in a series of stunning military victories which lifted the Siege of Orléans and destroyed a large percentage of the remaining English forces at the Battle of Patay, reversing the course of the Hundred Years' War. The Dauphin – Charles VII of France – was crowned a few months later at Reims. However, a series of military setbacks eventually led to her capture. First, there was a reversal before the gates of Paris in September of that same year. Then, she was captured in the spring of 1430 in a minor action near Compiègne by the Burgundians, a faction led by Philip III, Duke of Burgundy, who was allied with the English. The Burgundians delivered her to the English in exchange for 10,000 livres. In December of that same year, she was transferred to Rouen, the military headquarters and administrative capital in France of King Henry VI of England, and placed on trial for heresy before a Church court headed by Bishop Pierre Cauchon, a supporter of the English. Documentary record [ edit ] The life of Joan of Arc is one of the best documented of her era. This is especially remarkable when one considers that she was not an aristocrat but rather a peasant girl. This fact is due partly to the trial record, and partly due also to the records of the later appeal of her case after the war when the trial was investigated and its verdict overturned. During the trial in 1431, a trio of notaries headed by chief notary Guillaume Manchon took notes in French which were then collated each day following the trial session. About four years later, these records were translated into Latin by Manchon and University of Paris master Thomas de Courcelles. Five copies were produced, three of which are still in existence. The lengthy investigations and appellate trial during the 1450s produced additional information about the details and behind-the-scenes activity during the process, since the 115 witnesses questioned during these investigations included many of the clergymen who had served during the trial in 1431. They gave vivid memories of many incidents that are not recorded in the trial transcript, and described how the English government had manipulated the affair.[1] Jules Quicherat published the first unabridged version of the trial record in the first volume of his five-volume series Procès de condamnation et de réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc in Paris in the 1840s. But it was not until 1932 that the first unabridged English translation became available when W.P. Barrett published his Trial of Joan of Arc in New York. In prison [ edit ] The keep of the castle of Rouen , surviving remnant of the fortress where Joan was imprisoned during her trial. It has since become known as the "Joan of Arc Tower". The procedures of an Inquisitorial trial called for a preliminary investigation into the life of the suspect. This investigation consisted of the collection of any evidence about the character of the subject, including witness testimony. This could then be followed by an interrogation of the accused, in which he or she was compelled to provide testimony which could then be used against them in a subsequent trial. Preliminary inquiry [ edit ] With the words "Here begin the proceedings in matters of faith against a deceased woman, Joan, commonly known as the Maid", the trial records announce the start, on January 9, 1431, of the judicial inquiry into the case of Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc as her name appears at the head of said records). The first order of business was a preliminary inquiry into Joan's character and habits. An examination as to Joan's virginity was conducted some time prior to January 13, overseen by the Duchess of Bedford (the wife of John, Duke of Bedford, regent in France of the boy-king Henry II of France, VI of England). The Duchess announced that Joan had been found to be a virgin.[2] At the same time, representatives of the judge were sent to Joan's home village of Domrémy and vicinity to inquire further into Joan's life, her habits, and virtue, with several witnesses being interviewed. The result of these inquiries was that nothing could be found against Joan to support any charges against her. The man who was commissioned to collect testimony, Nicolas Bailly, said that he "had found nothing concerning Joan that he would not have liked to find about his own sister".[3] This angered Cauchon, who was hoping for something he could use against her. He accused Bailly of being "a traitor and a bad man" and refused to pay him his promised salary.[3] Interrogation [ edit ] In a letter dated 20 February 1431 and sent to the assessors and others summoning them to appear the morning of the following day for the first public interrogation session of Joan, Pierre Cauchon cited the grant of jurisdiction within the city of Rouen by the chapter of the cathedral of Rouen for the purpose of conducting the trial against Joan. Without such a grant, he would have been unable to conduct the hearings as he was not in his native diocese. He also stated that Joan was "vehemently suspected of heresy" and that "rumors of her acts and sayings wounding our faith had notoriously spread." This was the basis for the diffamatio, a necessary ingredient in the bringing of charges against a suspect. He also alluded to the expected absence of the Vice-Inquisitor for Rouen, Jean Le Maistre, whose presence was required by canon law in order to validate the proceedings. Lemaitre's absence was later explained during the appellate trial by four eyewitnesses, who said Le Maistre had objections to the trial and refused to cooperate until the English threatened his life.[4] The postwar appellate court later declared these points to be violations of the Church's rules. In response to the summons of Bishop Cauchon on this same date, priest and bailiff Jean Massieu reported that Joan had agreed to appear in court, but she requested that ecclesiastics of the French side be summoned equal in number to those of the English party (as required by the Church's rules), and she asked that she should be allowed to hear Mass. In response, promoter (prosecutor) Jean d'Estivet forbade Joan to attend the divine offices, citing "especially the impropriety of the garments to which she clung" according to the Trial transcript (Barrett translation). Her soldier's clothing increasingly became an issue as the trial progressed and the tribunal failed to find other grounds for a conviction. Several eyewitnesses later said she had been wearing a soldier's outfit which had a tunic, hosen, and long boots that went up to the waist, all of which were tied together with cords, which she said she needed to protect herself from being raped by her guards (i.e., fastening the three items of clothing together made it difficult for the guards to pull her clothing off, but a woman's dress would leave her more vulnerable since it was open at the bottom).[5] First session: Wednesday, February 21, 1431 [ edit ] After being brought before the court, the proceedings were explained to Joan and an exhortation was delivered to her by Bishop Cauchon, following which she was required to take an oath concerning her testimony. Question: Do you swear to speak the truth in answer to such questions as are put to you? Joan: I do not know what you wish to examine me on. Perhaps you might ask such things that I would not tell. Question: Will you swear to speak the truth upon those things which are asked you concerning the faith, which you know? Joan: Concerning my father and my mother, and what I have done since I took the road to France, I will gladly swear to tell the truth. But concerning my revelations from God, these I have never told or revealed to anyone, save only to Charles, my King. And I will not reveal them to save my head.[note 1] The court returned to the matter of the oath in subsequent sessions. She was then asked concerning matters such as her name, her birth, her parents and godparents, her baptism, and her religious upbringing. When she reported that her mother had taught her the standard Catholic prayers - the Pater Noster ("Our Father" or "Lord's Prayer"), Ave Maria ("Hail Mary"), and the Credo ("Apostles' Creed") - Cauchon asked her to recite the Pater Noster. She replied that she would do so only if she were allowed to be heard in Confession. Finally, reminding her of her previous escape attempts, Joan was admonished against escaping, being told that if she were to do so, she would automatically be convicted of heresy. She rejected this, saying that she had given no oath regarding this matter to anyone and adding, "It is true that I wished and still wish to escape, as is lawful for any captive or prisoner". Second session: Thursday, February 22, 1431 [ edit ] At this session Jean Le Maistre the Vice-Inquisitor was finally present, after having tried to avoid attendance. He was not present at any of the following sessions until March 13, and he subsequently spent virtually no time on the case throughout the course of the trial.[note 2] After some further sparring over the oath, Joan was questioned about her youth and activities in Domremy. She replied that she had learned to "spin [wool] and to sew", that she "confessed her sins once a year", sometimes more often, and "received the sacrament of the Eucharist at Easter". Then the questioning took a more serious turn as the issue of her visions was taken up. She stated that at the age of twelve or thirteen, she "had a voice from God to help and guide me", but that at first she "was much afraid". She added that the voice was "seldom heard without a light" and that she "often heard the voice" when she came to France. She then related details of her journey from Domrémy, to Chinon, first applying to Robert de Baudricourt in Vaucouleurs for an escort and leaving that city wearing soldier's attire and equipped with a sword supplied by Baudricourt. Third session: Saturday, February 24, 1431 [ edit ] Again the session began with skirmishing over the oath, after which Jean Beaupere began with extensive questioning concerning Joan's voices. She was asked, among other things, what she was doing when the voice came to her, where the voice was, if there was any tactile interaction, what it said, etc. Joan reported that she asked the voice for counsel regarding the questioning and was told to "answer boldly and God would comfort [her]". She further stated that she "never found [the voice] to utter two contrary opinions" and she affirmed her belief that "this voice comes from God, and by His command". Several questions of a theological nature followed, including this one: Question: Do you know whether or not you are in God's grace? Joan: If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I were not in His grace." The question was a deliberate attempt to entrap her, since the Church's doctrine held that no one could be certain of being in God's grace; and yet answering 'no' could also be used against her because the judge could claim she had admitted to being in a state of sin. According to the eyewitnesses, this question elicited a protest from one of the assessors, Jean Lefèvre, who said it was a "grave question" that Joan wasn't required to answer. Cauchon retorted: "It would have been better for you if you had kept your mouth shut!"[6] Joan's response, neatly avoiding the theological trap, left the court "stupefied" according to one of the notaries, Boisguillaume.[7] She added that if she were in a state of sin, she didn't think these saints would come to her; and she wished everyone could hear them as well as she did. She thought she was about thirteen years old when they came to her for the first time. From there, the questioning turned again to Joan's childhood in Domremy, with questions about the "Ladies Tree" and the customs surrounding it. The session ended with Joan being asked whether she would wear women's clothing if such were supplied her. She replied: "Give me [a dress] and I will take it and go; otherwise, I am content with this [referring to her soldier's attire - ed.], since it pleases God that I wear it." Fourth session: Tuesday, February 27, 1431 [ edit ] Again Joan took a limited form of the oath and again Beaupere took the principal lead in the questioning, first turning to the subject of her voices. Joan stated that she had heard the voices many times since the previous session and that they were St. Catherine and St. Margaret, whose voices had guided her for seven years, but that the first time she heard voices (when she was about 13), it was that of St. Michael. She said St. Catherine and St. Margaret appeared to her with "beautiful crowns" on their heads.[8] She refused to answer some of the questions, and referred others to the record of the Poitiers investigation. There was further questioning about her assumption of soldier's attire to which she responded: "Everything I have done is at God's command". As to her first meeting with Charles VII, she referred the most substantive questions to the records of the Poitiers investigation but did state that the "King had a sign touching on my mission before he believed in me" and that "the clergy of my party [i.e., the Armagnac faction] held that there was nothing but good in my mission". Questions followed concerning her sword and her standard, which the assessors asked her to describe in particular detail. The session concluded with questioning about the siege at Orleans and the assault against the town of Jargeau. Regarding the former, she stated that "she did indeed" know beforehand that she would be wounded, and that she "had told her king so". She was in fact wounded by an arrow between the neck and left shoulder as she was helping to raise a ladder against the fortress of Les Tourelles. Fifth session: Thursday, March 1, 1431 [ edit ] Following the usual disagreements over the oath, the session then turned to certain letters exchanged between herself and the Count of Armagnac concerning which of the three Papal claimants was the true Pope. Joan stated that she "believed in our Holy Father the Pope at Rome" and that she "had never written nor caused to be written anything concerning the three sovereign Pontiffs". Other letters which she had dictated were then brought up. In the course of this exchange, she stated that "before seven years are past the English will lose a greater stake than they did at Orléans, for they will lose everything in France" and that she knew this by revelation. Joan was then asked many detailed questions concerning the saints (called "apparitions" by the questioner, Pierre Cauchon) who she believed visited her. She was asked whether they were male or female, did they have hair, what language they spoke, etc. Asked whether St. Margaret spoke English, she replied: "Why should she speak English when she is not on the English side?" She was then asked about her rings and whether she attempted to effect cures thereby, to which she replied: "I never cured anyone with any of my rings". They also asked her whether she had a mandrake (a figurine for invoking demons), to which she replied: "I have no mandrake, and never had one." And finally she was asked again about the sign which was given to her King whereby he recognized her and her mission and again she refused to answer any questions on this subject, saying "Go and ask him." Sixth session: Saturday, March 3, 1431 [ edit ] After taking the oath in the same form as before, the questioning turned once again to the appearance of the Saints whom she claimed to see. She stated: "I saw them with my two eyes, and I believe it was they I saw as firmly as I believe in the existence of God," and that God had created them in the form and fashion that she saw. Addressing the question of a future escape, she said that the saints in her visions "told me that I shall be delivered, but I do not know the day or the hour." Turning again to the question of her adoption of soldier's attire, she was asked if she had worn it "by revelation." She referred to the record of Poitiers, but did add that she had begun wearing soldier's clothing at Vaucouleurs, when she set out across enemy-held territory to travel to Chinon. Many other questions about this matter were put to her which she refused to answer. But it did transpire that, on several occasions, she had been offered women's clothing and asked to put off her male attire but she replied that she "would not put it off without God's leave." Many other questions about her standard and pennons and those of her followers ensued. She replied that they were made of "white satin, and on some there were fleur-de-lis."[note 3] After briefly describing her meeting with Friar Richard at Troyes, the questioning turned to the issue of paintings of Joan ("At Arras, I saw a painting of myself done by the hands of a Scot") and the response of the common people to her – the kissing of her rings, hands, garments, and the like.[note 4] ("many women touched my hands and my rings; but I do not know with what thought or intention.") Joan was then asked about her meeting with Catherine de La Rochelle, a French mystic who likewise claimed to have revelations from God. Joan said her saints had described Catherine as "folly and nothing more". Finally, the session closed with some questions about Joan's escape attempt from the castle at Beaurevoir, where she was held for a number of months by her Burgundian captors. She stated that although her visions forbade it, "from fear of the English, I leaped and commended myself to God" and "in leaping was wounded", further stating that she would "rather surrender her soul to God than fall into the hands of the English". Prison sessions [ edit ] Seventh session: Saturday, March 10, 1431 [ edit ] Questioning resumed, this time in her prison cell, with only a handful of assessors present. Joan described the action outside Compiegne when she was taken prisoner by the Burgundians. Asked about the role of her saints in this action, Joan reported that "Easter week last, when I was in the trenches at Melun, I was told by my voices . . . that I would be captured before St. John's Day," adding that "it had to be so" and that "I should not be distressed, but take it in good part, and God would aid me." However, although she had known that she would be captured, she did not know the date and time. She was then asked about her banner and the meaning of the designs painted thereon. Finally, the session closed with questions about the sign she gave to Charles as proof of her mission. Eighth session: Monday, March 12, 1431 (morning) [ edit ] Joan was questioned concerning the first meeting with her King when he was shown a sign. Then attention turned to whether or not her voices / saints had ever failed her in any respect. Question: Did not the angel fail you . . . when you were taken prisoner? Joan: . . . since it pleased God, it was better for me to be taken prisoner. She further stated that they (her saints) "often come without my calling, but sometimes if they did not come, I would pray God to send them", adding "I have never needed them without having them." Later, when commenting on when she first heard her voices, Joan said that she "vowed to keep her virginity as long as it should please God" adding that she was then "thirteen years old, or thereabouts". She said that she had not told anyone of her visions (neither her parents, nor her priest, nor any churchman), except Robert de Baudricourt. Asked whether she thought it was right to leave her parents without permission, she responded that she did so at the command of God and therefore "it was right to do so," further stating that "afterwards, I wrote to them, and they forgave me." Ninth session: Monday, March 12, 1431 (afternoon) [ edit ] Joan was asked concerning a dream which her father had prior to her leaving Domremy. She replied that she was "often told by my mother that my father spoke of having dreamed that I would go off with men-at-arms" and that she had heard her mother tell how "my father said to my brothers 'in truth, if I thought this thing would happen which I have dreamed about my daughter, I would want you to drown her; and if you would not, I would drown her myself'." (He evidently mistakenly assumed she would become a prostitute accompanying an army). The questioning then turned again to her adoption of male attire. She answered that the decision to adopt same was "of her own accord, and not at the request of any man alive." She added that "Everything I have done I have done at the instruction of my voices" this latter comment in response to a question as to whether or not her voices ordered her to wear a soldier's outfit. Tenth session: Tuesday, March 13, 1431 [ edit ] The bulk of this session was taken up with a discussion of the "sign" shown to the King (Charles) when Joan first met him at Chinon. When asked whether she had sworn to St. Catherine not to tell the sign, Joan replied, "I have sworn and promised not to tell this sign, of my own accord". Nevertheless, she then went on to describe the sign and the meeting in detail. She described an angel bringing the King a crown of pure gold, rich and precious, which was put in the King's treasure. She added that when she first came to the King accompanied by the angel, she told him, "Sire, this is your sign; take it." When asked why God had chosen her for this task, she replied simply, "it pleased God so to do, by a simple maid to drive back the King's enemies." The questioning then turned to the assault on Paris. She stated that she went to Paris not at the behest of a revelation, but "at the request of nobles who wanted to make an attack" adding that "after it had been revealed to me . . . at Melun that I would be captured, I usually deferred to the captains on questions of war." Eleventh session: Wednesday, March 14, 1431 (morning) [ edit ] The morning session of March 14 began with lengthy questioning concerning Joan's leap from the tower at Beaurevoir where she had been held captive prior to being delivered to the English. She gave as one of the reasons for the leap that she knew she "had been sold to the English, and I would have died rather than fall into the hands of my enemies the English." Asked directly whether, in leaping from the tower, she expected to kill herself, Joan replied, "No, for as I leaped I commended myself to God." By leaping she hoped to escape and avoid deliverance to the English. The questioning then turned to her Saints and the light which accompanied them when they spoke to her. She stated that there was not a day when they did not come, and that they were always accompanied by a light. She asked three things of her voices: her deliverance (from imprisonment by the English), that God should aid the French, and, finally, she asked for the salvation of her soul. The prisoner was asked about a warning which she had given to Bishop Cauchon. She reported her words as follows: Joan: (to Cauchon) "You say that you are my judge; I do not know if you are: but take good heed not to judge me ill, because you would put yourself in great peril. And I warn you so that if God punish you for it, I shall have done my duty in telling you." Asked what this meant, she reported that St. Catherine had told her she would have aid, that she would be delivered by a great victory, adding, "Take everything peacefully; have no care for thy martyrdom; in the end thou shalt come to the Kingdom of Paradise". The questioning ended for this session with Joan being asked whether, after hearing this revelation, she felt she could no longer commit mortal sin. She replied, "I do not know; but in everything I commit myself to God." Twelfth session: Wednesday, March 14, 1431 (afternoon) [ edit ] In the afternoon of the same day, the assessors convened again in Joan's prison cell, taking up where the morning session had left off, namely, with the question of Joan's salvation and the certainty she felt concerning same. Joan qualified her earlier reply by adding that her belief in her salvation was "provided that I kept my oath and promise to Our Lord to keep safe my virginity of body and of soul." Asked about any need she felt to confess, she responded that she "did not know of having committed mortal sin," adding that "if I were in mortal sin, I think St. Catherine and St. Margaret would at once abandon me." After a question was raised concerning allegations that Joan had taken a man at ransom and subsequently had him put to death, she answered that she had not done that. Then the assessors read off a list of charges, all of which had been dealt with in previous examinations, and asked her, in reference thereto, whether or not she felt herself in mortal sin as a result. She replied: Joan: "I do not think I am in mortal sin, and if I am, it is for God, and the priest in confession, to know it." Apart from this, her replies to the charges (concerning the attack on Paris on a Feast Day, the allegation that she had stolen a horse from the Bishop of Senlis, her leap from the tower of Beaurevoir, her wearing of male clothing, and the aforesaid charge concerning a prisoner who was put to death) were a recapitulation of earlier replies. Regarding the horse, her statement was that she had purchased the horse from the Bishop, but that she did not know if he received the money. Thirteenth session: Thursday, March 15, 1431 [ edit ] Throughout the trial, Joan had been requesting to hear Mass which had been refused to her. She was asked whether or not it would be proper for her to attend church wearing men's clothing or women's clothing. Joan: Promise me that I'll get to hear Mass if I wear woman's clothing. Interrogator: I promise that you will hear Mass if you wear women's clothing. Joan: And what do you say if I've promised our king and sworn not to remove these clothes? Nonetheless, I say, make me a long robe that touches the ground, with no train and give it to me for Mass. Then when I come back I'll put back on these clothes I'm wearing. Throughout the rest of this section Joan tells the inquisitors that she is confident in what she has said to them. She said, ″All my words and deeds are in God's hands, and I wait on him in these things. I assure you, I would not do or say anything against the Christian faith. If I had said or done anything, or if there were anything on my body that clerks could say was against the Christian faith the Lord established, I would not uphold it but would reject it.″ With this quote it is evident that Joan believes that everything she is doing is true and pure in terms of her faith. She explains more about how she interacts with the Saints. Fourteenth session: Saturday, March 17, 1431 (morning) [ edit ] In nearly the last session, Joan answers questions about her Saintly voices as well as wearing men's clothes. Joan explains that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret ″love what God loves and hate what God hates.″ According to the text, Joan believed that the English would be beaten as punishment for their sins. This session focuses on Joan's military career as well as if she herself was worshipped. She refuses to answer some of the questions posed by her inquisitors about her banner and sword, but explains to them that she had already answered these questions, something that she repeatedly does throughout the entirety of her trial. Fifteenth session: Saturday, March 17, 1431 (afternoon) [ edit ] In the final section of her trial, Joan is questioned about her banner. The inquisitors imply that the banner is the reason that she had been victorious in battle, but Joan gives all credit to God. Joan had told her inquisitors that Saints Margaret and Catherine gave her the banner though it was provided by God. She explains that all of the symbolism and the wording was all in respect to God. Joan is asked whether she had been in contact with any fairies, why she looked at her ring before battle, and why the banner was present at the Dauphin's coronation. This is where accusations of Joan being a witch are more focused. Ordinary trial [ edit ] The ordinary, or regular, trial of Joan began on March 26, the day after Palm Sunday, with the drawing up of the 70 articles (later summarized in a 12 article indictment). If Joan refused to answer them, she would be said to have admitted them. On the following day, the articles were read aloud and Joan was questioned in French. The next two days, the extensive list of charges were then read to her in French. The Ordinary Trial concluded on May 24 with the abjuration. Abjuration [ edit ] On May 24, Joan was taken to a scaffold set up in the cemetery next to Saint-Ouen Church, and told that she would be burned immediately unless she signed a document renouncing her visions and agreeing to stop wearing soldiers' clothing. She had been wearing a soldiers' outfit consisting of a tunic, hosen, and long boots that went up to the waist, tied together with cords around the waist. The clergy who served on the tribunal later said Joan had kept this clothing tied tightly together during her months in prison because she said she needed such an outfit to protect herself from possible rape: "[when the judge told her] that it wasn't proper for a woman to wear a man's tunic [and] hosen firmly tied together with many cords, she said she didn't dare give up the hosen, nor to keep them but firmly tied, because the Bishop and Earl well knew, as they themselves said, that her guards had attempted to rape her a number of times. One of the court scribes, Guillaume Manchon, later recalled: "And she was then dressed in male clothing, and was complaining that she could not give it up, fearing lest in the night her guards would inflict some act of [sexual] outrage upon her; and she had complained once or twice to the Bishop of Beauvais, the Vice-Inquisitor, and Master Nicholas Loiseleur that one of the aforesaid guards had tried to rape her." The trial record omits much information on this issue, but does contain quotes from her protesting that she was not doing anything wrong. But faced with immediate execution on May 24, she agreed to give up this clothing and sign the abjuration document. Execution [ edit ] Joan of Arc, being burnt at stake. On May 28, Joan recanted her previous abjuration, donned men's apparel once more, and was accused of relapsing into heresy. The chief trial notary later said: "she was asked why she had readopted this male clothing, to which she replied that she had done it for the protection of her virginity, for she was not secure while wearing female clothing with her guards, who had tried to rape her, which she had complained about many times to the Bishop and Earl; and [she said] that the judges had promised her that she would be placed in the custody of, and in the prisons of, the Church, and that she would have a woman with her [i.e., a nun, following Inquisitorial procedure]; additionally saying that if it would please the lord judges to place her in a safe location in which she would not be afraid, then she was prepared to readopt female clothing". The trial bailiff, Jean Massieu, remembered that in the end the English guards gave her no other choice but to put the male clothing back on: "When she had to get out of bed... she had requested of these Englishmen, her guards: 'Unchain me, so I can get up'. And then one of these Englishmen took away the female clothing which she had, and they emptied the sack in which the male clothing was, and tossed this clothing upon her while telling her, 'Get up'; and they put away the female clothing in the aforementioned sack. And, as she said, she put on the male clothing they had given her, [after] saying, 'Sirs, you know this is forbidden me: without fail, I will not accept it.' But nevertheless they wouldn't give her anything else, so that she continued in this argument with them until the hour of noon; and finally, she was compelled by the necessity of the body to leave the room and hence to wear this clothing; and after she returned, they still wouldn't give her anything else [to wear] regardless of any appeal or request she made of them." She was declared "relapsed", giving the court nominal justification to have her executed. "Only those who had relapsed – that is, those who having once adjured their errors returned to them – could be condemned to death by a tribunal of the Inquisition and delivered for death." On May 30, 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake at the Old Marketplace in Rouen. Notes [ edit ] ^ All Trial quotations are from the English translation of the Trial transcripts by W.P. Barrett. In places, the dialogue has been rendered into direct discourse where the Trial transcript recorded only indirect discourse. ^ Pernoud, Régine. "Joan of Arc By Herself and Her Witnesses", p. 165. The Papal Commission appointed a quarter of a century later to examine the conduct of the original Trial would here too fault the proceedings of this trial. ^ The questioner and the assessors seemed to be interested, as evidenced by this line of questioning, in whether or not any magical significance was attached thereto. ^ Here, the interest seemed to be whether or not she was venerated or worshiped in any way, and whether she encouraged such behavior. References [ edit ] ^ An English translation of most of the testimony from these postwar investigations can be found in "The Retrial of Joan of Arc; The Evidence at the Trial For Her Rehabilitation 1450 - 1456" by Régine Pernoud, translated into English by J.M. Cohen. ^ Pernoud, Régine. "Joan of Arc By Herself and Her Witnesses", p. 169. a b Pernoud, Régine. "Joan of Arc By Herself and Her Witnesses", p. 168. ^ Deposition of Nicholas de Houppeville on 8 May 1452 during Inquisitor Brehal's first investigation. See: Pernoud, Régine. "The Retrial of Joan of Arc; The Evidence at the Trial For Her Rehabilitation 1450 - 1456", p 236. ^ Pernoud, Régine. "The Retrial of Joan of Arc; The Evidence at the Trial For Her Rehabilitation 1450 - 1456", pp. 186, 210. ^ Pernoud, Régine. "The Retrial of Joan of Arc; The Evidence at the Trial For Her Rehabilitation 1450 - 1456", pp. 188, 196. ^ Pernoud, Régine. "Joan of Arc By Herself and Her Witnesses", p. 184. ^ Barrett, W.P. "The Trial of Jeanne d'Arc", p. 59. Sources [ edit ] Pernoud, Régine. Joan of Arc, By Herself and Her Witnesses (Edward Hyams, trans.) Further reading [ edit ] "Joan's Trial and Execution at Rouen", in Joan of Arc: Her Story by Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin. by Régine Pernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin. Transcription of the Condemnation documents, in Procès de condamnation et de réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc volume I, by Jules Quicherat (transcriber and editor). volume I, by Jules Quicherat (transcriber and editor). "The Trial of Condemnation", in Joan of Arc, By Herself and Her Witnesses by Régine Pernoud, translated by Edward Hyams. Includes lengthy excerpts from the transcript and descriptions by the eyewitnesses. Internet resources [ edit ] This article incorporates material from the Citizendium article "Trial of Joan of Arc", which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL. |
In this centennial of what participants named the “Great War,” many have recalled Mark Twain’s observation that while history never repeats itself, it does sometimes rhyme. As a rising China claims islands administered by Japan in the East China Sea, or controlled by neighbors in the South China Sea, many hear echoes of events in the Balkans a century earlier. Could an incident between Chinese and Japanese naval or air forces lead to the sinking of a ship or downing of a plane? If so, would the U.S. meet its treaty commitment to stand with Japan, even if that meant firing on Chinese ships or planes? If it did so, could events escalate to a larger war between the U.S. and China? It seems (and I believe, in fact, is) unlikely. But according to a recent Pew poll, large majorities of citizens in nations throughout Asia believe China’s territorial disputes with its neighbors will lead to war. Historical analogies like 1914 can be fertile sources of insights about contemporary challenges. One danger, however, is that people can find an analogy so compelling that they conclude that current conditions are “just like” 1914. My late, great colleague Ernest May provided an appropriate antidote. He noted that as a matter of fact, the most common form of analysis used by leaders in crises is historical reasoning from analogies. He urged both analysts and policymakers to be more systematic about the effort. In a legendary course taught at Harvard for many years, he challenged students attracted by a historical analogy to follow a simple procedure: put the analogy as the headline on a sheet of paper; then draw a straight line down the middle of the page and write “similar” at the top of one column and “different” at the top of the other. Under each column, list at least three points that capture similarities and three that note differences between the analog and the current case. This essay attempts to use the “May Method” to highlight seven salient similarities and seven instructive differences between the challenges confronting Chinese and American leaders today and those facing world leaders in 1914. While most of the similarities make the possibility of conflict today more plausible that it might otherwise seem, and most of the differences make conflict seem less plausible, instructively, some have the opposite effect. Similarities 1. “Thucydides’s Trap”: structural stress that inevitably occurs when a rapidly rising power rivals a ruling power. As Thucydides observed about ancient Greece, an ascendant Athens naturally became more ambitious, assertive, arrogant, and even hubristic. Predictably, this instilled fear, anxiety, and defensiveness among the leaders of Sparta. |
Editor's note: John Avlon is a CNN contributor and senior political columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He is co-editor of the new book "Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns." (CNN) -- The wild card in the Iowa caucus is Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas. As with all wild cards, his place in the top tier of candidates is itself unlikely and his ultimate effect on the Republican presidential nomination is unpredictable. But based on what I saw during my trip to Iowa earlier this month, no one should count Paul out. His supporters are famously dedicated, and their numbers have only grown since his 2008 campaign. They are sometimes stereotyped as university students with a penchant for pot-legalization and political debate, but at a town hall in Marshalltown, Iowa, last Saturday morning, I saw a predominantly blue collar, middle-aged crowd listening raptly to Paul discuss his unified field theory of constitutionalism. Roughly 20 people from the crowd of 100 stuck around after the talk to organize for the caucus. Organization matters in the Iowa caucus, and Paul's volunteers are going to show up in force. One of the great questions of this campaign is whether retail politics is dead -- after all, Rick Santorum is the only candidate who has visited all 99 counties in Iowa, and he's been stuck in the mid-single digits for most of the campaign. Newt Gingrich's rise in the polls has been predicated upon his strong debate performances, but his front-runner status in Iowa has been achieved without a ground game to date (though his team is trying to catch up). Mitt Romney's efforts to buy love have so far been unsuccessful. Paul's supporters, however, have the new confidence that comes from seeing their candidate's sometimes fringe views move into the mainstream of conservative debate. His negative fixation on the Fed has been vindicated in many peoples' minds, given the more than $7 trillion dollars that were piled into the banks to stop the slide of the Great Recession into a depression. I have seen Paul supporters at Occupy Wall Street protests bearing their End the Fed signs, making them one of the few points of direct contact between the Tea Party and Occupy movements. Likewise, as the nation turns away from nearly a decade of foreign wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Paul's neo-isolationist skepticism about foreign entanglements has reached a new audience. He deserves great credit for being philosophically consistent on the issue, even during the Bush era when many conservatives were reluctant to criticize their administration's core foreign policy innovation. And many of his ideas helped animate the early days of the Tea Party protests. There are plenty of problems with Paul as a general election candidate -- his noxious 9/11 views in particular (Paul essentially believes that U.S. foreign policy contributed to provoking the attacks). He is 76 years old. And he is proposing $1 trillion in cuts in the first year of his administration. But in a Republican primary field disproportionately dominated by self-promoters, Paul has always been running to promote ideas. That is part of a noble tradition and an effort that is to be respected. The key question of his wild-card status is whether he can pull off an upset in the Iowa caucus. Remember that Paul has never led in the Iowa polls outright, even as curious flash in the pan candidates Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain have. But his support has been steadily growing in the right direction. And caucuses are high-intensity, low-turnout elections. Right now, Newt Gingrich has been in the lead for a month in Iowa, and his numbers are showing some softening, aided by a barrage of negative ads deployed by the Romney campaign and other rivals, including Paul. But if Paul can pull off an Iowa upset on January 3, it will shock the political world and push Gingrich off the top-tier media narrative. The campaign then quickly turns to New Hampshire, where Romney -- the former governor of neighbor state Massachusetts -- has long held a double-digit lead. If Gingrich wins Iowa, he could compete credibly in New Hampshire and then carry his campaign to victories in South Carolina and Florida, where he holds convincing leads in the polls. If the Paulites shock the world in Iowa, the libertarians in the Live Free or Die State would likely give Paul a boost there as well. The point is not that this could propel Paul to the nomination, but it would solidify his status as a significant player at the Republican Convention and serve as a huge boost to the often-faltering Romney campaign by denying Gingrich an early victory. So keep your eyes on the Ron Paul scenario in Iowa. It's admittedly a long shot, but far from unlikely. You don't have to agree with Paul, but after a career of quixotic stands, he's earned the right to be taken seriously in his final campaign. Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John Avlon. |
Review embargoes are a very normal part of games journalism. Companies will put restrictions on when publications are allowed to talk about games before they’re released. For previews this is done to control the dissemination of information. For reviews it’s to allow certain publications to have an exclusive, or more muckily, because they don’t want negative reviews to appear too much in advance of the game’s release. It’s potentially murky territory, but since it’s their game, they get to choose the conditions in which they make them available to magazines and websites before commercial release. It’s not unusual for everyone to be told, “Reviews of game X may be published at 5pm on the 26th”, and then you’ll see all the sites have their reviews appear at once. What’s far more rare is a company attempting to control the publications of reviews after a game has been released. Especially not ten days after. This is what Realtime Worlds are astonishingly trying to enforce for APB. The response to the closed beta has not been positive. Once the NDA was lifted (and in many cases well before) many players have reported that the customisation is extraordinary, but the driving and shooting are both poor. Which is an issue in a driving and shooting game. I’ve not played a single second of APB, and thus have no opinions on it either way, and am not in a position to break any form of NDA or embargo. But the impression I’ve picked up is negative. RTW could perhaps have picked up a similar vibe. In such circumstances you might expect a developer to embargo reviews until the moment of release. The game goes live in the States on the 29th June, let’s say at 9am. So reviews might normally all appear at 9am on the 29th. So as expected, on 4th June, an email accompanying the Key To The City event details from PR agency Indigo Pearl, working for RTW, explained that the beta code is reviewable, with an embargo for the 29th June. Exactly as we’d expected. But then on the 10th June, two days before the Key To The City open beta began, the a correction was sent out. We were informed that the Key To The City was in fact for previews only. We were told that reviews can be “finalised” when we have the released version of the game, which we’d get on 29th June. And then they added that reviews are embargoed until 6th July. This is extraordinary. They are attempting to tell press that they cannot write a review of the game for a full week after the game is available for the public to buy. It is, of course, impossible to enforce. The public will be able to write anything they wish about the game anywhere they wish from the very first second it’s available. Of course. Because to prevent this would, well, involve Realtime Worlds taking over the planet and beginning an international oppressive dictatorship. And while they’re certainly an ambitious developer, this is perhaps beyond their realm. So of course the gaming press can equally write about a released game whenever they choose, and a company attempting to prevent this is ludicrous and unenforceable. So what’s the argument from their side? Well, we approached Indigo Pearl to ask for a comment from Realtime Worlds, and were promised one would be coming. That was a week ago and we’ve heard nothing. So we can but suppose: MMO developers are incredibly sensitive about the amount of time a game is played for before reviews are written. It’s becoming increasingly common for negative or even average review scores to be met by the developer/publisher going into the reviewer’s account logs and publicising how much time they spent playing the game. Now, this is arguably simply imposing accountability on the reviewer, and is a discussion for another time. But in imposing a week’s embargo on reviews, they may perhaps be attempting to ensure that no reviews of the fully released code go up before they think a fair opinion might reasonably have been formed. It’s reasonable for a developer to say that a review cannot be based on beta code, and to play in a beta you do agree to certain conditions. Most developers, by open beta stage, agree that it is suitable to be reviewed from, since it’s extremely unlikely it will be dramatically different from the boxed, released code that appears a couple of weeks later. Open betas are more about stress-testing servers than fixing the game in time for release. But there’s no reason why RTW shouldn’t refuse this. So perhaps in imposing their week late restriction they believe they’re ensuring fair reviews of finished code. Or perhaps they’re trying to prevent reviews from appearing during the peak week for sales. Which, if the game proves to be poor, would certainly be to their advantage. If this is their reason, then they are attempting to silence criticism of their commercially released product, preventing consumers from receiving appropriate purchasing advice. Whatever their reason is, they’ve crossed a very obvious, very ridiculous line. When anyone anywhere can post a review to their blog, a comments thread, or a site’s reader reviews section, it’s beyond daft to think that the site itself cannot. Yes, it’s impossible to entirely separate this argument from that of for how long an MMO should be played for before publishing a review. But this is not a decision for publishers/developers to make. And certainly not one they can enforce. But it’s one they’re still trying to. Today journalists received keys for the current open beta directly from Realtime Worlds, which were accompanied by this message: “Please note that there is no embargo for preview coverage and you will be able to post screenshots from the game to support this. Before finalising reviews, we want you to experience the full, rich experience of APB as it is meant to be seen. We want you to see wild customer customisations, player progression and clans making an impact on the living breathing city of San Paro. This key code also therefore grants you, along with our pre-order customers, VIP early access before the official launch day. June 26th in North America and June 28th in Europe. The review embargo is Tuesday, 6th July at 8am UK time.” It’s now, incredibly, ten days after the game is available to the public before reviews are “allowed” to be published. |
Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World. Israel’s survival problem is basically this: A small state, indeed a micro-state less than half the size of Lake Michigan, is surrounded by several openly genocidal enemy states – some of which still seek biological and/or nuclear weapons of mass destruction. It also continues to be beset by relentless terrorist groups and insurgent forces, more or less sustained by these adversarial states – some of which are comprised of “holy warriors” seeking “martyrdom” via terror or mega-terror, and by the prospect that an entire enemy country could choose to act as a suicide bomber in macrocosm. This would mean acting without any ordinary or conspicuous regard for rational behavior. See the latest opinion pieces on our Opinion & Blogs Facebook page Faced with conditions wherein the traditional threats of international deterrence could effectively be immobilized, Israel must capably prepare for (1) various still-feasible forms of preemption; (2) improved active defenses; and (3) long-term nuclear deterrence.Israel remains the openly declared national and religious object of Arab/Islamic genocide. No other country on this persistently bleeding planet is in a similar or comparable existential predicament. What is Israel to do? And how might Israel’s possible actions or inactions further affect the likelihood of a regional nuclear war in the Middle East? Looking at the current situation systematically, including the prominent rise of Islamic State and the corollary collapse of Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria, what can we now expect to happen in this irremediably bad neighborhood?A competent “strategic dialectic” is required. What precise ways might a nuclear war actually begin in the Middle East, between the Jewish state and some of its enemies? Israel’s nuclear weapons, unacknowledged and non-threatening, exist only to prevent certain forms of aggression. Plainly, this indispensable deterrent force would never be used except in a defensive reprisal for certain massive enemy first-strikes, especially for Arab and/or Iranian attacks involving nuclear and/or biological weapons. For the time being, at least, Israel’s enemies are not nuclear, but this could change in the foreseeable future.Even if it should change, Israel’s nuclear weapons could continue to reduce the risks of unconventional war as long as the pertinent enemy states were to: (1) remain rational; and (2) remain convinced that Israel would retaliate massively if attacked with nuclear and/ or biological weapons of mass destruction.Of course, the expected risk reduction offered by Israeli nuclear forces and doctrine would likely be smaller in the event of any terrorist (sub-national or enemy surrogate) adversaries.There are many complex problems for Jerusalem to identify if a bellicose enemy state were allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, problems that belie the seemingly agreeable academic notions of stable nuclear deterrence. Whether for reasons of miscalculation, accident, unauthorized capacity to fire, outright irrationality or the presumed imperatives of “jihad,” such a state could sometime opt to launch a nuclear first-strike against Israel in spite of that country’s ambiguous nuclear posture.Here, Jerusalem would certainly respond, to the extent possible, with a nuclear retaliatory strike. Although nothing is publicly known about Israel’s precise targeting doctrine, any such reprisal might be launched against the aggressor’s capital city, or against other similarly high-value urban targets.In essence, there could be no assurances that in response to this egregious sort of Arab or Iranian aggression, Israel would intentionally limit itself to striking back against exclusively military targets – or even to the particular individual enemy state from which the aggression was actually launched.enemy first-strikes were to involve “only” chemical and/or biological weapons? Here Jerusalem might still launch a reasonably proportionate nuclear reprisal, but this would depend largely upon the Jewish state’s calculated expectations of follow-on aggression, and on its associated determinations of comparative damage limitation.Should Israel absorb a massive conventional first-strike, a nuclear retaliation could still not be ruled out altogether. This is especially the case if: (1) the aggressor were perceived to hold nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction in reserve; and/or (2) Israel’s leaders were to believe that non-nuclear retaliations could not prevent national annihilation.Recognizing Israel’s evidently small size, and its tightly concentrated infrastructures, the threshold of existential harm for the Jewish state is reasonably lower than wholesale physical devastation.In principle, at least, faced with imminent and existential attacks, Israel could decide to preempt pertinent enemy aggression with solely conventional forces. More than anything else, the designated targeted state’s response would then determine Jerusalem’s subsequent moves. If this response were in any way nuclear, Israel would assuredly undertake nuclear counter-retaliation. If this enemy retaliation were to involve chemical and/or biological weapons, Israel could also opt to take a quantum escalatory initiative.This sort of initiative, known in proper military parlance as “escalation dominance,” could prove essential for Israel to ensure favorable intra-war deterrence.If the enemy state’s response to an Israeli preemption were limited to hard-target conventional strikes, it is improbable that Jerusalem would resort to any forms of nuclear counter-retaliation. On the other hand, if the enemy state’s conventional retaliation were an all-out strike directed toward Israel’s civilian populations, as well as to its military targets – an existential strike, for all intents and purposes – an Israeli nuclear counter-retaliation could not automatically be ruled out.Such a counter-retaliation could be excluded only if the enemy state’s conventional retaliations were: (1) entirely proportionate to Israel’s preemption; (2) confined entirely to Israeli military targets; (3) circumscribed by the legal limits of “military necessity”; and (4) accompanied by explicit and verifiable assurances of no further escalation.It is unlikely – but not inconceivable – that Israel could decide at some point to preempt enemy state aggression with a nuclear defensive strike. While circumstances could arise where such a defensive strike would be completely rational, and also completely acceptable under international law, it is improbable Jerusalem would ever permit itself to reach such dire circumstances.More specifically, an Israeli nuclear preemption could be expected only if: (1) Israel’s state enemies had unexpectedly acquired nuclear or other unconventional weapons presumed capable of destroying the tiny Jewish state; (2) these enemy states had made explicit that their intentions paralleled their capabilities; (3) these states were authoritatively believed ready to begin a countdown-to-launch; and (4) Israel believed that non-nuclear pre-emptions could not possibly achieve the minimum needed levels of damage-limitation – that is, levels consistent with its own national survival.Israeli nuclear and non-nuclear pre-emptions of unconventional enemy aggressions could both lead to nuclear exchanges. This would depend, in part, upon the effectiveness and breadth of Israeli targeting, the surviving number of enemy nuclear weapons, and the willingness of controlling enemy leaders to risk Israeli nuclear counter-retaliations. In any event, the likelihood of nuclear exchanges would be greatest where potential Arab and/or Iranian aggressors had been allowed to deploy ever-larger numbers of unconventional weapons without eliciting any appropriate Israeli and/or American pre-emptions.Should such deployment be allowed to take place, as now already seems to be the case with Iran policy, Jerusalem might effectively forfeit the non-nuclear preemption option. Here, its only alternatives to nuclear preemption could be a no-longer-viable conventional preemption, or simply waiting to be attacked.It follows that the risks of an Israeli nuclear preemption, of nuclear exchanges with an enemy state, and of enemy nuclear first-strikes could conceivably be reduced by still-timely Israeli and/or American non-nuclear pre-emptions. These pre-emptions would be directed at presumptively critical military-industrial targets, and/or at pertinent regimes. The latter very problematic option could include dedicated elimination of enemy leadership elites, and/or certain enemy scientists.objective of Israel’s nuclear forces and doctrine must be deterrence ex-ante, not revenge expost. In the final analysis, everyone should understand, nuclear war resembles any other incurable disease. The only true remedies lie in prevention.Looking at the chaotic Middle East, where several Arab states and Iran (however much they might loathe each other) remain commonly sworn to “root out the Zionist cancer,” the only durable remedy for Jerusalem is to ensure Israel’s nuclear monopoly. Optimally, to survive, Israel should remain the only regional nuclear power.But should this objective no longer prove viable, Israel’s strategic planners must then do whatever necessary to upgrade the country’s nuclear deterrence posture, including further sea-basing of selected nuclear forces, and taking carefully measured steps away from deliberate nuclear ambiguity.Once Iran has verifiably crossed the nuclear weapons threshold, it will be high time for Israel, in appropriate stages, to take its bomb out of the “basement.”The writer is an emeritus professor of international law at Purdue University. 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For a few years, MovieBarcode has been compressing each frame of entire films into pixel-wide, chronological bars, creating a unique color palette barcode for each movie. Color is used in film to set moods, evoke particular feelings, or to intensify plot and characters. While examining the barcodes of familiar movies, particular colors may stand out, or remind you of specific scenes or characters that you’re drawn to. MovieBarcodes allow a film lover an opportunity to view movies from a macro, bird’s eye view. It’s as close as you can get to seeing the entirety of a movie all in one glance. The person behind MovieBarcode wishes to remain anonymous, but told wired.co.uk that movies are chosen based on runtime and the quality of the outcome and that the biggest challenge is “[s]taying within the concept and not getting carried away by technical possibilities, some of which are planned to be published in a not too distant, not too busy future.” If you’re curious if a particular film has been compressed, or you just want to peruse titles, you can find an index of all the films that have been compressed here. If you like these, be sure to check out Redbubble, where some of the MovieBarcode prints are available for purchase. |
KATHMANDU: At least 85 persons have been killed and 139 gone missing in the last three days in floods and landslides triggered by incessant rainfall in various districts across Nepal.As many as 73 people have lost their lives in the mid-western region, while 131 are still missing. The number of missing might go up, officials said.Floods have completely damaged more than 7,000 households in the mid-western region. More than 12,000 households have been inundated in Bardiya alone. The swollen Karnali River has swept away three suspension bridges, Himalayan Times reported.Surkhet district has been hit the worst. About 26 people have been killed and 97 had gone missing in the district, according to the regional police office at Surkhet.Floods have killed 17 persons in Bardiya and 15 went missing. Likewise, 14 lost their lives in Dang and three went missing. In Banke district, floods have killed four and five have gone missing, Deputy Superintendent of Police Nareshman Shrestha said.Likewise, four persons have lost their lives in the landslide in Salyan district, while eight are missing. Two have died in Jajarkot and two are missing."One person in Kalikot, four in Rolpa and three in Rukum have died. The death toll and the number of missing persons might go up," said Shrestha.About 300 families are trapped in forests and an island were rescued by helicopters, another official Tej Prasad Paudel said.Seven persons died in seven districts, one is missing and five have been injured in the central region. According to central regional police, Hetauda, five persons and one died in Chitwan and Makawanpur respectively. Landslide has killed one in Sindhuli.Regional police office said floods and landslides had damaged 115 households in Rautahat, Bara, Parsa, Makawanpur, Mahottari and Sindhuli.Three women were killed after a landslide buried a primary school building in Gorkha district of the western region.Eleven persons were injured in the incident. Rain-fed rivers in the far west have killed one person and six have gone missing.According to far-west regional office, one person died after a local stream swept him away in Kailali district. Three persons in Dadeldhura and one each in Kailali, Bajura and Bajhang have gone missing.Landslides in Ramechhap district rendered 53 families homeless. As many as 30 houses are at risk of being buried by landslip.India has announced a relief assistance of NRs 48 million for the victims of floods and landslide in different parts of Nepal. India has also arranged three helicopters and one airplane on standby at the border for disaster relief operation on call by government of Nepal. |
CNN host Reza Aslan has apologized for a tweet he sent out last night calling President Trump a “piece of shit.” Trump last night tweeted about the travel ban after the London terror attack and Aslan responded by saying in a tweet, “This piece of shit is not just an embarrassment to America and a stain on the presidency. He’s an embarrassment to humankind.” After all the online criticism, Aslan has taken down that tweet and offered a statement of apology: I should not have used a profanity to describe the President when responding to his shocking reaction to the #LondonAttacks. My statement: pic.twitter.com/pW69jjpoZy — Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) June 4, 2017 [image via screengrab] — — Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com |
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