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Base WagonPlus + (Auto) WagonPlus + (Manual) WagonSport (Auto) Wagonexclaim ! Wagon
Cargo (Std/Max):
53 cu.ft.
Kia Soul Expert Review
The Kia Soul was introduced as a competitor to the Scion xB and Nissan Cube, and it follows the same basic philosophy as those vehicles -- take the guts of an econocar and wrap them in a cool, funky shell. In this case, the Soul's basic underpinnings come from the Kia Rio. The Soul's exterior styling was done under the watchful eye of Kia design chief Peter Schreyer, the man who designed the Audi TT among others.
The Soul is a mix of practicality and irrationality. There are two fuel-efficient engines to choose from: either a 122-horsepower, 1.6-liter inline-four with a five-speed manual, or a 142-horsepower, 2.0-liter inline-four, with the same five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic. Trim levels align more with the youthful funky side of the equation: they are base, +, !, and sport. And, while there are plenty of rational, responsible features that put parents' minds at ease -- standard traction control, stability control, and six airbags -- there are several less rational features as well. For instance, a houndstooth interior is available, as are speaker lights that pulse to the rhythm of the music.
Body styles: Four-door hatchbackEngines: 1.6L I-4, 2.0L I-4Transmissions: 5-speed manual, 4-speed automaticModels: Base, + (plus), ! (exclaim), sport
Minor changes come with the 2011 Soul: the exterior door handles are now the grip-type, plus on ! and sport models, heated side mirrors are available. Inside, rear-seat headrest height adjustment and illuminated window switches are standard, blue and green have been added to the speaker lights, and new options include automatic climate control, leather seats, cargo cover, and pushbutton start.
The Kia Soul is one of several cute econocars that have come to the market recently. Styling combines charm and character, which draws the eye of younger buyers, while not compromising safety or fuel economy.
There are a lot of standard features, including power windows, air-conditioning, aux jack, and satellite-radio ready stereo. Optional cool items: cruise control, Bluetooth, leather seats, pushbutton start, houndstooth interior, and speakers that light up.
Even though the Soul isn't all that heavy, the optional engine isn't all that powerful -- and that's got 20 more horsepower than the smaller engine. With the 2.0-liter, the Soul reaches 60 in 8.3 seconds, and completes the quarter mile in 16.6 seconds at 82.6 mph. The Soul's ride can be rough and the manual transmission is unrefined and vague.
Dual front airbags, seat-mounted side airbags, and full-length side curtain airbags are standard. So are disc brakes with four-channel ABS with brake assist and electronic brake-force distribution, stability control, and traction control.
Base: 26 mpg city/31 mpg highway +, ! , sport: 24 mpg city/30 mpg highway
Cute looks
Cool interior
Decent power
Small cargo area with seats up
Coarse engine
Noisy ride
Cute, capable Scion-fighter


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COVID-19 In Ohio: Gov. Mike DeWine Says Those Caring For Patients To Receive Vaccine First
Gov. Mike DeWine says Ohio is on track to receive more than 650,000 doses from Pfizer and Moderna combined this month. December 4, 2020 at 5:11 pm
Filed Under:Coronavirus, Coronavirus Vaccine, COVID-19, Ohio, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Ohio News
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Emergency medical responders, along with health care workers and others caring for COVID-19 patients, will be first in line for Ohio's initial doses of the coronavirus vaccine, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said Friday as he announced details about the vaccine distribution.
Vulnerable people who live together and those who care for them, such as nursing home and assisted facility residents and staffers, will be next, DeWine said.
The state expects more than 650,000 in combined doses from Pfizer and Moderna by the end of December, the governor said.
"Our goal is to get it out as quickly as we can," said DeWine, adding that he and his wife, Fran DeWine, will get the vaccine as soon as their turn comes.
Some other aspects of vaccine distribution in Ohio:
— Among other people in group settings who are among the first to receive the vaccine are patients and staff at state psychiatric hospitals; people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness who live in group homes, and their staff; and residents and staff at Ohio's two veterans homes.
— Of 98,000 Pfizer doses due Dec. 15, more than 9,700 will go to hospitals, and more than 88,000 will go to Walgreens and CVS stores for distribution in group settings.
— The 201,000 Moderna doses due Dec. 22 will go to 98 hospitals dealing with COVID-19 patients, and the state's 108 public health departments for distribution to emergency medical responders and home health care aids. On the same day, an additional 123,000 Pfizer doses will go to Walgreens and CVS.
—The last shipment this year will go out a few days later, with tentatively 148,000 from Pfizer and 89,000 from Moderna.
— DeWine said it's too soon to know when ordinary adults without health problems will receive a vaccine.
— Although people receiving the vaccine must receive two doses, supplies of the second dose aren't being held back and will be provided later.
— Symptoms from the vaccine could include a sore arm and a headache. People might feel "off-kilter" for about a day, said Dr. Joseph Gastaldo, an infectious disease expert at the OhioHealth medical system.
Vaccine distribution comes as cases are hitting record highs in Ohio. The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Ohio has risen over the past two weeks from 7,451 on Nov. 19 to 9,158 on Dec. 3, according to an Associated Press analysis of data provided by The COVID Tracking Project. One in every 182 people in Ohio tested positive in the past week.
The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths in Ohio has risen over the past two weeks from 33 deaths on Nov. 19 to 68 on Dec. 3, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
(Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Victor Marushchenko is a famous Ukrainian photographer, participated in over 60 solo and group photo exhibitions in Switzerland, Germany, France, USA, Canada, Brazil, Chile, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine. Participant of the Venice Biennale (2001) and Sao Paulo Biennale (2004). Marushchenko photos are held in the collections of museums, galleries and private collectors.
Born in Novosibirsk (Russia) in 1946. In 1975 received technical education. In 1975-1981 worked as engineer. In 1979-1981 studied at Faculty of Journalism in Kyiv. In 1997-1998 worked as press photgrapher in newspaper "Day". Since 1999 – chairman at the Kyiv oraganization of the National union of artists of Ukraine.


Easter weekend falls quite late this year with Easter Sunday 2019 on 21st April – but it will soon come along and there are a whole 2 weeks of school holidays to entertain the children in, so hop to it and book your Easter and Spring Entertainment as soon as possible.
Once Spring has sprung and what better way to brush the cobwebs away than by celebrating with some fabulous Entertainment! From a single Balloon Modeller to a madcap Mad Hatter's Tea Party Show! From real live Easter animals in our "Easter Animal Roadshow" to Face Painted ones, from Craft Workshops to a whole range of eggciting Easter and Spring themed entertainers and attractions to really draw a crowd!


particles after grinding sold where manojengineering. Grinding Machine For Finer Particles After Frying. Grinding Machine For Finer Particles After Frying.
The objective of this work was to investigate the physical stability of sub-micron particle suspensions of organic crystalline food compounds after grinding.
CORNMEAL-MASA. 1.- General Information . ... The corn meal particles after grinding may then be sifted, which separates the corn meal particles according to their size.
23-8-2018 After looking at some different forums, ... Ni no Kuni™ II How I got Prism Spear after I sold the others! Grinding in Faraway Forest yourmomsfriedgravy.


At DumpsterFly, we strive to bring you the best service at the best price available. We have a wide selection of dumpster sizes in stock in Powhatan, AR, with flexible & timley pickup and delivery. Give us a call today for all your dumpster rental and roll off needs.
However, if you wish to sit back and also relax though your crap problem virtually takes care of themselves, full-service trash haulers may be the way to get. With this type of crap removal assistance, not only does the company provide a receptacle for your undesired items, in addition, they load up the trash and cart it apart. That means you'll not have to elevate a ring finger to get that estate cleanout or machine disposal career finished. Perfect for homeowners that do not have the time or perhaps inclination to manage their own waste removal, this sort of hands-on junk transporting is also suitable for commercial property cleanup and in some cases foreclosure cleanouts. If the thought of sweating excessively and pushing has had an individual putting off your project regarding reclaiming your own attic, car port, or other crap laden area, don't let the idea stop you any longer. Get garbage removing done absolutely and correctly, from start to finish, when you phone your area crap removers nowadays.
Make sure to ask your local business if they have the resources and potential to handle your " special " needs intended for clearing out the various forms of structure debris.
Junk itself is the issue that is pulling the attention on the whole world. Correct disposal on this generated waste is one far more hidden issue that is adding the project owners on great difficulty. Huge plenty of litter piled up include varied bulky items and positions a challenge to your project proprietor. One has to manage many troubles like selecting the best disposal container, dumping your tons of waste carefully,(requirements manual help), spending time to dispose in the rubbish dumps, tackle the difficulties with the nearby authority, appropriate disposal regarding trash through recycling. All these issues demand a lot of time and also investment in terms of money in supplement to the risk.
No matter why you desire a dumpster, whether it's business oriented or personalized, you will most probably need to rent 1 from a Rent a Waste Management Dumpster in Powhatan, AR business. While you may possibly believe that some sort of dumpster is a dumpster, the company you rent from may still greatly impact your entire experience and also final charges. Here are some things to look for in your own Rent a Waste Management Dumpster in Powhatan, AR company.
It's always a difficult process to decide on no matter if to purchase garbage beers or rent some sort of dumpster. Many individuals and also business owners possess this concern. Nonetheless, what the majority of people don't realize is the fact people/homeowners doing fixes on their households will benefit far more if they rental a dumpster. There are many important factors to look at when you decide to rent some sort of dumpster when enhancing your home or business, not just the price. How big the dumpster is factor you should think about before choosing the company you'll be letting the dumpsters from. A huge small business will require a massive waste discretion unit when compared to a small business or perhaps home because these big businesses generate a large amount of waste and also garbage.
If you are a roofer you know you need to keep your roof covering jobs shifting. The time to roofing flies through with the period you have owing to the weather. You might live in claims that get steamy hot in the 90's and also 100's or perhaps you may live in a state that offers brutal the winter season. With the seasons and owing to time constraints, clients are calling an individual left and right to acquire roof carried out. Some of the consumer's roofs usually are emergencies because they are leaking and also causing shape to form within the ceilings. Both you and your crew require to quickly provide your customer an idea. Once you increase the risk for time to appraise the damage and just how much it'll cost you the customer to deal with his or her roofing, you can signal the contract to accomplish it.
Here's just how Rent a Waste Management Dumpster in Powhatan works. You select up the cell phone and contact the company renting the actual dumpsters. You tell these individuals what size dumpster they want. They heap the dumpster to a pickup and supply it straight to you. When you are done with the work you give these individuals a call, and they're going to come back as well as pick the Rent a Waste Management Dumpster in Powhatan back up. Basic.
You can clean up the backyard, dispose of that will trash after your property's renovation and might do a many more for keeping the property clean with your services. The actual disposal bin and Rent a Waste Management Dumpster in Powhatan services help you claim bye to prospects heaps of waste of your house in the convenient technique only.
After you've made the last choices on the method that you want your bedroom to look, the next matter you need to do is find a service provider to give you a bid on how significantly it will cost. You really should get at least three rates so you can get the best offer.
Before you a single thing, you need to enter the property as well as evaluate the circumstance. Did the actual tenant depart personal property or home behind? Rubbish? What sort of damage did the actual tenant do in order to the property by itself? Will it be required to replace the floor coverings, patch pockets in the wall membrane, or color? Perform a comprehensive examination of the home to figure out what exactly will have to be completed to make it possible for brand new tenants to call home there in the foreseeable future.
When rented, dumpsters of all sizes are generally taken to the specified site and then dropped off. When complete, they are found and taken away and if you would like, another vacant one will remain so you can continue with the demo. Dumpsters do come in 10 yard sizes, in addition to 20, 35 and 45 yard kinds. All you need to perform is to find a beneficial company with a good rep, from the internet and going to a site that can let you obtain the best deal in your case, all on one page. Basic fill out a simple form as well as let the corporation know what dimension you want where and for how much time etc., and they'll give you a estimate for the most ideal company in order to meet your needs.
Also you can rent a dumpster that may be medium sized. The actual medium sized dumpster must hold up to 3 tons of particles or regarding five pickup loads.
You can't really find or perhaps remember issues that you keep in the cluttered space. Once you've accomplished yourself the actual favor of getting rid of all your junk, it is advisable to put all things in a proper place where you're likely to find it when you need it and be able to utilize it. This may will need you purchasing organization techniques for some factors, but take into account that an investment inside your clean house.
Have you any idea local unique codes and legislation for shedding all of the rubbish cleaned out in your home or business oriented space? If you don't, and you depart your chiller or broken TV in the wrong place, you might get fined. experts are generally trained in rubbish disposal. If they help you heap the truck or simply just pick up the actual dumpster you rented, they'll are aware of the proper closing resting spot for each item. In some cases, that can necessarily mean a bequest center or perhaps a recycling facility--your waste might be another person's treasure! But that's not the only advantage of working with rubbish haulers. You'll also help save all of the time it'd take you they are driving items to the actual landfill or recycling centre yourself. Alternatively, you'll be able to inhale a sigh of relief once the truck or dumpster pulls away, knowing that your work is done.
The next thing outlined during the rental process is how the company need to empty, or even change available, the dumpster. A selected payment plan will likely be offered relating to to how often your dumpster will need to end up being exchanged. Something more important to consider is the place where long your dumpster will be leased for. Whether it's only short term, a specific strategy will be affected by it. Customized prices and arranging is one of the customer satisfaction oriented possibilities a waste company delivers. Pickup from the dumpsters can be at any time during a 24 / 7 period, along with immediate pick-up can be established. Usually the wait around time is under 120 minutes, depending on the actual circumstances.
Another reason why you might consider Rent a Waste Management Dumpster in Powhatan, ARs is actually you plan in doing design on your home or office building. Many areas do not allow the dumping of lumber, nails or any other similar throw away. These items can almost always go within the dumpster to end up being hauled off of when needed. Several garbage bin rental fees allow for your dumping regarding hazardous throw away as well and will utilize disposal bins for this on the office space.
Every dumpster has a limit for the tonnage of the waste disposed, letting the consultant know about the tonnage from the trash got rid of will place correct sized dumpster your door action. Any excess trash got rid of above the stated limit will certainly invite further charges on your part, so it is very important for you to enable the representative know of the tonnage of the waste that has to end up being disposed.
Every project is produced simpler and simpler with speedy trash eradication. Cleaning out your garden shed and removing unwanted shattered equipment such as old rakes along with shovels can be achieved quickly with out to pile the trash out by the highway and wish that the community trash pick-up takes the complete pile. You can take the guess work out of organizing your storage area, basement, or even shed by eliminating the need to make use of local waste pickup. Structure projects are also made easier together dumpster can handle aged appliances, sheetrock, bathroom accessories, twisted metallic and shattered glass. Make simpler your home assignments by getting in touch with or placing your order online the Maryland Rent a Waste Management Dumpster in Powhatan, AR.
You also need to know about the type of products and services that the renting dumpster company offers. It is important to know about how they handle the disposal of your garbage. Numerous providers execute roll off of services. This is an excellent way to get a lot of operate done with out to worry about where by your waste is going. Any renting dumpster firm may use spin off although taking away your own dumpster and put it back with a new just one whenever necessary.
Do you would like your country to stand on the list of top nations around the world of the world? If that's the case, then make yourself do something to promote recycling where possible of the throw away in Eco-friendly way there by reduction of the impact of contamination on the setting. Not everybody whom generates your waste appreciates the process of recycling where possible, so the buyer is in challenge once again around this juncture. Expert Rent a Waste Management Dumpster in Powhatan, AR service providers on the market offers spellbound products and services making your task hassle free from very affordable cost. These specialized Rent a Waste Management Dumpster in Powhatan, AR service providers as a possible expert from the field needs a due attention to ensure that the got rid of waste is recycled in environmental pleasant manner. Providers provide dumpsters in rental basis so as to ward off your own generated throw away and handle your post liability of recycling where possible the throw away Eco-friendly manner.


Can Rhubarb Leaves be Added to the Compost?
Since rhubarb leaves are poisonous, I am wondering if it is safe to add Rhubarb leaves to the compost pile, or my composter?
Rhubarb leaves are considered poisonous due to the fact that they contain high levels of Oxalic Acid, sometimes called "ethane diacid".
It would stand to reason that if the leaves are poisonous, then adding them to compost would be a concern.
However, since the oxalic acid is broken down, diluted and pH balanced quite quickly, this is not a concern.
Since humans and animals do not normally ingest matter from a compost, rhubarb leaves should be able to be added safely to the compost.
Further, it has been reported that the level of acid does not inhibit the microbial action of composting, and that compost including decomposed rhubarb leaves has not had a detrimental effect on plant growth where this compost has been applied.
If you do chose to compost your rhubarb leaves, you may want to cut them apart a bit as they do tend to be "tough". This will also quicken the composting time and avoid them possibly clogging the compost pile.
If you are composting any rhubarb stalks, they too should be chopped up a bit.
If you have a large number of leaves to compost, you may want to "balance" them out with adding waste such as newspaper or straw to the compost pile at the same time.


Higgins Quasebarth & Partners served as historic preservation consultants to RFR Development for a special permit application. HQ conducted an Existing Conditions Survey, which required extensive on site investigation, and worked with the Gordon H. Smith Corporation to develop restoration specifications for the bronze facade and other elements of this 1958 Mies van der Rohe masterpiece. In addition, HQ prepared the National Register listing to qualify the building for a facade easement donation. HQ also consulted on the Landmarks Preservation Commission's approval of zoning waivers for a new building at 610 Lexington Avenue.


After 125 years of western hospitality, this Wyoming guest ranch still offers the freedom to ride on your own.
Living Springs Ranch served as the scenic backdrop in "Counting Cadence," which can be found in the December issue of WH. Located in Simla, Colo., on the high plains near Colorado Springs, Living Springs Ranch hosts recreational activities for riders of all ages and at all levels of expertise. Many events include presentations by top rodeo competitors and horsemen and -women, such as rodeo cowboy Lyle Sankey and Arizona clinician Lee Smith. Ranch guests can bring their own horses or arrange to use ranch horses for many activities, which are held almost year-round.
This emerald oasis is an island in a vast sea of prairie.
I was loping up a beautiful high mountain valley on my sturdy Quarter Horse, Scarlet Mark, with a swiftly running river off to my right and majestic snowcapped mountains surrounding me on three sides.
From California's Spanish-influenced Visalia to Arizona's practical Porter, Don King melded regional saddlemaking traditions with his own meticulous flair. In the process, he carved an innovative style and a rich saddle-making legacy.
The romance and legend of the Pony Express is a patchwork of tangled certainties and larger-than-life lies.
Editor's Note: This story first appeared in Western Horseman's January-February 1942 issue. For more on the Pony Express, pick up the September 2006 issue for Jennifer Denison's "The Pony Express Paradox.


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Area 3 Council and Council Member News
Back to Area 3 Council Index
Washington Psychiatric Society Career, Leadership and Mentorship
Cosmos Club, Washington, DC
Theresa Miskimen, MD, Our Jersey Girl, is Speaker of the Assembly
Dr Barry Herman Receives 2017 APA Administrator Award
Barry Herman, MD
American Association of Psychiatric Administrators
Representative, American Association of Psychiatric Administrators
Area 3
Assembly of the American Psychiatric Association
Presented to Barry Herman, M.D. by Wayne Creelman, M.D. at the APA Annual Meeting in San Diego, California.
Area 3 Meeting at May Assembly in San Diego - May 19 - 20, 2017
Click on photograph to enlarge and for slideshow. Photo Credit: Sheila Judge, MD
Saturday Evening Reception at Area 3 Council Meeting - March 4 and 5, 2017
Dr Napoli with his US Representative for the New Jersey's 9th Congressional District - Congressman William "Bill" Pascrell, Jr. at the Congressman's headquarters
Dr Cagande's daughter is competing in the North American Cup fencing tournament in Cleveland, Ohio on the weekend of March 4 - 5
She is advancing with her foil from the left.
Anita Everett, MD, Area 3 Member and APA President-Elect,
Named SAMHSA Chief Medical Office
President-Elect of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Anita Everett, M.D., has been named the Chief Medical Officer at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). She will begin on September 5, 2016.
Area 3 Council Meeting - February 27-28, 2016
Click on each photograph to enlarge and for slideshow.
Area 3 Council
for being
Our Gracious
Apparitions at the Assembly
Halloween - October 31, 2015
Place cursor on photo to read caption and click to enlarge photo and for slideshow.
Area 3 New Jerseyans with Their Bus
Traveling to and from the Area 3 Council Meeting - September 20, 2015
(Left to Right) Joe Napoli, MD, Area 3 Rep, Theresa Miskimen, MD, Recorder, David Scasta, MD, ACROSS Chair and AGLP Rep, Chuck Blackinton, MD, NJPA Rep, Lily Arora, MD, NJPA Rep, Reena Thomas, MD, ECP Dep Rep, Charlie Ciolino, MD, NJPA Rep, Bill Greenberg, MD, Area 3 DEp Rep, Chi-chi Cagande, MD, NJPA President, Jessica Abellard, MD, RFM Rep
Assembly Executive Committee - Seriously Working Hard
Glenn's Red Nose Brigade at the AEC meeting - July 2016
Lester J. Karafin, M.D., FACS (1926-2014)
Renowned Pediatric Urologist
Beloved husband of Dr Sheila Judge
After receiving his BA, medical degree and MS (Urology) from Temple University, he did his internship at Mt. Sinai Hospital, Philadelphia, and surgical residency at Maimonides Hospital, Brooklyn, N.Y., before serving in the United States Public Health Service from 1951-1953. He returned to Temple University Hospital to complete his urology residency, and joined the faculty in 1956 as a Presidential Appointee. By 1969 he was a full Professor of Urology at Temple University School of Medicine, eventually becoming Emeritus Professor in 1992. However, he worked at AFSCME's clinics and Temple's Urology Clinic and continued to mentor residents until his retirement at age 85. In a rare double appointment, he was also Professor of Surgery and Chief, Division of Urology at the Medical College of Pennsylvania from 1964 to 1997. He served terms as President of the Philadelphia Urologic Society and President of the Medical Staff at MCP,
and was well known by colleagues and all of the hospital staff for his humor, kindness and expertise. He made it a point to know his patients
and their families well, often treating them throughout their lifetimes.
He taught thousands of medical students and residents in various specialties at both medical schools, enjoying special relationships with his urology residents. He was awarded the Golden Apple SAMA Teaching Award in both 1969 and 1980, as well as the Christian R. and Mary Lindback Award for Outstanding Teaching. As a pediatric urologist at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, he led one of the teams that performed the first kidney transplant in Philadelphia. He was the author of many articles, books and book chapters, including Karafin and Kendall's Textbook of Urology. A popular lecturer and speaker, he made over 150 invited presentations, television and radio appearances around the country.
He loved to travel, held a pilot's license, and read two or three books each week, usually history, biography or baseball lore. When running became popular, he embraced the sport, and completed eight marathons, including the New York City Marathon, the Marine Corps in Washington, D.C., and the Penn Relays, as well as innumerable Philadelphia Distance Runs. He played golf, baseball and tennis - where he would confound his opponents with both left and right forehands, an ambidexterity he found useful in the operating room as well. He was a fountain of knowledge on Philadelphia history.
Joe Napoli attended the 50th Reunion of his Class of '64, St Peter's Prep, Jersey City, N J on October 24 and 25, 2014
Click here to see the St Peter's Prep Website.
Richard Ratner and his granddaughter Hannah
Place cursor on photo to read caption and click to enlarge photo.


Diana is a co-founder of the Impact Hub Santa Barbara and over the past 20 years has been involved in numerous startups and growing companies. She is the Founder of Balance Financial Management (a full service back-office consulting firm, www.balancefm.com), former Chief Compliance Officer of Morton Capital Management (a $1.4B investment advisor, www.mortoncapital.com) and serves as Board Treasurer of Wilderness Youth Project (www.wyp.org). Diana has a strong passion toward building social enterprises dedicated to realizing positive impact within our communities and abroad and is super excited about the launch of the Impact Hub in SB!


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Jiang Zemin: A Man Who Did Not Get The Recognition He Deserves – Mark Schaub
By: Fons Tuinstra
In: Beijing, business, globalization, government, King&Wood Mallesons, politics, Shanghai, Speaker News
Tagged: Mark Schaub
Mark Schaub
China lawyer Mark Schaub looks back at the achievements of President Jiang Zemin, who passed away last week. "A Man Who Did Not Get The Recognition He Deserves," Schaub writes at his China Chitchat.
Mark Schaub:
I have always been a big fan of Jiang Zemin.
Jiang was already president of China (and more importantly CCP party secretary) when I arrived in Shanghai (the city where he had just been mayor) in 1993.
The Western newspaper reports about Jiang Zemin when he passed seem to underplay both his achievements and his playfulness – playfulness being a word seldom associated with senior politicians in an authoritarian state.
The Western media has portrayed Jiang as an unwilling reformer (goaded by Deng Xiaoping to move more quickly and then with Zhu Rongji doing much of the heavy lifting) and authoritarian in cracking down on the religious group Falun Gong and that when he was Shanghai mayor he brutally suppressed protestors in 1989.
On the first point GDP per head in 1993 was USD 377 went up by almost 350% to USD 1290 by 2003. Accordingly, during Jiang's tenure China went from being a very, very poor country to a poorer country poised to become a middle-income economy (i.e. USD 12,500 in 2022).
Jiang was extremely keen on attracting foreign investment. An early client of mine was the Rotterdam city representative office. They had opened several years before and we were just looking at some of their older records (not much to do in Shanghai in the early 1990s) we found a cache of their opening ceremony – and there he was Jiang Zemin with his beautiful, big glasses. It is unthinkable today but back in the late 1980s the Shanghai mayor was so keen on foreign investment that he would turn up to a rep office opening…
As to Jiang's authoritarian streak this does not accord with my recollection – at least when discussing in Shanghai this back in the early 1990s the understanding was that Jiang Zemin was noticed by the upper ranks because he was able to keep the students calm without resorting to violence. As the students became restive Jiang went to Jiaotong University (his alma mater) and recited the entire Gettysburg Address to the students in English. I assume he then threatened the students that if they did not disperse, he would recite again. They dispersed.
I also remember that from 1993 to 2013 the taxi drivers were much more forthcoming in providing their opinions. This may also be due in no doubt to improved comprehension on my part but in the late 1990s one did not feel that the taxi drivers were feeling particularly constrained.
More at the China Chitchat.
Mark Schaub is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.
Are you looking at more strategic experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.
Previous Post: Jiang Zemin: An unprecedented charmeur at China's helm – Zhang Lijiang
Next Post: The fallout of the anti-Covid protests – Victor Shih


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Match Preview: Kent vs. Warwickshire
County Championship Div 1
Warwickshire come to The Spitfire Ground, St. Lawrence to take on a resurgent Kent side in the Specsavers County Championship from Sunday 30th June.
Buy tickets in advance to save £5 on gate prices >>>
The hosts go into this game after a return to form against Nottinghamshire at The Nevill Ground, Tunbridge Wells with a 285-run victory on Day Four.
Zak Crawley scored 111 runs in Kent's first innings before Matt Milnes took his first career five-fer against his former county in Nottinghamshire's reply.
Joe Denly's second innings score of 167 not out set up Kent's bowlers to clean up Nottinghamshire's batsmen, most noticeably with another Kent five-fer in the match from Harry Podmore, to secure a big win in what was previewed as a must-win game for both sides.
The two sides last met in this competition back in April, where Kent picked up an eight wicket win, their first of the season.
There were two centurions amongst Kent's ranks in their first innings.
Zak Crawley scored his second career first-class century with 108, before 143 from Ollie Robinson saw Kent through to 504/9, declaring their first innings with the bat.
Despite 132 from Dom Sibley in Warwickshire's first innings, the Bears were all out for 346 and were asked to follow-on by Kent captain Heino Kuhn.
Another century, this time from Tim Ambrose (107), helped Warwickshire post 280 all out before Kent saw off the required 123 runs with 48 from Matt Renshaw, 45 for Crawley and 18 from Daniel-Bell Drummond to take 24 County Championship points away from Edgbaston.
Darren Stevens is included in the squad after taking his first ever hat-trick for Kent in a Second XI Championship match against Somerset this week.
Wiaan Mulder is out with an ankle problem, whilst Sam Billings (shoulder) and Ivan Thomas (knee) remain sidelined.
Kent squad
Heino Kuhn (Captain)
Daniel Bell-Drummond
Zak Crawley
Joe Denly
Sean Dickson
Matt Milnes
Harry Podmore
Ollie Rayner
Ollie Robinson
Darren Stevens
All Specsavers County Championship matches at The Spitfire Ground, St. Lawrence in Canterbury that are NOT televised will be live streamed
This fixture will be live streamed and available to watch here
The Spitfire Ground, St. Lawrence in Canterbury enjoys good travel links with London and the rest of Kent
Full travel information can be found here
Unfortunately there will be no public pay-on-the-gate or life member on-site parking (excluding pre-paid parking pass holders & blue badge holders) and no parking at Simon Langton Girls' School
We highly recommend use of the New Dover Road Park & Ride – CT1 3EL (£3.50 per day) – More information here
We recommend that you pre-buy your tickets before gates open at 10am to enjoy £5 off the gate price (first three days only)
Tickets will be available on the gate for £20
Day Four tickets will be available for £10 in advance or on the gate
The latest ever-popular Member's Forum will be held at Lunch on Day Two (Monday) in the Pavilion at The Spitfire Ground, St. Lawrence
Spectators are allowed to bring in their own food and drink – four cans of beer OR a bottle of wine are allowed per person
Re-admittance into the ground with alcohol is not permitted
The latest Met Office forecast is set for sunshine and hot weather for all four scheduled days
Spectators are advised to bring sunhats, suncream and to drink plenty of fluids throughout the day
Blast is back! Kent Spitfires get their T20 campaign underway with a home tie against Somerset at The Spitfire Ground, St. Lawrence on Saturday 20th July at from 19:00
Buy tickets in advance to any home Kent Spitfires fixture to save £5 on gate prices >>>
Match Preview: Kent Women finish season with T20s
Kent players in England Women Ashes squad
Kent vs. Yorkshire
Thu 15th Apr - Sun 18th Apr 2021 at 11:00
Kent vs. Lancashire
Thu 22nd Apr - Sun 25th Apr 2021 at 11:00
Kent vs. Glamorgan
Thu 20th May - Sun 23rd May 2021 at 11:00
Bryan Adams at The Spitfire Ground, Canterbury
An Evening with Michael Bublé
Saturday 10th July 2021


The garden is a perfect outdoor venue and resource for the Banbury community, if you have any upcoming events or projects and would like to use this space; suggestions are welcomed. The organisers of Banbury Friendship Festival have asked if they can use the garden for a third year running, it's been that popular! We will also be working in partnership with the Kids Corner Cafe in 2019. Our aim is to enable families to discover the garden and enjoy this space through informal child friendly activities.
If you're interested in meeting the fabulous team of existing volunteers, come along to one of our monthly meet ups at 'Ye Olde Reine Deer Inn' on Parsons St. The next one is on Wednesday 27th March 2019, 7:15pm start time.
Our regular Volunteer Gardening sessions which are held on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of each month have now started up again, see dates and activities in our schedule below.
Saturday 16th March – early potatoes, seed sowing; carrots, broad beans, shallots, onions.
Saturday 6th April – possible permablitz date (TBC), repairing/replacing raised containers, treat the shed with preservative, spring tidy.
Saturday 18th May – planting pumpkins, courgette, cucumber, general tidy for Banbury Friendship Festival.
Sunday 19th May – Banbury Friendship Festival 'bring & share lunch' and much more.
More Summer dates will be drafted at the March meeting.


In September 2016 I returned home after living in New York and got straight into an admin role working within Cpl Office Support. My role within Cpl is extremely fast paced, I provide administrative support to a busy team of 14 Recruiters/Directors and the MD of Cpl Solutions.
When juggling various tasks, especially in an office setting, it's easy to find yourself bogged down in your workload. I have found that prioritising your tasks is the key to success and ensuring you do not crumble under pressure.
I have picked up various tips along the way that have made my day to day less stressful, and will hopefully be helpful for you too.
Understanding what's important versus what's urgent is fundamental to prioritising your day – the Eisenhower Matrix, is a good way to help you sort out which is which and plan your workload.
Things that are important are tasks that directly contribute to achieving your personal objectives or tasks that contribute to your team. It is vital to ensure you do not mix important tasks with urgent tasks that often need to be completed quickly. Once you know what's most important you can plan your day properly.
I would consider myself quite fanatical when it comes to work emails, but I believe this is what allows me to work day to day. My inbox is virtually empty. I have various rules set up to allow for me to work in a flow without interruptions. My top email tip would be to switch off email alerts, which cuts out numerous amounts of interruptions throughout your day and allows you to focus on your tasks.
When multitasking, it's easy to get bogged down in your workload. It's vital to step away from your desk at times and clear your head. I have often needed to step away from the desk when my train of thought becomes muddled and I have realised I'm spending much longer undertaking a particular task then I should. Stepping away from the desk allows for clarity and you can return with a fresh mind and get stuck in.
Don't set yourself up for failures, set yourself realistic deadlines to give you a focus for the day/week. I have always found that writing down a to do list first thing in the morning allows me to quickly identify the important from the urgent and allows me to plan my day effectively.
Personally, I find ranking tasks I need to complete allows me to keep focus. While being realistic with yourself ensures you don't get overwhelmed as the week progresses.
Communication is vital to ensuring you work effectively day to day. Personally, working with Recruiters, Managers and Directors I need to ensure I communicate regularly and manage expectations to grasp what needs to be done and when.
It's also important that communication is a two-way street. Follow up with people and make sure you are both clear on what is needed/what is coming up. This will allow for a good communication flow and ensure you're not overwhelmed with various tasks all at once.
Working in a fast-paced business environment is always where I thrive. The role requires juggling multiple tasks, dealing with multiple different personality types and working to daily deadlines.
Working in admin, every day tends to be different and the role itself can be very rewarding. If you are looking for a move or looking to gain experience within the administrative space, please do not hesitate to contact myself and I will put you in touch with one of our highly skilled recruiters to meet your career aspirations/location preferences.
Commuting to work or working to commute?


Happy Show & Tell Saturday! I am excited for my first 3 day weekend of 2014! Do you get Monday off? Do you have big plans? We should spend it working outside, but with the cedar pollen count so high I think we will find something fun to do indoors. And of course I will spend some of that time checking out your great projects!
I will leave the link party open through Monday to give you all a chance to link up anything fun you would like to share.
Thanks for hosing! Happy Saturday!
Thanks for hosting this party :-) It's my first time here and I am having a good time! Have a great weekend!
Happy Saturday, Lorie! Thanks for hosting this fun party! I believe 3 day weekends should be written into the constitution - we would be a happier nation because of it! But then that's just my opinion! Hahaha. Have a wonderful weekend!


After a combat in which it has been used heavily, cool-down time should also be given. The barrel melting would have to be called by the GM. Discretion, common sense, and a cruel smile for the munchkin are all good things here. If the retractable stock and scope are used to aim for 1 round, the character gains an additional +3 to his attack roll.


We are pleased to have the meeting room available for non-commercial community use. The room includes a full kitchen and can accommodate up to 50 people. For more information, please read the Community Meeting Room Rules.
Note: This meeting room is for non-commercial use only.


With the 23rd edition of the Winter Olympics having just closed in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the baton has officially been passed to Beijing, which will host the games' next instalment in February 2022, thereby making the Chinese capital the first city to host both the summer and winter events.
Nevertheless, the Pyeongchang games suggested there's room for the future host nation to improve, with China topping the podium only once in the men's 500 metres short track speed skating and finishing 16th in the overall standings. While China's haul also included six silver and two bronze medals (another four of which came in skating events), it will have to up its game if it is to retain some pride when the sporting world shifts its attention towards Beijing in four years' time.
Medical tourism from China – a lifesaver for struggling Japanese hospitals?


Ars Antiqua de Paris [Joseph Sage (counter-tenor, percussion instruments), Michel Sanvoisin (recorders, crumhorn, shawm, rackett), Raymond Cousté (lute)] & Gael de Kerret (counter-tenor), Philippe Matharel (cornett), Jean-Pierre Dubuquoy (bass viol)] - Michel Sanvoisin, dir.
Information from owned CD. This is a live performance; I was not able to identify a previous release in any format.


AFEWEE amateur boxing club has taken a crucial step towards securing a permanent home.
After the London riots in 2011, Afewee founder Steadman Scott decided to set up a community boxing club in the heart of Brixton. They have had a hall to use in the Brixton Recreation Centre but have been campaigning for their own gym. Lambeth Council and GLL have agreed in principle to give them a permanent room in the Brixton Rec. But the club will need to raise £30,000 itself towards the £60,000 in total to turn the space into a functioning boxing club.
"That's going to secure our legacy so it's permanent here for at least seven years, they've agreed, seven to 10 years we'll be homed and that will allow us to build as well. That's what these kids need, a permanent place where they can come and develop," young head coach Bobby Miltiadous said.
Afewee's Peter Armstrong added, "I think spaces are important. It's that aspect of a boxing club which is like a youth centre, a youth club. They take ownership, they decorate it, it's got its history documented on the walls.
The original inspiration for the boxing club came from seeing the success of London 2012, so it's fitting their campaign to secure a gym of their own takes place in an Olympic year. "Central Brixton hasn't got an amateur club that focuses on getting kids off the streets," said Miltiadous.
They have a Just Giving page for donations towards the gym here: https://campaign.justgiving.com/charity/afewee-trainingcentre/permanent-community-boxing-gym.
Afewee has recently had its first five boxers carded. Miltiadous recalls the first time he saw a boxer compete in an Afewee vest: "It was probably the most I'd ever wanted to win because it was number one and we got off to a winning start so that was important." In total now the club's boxers have had three bouts, with a winning 2-1 record.


text:
How Much Do You Know About YouTube?
By Oliver Trolli Tyrant and Dylan Herring
1. Former members of Paypal created it.
2. Dwayne Johnson "The Rock" Johnson created a YouTube channel to review his movies.
3. The original idea of YouTube was dreamed up at Dunkin' Donuts.
4. 60% of YouTube's 1,000 most popular videos are blocked in Germany.
5. The oldest cat video on YouTube dates back to 1893.
6. YouTube was originally a dating site.
7. The first YouTube video was a ball bouncing.
8. The most disliked video on YouTube is Justin Bieber's song, "Sorry".
9. YouTube shut down North Korea propaganda.
10. Music video 'Gangnam Style' was so popular, it broke YouTube's view counter.
0-2=Fail
3-5=OK
6-8=Good
9-10=Amazing
1.T 2.F 3.F 4.T 5.F 6.T 7.F. 8.F. 9.T 10.T
1.https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-maloney/7-astonishing-facts-about_b_14630278.html
2. https://www.factslides.com/s-YouTube
3.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/08/youtube-north-korea-propaganda-terminated


ANTLR tutorial, look simple enough, however hard for me to find a use case that need to write a parser myself, any recommendation?
In complex situations, such as software projects and the teams that work on them, there's never such a thing as "the problem". The sense that something is wrong may be the start of a break with routine - the start of a problem-solving process.


text:
Q: Should you wrap your whole app with a React Context Provider? I want to save a simple boolean + userID if a user is authenticated and have it accessible via React Context API.
Many guides wrapped their root compoennt with the context Provider. To me it seems wastefull to wrap the whole app. On the other hand I need this information to be available in all my main pages.
Does it have any negative consequenses to wrap your whole app with a React Context Provider?
Example:
class App extends Component {
render() {
    return (
        <MyProvider>

Welcome to my web store

                <ProductList />

        </MyProvider>
    );
}

}
I used this guide as a reference.
I do not have any experiences in React Redux so this might just natural to everyone who has used this framework before.
Researching Google brings up many guides on how to implement React Context or use HOC but the 15 I clicked did not answer my question.

A: @Fyodor pointed it out in his comment:

You can wrap whole app in provider. React-redux recommends the same
  (react-redux.js.org/introduction/…), so you may consider it acceptable
  practice

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Citation statistics : Table of Contents
2017| September-October | Volume 58 | Issue 5
Online since May 29, 2019
Cited Viewed PDF
Histopathological spectrum of soft-tissue tumors with immunohistochemistry correlation and FNCLCC grading: A North Indian Experience
Hena Paul Singh, Sumit Grover, Bhavna Garg, Neena Sood
September-October 2017, 58(5):149-155
DOI:10.4103/nmj.NMJ_226_16 PMID:31198267
Introduction: Soft tissue tumors (STT) are mesenchymal neoplasms with a diverse spectrum and overlapping clinical, radiological and histological features. Histopathology and immunohistochemistry (IHC) are essential to make a diagnosis. Fédération Nationale des Centres de Lutte Contre le Cancer (FNCLCC) Sarcoma Group grading system based on tumour differentiation, mitotic rate and necrosis helps in predicting the tumour progression and treatment response. Aims: The goal of this study was to analyze the incidence, histological spectrum and IHC features of STTs and to grade sarcomas according to FNCLCC grading system. Material and Methods: This is a four year study conducted in the Department of Pathology of a tertiary care centre from July 2009 to June 2013. All histopathologically diagnosed STTs were evaluated for gross and microscopic appearance. IHC was done wherever needed and clinical correlation was attempted. Sarcomas were graded according to FNCLCC grading system. Results: Of the total 270 cases studied, benign, intermediate and malignant STTs were 67.0%, 7.0% and 25.9% respectively. Adipocytic, vascular and peripheral nerve sheath tumors (PNST) formed the bulk of overall STTs (34.1%, 18.5% and 11.1% respectively). Sarcomas not otherwise specified were found to be the most common soft-tissue sarcomas followed by smooth muscle sarcomas and tumors with uncertain differentiation (11.5%, 4.1%, and 3.3%, respectively). Benign STTs were seen two decades earlier and were superficial in location as compared to sarcomas. On FNCLCC grading, grade 3 soft tissue sarcomas were slightly higher in number than grade 2 (27 vs 24). On IHC a definitive diagnosis was reached in 33 malignant, all intermediate and nine benign cases. Conclusion: The incidence of intermediate and malignant STTs is increasing due to early detection and better diagnosis by ancillary techniques like IHC. FNCLCC grading helps to prognosticate the malignant STTs thus guiding further plan of action while in some tumors like MPNST and Angiosarcoma it has no prognostic significance.
2 1,523 8
Practice of hemodialysis in a resource-poor setting in Nigeria: A 2-year experience
Esala Ezekiel Abene, Zumnan Mark Gimba, Ruth Nabe Bello, Alidzi Iliya Maga, Emmanuel Idoko Agaba
Background: Hemodialysis (HD) is the main form of renal replacement therapy available in Nigeria. However, this is still largely unaffordable by individuals with resultant poor outcomes. Methods: This was a retrospective study of all patients with renal failure who had dialysis in the renal unit of Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital over the past 2 years. Information retrieved included sex, age, cause of renal failure, human immunodeficiency virus status, hepatitis B surface antigen status, antibodies to hepatitis C virus status, number of sessions, total duration on dialysis (in weeks), use of erythropoietin (EPO), common problems encountered on the dialysis machine, and the outcome of the patient. Results: A total of 68 patients (50% males) were enrolled in the study. The mean age was 41 ± 15 years (17–75), and mean weight in kilograms was 64.3 ± 10.9 (42–87). Acute kidney injury was seen in 18 (26.5%), while 50 (73.5%) had end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Chronic glomerulonephritis was the leading cause of ESRD (46%) with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease being the least (2%). The mean packed cell volume at the start of dialysis was 25.7% ± 5.9%. Tunneled necklines were in 11 (16.8%) and femoral catheters were in 48 (70.6%). The median total number of sessions was 4.0 (1–136), while the median duration on dialysis was 1 week (1–48) with both sexes having the same duration on dialysis (P = 0.44). The average frequency of dialysis among those with ESRD was twice weekly. Only 15 (30.0%) of those with ESRD continued dialysis after 3 months. The median survival time for females was 5 weeks while that for the males was 20 weeks (P = 0.108). EPO use was in 12 (17.7%) being 4000 IU once weekly. Cramps complicated the first sessions of dialysis in 27 (39.7%) patients. Conclusion: The survival of patients on HD in our environment is poor due largely to poor affordability despite its availability.
- 1,551 8


text:
Why is the Church apostolic What is the reason for her existence?
Why is the Church apostolic name two reasons?
How is the church apostolic in nature?
How did the church become apostolic?
What is meaning of apostolic?
Why is the Apostolic mark of the Church important?
What is the distinguishing mark of your parish church?
What does the Apostolic church believe?
How significant is apostolic succession to the church?
Is the Catholic church an Apostolic church?
What makes someone an apostle?
AND What is the reason for her existence? The church is apostolic because Christ sent her into the world. … It is the catholic nature of the Church that helps her to remember and preserve all she has been taught all the way back to the Apostles and to Jesus himself.
The Church is apostolic in three ways: The church was built on the "foundation of the Apostles", the Church preserves and hands on the Apostle's teachings with the Holy Spirit's help, and the Church continues to be taught, made holy, and led by the Apostles through their successors, which are bishops, in union with the …
3) The Church remains apostolic by faithfully accepting the teaching, sanctification, and guidance of the Apostles through their successors, the bishops, and particularly the pope, the successor of St. Peter.
Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is held to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bishops.
THIS IS INTERESTING: What Bible verse is the last supper?
Apostolic means belonging or relating to a Christian religious leader, especially the Pope. The work would be done by an apostolic administrator appointed by Rome. 2. adjective. Apostolic means belonging or relating to the early followers of Christ and to their teaching.
It means that the Church and her sacraments help to make the faithful holy. … ' The role of the Church is to spread the Word of God universally across the world. Apostolic: the origins and beliefs of the Church started out with the apostles at Pentecost.
The Four Marks of the Church, also known as the Attributes of the Church, is a term describing four distinctive adjectives—"One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic"—of traditional Christian ecclesiology as expressed in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed completed at the First Council of Constantinople in AD 381: "[We …
Apostolic followers believe in God to be of only one form. They believe each to be another form of Jesus. In order to achieve one's salvation, in Apostolic culture, one must repent for his or her sins and be baptized by immersion.
apostolic succession, in Christianity, the teaching that bishops represent a direct, uninterrupted line of continuity from the Apostles of Jesus Christ. The Apostles in turn consecrated others to assist them and to carry on the work. …
The Catholic Apostolic Church (CAC), also known as the Irvingian Church, is a Christian denomination which originated in Scotland around 1831 and later spread to Germany and the United States. … Irvingism teaches three sacraments: Baptism, Holy Communion and Holy Sealing.
THIS IS INTERESTING: You asked: What is the Church's teaching office called?
An "apostle" is one who has a call to plant and oversee churches, has verifiable church plants and spiritual sons in the ministry, who is recognized by other apostles and meets the biblical qualifications of an elder.


text:
Bracewell Represents Phillips 66 in Acquisition of Publicly Held Common Units of DCP Midstream, LP
January 6, 2023 Top Matters
HOUSTON – Bracewell LLP represented Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) in a definitive agreement with DCP Midstream, LP (NYSE: DCP) pursuant to which Phillips 66 will acquire all of the publicly held common units representing limited partner interests in DCP Midstream for cash consideration of approximately $3.8 billion, increasing its economic interest in DCP Midstream to 86.8 percent.
DCP Midstream is a Fortune 500 midstream master limited partnership headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with a diversified portfolio of gathering, processing, logistics and marketing assets. DCP is one of the largest natural gas liquids producers and marketers, and one of the largest natural gas processors in the United States. The owner of DCP's general partner is a joint venture between Enbridge and Phillips 66.
For additional information, please click here.
Bracewell lawyers involved in the transaction included:
Partners: Will Anderson, Mark K. Lewis, Steven J. Lorch, Elizabeth L. McGinley, Matthew B. Grunert, Daniel E. Hemli, Troy L. Harder, Bradley J. Benoit, Matthew Nielsen, Timothy A. Wilkins and Aaron P. Roffwarg
Counsel: Ian R. Brown, Jacqueline R. Java and Tamara L. McKinzie
Associates: Andrew W. Monk, Chase V. Edmunds, Shannon Baldwin, Ben Meredith and Kathryn F. Penry
William S. Anderson, Mark K. Lewis, Steven J. Lorch, Elizabeth L. McGinley, Matthew B. Grunert, Daniel E. Hemli, Troy L. Harder, Bradley J. Benoit, Matthew G. Nielsen, Timothy A. Wilkins, Aaron P. Roffwarg, Ian R. Brown, Jacqueline R. Java, Tamara L. McKinzie, Andrew W. Monk, Chase V. Edmunds, Shannon Baldwin, Ben Meredith, and Kathryn F. Penry
To request information about Bracewell or to interview one of our lawyers, please contact Bracewell's media relations team.
Jay Plum
Bracewell Ranks Among Leading Law Firms for Energy Transactions and Offerings in S&P 2022 League Tables
January 17, 2023 News Releases
Bracewell Advises Cactus, Inc. in Acquisition of FlexSteel Technologies Holdings, Inc. and Affiliates
Bracewell Promotes 8 in Texas, Washington and DC
December 20, 2022 In The News Law360


The warnings have become a familiar background noise, droning in the American imagination. Courtesy of TV detectives like Kojak, Sipowicz and Pembleton, millions know that if they find themselves in police custody and ask for a lawyer or insist on their right to remain silent, the interrogation is supposed to come to a screeching halt.
Except that sometimes, it doesn't.
A case argued earlier this month before the California Supreme Court threatens to expose law enforcement's open secret about the Miranda warnings: some officers deliberately ignore the famous protection against police abuse in the interrogation box by continuing to question suspects after they ask for a lawyer.
If the California court permits officers to do so, the ruling will be only a logical next move in the inexorable hollowing out of Miranda over its 32-year history. Case by case, the United States Supreme Court and state courts have narrowed the definition of when the police must give warnings, relaxed the standards for what passes as a waiver of rights, said that a request for a lawyer must be explicit, and even allowed prosecutors to make moderate use of incriminating statements taken after a suspect has asked for a lawyer.
Police officers around the country have responded to these rulings with canny alacrity. Interrogators are trained to talk suspects through the warnings in ways that minimize the chance that they will ask for a lawyer. Officers in some departments are so artful that they have been able to induce 80 to 90 percent of the suspects to waive their rights, studies show.
Even when a rare suspect raises the Miranda stop sign, detectives sometimes roar past it, continuing their questions. Cases in which the police violated a suspect's Miranda rights in this manner have been addressed by appellate courts in 38 states, with mixed results.
In California, many police departments, including Los Angeles's, seem to have sanctioned that practice. In bulletins, interrogation law seminars and training videos, officers have been told that if they continue their interrogation even though a suspect has invoked Miranda, they have little to lose and much to gain.
Legal scholars now debate whether the warnings have become so innocuous that they represent little more than a speed bump on the road to a conviction.
In 1966, Miranda v. Arizona became the best known of a cluster of Supreme Court decisions underscoring the concept that suspects have rights and the police have limits. To insure that confessions are trustworthy and to deter coercive police behavior, the Court said suspects must be apprised of their rights.
The sprawling, 60-page decision continues to be debated by scholars and courts, who disagree about its intended purpose and force. Similarly, the language of the warnings is fluid, changing from city to city. And the extent to which each state follows the Supreme Court's Miranda exceptions varies: New York, for example, is marginally more strict than California in mandating that an interrogation be stopped following a request for a lawyer.
By the 1990's, a generation of police officers had come of age with Miranda, which they had grown to see as a manageable annoyance. For a decade they had been under pressure to find ways around rules like Miranda because of the war on drugs, said Ronald Hampton, executive director of the National Black Police Association in Washington.
Some prosecutors argue that because the warnings are a court-created rule and not in the Bill of Rights, they do not have the power of constitutional law. In a companion brief for the California case, People v. Peevy, the Orange County District Attorney's office dismisses the warnings as merely ''recommended'' police procedures; the penalty for violating them, the argument goes, should be the legal equivalent of a shrug.
In a precinct's interrogation box, officers have a mission: to get over, under or around Miranda.
Among detectives, navigating the Miranda moment is considered an art form, respected even by their fictional counterparts. Capt. Gary D'Addario of the Baltimore Police Department, a consultant to NBC's ''Homicide,'' said he called for revisions in a script in which the show's star detective, Frank Pembleton, the Lord of the Box, opened an interrogation by asking the suspect if he would care to see a lawyer.
''And I said, 'Pembleton is a very clever, strong and aggressive detective -- he's fair, but he would never go into an interview and say that. No sensible, experienced detective would,' '' added Captain D'Addario, the real-life model for the squad's commander, Lieut. Al Giardello (or G., as he is known to fans).
Professor Leo, who researched police tactics by observing 182 interrogations through one-way glass and videotapes in three northern California police departments in the early 90's, noted tactics common to many detectives. Many would try to lower a suspect's guard by being solicitous, offering coffee, newspapers or cigarettes, or apologizing for the handcuffs that signal a custodial interrogation.
Then the detectives would leave a suspect alone in the interrogation room for 20 minutes. Upon returning, they would engage in affable chitchat, to calm an anxious suspect and even make him eager to talk.
Then they might say: We'd really like to hear your side of the story, because your buddy already gave his version. But first we have to read your Miranda rights -- you know, like on TV? Then we can talk.
Some detectives, wrote Professor Leo, blended the warnings into the back-and-forth of conversation. Others read them in a tone dismissive of legal gobbledygook. Some would joke that the suspects could recite them from memory more accurately than the detectives.
Other detectives turned up the heat: I'd really like to tell you what evidence we have against you, but I'm not allowed to talk to you until you sign off on this Miranda stuff.
The F.B.I. devised its own Miranda trick while investigating the 1996 bombing during the Olympics in Atlanta. Agents asked Richard Jewell, a security guard who had found a bomb in a backpack, to help them make an instructional film about suspicious packages. To make the tape look like a real interview, said the agents, they wanted to read him Miranda rights.
Over the years, courts have narrowed the definition of custody, the situation in which an officer must give the warnings. Custody, the Supreme Court has said, exists only when someone is effectively under arrest -- not, for example, when a driver has merely been pulled over for speeding. So the police tried to establish that an interrogation took place when a suspect was not in custody, which meant the warnings did not have to be given.
So detectives ask if they can speak to people at home, or invite them to the station house. Although few people realize they can decline such invitations, courts distinguish between a trip made voluntarily to the precinct and one made in the back of a squad car while handcuffed.
The case of Martin Tankleff, a Long Island teen-ager who was convicted of the 1988 murder of his parents was appealed on the question of whether Mr. Tankleff was in custody when he was interrogated. After questioning him for two hours at increasingly high volume in a narrow, windowless room at the police station, one detective left to take a fake call, during which he ''learned,'' in Mr. Tankleff's earshot, that the teen-ager's father had just waked from a coma and identified his son as the killer.
New York's Court of Appeals said that Mr. Tankleff had not been formally in custody, so the pre-Miranda statements were admissible; the ruse had not been so coercive that it would prompt an innocent person to confess.
Another Miranda area left vague by the Supreme Court, and from which detectives draw great inspiration and opportunities to be inventive, is the legal definition of an interrogation.
The Court has ruled, for example, that conversation among officers within earshot of a suspect who feels compelled to blurt out an incriminating comment is not necessarily interrogation.
In 1975, a Queens man held in a murder case invoked his Miranda rights. Without saying a word, detectives dumped the victim's fur coats, which had been found in a co-defendant's apartment, in front of his cell.
In 1984, New York's Court of Appeals suppressed the statement. The coat-dumping, it ruled, was indeed interrogation, albeit nonverbal, and therefore prohibited because the suspect had asserted his rights.
Nonetheless, investigators are always looking for an opening. Years ago in Brooklyn, a suspect told detectives he wanted to talk to a lawyer. A senior prosecutor stepped forward.
''I'm a lawyer,'' he said.
The resulting confession was thrown out by the judge.
Innocent people, say psychologists, will waive their Miranda rights because they believe they have nothing to hide, unaware of how easily they can become enmeshed in an investigation. Guilty people, they note, will waive because they usually think they can concoct a story and outsmart investigators.
But the most provocative weapon in the police's anti-Miranda arsenal is a belief embedded in the psyche: silence equals guilt.
''Police are supposed to say that anything a suspect says may be used against them,'' said Professor Schulhofer. ''But the police don't have to say that silence can't be used against them.'' That unstated truth, he said, is the true power of Miranda and the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
Finally, officers are obliged only to read the warnings, not guarantee that a suspect understands them. The Supreme Court allowed a waiver by a Connecticut man who agreed to speak with police but said he would not sign anything without his lawyer present. California courts have allowed waivers by a schizophrenic with brain damage and an I.Q. of 65 and a suspect who spoke broken English and was in the intensive care unit with knife wounds.
Small wonder that some studies indicate that 32 years after the Miranda decision, confession rates of suspects -- generally about 64 percent -- have been unaffected.
The suspects with the moxie to insist on a lawyer are typically those who understand the system best: seasoned criminals.
''The police know a person committed a crime, but Miranda gives them armor and they escape,'' said James Catterson Jr., the district attorney in Suffolk County, N.Y.
That is why an effort to overturn Miranda persists. Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah who is a leading conservative thinker about Miranda, contends that the rule's cost to victims and justice is too high. Professor Cassell maintains that Miranda's impact on law enforcement has been profound and deleterious.
Even so, many mainstreamlaw enforcement leaders support Miranda. By advising suspects of their rights, they say, the police have become more professional, better behaved and aware that their job entails abiding by the law as well as catching the bad guys.
But Miranda may already be so frail that the police do not need to have it overruled. At seminars throughout California, detectives and prosecutors have been taught that Miranda can be sidestepped with impunity.
Devallis Rutledge, a deputy district attorney in Orange County, Calif., who has taught interrogation law around the country for 15 years, is a prominent advocate of the theory that officers can continue questioning a suspect who has asked for a lawyer. His view is that Miranda has been widely misread. The purpose of the rule, which is not even mentioned in the Constitution, was not to curb police conduct in the station house, he said. It is merely a weak, judicial interpretation of the Fifth Amendment, he said, about whether an incriminating statement by a suspect can be admitted at trial.
The penalty for a Miranda violation, such as not giving the warnings or continuing to question a suspect who has invoked his rights, is simply this: a prosecutor cannot use the suspect's statements to prove guilt.
But that does not mean the confession evaporates.
As long as the statement was not coerced, Mr. Rutledge says, the Supreme Court has said that the police may use it to develop other evidence. And if the defendant takes the stand, prosecutors may use the statement in cross-examination to attack his credibility and expose perjury.
The State Attorney General's office is hopeful that People v. Peevy, an appeal of a conviction that was argued earlier this month before the California Supreme Court, will uphold the practice.
During Airrique Peevy's 1995 trial for attempted robbery, a San Bernardino County detective admitted that when Mr. Peevy asked for a lawyer during the interrogation, the detective intentionally questioned him to elicit an incriminating statement for cross-examination.
Perhaps no one better understands why suspects might need protection during interrogations than the police themselves. When officers in major cities around the country are suspected of wrongdoing, they have rights far more extensive than the reading of Miranda warnings. In New York, even officers implicated in the death of a civilian in custody get two business days to consult lawyers before facing departmental investigators.
NEXT: Why people make false confessions.


The TM5 "Indexing of Non-Traditional Trademarks" Project is designed to improve and potentially harmonize the TM5 partners' methods of searching and retrieving non-traditional trademarks.  Thus, this project aims to assist trademark right holders or others who search national trademark registries in multiple jurisdictions.
The term "non-traditional trademarks" refers to those trademarks that include elements other than character data (words, letters, numerals, special characters) and designs.  These other elements can include, but are not limited to, trademarks that are comprised of scents, sounds, motion, tactile characteristics, holographic images, colors, and three-dimensional marks.  The TM5 partners currently search and retrieve these non-traditional trademarks in a variety of ways that appear to differ office to office.
Through this project, the TM5 partners will learn more about one another's methods of indexing of non-traditional trademarks, by coming together to share their respective best practices.  Based on this exchange, the TM5 partners will then work together to develop a common, recommended indexing scheme drawing from the available indexing schemes.
Once a common indexing scheme has been developed, the TM5 partners may encourage any interested national IP Office to adopt it for use in search and retrieval of non-traditional trademarks.


WOW! This is the LAST waterfront lot in Old New Castle with stunning views of the Delaware River, yet the high ground level keeps you OUT of the FEMA Flood Zone so there is no need for costly flood insurance! Building Plans for an up to 2500 sq ft 3-story single family home have already been approved by the New Castle Historic Area Commission saving you the time & added expense! This approved plan includes an amazing open floor concept w/ 2 Master Suites - one upstairs with a large private deck off the bedroom for purely unobstructed views of the Delaware River and a 2nd Master Suite on the main floor as well providing single floor living right away or in your future, if preferred! Washer & Dryer hook ups can be located on both floors to add to the versatility of making this your forever home! There will be plenty of on street parking available, however the building plans do accommodate a 2 car driveway in the rear if desired for private off-street parking! There are only 2 other 3-sty homes in the community that offer first floor masters, so this is truly a unique opportunity for the next owner! No Builder Tie-In, however a Builder is available if needed. Take a ride down 2nd St & notice the charm & beauty this river front lot has to offer, then see how conveniently located it is to so many unique shops, restaurants, Old New Castle historic monuments/museums, walking trails thru Battery Park & easy access to major routes 273 & 9 as well as I-95/495.


Mr. Frick's collection had grown so large that it required a grand viewing space. In place of a ballroom, a Picture Gallery was created and occupied the most commanding location in the house. The gallery's design recalls those of English country houses and the royal salons of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In the remodeling of the original house in the 1930s, the appearance of the renamed West Gallery was altered by the addition of the large arched portals at either end.
Except for the modern sofas, some of the furniture in this room, which was purchased between 1915 and 1918, dates in part from the Italian Renaissance, predominantly from the 16th century. The eight elaborately carved walnut cassoni served as storage chests. The large center table bears the arms of the Giovanelli family of Milan and Venice. The eight folding armchairs, of a type called Savonarola chairs, recall a form of backless seating produced in antiquity.


It was surprising to hear Venerable Yifa say something very similar here in China. "In the West, people always talk about rights, but what about obligation?" Obligation to your family, friends, society. "Many people nowadays are scared of commitment, but in commitment, you don't lose something. It is fulfilling because it pushes you to do more. This relates a lot to relationships and activities in college, we try to squeeze these things in with our busy schedule and end up either burned out or giving up on them. But if I keep sticking with what I already do, how can I push beyond my old habits. I want to commit and push myself to do things I cannot currently imagine.
If you ask anybody who knows me, most people would describe me as an easy-going guy that goes with the flow of things. During meditation, we talked about how determination was the most important thing. My thoughts will wander, my legs will hurt, but I need to be determined to bring my focus back to my breathing. You have to commit to sit. This past year, I've thrown myself into uncomfortable situations to strengthen my discipline and learn more about myself. Indeed, I have committed to meditating in monasteries this summer, committed to Swarthmore, but I don't feel that I have a strong sense of determination driving my life forward. So it's about time for a change.
I've learned so many things this past year, and even summer so far, that the 1 year has felt like 3. Determination, like discipline and memory, is a muscle that I have to keep training. So one idea that I have is that when I get back to college, I can have like a commitment board with post-its of things I want to commit to that week (starting small) like doing cardio every day, meditating every day. Another commitment I learned from somebody here at Woodenfish is the 100 day meditation challenge he learnt from his Taoist Kung-Fu school: where you essentially count to 100 everyday, but there cannot be a break in concentration. If you are on 51, for example, and start to get sidetracked on excitement, you have to restart from 1. Writing about this now, I feel this fire of determination that I want to keep fueling. Discipline and determination actually sound awfully similar, but I think this new dress on the idea is what I needed to commit to something bigger than what I already am doing.
On my last day in Kyoto, they cooked my favorite meal for lunch – curry rice! We got to eat casually, drinking tea and chatting about our plans for our lives after this.
People that are not worried about the future. People who coexist with everybody practicing compassion and consideration. People who have a sense of challenge and discipline. Wanderers. So far this summer, I have been able to put these eastern philosophies into words and practice, but I feel that they have been with me my whole life.
I feel like a fish going back to sea.
23:00 : All lights off.
around. However, the worst part was realizing that it was only the 5th out of 18 sessions, and that it was only the first day. I remember that when we had a 15 minute break for brushing our teeth at night, I just went into my room and collapsed onto the floor, too sore to crawl under my mosquito net, just lying there with an impending reminder that I only had 10 minutes left. For sure, there were times when I wished that I had never come to the temple, but that was when persisting was the most important. It was as if the pain and distractions grew exponentially, and if I didn't keep up my practice, I would just drown in my sensations and thoughts and not get anything out of it. The stakes literally increased every minute, but there was no way that I was going to give up, not this time. I think that meditation is my ultimate challenge, I need the determination to withstand the temptations to fidget, move, complain; and I didn't want to be somebody who couldn't sit without moving for more than 15 minutes forever.
Training only begins when it gets hard.
For the first time in my life though, I experienced a type of samādhi, a state of complete serenity, tranquility, and concentration. It is said that there are 66 moments of time in a snap of a finger, and I felt that I could experience every 66 of those moments. Yet it wasn't only just concentration, I also withheld my sati. It was like having a very strong concentration on one thing, and a very strong awareness of my surroundings. Samādhi and sati, each two wings of a bird. The pain was still there, but it didn't matter anymore. It is quite hard to put in words, and as Venerable Yifa put it: meditation is not something you understand, but something you realize.
At the end of it, I learned and experienced a lot during this Sesshin. I definitely got something out of it, but the process was hell – I told myself that I never wanted to do anything like this ever again. But these challenges of determination are sort of addicting. I have to admit that during Sesshin, I had a tint of excitement coursing through my blood (albeit it wasn't going to my legs as I was losing feeling 🙂 ). I'm not sure if I would recommend this to everybody, but I think you should try everything at least twice. Training only begins when it gets hard, so I guess the only thing to do now is to go back and face it again!
There was a foreigner who visited a Zen Master to study with the master. The foreigner was a scholar with an extensive background in Buddhist Studies and came prepared to have big debates regarding Zen. After making the customary bows, he began to talk about his extensive doctrinal background and rambled on and on about the many sutras he had studied.
While this story shares a simple message, I feel that many of us get too caught up with arguing and being correct rather than having humility and being ready to learn. The quintessential image of a college classroom that comes to mind is centered on politically and intellectually charged individuals arguing left and right about what is true and what is not. However, while engaging in such a dialectic is certainly beneficial, it is hard to believe that we know everything, especially as young first years in college. We should consider our education in such a way, whenever we walk into a classroom or engage in conversations seeking for advice.
Sticking to what we already know is easy, but growing and cultivating knowledge requires emptying our cup of ego.
Tea time is one of my favorite parts of our daily schedule at the temple. We all gather around a fireplace usually after cleaning the temple or eating to relax and enjoy some tea and food. It is also one of the least strict activities at the temple, the only rule is that we sit in seiza at the beginning when we greet everybody, then we can change to whatever comfortable sitting position. At Fumonken (the temple I'm staying at), it is very relaxed and everybody is telling jokes and laughing. I've also learned many interesting things about how Japanese culture has shifted after Japan's push to westernization.
In Japan, many words are starting to be adopted from English. Especially among younger people, it can be seen as cooler to use the adopted English words rather than the original Japanese words. Osho-san gave us an example: "architecture" in Japanese is 建築 (kenchiku), but more people are starting to say it in Japanglish, pronouncing the English syllables in Japanese (something like arkitekchoru). Representing the words like this is called katakana, and we were talking about how this was bad because while Japanese people can read it (like letters in an alphabet), the etymology and meaning behind the original kanji characters is lost. Like in Chinese, every character has a history behind it, so in a sense, Japanese history is being lost as more and more people replace original characters with empty syllables.
Another interesting thing we talked about was how the philosophy of Japanese education has changed. From Tao, Zen, and even Japanese marital arts, 守破離 (shu ha ri, each character roughly meaning follow/obey, detach/break, leave/separate) describes the stages of learning to mastery. How it goes is that a student strictly follows the rules of their master, eventually getting to the point of mastery where they can break those rules and surpass their master. Nowadays, most people think about 破離 (ha ri), the 守 is dropped – there is no more obeying. Osho-san said that Japanese people started to focus more and more on talent (very Western) and forgo the discipline of following the rules. "If there is no more following, what are they supposed to break from?" But staying at a traditional zen temple, the important dedication to obeying rules is very clear.
The first obstacle most people face when meditating is pain, well at least it is for me. But I never thought I would be able to overcome it from the sound of water droplets. The water fountain was full from the morning rain, and throughout our evening zazen we could hear water dropping from the bamboo pipe to the basin.
My knees are killing me, I'm starting to lose feeling in my feet.
I need to shift my legs, I can't stand the pain anymore.
I'm listening to the water, and I realize that I'm not thinking too much about the water like I am with my pain. It's as if the water is passing by me through time. I hear it – then when it stops, I let it go.
Wait, why don't I treat my pain like this? My pain is just like the water, I feel it, then let it go. Almost instantly (and kind of scarily), my obsession with the pain dropped. It's like when you are sitting at a cafe and you hear other people chatting around you. You don't dramatize the chatter, you just hear it and accept it as a part of the background. The biggest thing for me was not making such a big deal out of the pain – before I would be complaining about how long I've been sitting, plotting how to move my legs as silently as possible. However, I just needed to treat the pain like the drops of water I was hearing.
It was also at this time that I realized I've been doing meditation incorrectly all my life. I've grown up with Vipassana meditation, and one of the major things we learn to do while meditating was to mentally note the sensations in out bodies.
Hearing, hearing, smelling, smelling, pain, pain.
But now, I believe I've been thinking about noting pain incorrectly. I've heard teachers tell me that as you noted the pain, it would eventually go away. So then I started to think of the noting as a way to ease the pain. I would be noting "pain, pain, pain…" ultimately hoping that the pain would go away. I started to get frustrated if the pain didn't go away, was I meditating correctly? The purpose of noting is to detach yourself from the sensations that are arising.
Think about why it is so easy to just accept the dripping of water and the chatter in a cafe: they are easy to pass by because they are not a part of you, you don't own them. So to do the same for pain, you can not think that you own the pain. The pain is not part of yourself, and thinking about it as cafe chatter really helps. And ultimately, we'll want to detach from our bodies and leave behind our notions of the "self" (anattā, Pali).
That night during zazen, I was not having trouble sleeping, but rather I had a lot of pain in my knees from sitting. The more I focused on the pain, the more intense it seemed, I felt like I was going to go crazy from the pain. So I decided to give the story a try. I couldn't spread my legs open, but I opened my mouth, nose, eyes, and hands as wide as possible. Rather than trying to ignore the pain by focusing on something else, opening everything intensified my senses. My nose picked up the strong scent of tatami mats, I saw everything in the garden in front of me, I heard the silence in the room, and I could feel myself sitting on the zafu (cushion).
The pain certainly did not go away, which would have been the ideal (yet unreal) solution. Opening all my senses allowed me to take in everything around me, including the pain, and for the first time I felt like I was alive, the perfect reality. I then started to understand why this would help you go to bed. Are you starting to see the connection too?
Then it also hit me, chopping wood is in fact the same thing as zazen. Like Chuang Tzu's Cook Ting story (I talk about it in this post about Confucianism and Tao), when you have been chopping wood for a long time, you let go of the distinction between you and the knife. Like Cook Ting, you let go of the distinction between you, the knife, and the ox. Like in zazen, you let go of the distinction between you (self), the pain, and the environment. You accept everything simply as they are.


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Explorer : Accueil » Urbanism » The Baltic Pearl, St Petersburg – Russia
The Pearl Plaza of the Baltic Pearl in St Petersburg © C.Horn 2013
On the coast of the Gulf of Finland, south-west of the centre of St Petersburg, a major residential complex for up to 35 000 residents is under construction. The Baltic Pearl with housing, shopping centres and public buildings is currently the biggest residential project in the city of St. Petersburg. It is financed by the Chinese Shanghai Industrial Investment Company and was initially scheduled for completion within a period of six to eight years, but suffered like many projects by the economic slowdown of 2008.
Housing of the Baltic Pearl in St Petersburg © C.Horn 2013
On the site, an open space of 200 ha, is planed to build 1.76 million m² of real estate. Of these, more than one million square meters will be housing, or about 14 000 apartments, and more than 600 000 m² will be commercial real estate. The complex will house nine kindergartens and five schools. Design work for the master plan has been commissioned as a parallel assignment to five international architectural firms as XDGA, OMA, Sweco, HOK and Studio 44.
Two of the Pearls, as the residential estates with partially over 20 story tall buildings are nicely called, have been completed in recent years. After the first Pearl Premiere and the second Pearl Symphony the third Duderhof Club, a more luxurious living community designed by the St. Petersburg-based firm Tsytsin Architectural Studio, is now under construction. The prices are some 110 000 roubles per m² in apartments and 90 000 roubles per m² in townhouses.
The main canal of the Baltic Pearl in St Petersburg © C.Horn 2013
Last August the Pearl Plaza Shopping Center with shops, services, restaurants and cinemas on three levels, with a gross leasable area of 48 000 m², opened as the heart of the real estate program. The 135 million Euros project can accommodate 25 000 guests per day and was built in a joint venture between the Chinese Investment Company and the Finnish SRV Group. Located right on the main access road, the Peterhofskoe shosse, it serves as the flagship and the main entrance to the Baltic Pearl. The Pearl Plaza is located like a contemporary cathedral in the extension of the main axis of the residential complex, thus drawing all the attention while draining the wallets of the inhabitants.
Schools and kindergartens built on Baltic Pearl territory should become city property after their completion. Generally, as described by the investor, the area is planned to contain all necessary facilities for various levels of society and to significantly improve the infrastructure of the district.
The building site equipment of the Baltic Pearl in St Petersburg © C.Horn 2013
What draw my attention while visiting the site, besides the architectural and urban planning, where the surprising poor working conditions of the construction workers in terms of site equipment and job safety in comparison with European standards. In such a major project, that probably generates some interesting financial benefits for the investors, a large effort should be made to improve the conditions and safety for the construction workers.
One of the problems relating to the today mainly residential area and its location is the transport to the centre of St Petersburg, where until today most of the jobs in the region are situated. Traffic jams are frequent on the main access roads, slowing down cars and busses, and although there is a tram running on is own lanes connecting to the metro station Avtovo, it is outdated and of low capacity. A complete modernization of the tramway is necessary to multiply its capacity and a planning approach to more mixed-use quarters from the beginning to create diverse urban areas and reduce the need of transport.
The tramway of the Baltic Pearl in St Petersburg © Alex Florstein 2012
To date, housing sells apparently quite well and many young families with children were on the site. The quality of the project is difficult to estimate. Located outside the city, with hardly attractive open spaces inside the housing estates and a simple construction of the buildings, it nevertheless seems to find buyers. For many, the centre of St. Petersburg has become unaffordable and probably the Baltic Pearl with its location on the Gulf of Finland remains one of the better projects.
Author: Christian Horn is the head of the architecture and urban planning office rethink
Étiquettes : English, Real estate, Russia, St Petersburg, Urban project
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250 kg of drugs seized in Bolivia
Bolivian specialized anti-drug forces have seized 250 kg of drugs in southwestern Bolivia, according to the reports arriving Lima from La Paz on Saturday.
About 175 kg of cocaine and 75 kg of marijuana, valued at 1 million U.S. dollars, have been seized in an anti-drug operation carried out on Friday in the Potosi province bordering Chile, the Bolivian News Agency reported.
Over 4,200 suspected drug traffickers have been arrested during the last year, and 120 tons of drugs have been seized by the Bolivian specialized anti-drug forces, according to the Bolivian army.
Sitting in the notorious "Silver Triangle" area of South America,Bolivia is one of the three largest drug-planting and producing bases in Latin America, with 30,000 hectares coca-planted land.
People's Daily Online --- http://english.people.com.cn/


text:
NIA fights back ISIS threat and numbers show South India is a concern
Author: Vicky Nanjappa
Publication: One India.com
URL: https://www.oneindia.com/india/nia-fights-back-isis-threat-and-numbers-show-south-india-is-a-concern-2914173.html?utm_source=DH-MoreFromPub&utm_medium=DH-app&utm_campaign=DH
For the National Investigation Agency (NIA) it has been a busy couple of months. It has been making a series of arrests in connection with Islamic State related modules and has registered a host of cases in this regard.
With the ISIS looking to consolidate itself in India and the rest of South Asia, the National Investigation has had its task cut out. So far the NIA has registered 27 cases relating to the ISIS of which 18 are from South India. Further nearly 155 arrests have been made of which 58 are from South.
With the ISIS trying to spread its ideology, the National Investigation Agency has been conducting training sessions for the police officers of those states affected by the problem. An NIA official tells OneIndia that it is necessary to sensitise the police about the issue because in case of any issue, they are the first responders. They are being trained to monitor the social media, other online activities and also set traps.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) had undertaken a successful operation called 'Operation Chakravyuh'. As part of this operation, several online profiles were created by the IB officials in a bid to lay a trap on ISIS recruits and those attempting to radicalise youth online.
Recently the Home Ministry said that some instances of individuals from different states joining the ISIS have also come to the notice of central and state security agencies.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the state police forces have registered cases against ISIS operatives and sympathisers, and have arrested 155 accused from across the country so far, Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.
The ISIS, the ISIL or the Daesh has been notified as a terrorist organisation and included in the first schedule of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, by the central government.
"The IS is using various internet-based social media platforms to propagate its ideology. Cyberspace is being closely watched in this regard by agencies concerned and action is taken as per the law," Mr Reddy said.
Coastal states and Union territories are advised to regularly enhance surveillance and patrolling along the coastline, in view of the threat perception, he said.
It may be recalled that recently the ISIS had announced Wilayah of Hind, a group that would specifically target India.
ISIS did not elaborate on the branch's geographical remit as it mentioned the name of its new branch in a low-key announcement.The announcement of the new branch is seen as part of ISIS' strategy to give the impression of strengthening its global affiliations following the territorial losses in the Middle East.
Such a strategy was highlighted by ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the past.The brief ISIS statement of May 10 via the messaging app Telegram said that the Islamic State militants using machine guns had clashed with the Indian security forces in the village of Amshipora in Kashmir's Shopian district, killing or injuring a number of them.