text:
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A Mini Travel Blog
By A Guy Called LULU on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 10:56am |
Mini Travel Blog
As I have mentioned a couple of times, I am traveling for a while, five weeks, in Nicaragua. It is a return trip for me since being here once before in 1989. On that trip I arrived in Managua on a bus from Costa Rica on January 20th, US inauguration day. There was a parade going on which turned out, according to a cab driver, to be a celebration of the end of Ronald Reagan's administration. He laughed and said that the people believed their troubles were over. Though that was hardly the case, sanctions stayed in place, it did show that they had a firm belief as to the source of their troubles.
Nicaragua is now said to be the second poorest country in Latin America. While that is probably true based on some metric, it does seem to be enjoying a boom in tourism which means good things for their economy which is quite obviously in better shape than then. There are lots of Chinese motorcycles on the road and many late model cars competing for road space with old yellow "chicken buses" which are extremely cheap and have been the main transportation mode for me and my traveling companion. The tourism boom is no doubt tied to the low prices and the extremely low crime rate as compared to its neighboring countries. [We have met many travelers/vacationers and expatriates who have been all over Central America and have had no problems with crime other than a few cases of petty theft.] The near universal perception is that the Nicaraguan people are genuinely friendly, that is certainly mine. Some observers expect that a few years of heavy tourism will cause them to become more jaded and one woman who has been coming here since 2004 said just this morning that she can see a difference since then.
The biggest majority of foreigners here are Canadien followed by Dutch and then probably a mix of other Europeans. Swiss and Germans are well represented. Many women are traveling alone or with only other women and it doesn't seem to be a problem for them. USians are probably next in number and most seem to be here for a short stay compared to long term for the Canadian snowbirds or European travelers for which this is just a part of a longer journey.
Politically there seems to be a bit of a geographical division within Nicaragua but it does not seem to be a great one. The northern part of the country is the heart of the Sandinista revolution and there is evident a more common display of statues and other honoring of Sandino and of "The Heroes and Martyrs" of the revolution. Daniel Ortega is still quite popular among every Nicaraguan whom I have heard expressing an opinion.
Now an anecdote from the "It's-a-small-world" department. Just at the time that M. Maiello was writing about "Infinite Jest" and in the process mentioned "The Catcher in the Rye" my friend and I were talking to a Canadian expatriate who has lived in Chile for many years. She was in Nicaragua to meet her mother half way and the four of us were talking over drinks. It happened that three of us had just finished whatever book that we were reading and so book recommendations was the subject for a while. My friend had just finished reading "Catcher" and had really liked it and so she said so. The woman and her mother immediately turned to each other and broke into big smiles. It turns out that the daughter had been a one time girlfriend of Salinger and had stayed in touch for years and has a collection of letters from him which are quite valuable but she says she would never consider selling.
Also in the small-world category, we have met, on separate occasions, two people from Vermont and both are personally acquainted with Bernie Sanders. One is a woman who was in a group of friends years ago which included Sanders and the other a man who is or was, I am not sure, on the city council of Burlington. [I also think it was called something different from city council but I don't recall that for sure either.] Both were strong supporters of Sanders, both consider him to be totally genuine, and both said, with no prompting, that not only did they support Sanders but that they were very leery of Clinton. They also agreed that the Republican candidates are all scary and that Hillary would be much better than any of them.
For now I will end with a blog recommendation. It is in some ways just more of the same political analysis on one side versus the other but it does address an issue that has been in contention here at Dag. It discusses, among other things, whether attacking racial inequality is best done as a racial issue or a class issue.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/23/race-gender-and-class-politics-in...
Nice catch. I didn't know Navarro's work.
As for the issue at hand,
"Authenticity, yo'".
I don't think even the most race/sex blinded adherent would accuse Hillary of authenticity.
by jollyroger on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 11:51am
In the same vein Civil Rights activists were unaware of the activities of Bernie Sanders, thus he had no immediate source he could say connected him to the black community despite being in Congress for thirty years. Harry Belafonte did say he had talked to Bernie on the phone at some point in the past. Black Vermont activists say that they were ignored by Sanders. Reverend Barber of Moral Monday's fame says neither Democratic candidate is truly addressing voter suppression. Barber was unaware of Sanders. Bernie Sanders came for black voters when he found he needed black voters. Previously, Sanders involved blacks to the same degree as Occupy Wall Street engaged blacks..
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 5:40pm
There is this:
by jollyroger on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 5:52pm
Hell, thousands of people were arrested. People were murdered.
Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner Liuzzo, Evers, etc. Ring a friggin' bell?
Four girl's died when a Church was bombed in Bombingham. Remember?
King's home was bombed. King was assassinated.
Niw we have a guy unknown to the black community as a whole running to the front of the line saying "Follow Me!"
In Congress for 30 years and no outreach, except Cornel West and dope-smoking Killer Mike.
Sanders built no structure. John Lewdis doesn't know him. Rev. Barber doesn't know him.
Now Sanders wants to lead a revolution.
I do not feel the Bern.
If he is the Democratic nominee, I will vote for him. Don't dare talk to me about a revolution.
Here is a link to a photo of John Lewis in Selma moments before his skull was fractured by Alabama state troopers.
Which is the more powerful image?
http://www.amazon.com/Photo-leader-moments-before-fracture/dp/B0075XEH90
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 10:19pm
Here is the story of Hillary Clinton going undercover to find out if a private school in Alabama was discriminating on the basis of race. She did this while a law student.Hillary was doing the job for Marian Wright Edelman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/us/politics/how-hillary-clinton-went-u...
If you read the article, you will note that it was not without risk.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 02/25/2016 - 12:38am
I read your link to salon about Trump's love of poorly educated voters and as usual you and the doofus reporter were clueless and unaware that he was mocking overeducated Liberals while joining his poorly educated friends with 'we're the smartest and most loyal people' celebrating their victory.
There is another new development that surprised me, the blowback from the Clinton minion's attacks on Sanders and the Party corruption that is undermining his campaign is driving some Sanders supporters to go beyond just abstaining from voting , some are now promising to vote for Trump to assist in the defeat of the Wall Street Democrats and their chosen queen.
by Peter (not verified) on Thu, 02/25/2016 - 11:03am
Way to go Lulu!
Me, I am a 'class' guy.
I think one can be a 'class oriented guy' without ignoring race and racial discrimination.
Any democracy has to deal with coalitions; but one should not follow the dictates of coalitions blindly.
by Richard Day on Wed, 02/24/2016 - 1:17pm
Sounds like a nice trip.
It is time for us to invest in out country and it's people. With out people all you have is real estate.
by trkingmomoe on Thu, 02/25/2016 - 10:37am
As suggested by PP : Thanks for this - could you repackage it in a blog or the Creative Corner? Will get lost as a comment.
The following comment was in response to an article by some clown named Moynihan who was trying to taint Sanders for his support for the Sandinista revolution. I have made slight edits for clarity.
First a bit of background. I My first trip there [to Nicaragua] began in the USVI from where I crewed aboard a 27 foot sailboat through the canal and up the coast of Panama to Golfito, Costa Rica. The owner/captain, his brother, and I stayed there for a week or so enjoying a New year's Eve with other sailors and travelers and venturing out a ways on short day trips. Costa Rica was beautiful and I had nothing but good experiences there. I then left the boat as planned and began working my way north through Central America. I soon found myself on the "gringo trail" which consisted of the common route where travelers going north questioned and visited with those going south and vice versa about places to stay, things to see, and the experiences they had in the various places. I hooked up with an experienced traveler from Sweden just as I was leaving Costa Rica on a bus for Nicaragua.
I arrived in Nicaragua with many preconceptions and some expectations but I also tried to see the country with a 'beginner's mind' and be open to evidence that might alter my view. I had followed the political situation in that country since the mid-seventies and somewhat closely since the election of Reagan. I was convinced that Reagan was stupidly wrong about Nicaragua and criminally wrong in his actions against that unfortunate country. By January of 1989 the majority of US Americans had come to agree though not nearly as vehemently as me. Congress also agreed as did virtually all of Europe. The World Court also agreed and had ruled against the US and in favor of Nicaragua. Nicaragua was over-run with Central Americans, Europeans, Canadians, and a relatively small number of US citizens who were mostly organized into "Brigades" of "Brigadistas" doing volunteer work in support of the country and its new Sandinista government. There was a bit of partying too done with a bit of revolutionary fervor and some of my favorite people I met at "Sara's", a beer bar in Managua occupied nightly by brigadistas from everywhere who drank all the beer every night and many of whom then went looking for the second best place to drink all their beer too, were the Cubans.
By 1989 the revolution which had thrown out Somoza was mostly consolidated but the new government was still under the oppression of sanctions by the US and attacks by Contras trained at the "School of the Americas" at Ft. Benning Georgia and still being funded secretly and illegally by the US which did so partly with funds derived from active participation in drug trafficking.
If the horror stories told by our government to justify and create support for our attack on Nicaragua were anywhere close to true it would have been obvious to enough of the foreigners in that country who had free and unguided access to everything everywhere. I never heard of any exception except to the inside of some military bases. I took pictures of some great graffiti on the exterior wall of a base and some shots through the gate and was only politely asked to not take any more when I put my camera slightly through the bars of the gate to get some interior shots.
Leaving Nicaragua I continued north. We went through Honduras by the most direct route to El Salvador but I had a year old guide book and was not aware that the rules had been changed and that I could not get into El Salvador without a visa which would not be issued at the border. This was a rule no doubt instituted at the request/demand of the US government. I temporarily split from the Swedish guy who could enter and went on a long circuitous route back through Honduras where I saw many signs of military dominance of its citizens. Numerous times my bus would be stopped and occasionally young men who obviously didn't want to go were pulled off and led to large tents with sides rolled up because of the heat which revealed cots with many other men sitting. No signs at that distance of any activity, just sitting. I was never questioned or asked to even show my passport.
I left Nicaragua with all my beliefs of US malfeasance confirmed and with a very strong feeling that the Nicaraguan people deserved our help rather than our boots on their neck.
Jumping forward all these years I have finally returned and reloaded my impressions. The country is still poor but its infrastructure looks much better. It is said that you can drink the water virtually everywhere though I didn't test that too strongly. I brushed my teeth with it and drank what I was offered with my meals a few times and suffered no ill affects but almost always drank bottled water or beer. My impressions are just that, impressions, as I only have 'survival' Spanish and certainly cannot carry on a meaningful conversation in that language and there is not much English among the people there except for the many tourists and expatriates and sometimes English at my level of Spanish among workers in the tourist industry. The transportation system is amazing in that you can go anywhere by bus very cheaply. We rode buses all around Managua, for instance, for two and a half Cordobas at 28 Cordobas to the dollar. The buses, called by foreigners 'chicken buses' never pass a stop regardless how full and usually stop between stops if you wave soon enough. I think most would be surprised how packed a bus can get but my friend who worked in San Francisco and commuted daily on the BART to Haywood said it was the same there. Between cities was also amazingly cheap and within cities the cab fare was amazingly low. As always and everywhere people are advised to know the cab fare before getting in but I rarely followed that advice and the worst price I paid for that 'mistake' was ten Cordobas above the common fare. The routine was to know the general direction of your destination and stand beside the road watching for cabs going that way. A cab which probably already had some passengers would stop if it had room so some trips were not direct but that was part of the fun. Almost every cab driver was genuinely friendly, like almost Nicaraguan in any encounter, and were patient with us gringos when we had trouble communicating our wishes. A couple times they drove to a roadside business where they knew a person who could translate. At the end of a trip I almost always waited for full change for the money I had given the driver even if it was only very slightly over the amount of the fare. In five weeks of getting around this way I [almost] never noticed any hesitancy to give me the full amount of change or any indication I was being sweated for a tip. Exceptions were extremely rare. I would then, with extremely rare exceptions, tip them. The usual fare within a city was 15 to twenty Cordobas each, fifty-five to ninety cents, mas o menos. Usually twenty to thirty for the two of us.
Accommodations, arranged mostly through Air BnB or Hostel World ranged from excellent to mediocre value for the money and my total amount spent for the trip, not counting a frequent flyer miles ticket, was about eleven hundred dollars for five weeks sharing the cost of rooms with private baths. It could have been a fair amount less and with long term room rates and preparing our own meals could have been much less.
Beyond my surface observations I will pass on what I was told by a professor in Managua. It turns out that he had studied political science in Europe and had at one time thought of entering politics. He said that the Sandinistas would easily win an election today and that would likely remain the case for the foreseeable future. From this point my statements are what I hope is a fair reflection of what he said.
The Sandinista government has done much to help the general population of the country and continue to do so but they are also, like I believe most governments to be, too inbred and fill too many government positions through patronage of friends, relatives, and powerful supporters rather than through recognition of qualifications and history of effective service. Danielle Ortega is most interested in playing on the international stage and leaves most of the power of internal governance to his wife. She is wasting money that is desperately needed elsewhere on things such as the ugly steel trees which are lit at night at great expense for very costly electricity. [The stupidity of much money spent on ugly 'art' was just one example by my host of what drove him nuts about Mrs. Ortega, mostly it was her having too much power from an unelected position even though that power was not being abused to forcefully crush dissent and was used in many helpful ways that benefited the common people]
She owns the company that builds them. [I am not sure of any details of that statement, it was thrown out with a laugh and no details were pursued] Another leftist political party to help keep the government more honest would be a good thing but cannot expect to have any chance until a generation that venerates "The Heroes and Martyrs" of the revolution has passed on. The poor class controls who are elected because elections are fair and honest and so right now parties on the right do not have a chance of gaining more than a little representation. A more rightist government won one election, power was handed over peacefully for the first time in Nicaraguan history, and the people got a taste of what austerity measures recommended by the IMF and the World Bank felt like to an already poor country and now the Sandinistas are firmly back in power through the ballot. Now my host would like to see an alternative on the left but would still vote for the Sandinistas [I believe] rather than a right wing party.
My host was not surprised at what I told him about the article by Moynihan but thought most of the accusations and conclusions of Moynihan, especially those of war crimes by the revolution and the history of the Sandinistas, are absurd and pointed out that those charges of crimes did apply correctly to the Contras, [the ones trained by our government to attack local leaders and infrastructure so as to bring down the government chosen and fought for by its people].
Some more random thoughts: Nicaragua is the second foreign country I have ever been in where I was not approached either to buy dope or to be offered the services of a prostitute. The other is India. A building in Managua was pointed out by our host as the former headquarters of a drug cartel which was crushed four or five years ago and is now a police station. He said there are no powerful drug gangs in the country.
Almost every building, including residences, of any size is fortified with steel fences, bars on the windows and doors, and concertina wire around the walls and roof line. This includes those recently built or under construction.
When we asked we were told that there could be some danger of getting mugged or harassed at night in some areas and so should take a taxi after dark. We ignored this advice in most of the places we stayed and only took a taxi as a precaution one evening when we were a long walk from our room in Grenada and the power went out leaving everything very dark. It came back on about the time we got to our room. Nobody we talked to anywhere had had a crime problem or heard first hand of one or at least it never came up among travelers we talked to.
I will probably add more thoughts as they come to mind and will be happy to answer what questions I can when time allows.
by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 10/28/2016 - 2:44pm
A fun thing that we did in Nicaragua was to go to a rodeo on the island of Ometepe which is formed by two volcanoes and is located in Lake Nicaragua. We heard about it and when asking about details, where, when, etc, we were told that we could expect a lot of drinking and a rowdy crowd. Sounded enough like a Texas rodeo to me to make it interesting. It turns out that the Ometepe islanders have a much different concept of 'rowdy' than do Texas cowboys and their rodeo fans. We went and had a lot of fun and were never uncomfortable. The crowd had a lot of fun but I neither saw nor heard any obnoxious drunks and as everywhere else, any contact we had with locals was friendly and respectful by all involved.
Unlike stateside rodeos, this rodeo had one event, bull riding. And unlike Brahma bulls chosen to challenge the best riders in the world, the bulls of Omotepe were smaller and not so damned mean. They were local bulls gathered up for the event and herded into a pen. Rather than a chute to constrain the animal while a rider got on and prepared to ride, the bull was let into the arena where part of the show was the roping of it and getting it to a post where it was snubbed up. It took some skill just to get on its back and then when it was released most gave a good ride. After the ride was over a small gang would run around teasing the bull waiving red towels or their t-shirts or just their hands and sprinting to the fence to climb out of the way of its charge until the bull finally found its way back to the holding pen. We were told that a couple hours after the rodeo was over that the bulls were turned out onto the street to find their way home. They don't try that in Waxahachie or even Lukenbach but by that time we were back to our hostel sitting on a dock from where we could look one way across the lake to the mainland and the blinking lights on the big wind generators or the other way at the moon shining on the clouds that formed as the wind passed the peak of the other volcano.
I mentioned above that buildings in Nicaragua have walls, iron fences, and concertina wire around them. Ometepe is for the most part an exception. No battles have ever been fought there we were told and the reason is that the distance across the lake has provided them with protection.
by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 03/04/2016 - 11:49am
You might like "Under the Volcano" from days gone by. Not a bad movie either.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 03/04/2016 - 12:13pm
FDA removes "in person" req on abortion pill
submitted by PeraclesPlease 21 hours ago
Yes, it relates to the court case in Texas
Read the article at https://endpts.com/fda-permanently-lifts-in-person-requirements-for-dispensing-abortion-pills/
submitted by artappraiser 1 day ago
Politicians calculate that vilifying a minority group is shrewd https://t.co/Mx3JhQvDSd
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) January 18, 2022
Read the article at https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/01/politicians-against-unvaccinated-djokovic/621242/
Who Is King of Florida? Tensions Rise Between Trump and a...
Who Is King of Florida? Tensions Rise Between Trump and a Former Acolyte
submitted by artappraiser 2 days ago
Not often the @NYTimes gives Coulter the kicker: "Trump is done." https://t.co/AATfxodXC7
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) January 17, 2022
Read the article at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/16/us/florida-tensions-rise-trump-desantis.html?smid=tw-share
Biden Administration Backs Oil Sands Pipeline Project
submitted by HSG 2 days ago
Yet there are still useful idiots, or paid shills, trying to defend this neoliberal corporatist.
Read the article at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/climate/line-3-pipeline-biden.html
1 big thing: The labor shortage is bigger than the pandemic
1 big thing: The labor shortage is bigger than the pandemic. The shortage of workers in the U.S. has become a flywheel of doom, messing up our lives and society writ large. https://t.co/jqx4CfBHcE #axiosmarkets pic.twitter.com/OfPqUpnhW4
— alain servais (@aservais1) January 16, 2022
Read the article at https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-markets-fb164163-ece1-4aa4-9673-d53932c917dc.html?chunk=0&utm_term=twsocialshare#story0
Ongoing synagogue hostage crisis in Dallas/Ft. Worth - FBI...
Ongoing synagogue hostage crisis in Dallas/Ft. Worth - FBI negotiating with hostage taker
We've updated our story about the Fort Worth synagogue hostage crisis here https://t.co/x9NLNgBVAg
The latest: Talks are reportedly underway with the attacker. And he reportedly demanded the release of a woman convicted of terrorism who made antisemitic outbursts at her trial
— JTA | Jewish news (@JTAnews) January 15, 2022
Read the article at https://www.jta.org/2022/01/15/united-states/breaking-hostage-situation-at-texas-synagogue
Hospital System Backs Off Race-Based Treatment Policy After...
Hospital System Backs Off Race-Based Treatment Policy After Legal Threat
BREAKING: One of the largest hospital systems in the United States gave race more weight than diabetes, obesity, asthma, and hypertension combined in its allocation scheme for COVID treatments, only to reverse the policy after threats of legal action. https://t.co/L3rDg2jng9
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) January 14, 2022
Read the article at https://twitter.com/aaronsibarium/status/1482124912622022656
"What Progressives Get Wrong About Judicial Review...
"What Progressives Get Wrong About Judicial Review"
By Damon Root @ Reason.com for their Feb. 2022 issue
Without judicial review, liberals confronting a Republican-controlled legislature will have no opportunity to seek constitutional redress in federal court.
Read the article at https://reason.com/2022/01/15/what-progressives-get-wrong-about-judicial-review/
"The Law of Unintended Political Consequences Strikes...
"The Law of Unintended Political Consequences Strikes Again"
By Thomas Edsall @ NYTimes.com, Jan. 5
What happened to the law of diminishing returns? Separate from racial equity per se, foundations abdicate their social responsibility when they all crowd into the same trending issue areas. https://t.co/T0GvoSEcVu
— Samuel Hammond (@hamandcheese) January 15, 2022
Read the article at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/opinion/progressive-philanthropy-critics.html
Russia ups ante in dispute with West over Ukraine, not...
Russia ups ante in dispute with West over Ukraine, not ruling out deployment to Cuba, Venezuela
Russia ups ante in dispute with West over Ukraine, not ruling out deployment to Cuba, Venezuela https://t.co/J8eR5Cxcr9 pic.twitter.com/J5AwkjfTXq
— CBC World News (@CBCWorldNews) January 13, 2022
Read the article at https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-us-west-tensions-ukraine-military-deployment-1.6313930?cmp=rss
'A tactical mistake': Inside the Democrats' year of failed...
'A tactical mistake': Inside the Democrats' year of failed attempts to mend a fraying democracy
To me an underrated political shift has been the change in the meaning and function of the "message bill" between the 2007-2008 period and the 2019-2020 one. https://t.co/rkdoR6uWAj pic.twitter.com/uyWczLriyF
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) January 14, 2022
Read the article at https://www.grid.news/story/politics/2022/01/14/a-tactical-mistake-inside-the-democrats-year-of-failed-attempts-to-mend-a-fraying-democracy/
The Gender Gap Is Taking Us to Unexpected Places
There is now a larger than ever gender gap in ideology between male and female undergraduates in America @Edsall writes in @nytimeshttps://t.co/3yfcJsctrc pic.twitter.com/DQRJuRfdWi
— Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm) January 14, 2022
Read the article at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/opinion/gender-gap-politics.html
Insider Trading: Congress is a swamp all right!
Read the article at https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-stock-act-violations-senate-house-trading-2021-9
Texas Denying Most Guard Troops at Border Chance to Help...
Texas Denying Most Guard Troops at Border Chance to Help Families Suffering Hardships at Home
Texas Guard leadership is denying hardship requests en mass with soldiers facing financial hardship begging to be excused from the border mission, facing losing their cars & homes. Many haven't been properly paid in months.https://t.co/RdJmN8xa6l
— Steve Beynon (@StevenBeynon) January 13, 2022
Read the article at https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/01/13/texas-denying-most-guard-troops-border-chance-help-families-suffering-hardships-home.html
Baltimore State's Attorney Indicted on Federal Charges...
Baltimore State's Attorney Indicted on Federal Charges She Lied on Loan Documents
A federal grand jury has indicted Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby on federal charges that she made false statements on loan applications, court records show.https://t.co/8D5CZqtRAY
— The Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) January 13, 2022
Read the article at https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-mosby-indicted-20220113-ue7ca7pjujek5bf2eoinrssf54-story.html
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text:
Home / news / Photos
Rabbi Menny and Peri Raichik with their daughter
New Centers
New Shluchim to Houston, TX
Rabbi Menny and Peri Raichik have opened a new Chabad center in Houston, Texas. The Chabad Israeli center will provide Hebrew-language programming for Hebrew speaking families in the city. According to the most recent Jewish Federation survey, there are more than 3,700 Israelis living in Houston, which makes up about 9 percent of Jewish adults in Houston.
"We will have programming for the whole family, with a special focus on capturing the imagination of the children and inspiring their Jewish identity," Rabbi Menny said.
Rabbi Shimon Lazaroff appointed the Raichiks to open Houston's 13th Chabad center. "The best way to reach Israelis is if we talk their language," he says.
New Shluchim to Brookside, Los Angeles
Rabbi Abbale and Rivkie Raichik are set to open a new Chabad center in the Brookside area of Los Angeles in time for Sukkot. Rabbi…
New Shluchim to Indiana University
Rabbi Levi and Sheina Cunin are set to join the team at Chabad of Indiana University in Bloomington. Both Cunins' parents serve as Chabad on Campus Shluchim. Levi's parents,…
New Shluchim to Winnipeg, Canada
Rabbi Mendel and Dvora Altein will move to Winnipeg to expand Chabad's activities for the growing number of Hebrew speakers in the city. They will…
Chicago Teens Paint The Town
Thirty-five Skokie teens who have been cooped up at home for the last four months had an opportunity to get their creative juices flowing recently.
Chabad at 7,000 feet above sea level
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Site confirmed as design starts on new women and babies hospital
Telehealth services restored to meet pandemic demand
Police are responding to fatal collision in Dederang
Aotearoa New Zealand stands ready to assist people of Tonga
Perth man charged after making abusive phone calls
NSW police responding to fatal single-vehicle crash at Bilpin
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UPDATE: NZ police seek information after Oamaru robbery
Escape custody at Tennant Creek
Market renewal set to boost economy and create jobs
A major investment by the City of Melbourne to revitalise the Queen Victoria Market precinct will attract 18 million visitors a year, create nearly 15,000 new jobs and generate almost $1 billion in economic benefits, fast-tracking the Market's recovery from COVID-19.
An independent analysis of the viability and value of the Queen Victoria Market Precinct Renewal program, which considered the impacts of COVID-19, stated now is a critical time to secure the future of the iconic Melbourne attraction and deliver economic and social benefit to the city.
Lord Mayor Sally Capp said the Updated Business Case confirmed the value of Council's investment will protect and enhance the market for generations to come.
"Traders will find improved sheds and facilities to make their businesses more viable and customers will find it even more welcoming to visit, to dine and shop all the exceptional fresh produce and specialty goods our market is known for," the Lord Mayor said.
"The community and surrounding small businesses win as well, with each dollar spent by Council on the renewal program returning more than $4 into the local economy, creating thousands of jobs.
"We know the market experience means so much to Melbourne – whether it is a long-standing weekly coffee date, a place to find those special ingredients, or a family business that has passed through generations. Those are the experiences we want to preserve and encourage more of through this investment."
The 2021 Updated Business Case, prepared by SGS Economics & Planning, found the renewal program will:
Boost visitation to the Queen Victoria Market precinct to 18 million a year by 2051.
Generate significant benefits for the community – for every $1 invested in the renewal program, $4.13 in value will flow into the local economy.
Create nearly 15,000 new jobs and 9,750 dwellings in the precinct by 2030.
Return Queen Victoria Market to profitability from 2025, with annual profits increasing to $5 million by 2030 and $10 million by 2050.
Deliver a financial return for the project, with a Net Present Value of $120 million and an Internal Rate of Return of 5.7 per cent.
Queen Victoria Market CEO Stan Liacos said the renewal program is crucial for the market's recovery and revitalisation.
"The renewal program will allow us to retain the heritage, traditions and authenticity of Queen Victoria Market, while making it more efficient for our 600 small business owners, and more attractive for people to visit, shop and enjoy," he said.
"We want to see our traders survive and thrive, and this important project will allow us to protect the market, making it more resilient into the future."
The Updated Business Case builds on the 2017 Business Case and the 2019 Options Analysis, ensuring the $268 million gross investment – down from $308 million in 2017 – brings wide-ranging benefits to residents, workers and visitors.
"Our Updated Business Case tells us this renewal program is essential in securing the market's future. Without it, it could take more than 20 years for market visitation to bounce back to pre-COVID levels," the Lord Mayor said.
"While our renewal hasn't been immune to the challenges of COVID-19, and we've had to deliver cost savings across the budget, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to preserve and enhance a Melbourne icon, and we're committed to getting on with the job."
The Delivery Plan for the renewal program has also been updated to reflect changes to essential market infrastructure and timeframes, as a result of the 2018 People's Panel process, the 2020 State Agreement and COVID-19.
The market precinct is already benefiting from a new 500-space underground car park and the recently opened pop-up park. Next year, work will start on the Trader Shed, Northern Shed and refurbishing the Food Court, to be finished by 2024. Work also continues on restoring the market's historic sheds.
The Queen Victoria Market precinct renewal program includes heritage restoration works; essential trader facilities, including state-of-the-art logistics, storage, waste and recycling infrastructure; improved weather protection; new customer amenities with more places to shop and stay; improved sustainability measures, including solar power; and broader precinct revitalisation, including more than 1.75 hectares of open public space.
Councillors will consider the Updated Business Case and Delivery Plan at the Future Melbourne Committee meeting on Tuesday 7 December.
Tags:agreement, Australia, business, City of Melbourne, community, covid-19, infrastructure, investment, Melbourne, Planning, Queen, recycling, Small Business, small business owner, solar power, sustainability, Victoria
Police seek information: Armed robbery at Brassall, QLD
Perths top 10 suburbs for price growth in 2021 revealed


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This article is "Courtesy Hinduism Today magazine, Hawaii".
How Hindus—brought here by the British from all over India in the 19th century—have adjusted to life in this strongly Buddhist nation.
MYANMAR'S 2.9 MILLION HINDUS struggle to maintain their identity amidst the country's historically dominant Buddhists. Indians have been present in Myanmar for 2,000 years, but most came in the mid-19th century, when the country's British rulers brought a million people from various parts of India to take up posts in the government and the army, build roads and railroads or engage in commerce and farming.
During World War II, Myanmar (then Burma) was a major battleground between Japanese and Allied forces, with huge loss of life on all sides. After the war, the newly independent government considered most Indians "resident aliens," not citizens, regardless of how many generations they had lived in the country.
In the 1960s, the military regime nationalized almost every business in the country. They seized the property of hundreds of thousands of Indians and forced them to leave the country. Those left behind were—and remain—deeply traumatized. They continue to occupy a much-diminished niche in both politics and business. Only after 1982 did the government establish a path to full citizenship for Indians, with the right to vote, own land and attend government institutions of higher education.
Now just two percent of the population, Myanmar's Hindus are an unassuming and apolitical community focused on their farms, trade and small businesses, rejoicing in the freedom they have to practice their religion. To convey their little-known story to the world, HINDUISM TODAY sent reporter Rajiv Malik and photographer Thomas Kelly on a two-week tour of the country. This is their account.
MYANMAR REMAINS A COUNTRY with strong control of the press. I was able to enter on an official journalist's visa only because Hinduism Today was unexpectedly invited to attend the International Press Institute World Congress in Yangon. As the theme of the March 27-29, 2015, government-endorsed conference was "On the Path to a Free Media," our request for a journalist visa to cover Hinduism in the country following the congress was graciously granted—with strategic help from congress organizers. The event brought together publishers, editors and senior journalists from more than 65 countries to discuss press freedom at this crucial point in history as Myanmar transitions from military rule to democracy.
After the informative meeting, I was joined by Nepal-based photographer Thomas L. Kelly, who was especially interested in the large community of Nepalese now living in Myanmar. Together we spent nearly two weeks traveling through the country, visiting areas with concentrated Hindu populations.
Inquiries through the offices of India's Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh led us to an affiliated organization, the Sanatan Dharma Swayamsewak Sangh, Myanmar's most prominent national Hindu body. Their chief coordinator, Professor Ram Niwas, helped to arrange meetings with key Hindus across the nation. He also provided one of the SDSS youth leaders, Shekhar, to serve as translator, because most Hindus here are more fluent in Burmese than their ancestral language—an issue of great concern to the elders, we learned.
While our head office in Hawaii sought out contacts and sources for Myanmar, we were struck by how little is known about Myanmar by Hindus in India. The RSS seemed to be the only major Hindu organization with any interest at all in the country. After the Ramakrishna Mission was ejected in the 1960s and its temple and hospital seized by the government, it decided not to return. In the entire country, there is not a single Hindu sadhu or swami, either Myanmar-born or sent from India.
In stark contrast, the country has 800,000 Buddhist monks vigorously promoting their religion through temples, pagodas, vihars and public preaching sessions. Yangon's walls are filled with posters and banners of the popular Buddhist monks announcing their talks. Hindus here live immersed in an ocean of Buddhism.
We saw hundreds of young Burmese boys, and some girls, dressed as monks and bhikshunis and accompanied by their families in traditional outfits on their way to the various spectacular Buddhist temples. The children were about to commence a period of monastic life lasting ten days to several months during their school summer vacation. Every family is keen for their children to have this experience, and delighted if one or another becomes a full-time monk as an adult.
Myanmar abounds with huge and majestic golden pagodas and stupas that dominate the skyline of every city and town. In downtown Yangon the Burmese throng to a large Buddhist temple with a stupa and huge statues of Buddha. It is surrounded by a busy marketplace and prestigious government offices. Every surface of these Buddhist temples, stupas and statues is gold leafed. Asked why so much gold is used, the Burmese told me the offerings of gold please the Buddha and bless them with health, wealth and prosperity, not only in this life but in their future births as well. Such is their passion and love for their religion and their beloved Lord Buddha.
Thaung Su Nyein, managing director of the Information Matrix company, told me at the IPC conference that Buddhists and Hindus get along well, though he felt few Buddhists really know much about Hinduism except that they share some practices, such as celebration of the full moon day. Some likely think the faiths are interchangeable. He said the Burmese are Theravada Buddhists, as are the Buddhists of Sri Lanka, and that they consider themselves pure Buddhists. The Mahayana Buddhism of neighboring Thailand incorporates both Hindu and Chinese influences.
In contrast to the overwhelming presence of Buddhism, most Hindu temples are inconspicuously hidden in the jungles of concrete that are Myanmar's cities. Exceptions include the two Tamil temples to Lord Siva and Goddess Durga located in one large compound on the outskirts of Yangon city.
The Hindu temples are popular with the Buddhists as well, as they say our Gods more quickly respond to their prayers. This shared worship fosters good relations between Buddhists and Hindus and avoids the kind of clash seen with, for example, the Rohingya Muslims here, who are also descended from 19th-century Indian settlers.
Myanmar's Hindus are concentrated in and around Yangon, Mandalay and several of the rural areas. For our visit between March 30 and April 13, we spent the first days in Yangon, then stopped at the rural areas on the way to Mandalay in the north.
Our first objective was to encounter the Tamil community in the city center, and the old Sri Murugapperuman Temple—one of about 1,000 Hindu temples in the city. It's a legacy of the 1930s, when Indians were 55 percent of the city's population, most of them Tamils. On the aptly named Moghul Street we found dozens of Tamil Hindus engaged in trading diamonds and gold out of tiny shops and small showrooms decorated with pictures of Hindu Deities. The shops' small size gave no indication of the value of the precious items for sale therein, and we were told they enjoyed quite a high turnover both in sales and as brokers and commission agents. It was difficult to assess how well they were doing, but every Hindu business person interviewed looked happy and contented. Despite the lack of a visible police presence, the traders said the area was completely secure, with bags of money and gems moving in and out daily with little concern. In general, the crime rate is low in Yangon—one of the possible pluses of decades of harsh military rule. The area has wide roads between its high-rise buildings, but it reminded me of old Delhi: substantial portions of each street are occupied by hawkers selling street food, vegetables and other items day and night.
Burmese daughter and mother praying at Durga Mandir Yangon.
The Murugapperuman Murugan Temple is located on Shwe Bon Tha street on the first floor of an old building. It was built by the Tamil Chettiar business community, some say 120 years ago and others 400 years. The main structure of the wooden temple, housing the chief Deity, is painted in various colors and lit by rows of multi-colored bulbs. While we were there, Tamil bhajans played continuously through a loudspeaker system, making the atmosphere extremely devotional. Krishnan, a bachelor aged 50, was filling in for the regular priest who was helping at the rededication of another temple. Krishnan told us his forefathers came from Tamil Nadu but he was born and brought up in Myanmar. His father was a farmer and he himself used to run a business until one day Lord Murugan appeared to him in a dream and told him to become a priest. He studied with Archaka Shanmugam Shekhar, also born in Myanmar, to learn enough basic mantras to do the puja. He told us, "I am not very educated, but my level of devotion to the God is very high and that is the reason I have chosen to become a priest." We met many such priests who were managing the worship with a minimum of training.
Next we set out for the Shri Satyanarayan Temple in Yangon's Pabedan Township, passing along the way many beautifully lit altars of Lord Buddha by the sidewalks. At the temple we were welcomed by Banwari, its caretaker, who came from Uttar Pradesh, the state where I was born and spent my youth. Our chemistry was instant; together we sang some of the old popular Hindi bhajans and songs, which made us dance. We bonded like two brothers from the same village, meeting after ages. Similarly, Thomas bonded instantly with one of the temple priests, Prem Sharma, whose family came from Nepal three generations ago. They chatted in chaste Nepalese, to the delight of all. Prem Sharma was previously priest at the Mormin Satyanarayana Temple for 18 years, and has been here for 11.
The temple itself belongs to the Marwari community. It is dedicated to Lord Vishnu and Goddess Lakshmi, but has murtis of all the main Gods and Goddess—as well as a beautiful statue of Buddha. It has a large hall for satsang and katha, which is also used during major festivals. Some 50 to 100 devotees come to the temple each day, and many more on festival days. The Marwari community meets all the temple expenses, neither soliciting nor expecting donations from anyone else.
In addition to the temple, they run summer classes in Hindi for the children. In fact, across the country we encountered major efforts to educate the children in their ancestral language, be it Hindi, Tamil or Nepalese, to counter the fact all are using Burmese in normal day-to-day life and schooling.
The chief priest, Vishwanath, told us his parents were born in Churu, Rajasthan, as was the temple's founder, Bhagwan Das Bagla. The story is that Bagla was on a ship in a typhoon and took a vow that, if saved, he would build a temple to Lord Vishnu. In fulfilment of that vow, he built not only this temple but also one in Mandalay and another in Mormin.
The area around the temple had been densely populated with Hindus, with some 2,000 Mewari families, but many fled to Nepal in the 1960s when the government seized their property. Only 70 Mewari families live in Myanmar now. Businessman Sanjay Kedia told us it is difficult to find suitable matches for their children within such a small group, and they have to look to India and Nepal. The Mewaris are pure vegetarians, Kedia explained, and nearly all other communities in Myanmar are non-vegetarian.
Thomas and I encountered this issue ourselves, as there exist no pure vegetarian restaurants in Yangon. The best we could do for food was Titu's Indian Banana Leaf Restaurant, which offers a wide variety of North and South Indian delicacies, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. The owner is a Sikh, Sardar Ranjit Singh Narula, who hails from Singapore. He told us there are just a handful of Sikhs and a single gurudwara in Yangon, with perhaps 100,000 Sikhs nationwide
About 30 kilometers outside Yangon, in a compound spread over several acres, sit two of the most popular Tamil temples: Shri Muneeshwaran, dedicated to Lord Siva, and Shri Ankaala Parmeshwari for Goddess Durga. Their worship began in 1861 in small shrines at the base of a banyan tree. Today the two large temples are overflowing with devotees—not only Tamils, who are the largest single group of Hindus in Myanmar, but large numbers of Burmese and Chinese as well. Devotees also gathered with families and friends in huge covered areas outside the temples. Most of the Tamil women wore traditional saris, and others wore Burmese dress.
The temples are well maintained. Entire floor areas in several sections were covered with rangoli designs made by devotees. Worshipers were standing in long queues at both temples to offer fruits and other traditional items, which are available for sale within the temple compound itself.
Several priests and their assistants at each temple manage the worship in a systematic way. After the ritual bathing and worship of the Deity, a priest brought out the lighted arati lamp, whose flame is considered especially auspicious and powerful. The lamp is not only offered to the devotees present but taken around all the areas of the temple.
To be at the temple was to be in Tamil Nadu, a feeling greatly enhanced by the musicians playing the tavil drum and nadaswaram, just as you'd find in any temple in South India. Hundreds of devotees were following these musicians as they did circumambulation around the temple. We asked one of the nadaswaram players, Ganapati, how he had come to play the instrument. He said he learned it from his father, but finds it a very exhausting job, and does not want his children to take it up. He is mainly a rice farmer, but performs at the temple two days a week and at private functions from time to time.
The temple's president, Ulaganathan, welcomed us warmly. It turned out they have been receiving HINDUISMTODAY on a regular basis for some years. He took us personally around the entire temple and introduced us to the priests. His family has been in Myanmar for four generations and are farmers. The four main priests here follow Sama Veda tradition and are trained by Indian priests who come periodically. In 2011 the temple brought 120 priests from India, who stayed two months for the kumbhabhishekam rededication ceremony.
The temples remain in close contact with Tamil Nadu, Ulaganathan explained, regularly bringing artisans from Mahabalipuram to provide the murtis and decoration. He said, "This temple is considered to be very powerful and is visited not just by Hindus but people of other faiths, including Buddhists, Christians and Muslims." According to one devotee, Guruswami, a retired banker, 30 percent of the Burmese people come to Hindu temples like these to pray.
The temple's annual fire-walking festival, expected to draw tens of thousands of devotees, was to be held in a few days. We returned to Yangon in the evening for an appointment with Lal Bahadur Subedi, president of All Myanmar Gorkha Hindu Dharmik Sangh. As we walked to his shop, we again observed the all-pervasive nature of Buddhism here. One finds Buddhist monks, bhikshunis and child monks almost everywhere in public places. We remembered the large numbers of Burmese families we had seen earlier in the day, dressed in their best clothes, taking their children to the temple for their week or so of living as a monk.
Lal Bahadur Subedi runs a shop that deals in ghee, dry fruits and traditional Indian sweets. He attends SDSS shakha meetings every Sunday and also visits the Ram Janaki Temple on weekends with his family. The Nepalese community built this temple 21 years ago, and it is popular with all Hindus. It observes the major festivals and has a good facility for hosting traditional weddings.
Subedi estimates the Nepalese population in Myanmar to be about 250,000. Most in the rural areas are farmers, those in the cities are traders, and some work in the ruby mines.
He shared, "Nepalese are loved, respected and trusted here because many of our ancestors were in the army, the Gorkha Battalion, which defended Myanmar from the Japanese. In fact, all Nepalese here are called Gorkhas. About 80 percent have citizenship, and those that do not have themselves to blame for being of two minds when it was easy to acquire.
"The SDSS is a binding force that brings all the Hindu communities under one umbrella. We are concerned about our children, as they no longer have time for any religious activities—it is all consumed with study. We are providing special classes for them in Nepalese language. Another big change here is marriages taking place across different jatis and communities, which previously was considered taboo. In part, this is due to the financial success of individual families."
We next visited the centrally located and popular Shri Kali Temple, originally set up in 1871 by seven Hindu communities including the Gujaratis, Bengalis, Marwaris, Chettiars, Tamils and Hindustani or North Indians. It is the only temple in Myanmar established in this cooperative manner. Shri Bahadurg Bagla, who founded the Satyanarayan temples, was instrumental in getting this temple completed as well, according to Sadanananda Singh, one of the temple trustees.
Singh recounted that his father came to Myanmar at the age of 14 from his home area of Gorakhpur, first by land and then by ship, and started a dairy business. Now Singh runs companies engaged in transport and construction.
The immaculate temple, located in a posh area of Yangon, receives a large number of devotees each day, including Burmese and Chinese, some of whom have donated large sums for the temple's maintenance and expansion. One devotee we met was a woman having puja done to ward off the "evil eye," which she felt was the cause for her son's ill health. We had previously seen puja done for the same purpose at other temples, and learned that it was one reason Burmese come to our temples.
This ancient Hindu temple of Bagan enshrines Lord Vishnu.
Trustee Ram Kishore said that sometimes the Burmese outnumber the Hindus in the temple. "The wishes the Burmese ask of our Gods and Goddesses in this temple are fulfilled, and that strengthens their faith in our Gods," he explained. He says the temple is one of the richest in Yangon; besides conducting Hindi and Tamil classes, they promote language study all over the country.
Every tourist to Myanmar visits the Swedagon Temple, Yangon's most famous Buddhist shrine, and here we experienced a vibrant Buddhist religion. Everything—from the towering temple stupas to the small statues—is made of gold or covered in gold leaf. In my entire life I have never see anything so rich and glittery as this temple. Devotees thronged the compound, some to worship at the many shrines and statues, others to meditate in the large halls with huge gold statues of Buddha. I was surprised to see abhishekam, bathing with water, done to statues of Buddha, just as you see in Hindu temples. There is also a place where people can pray to the nine planets, something I also thought was only a Hindu practice. Here, too, we saw child monks with their families, many engaged in photo sessions to capture the moment. At one point, the grandly attired little ones were taken in procession for their initiation.
We spoke with Srinivasan, age 65, a Tamil man living here with his Burmese wife. Learning of our purpose in Myanmar, he told us their story. They were classmates in school. When his parents tried to arrange a marriage with a Tamil girl, Srinivasan insisted he would only marry his classmate. He did so, converted to Buddhism at the request of his wife's father, married in both the Tamil Hindu and Buddhist way and then followed both religions. "Our two children also pray to Lord Siva and Lord Buddha and follow Hindu and Buddhist cultures," he shared, "and we see no conflict in this."
In the afternoon we went to downtown Yangon to visit the office of S.S. Selvam, a prominent businessman and president of the All Myanmar Tamil Hindu Foundation. Selvam's family came from Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu six generations ago. He estimates that there are a total of one million Tamil Hindus in Myanmar, mostly living in the states of Yangon, Mawlamyine, Thaton and Pha An, and that 95 percent of the Tamils came from Ramanathapuram. As there has been no proper census by religion in Myanmaar recently, such estimates are at best educated guesses. But Tamils are, no doubt, the majority Hindu community.
According to Selvam, about 20 percent of Tamils are businessmen, 30 percent farmers and the rest employed in other occupations. There are Siva, Murugan, Mariamman and Vishnu temples wherever the community is found. These are managed jointly by his foundation and the Hindu Central Council. Their two major festivals are Deepavali and Pongal. "The biggest change that is happening today," Selvam emphasized, "is that our Tamil youth are marrying outside our community"—a trend that obviously started in earlier generations, given the above example of Srinivasan and his Burmese wife.
In the evening we visited the home of Krishna Padhi, a retired gold trader and leader of the Oriya community (from Orissa), which numbers just 500 nationwide. The community's biggest festival for the year is a grand Jaganath Yatra procession. In addition they celebrate Holi and Kartik Purnima.
A large number of Oriya came to Myanmar in British times, mainly to work on the roads. There are four Jagannath temples in Yangon alone, clearly showing how many Oriya must have been there in the past. Many were forced to return to Orissa between 1962 and 1970. Like others returning to India, they settled in the "Burmese Colonies" that sprang up across India at the time. Now, in the second generation, they have mostly been absorbed into the surrounding communities. "Those who went to India never came back," Padhi stated. "Right now the situation is that if we Hindus of Myanmar face problems, we get no support from India."
Later we visited the famous Ganesha Temple of Yangon, located in the main downtown area. Here again we saw a Burmese businessman getting puja done by the temple's Nepalese priest, Tek Narayan, to ward off an evil eye—he believed a jealous competitor was creating problems for him. The priest assured us the puja was only to negate the evil eye, and not to cause harm to anyone in return.
The temple has not only the Hindu Gods and saints but also Lord Buddha and a Chinese Deity. According to Tin Oo Lin, whose great grandfather, a Tamil, founded the temple and married a Burmese lady, the temple is popular with Hindus, Burmese and Chinese alike. Tin himself has a Chinese wife.
The last temple of this day is Shri Shri Durga Bari, founded 127 years ago by the Bengali community. The temple's senior patron, Minal Kanti Bhattacharjee, age 80, estimates there are 10,000 Hindu Bengalis in Myanmar, half of them living in Yangon. He explained that during major festivals, such as the ten-day Durga puja, Bengalis from all over Myanmar converge here. The ample facilities are also used by other communities for weddings and social functions. As with all other temples we have visited, a substantial number of Burmese worship here.
On our fourth morning in Yangon we met with Ram Niwas, head of the SDSS and the most prominent leader of Myanmar's Hindu community. A fifth-generation Burmese, he is a professor of Pali language and literature in the State Pariyatti Sasana University, Yangon. The SDSS, he explained, was founded in 1950, and is inspired by and molded after the RSS of India, though legally an independent and locally run organization. It has some 2,000 active members and volunteers. Niwas himself is a pracharak, a life-long bachelor and fully dedicated worker for the organization. India's present prime minister, Narendra Modi, who was himself a full-time RSS pracharak for many decades, was briefed by Niwas on the issues of Hindus when the PM visited Myanmar in 2014. Niwas was instrumental in our visit, helping arrange appointments with key Hindus and providing guides from one end of our journey to the other.
In two lengthy interviews he recounted to us the history of Myanmar and the presence of Buddhism and Hinduism here, dating from ancient times. He estimates that of the country's 2.9 million Hindus today, seven to eight hundred thousand are Tamils, four to five hundred thousand are from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, four hundred thousand are from Nepal and the rest are Bengalis, Oriya, Marwaris, Gujaratis, Punyas (brahmins from Manipuri) and a few others. Each community tended to settle in an area similar in climate to that of their places in India. Some maintain contact with their ancestral homes; others have lost track.
Today, he says, there is no discrimination against Hindus; in fact, the government gives him free passes to travel by ship or train to any part of the country for promoting the religion. But, he added, those who did not take citizenship when it was offered now face limits on what they can do, such as going on for higher education.
He lamented the complete absence of any Hindu sannyasins in the country: there is no one trained, as are the Buddhist monks, to influence the people and connect them to their religion. Hindus here suffered, he explained, due to lack of contact with India over a long period of time. SDSS is now running a campaign to make people more knowledgeable in the religion, the Gods and Goddess, the great Hindu saints and the traditions and festivals. They have established four Sanskrit schools for priest training and try to work with all the temples in the country.
They initiated the Hindu Dharma Shiksha Samiti to teach the children and produced school books in Hindi, with the goal that Hindi be spoken in the homes where it is the ancestral language. The language effort is being aided by the easy availability of Hindi TV channels from India, though to some extent the religious goal is mitigated by the worldly content of those same channels. A more recent addition, with help from the Indian Embassy, is instruction in classical Indian dance and music.
But, he shared, there is resistance from parents who want the children to focus solely on their school education. Many would prefer their children learn Chinese instead of Hindi. In contrast, he spoke admirably about the Buddhist novice monks system in which children of both rich and poor families participated on an equal level and received good exposure to their religion.
Our last interview in Yangon was with L. Subramaniam of the Telugu community. He estimates there are 100,000 Telugu people in Myanmar, of which 10,000 live in Yangon. There is one major Telugu temple in Yangon, the Shri Ramalyam Mandir. Ugadi, the Telugu New Year, is a major festival, as is Makar Sankranti. They share the same problems as the other communities with regard to language, intermarriage, etc. He recounted that at one point in time, some Buddhist preachers starting speaking against Hinduism. He worked with the offices of the SDSS and through the government to put an end to the harassment.
Subramaniam explained something that puzzled me: the tan paste worn by men, women and children alike on their face. Initially I thought it was sandalwood paste, but learned it is thanaka, made from the bark of one of several scented woods. Its use here dates back at least 2,000 years. He explained, "Thanaka is very good for the body. Our sandalwood is a bit hot, but thanaka is very cool. I apply thanaka on my whole body during night time before I go to sleep for its cooling affect. Most of the men use thanaka only at home, as they feel shy wearing it during the daytime when they are working in their offices or moving around publically."
Our last visit in Yangon was to the city's unusual 100-acre, all-religions cremation ground and cemetery, which caters to Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Muslims, and also has areas for Chinese, Japanese and Bahai funerals.
Rural Myanmar
After 5 days in Yangon Hindus we drove north 150 kms to Kyauktaga and Zeyawadi, where with their roots in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar settled. The Kyauktaga SDSS branch is headed by another full-time unmarried pracharak, Subhash Chandra Ahuja, who is based here at Manochan Vidya Bhawan school. In a detailed interview Subhash Ahuja described the school they are running for the children of the Hindu community, stressing the teaching of culture, traditions and language.
We were taken around the huge complex in which Manocha Vidya Bhawan, an SDSS office, and a Saraswati temple are situated. Here we met with other prominent Hindu leaders of the area. One fascinating story told to us by Kanti Lal Verma of the SDSS was that when the people first came here from India around 1885 it was a dense jungle. To keep at bay the ghosts believed to haunt the jungle, they would regularly recite Hanuman Chalisa. That tradition of invoking Hanuman continues to this day.
He said the British only wanted to bring illiterate workers to Burma, on the theory that they would blindly follow orders. But as the educated people caught on to this policy, they posed as illiterates in order to seek potential new opportunities.
From the Manochan Vidya Bhawan we drove to the complex of the Ram Janaki Temple to see its school for children, and then on to Phyu to two Siva temples. Now I felt I was back in India, and could easily spot many Indians on the roads or in the shopping complexes by their typical features and dress. In Yangon we rarely saw an Indian unless going to a specific shop owned by Hindus. But here Hindus were all around.
Next we drove into the Zeyawadi area to visit the home of Prakash Chandra, a local leader, and then the small temple of Sagoon Basti village. There are easily 120 villages in this area, Chandra told us, each with at least one temple. Sagoon Basti and neighboring villages are nearly 100 percent Indian; the only non-Indians you see here are Burmese laborers hired to work in the fields, which are mostly owned by Indians. In part, these Burmese workers replace educated Indian youth who have gone to neighboring countries, such as Thailand, for better employment.
We enjoyed the breathtaking views of the agricultural fields as we drove to a large gurukul set up by a local businessman in a nearby village. Its approximately 50 students recited Sanskrit slokas for us upon our arrival. Next we went to the Arya Samaj in Zeyawadi, where Hindi was being taught in an intensive manner at its Valmiki Ashram and Gurukul under the guidance of Siya Ram, a retired professor of engineering.
Pandit Dharam Raj Shama of India initially taught here, Ram explained, and along with a few other priests from India, was quite popular. Eventually they all returned to India, after training some of the educated people as purohits. These now tend to the needs of the community in a self-sustaining manner. Recently they conducted a sacred thread ceremony for 44 children.
That evening we set off for the ancient city of Bagan, a major tourist destination. Bagan is a must-see place for anyone visiting Myanmar, though for us it did not have much to do with Hinduism in the country.
In the early morning at Bagan we joined hundreds of others from around the world determined to view the area's famous sunrise, best done from a multi-story tower with a warning posted at the bottom that it is ancient and possibly unsafe. This did not prevent hundreds of tourists and photographers from ascending. Nor was sunrise a disappointment; as far as one could see there were thousands and thousands of small and large Buddhist temples and pagodas bathed in golden light. They were all built between the 9th and 13th centuries; a few thousand remain in good shape or have been restored, but most lie in ruins. In the midst of all this we came across two Hindu temples. One is for Vishnu, and fairly well known. Another is to Siva; with no sign board on display, it was only from the imagery on the walls we could deduce what it was.
After a day photographing Bagan, we took a short flight to Mandalay, a major center of commerce with a large Hindu population mostly engaged in business. We visited the Shri Sanatan Hindu Dharma Temple and Shri Ganesh Temple, two of the most popular of the city's 17 Hindu temples, the local Arya Samaj center, which caters to about 80 families, and met K. Sunder Gopal Sharma, a prominent Manipuri Brahmin of Mandalay and vice president of the Upper Myanmar India Business Association, at his residence.
The Manipuri Brahmins, we learn, were brought from India 500 years ago by the king of Myanmar to perform rituals at the palace and give advice on astrology, medicine and scriptures. Numbering about 5,000, they and the Mewari community are perhaps the only Hindus in the country with a significant percentage maintaining a vegetarian diet. The Manipuri Brahmins are Vaishnavites in the tradition of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Their temples are private, only open to members of their own community.
The day after our arrival, we set out in early morning to join a yoga class conducted by Kashi Nath on the rooftop of a nearby commercial building. Nath, of Manipuri origin, learned yoga from the SDSS expert Subhash Changra Ahuja, whom we had met in Kyauktaga. We were surprised that the majority of those in the class were Burmese and Chinese. Later we visited Nath's spacious home and learned his grandfather, Asin Charaj Dev Sharma, was priest to King Thi Mo Ming in the early 1900s. Their home was a royal gift to the family.
We were next taken to a Sikh gurudwara that serves some 400 Sikhs in the area. As with the Hindus, the Sikh children are adopting Burmese language and culture. Consequently the community is making major efforts to teach Punjabi language and Sikh religion, bringing granthis (teachers) here for every summer vacation. The children we met could expertly recite stanzas from the Guru Granth Sahib accompanied by music.
Our last destination in Mandalay was the Nepalese Dharmashala guest house and temple. More than one hundred Nepalese children were being taught Nepalese language and Hinduism under the charge of retired army captain Bahadur, 82. He said there are about 1,000 Gorkhas (as the Nepalese are called) in Mandalay itself, with possibly 100,000 in Mogok, 200 km to the north of Mandalay, where many ruby mines are located.
When they first came from Nepal, most Gorkhas chose to stay in the hilly areas; but now that they have become more educated, they are opting for opening their own businesses in the cities, Bahadur explained. Many Gorkhas go to neighboring countries for work. The Dharmashala itself, which accommodates about 100 persons, is only open to the Nepalese Hindus and not others. Most guests have come to Mandalay for medical treatment which the dharmashala helps them with.
We next drove three hours to Pyin Oo Lwin where we visited the home of a prominent Nepalese community leader, Mani Lal Poudyal. He is president of All Myanmar Gorkha Hindu Religious Association, which has 36 branches in the country. Overall, he told us, he is satisfied with the progress the Nepalese community is making in Myanmar, noting that he finds the Nepalese of Myanmar more religious than those of Nepal itself these days.
While they are well connected with the other Hindus in the country, they differ in their celebration of festivals, with the Nepalese observing Dussehra and Teej in a grand manner, while the Indian Hindus do so for Raskha Bandhan and Diwali. The community has some 360 temples in Myanmar, mostly dedicated to Ram, Pashupati (Siva) and Durga.
Mani Lal Poudyal told us, "Out of the total Nepalese population in Myanmar, around twenty percent are Buddhists. They converted because initially they stopped using Nepalese language. They would only use Burmese language and therefore gradually became Buddhists." Most marriages are arranged within the community, according to him, but love marriages are also taking place with Indian Hindus and others.
There is also a substantial Tamil community in Pyin Oo Lwin. With the help of our guide, Vijay Gupta, a businessman and Hindu community leader here, we visited the Tamil Vishnu Temple located in the Jheel Basti Village. The priest here, Arumugam, is Nepalese in origin and learned puja in South Indian style from his father. For major festivals, he said, five hundred Tamils may attend, while on a daily basis it is mostly the nearby Nepalese who come to worship. He reported that a lot of Nepalese have converted in the past decades, mainly to Buddhism but also to Christianity, because "the Hindu community did not take care of their problems and aspirations." He gave the example of a low-caste Hindu family who wanted havan performed for the ailing mother, but no priest would go to the house. The Christians came to know of this, aided the family and ultimately converted them to Christianity.
Just a few kilometers from the Vishnu temple we came upon Tri Ratna Buddha Vihar, where a Vipassana meditation camp was being attended by 500 Burmese. This ancient Buddhist practice has been recently popularized by, among others, S.N. Goenka, a Burmese of Indian descent. I was impressed with the large number of people taking ten days out of their lives for this camp. This was no social affair, and we observed men and women deep in meditation in pin-drop silence.
Later we visited the Shri Neelkantheshwar Shiv Mandir, also located in the Jheel Basti area. There we found a dedicated team of teachers instructing Hindu and Nepalese children in those languages. In the evening we visited the Ganesha Temple managed by the Tamil community; here, too, the temple premises were being used to teach Tamil and even English to the Hindu children.
After visiting Durga Mandir and Pashupati Nath Dham, two temples of the Nepalese community which are located in one complex, we went on to Shri Krishna Kali Bari Temple, located right in the heart of Pyin Oo Lwin. Here the devotees came mainly from the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh. Moti Lal Gupta, the temple's former president, offered this blunt assessment of their youth: "It is wrong to say that our youth are too busy. They fail to come to the temples due to lack of interest in the religious activities. In contrast, the Buddhist youth are much more involved in their religion."
In planning our two weeks in Myanmar, we had unwittingly saved one of the most impressive institutions in the country for last. The Shri Rameshwar Vidya Peeth Dham in Lakhu is known all over Myanmar for the teaching of Sanskrit and training of temple priests. It was founded 50 years ago on 80 acres of land. Its present head, Dr. Vishnu Dutt Mandavya, age 48, has greatly increased the school's popularity and impact in recent years.
Born and raised in Myanmar, Dutt studied Sanskrit for 18 years in India, including Varanasi. He is an initiate in the Nirvani Akhara under his guru, Swami Satyaprakashananda, who was also the guru of the school's previous head, Swami Devananda Saraswati. Long before he passed away in 2009, Devananda, insisted Dutt go for higher studies in India, as otherwise the school would be unable to carry forward the traditions of Vedas and Sanatana Dharma in Myanmar. Dutt explained that he has not taken formal sannyas, but is a brahmachari.
The school has over 100 students learning Sanskrit, Nepali and Hindi in a full-time course of study. It accepts students from all castes. Even Burmese Buddhist monks have come to study Sanskrit, which helps with their reading of their Pali-language scriptures. There is also a strong emphasis on music, which is taught four hours a day.
The curriculum includes Sanskrit grammar, the writings of great saints such as Kalidas, plus geography, social science, English, computers and other topics of modern education. The students live at the institution, and their room, board and education is free of charge. Dutt estimates that in the past few decades they have trained around 700 priests who are now serving in temples around the country. Considering that is about 35% of all the priests in Myanmar, one gets a sense of the importance of this institution. The priest of the Nepalese Dharmasala in Mandalay, for example, Harish Chandra Ghimre, 30, learned his profession at this school in Lakhu in a four-year course.
They plan to gradually expand to 300 students. "Our vision is to propagate and promote our own religion and Vedic culture among our people and thereby socially and religiously uplift the community," summarized Dutt. His plan is to build a team of a dozen brilliant, dynamic, knowledgeable and totally dedicated graduates who will then work for the betterment of Hindu dharma all over Myanmar. He also hopes that with the improving political situation it will be possible to bring Hindu saints and scholars from India to teach in Myanmar.
Though I have done my best to present all the facts and information collected by me, still I feel I have not done justice to the immense story of the Hindus of Myanmar.
On the one hand, I was touched and impressed by the Hindu community living so harmoniously with the majority Buddhist population. On the other hand, the trauma of the expulsions of the 1960s was just below the surface. To a great extent, the newly minted citizenship for Indians has created a much greater sense of security, but in other ways this is still a volatile country.
The elders are concerned about the youth, but such are the times; one can hear the same complaint from the elders of every religion and culture in the world. With the dynamic leadership of the SDSS, the success of institutions such as Shri Rameshwar Vidya Peeth Dham under Dr. Vishnu Dutt Mandavya, and the work of temples and community leaders, Hinduism in Myanmar has as good a chance of being transmitted to the next generation as anywhere else in the world.
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text:
require 'rspec'

describe 'urls utilities' do
  before(:all) do
    @urls = Class.new
    @urls.extend(CDM::Api::Urls)
  end

  describe 'construct_backend_url' do

    it 'can accept just a url' do
      base_url = @urls.construct_backend_url "http://example.com"
      expect(base_url).to eq("http://example.com/dmwebservices/index.php?q=")
    end

    it 'can accept url and port' do
      base_url = @urls.construct_backend_url "http://example.com", "81"
      expect(base_url).to eq("http://example.com:81/dmwebservices/index.php?q=")
    end

  end

end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
News Sports Counties Business Music Nation / World Obituaries E-Edition Legals
Incomplete work on Spring Hill wastewater plant brings fines
SPRING HILL – The company building the critical expansion of Spring Hill's wastewater treatment plant has racked up more than $96,000 in fines, so far, as the project remains uncompleted, now running more than six months past its contracted completion date.
Georgia-based PF Moon & Co., hired in July 2011 to handle the $14 million project, continues to pay the city a $500-per-day penalty for each day the work goes past its July 30, 2013, contract deadline. The fines will be deducted from Moon's payment at the end of the project,
City Administrator Victor Lay said. PF Moon CEO Josh Moon told The Tennessean in mid-November that the project would be substantially complete in early December and reach final completion in January.
"We still have not granted them substantial completion yet, but it should be soon," Spring Hill Wastewater Treatment Plant Supervisor Travis Massey said this week. "We are using the new equipment they have installed, but they still have some things to wrap up."
The city also continues to withhold about $1 million in payments to the company as an incentive to ensure the contractor finishes the job, Lay said.
— Jamie Page, The Tennessean


Is It Advisable To Add Books Into Indoor Playground?
When asked about what indoor playground is, most people will say it is the place for physical exercises and games. In indoor playground, you can hardly find somewhere quiet. Thus reading a book inside is the last thing that both parents and kids will choose to do. What's more, naughty kids will ruin the books before they have taken a glance at the stories inside, even though they can be patient enough to read these stories, their attention will be easily distracted by other kids and interesting games. However, although with all these disadvantages, I still hold the view that it is advisable to add books into indoor playground. And I'm going to enunciate my opinion in three ways.
Firstly, a reading room with cartoon books or interesting stories will be a good attraction for parents and they are more willing to take their kids to such an indoor playground which provides kids with two different environments. Parents who overstate study and understate activities will no doubt choose the indoor playground with a reading room so that their kids can get a chance to do some reading after playing. A reading room at the same time saves them more time in taking them to the libraries.
Secondly, books in the indoor playground provide with an accommodation for quiet kids. when kids who are shy and quiet first enter into a place filled with people, they can't get themselves accustomed to the environment quickly, they are reluctant to talk with people and do actives with so many people around, but if they are trying to go home, then it will be even more difficult for them to overcome the character of shyness when they grow up. So in this situation, book in the reading room will be a wonderful place to get them calm down and also a useful tool to get them used to this new environment.
Thirdly, books in indoor playground test the character of your kids and cultivate their interest in books. If your kids can sit down alone and lose themselves in the charm of books, they will be quiet and concentrated persons; or if your kids always run around without taking a glance at the books, then they will be the group of outgoing and active people.
In conclusion, books in indoor playground are not so embarrassing and on the contrary, they help to bring something different into the place which most people think as only playground instead of a learning ground. With the development of our society, everything is changing rapidly; I think books in indoor playground will just be one of these changes.


text:
The Große Pyhrgas is a mountain in the Ennstal Alps on the border between Upper Austria and Styria.
At a height of  it is the highest summit and western buttress of the Haller Mauern range.

Alpine huts on the Großer Pyhrgas are, on the Upper Austrian side, the Hofalm Hut (1,305 m), the Rohrauerhaus (1,308 m) and the Bosruck Hut (1,036 m).

References

Sources
Gerald Radinger: Wandererlebnis Kalkalpen. Die 50 schönsten Touren im Nationalpark. Residenz Verlag, 2009,

External links
 Photographs of the Großer Pyhrgas

Mountains of the Alps
Mountains of Styria
Mountains of Upper Austria
Two-thousanders of Austria
Ennstal Alps

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: shading certain area in graph - a combination of lines and point plots in base R I have following question:
set.seed(1234)
dis = seq(1, 800, 10)
 yvar = rnorm(length (dis), 50, 10)
myd <- data.frame (xvar = dis, yvar = yvar, yvarL =
yvar - rnorm (length (yvar),5, 1), yvarU = yvar + rnorm (length (yvar), 5, 1))
plot(myd$xvar,myd$yvar,pch=19,cex=.75,col="blue")
points(myd$xvar,myd$yvarL,col="gray", pch=19,cex=.5)
points(myd$xvar,myd$yvarU,col="gray", pch=19,cex=.5)

Y has three values - Y, upper and lower confidence. I would like to shade between two intervals in axis. Rest of graph would be point only. The hypothesized product graph should be similar (not exactly).

How can I shade and produce line plot between two intervals say between 650 to 690 and 210 to 280 in myd$xvar. I tried to do some polygot fitting based on this post ( shading within xy curve plot in R), but not successful.
polygon(c(myd$xvar[1:200], myd$xvar[200:1]), c(myd$xvar[1:200],
   myd$yvar[200:1]), col="gray")

A: One problem with your data is that myd has only 80 observations, but you are trying to plot 200... Just feed the x variable twice into polygon() (once as-is, once in reverse order), then the y variable (first the lower limit as-is, then the upper limit in reverse order). Then you have your shading:
polygon(c(myd$xvar[20:40], myd$xvar[40:20]),c(myd$yvarL[20:40],
 myd$yvarU[40:20]), col="gray")

However, the shading will cover some points, so you will have to re-plot them:
points(myd$xvar,myd$yvar,pch=19,cex=.75,col="blue")
points(myd$xvar,myd$yvarL,col="gray", pch=19,cex=.5)
points(myd$xvar,myd$yvarU,col="gray", pch=19,cex=.5)

EDIT: rfan below asks to shade based on the x coordinate, not the index, and to add a line in the shaded region. For this, it makes sense to extract an index of the relevant points (we use that myd$xvar is sorted):
index <- which(myd$xvar>=200 & myd$xvar<=400)

We then plot based on this index, which we can easily modify if we need to:
polygon(c(myd$xvar[index], myd$xvar[rev(index)]),c(myd$yvarL[index],
 myd$yvarU[rev(index)]), col="gray")

Now, add a line and the additional points:
lines(myd$xvar[index],myd$yvar[index],pch=19,cex=.75,col="blue",type="o")
points(myd$xvar,myd$yvarL,col="gray", pch=19,cex=.5)
points(myd$xvar,myd$yvarU,col="gray", pch=19,cex=.5)

A: Similar answer to Stephan :
plot(myd$xvar,myd$yvar,pch=19,cex=.75,col="blue")
points(myd$xvar,myd$yvarL,col="gray", pch=19,cex=.5)
points(myd$xvar,myd$yvarU,col="gray", pch=19,cex=.5)
polygon(c(smyd$xvar[1:nrow(smyd)], smyd$xvar[nrow(smyd):1]),
 c(smyd$yvarL[1:nrow(smyd)], smyd$yvarU[nrow(smyd):1]), col="gray", border = NA)
points(smyd$xvar,smyd$yvar,col="red", pch=19,cex=1.5)
lines (smyd$xvar,smyd$yvar,col="red", pch=19,cex=1.5)

polygon(c(smyd1$xvar[1:nrow(smyd1)], smyd1$xvar[nrow(smyd1):1]),
c(smyd1$yvarL[1:nrow(smyd1)], smyd1$yvarU[nrow(smyd1):1]), col="yellow", border = NA)
points(smyd1$xvar,smyd1$yvar,col="green4", pch=19,cex=1.5)
lines (smyd1$xvar,smyd1$yvar,col="green4", pch=19,cex=1.5)

gives you:

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The free-to-play title passed PUBG as the most watched game on Twitch somewhere between the tail end of February and the start of March according to statistics gathered by sullygnome. If you're one of the lucky few who signed up previously, you should now be able to download the game. And given the current state of Fortnite, the mobile version not being a hit is nearly unthinkable, provided gameplay is not a total disaster. The game initially featured a Battle Royale mode where 100 players would play with each other in a last-man-standing type of match.
Though it wasn't every day that a game streamer is joined by some of the most popular musicians in the world as well as a star athlete and the view count was certainly to be expected given the popularity of the team.
"The reaction to this Twitch stream shows the power of mixing a major celebrity with a very popular game in a live streamed environment", said Piers Harding-Rolls, games analyst at IHS Markit.
Epic have done a fine job of scaling with the Fortnite demand, usually getting on top of any issues and providing a mainly stable online game with little downtime.
Assuming Sensor Tower's data is accurate, or even remotely on the mark, these are some impressive stats for a game that can only be downloaded and played by invitation.
Interestingly, the leprechaun spotting has also been going on in shooter game Call of Duty: WWII, however this is definitely intentional, as players are tasked with hunting them down for rewards.
Fortnite and PUBG also tend to be slower and quieter than the average multiplayer shooter: the environments are spacious and the competitors widely dispersed, putting an intriguing emphasis on strategy.
However, Fortnite invites the more casual player which is the majority of the player base.
Fortnite on iOS offers up the full battle royale experience. The cartoonish approach to the game also invites the younger audience to play the game as well, thus you have a game that caters to nearly everyone. His penchant for commentary and self-promotion, especially for Twitch's Prime subscription, has earned him more than 50,000 subscribers in just over a week, as the Twitch Reddit community noted. Taking a break from recording his new album, Drake played Fortnite on Twitch, setting a new streaming record. Celebrities joining in on the Fortnite hype speaks volumes about the game's current popularity.
"The game is gaining momentum in Western markets, which is likely to impact engagement for all AAA games to some degree". In my opinion, it's not as remarkable as we are being led to believe in the gaming and mainstream press, but Social media and Twitch continue to push Fortnite as an unbelievable game of which we've never seen the like. Below are the steps to follow if you want to download and try the new Fortnite Mobile game on your compatible iOS device (iPhone 6S/SE, iPad Mini 4, iPad Air 2, iPad 2017, iPad Pro devices or later). It seems a large number of fans have been lucky enough to get one, but a handful have been left heartbroken after discovering they can't play it.
But Scotland earned a penalty kick after Italy collapsed a maul, and Laidlaw struck it just inside the left post from 37 meters. Italy lost the match at the death after Greig Laidlaw scored a penalty with two minutes remaining to put them two points ahead.
Trust Of Vermont has invested 0.01% of its portfolio in American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO) to report earnings on May, 1. It improved, as 23 investors sold PINC shares while 41 reduced holdings. 29 funds opened positions while 69 raised stakes.
Tehran, however, has repeatedly said it will not renegotiate the nuclear deal. Analysts say the nuclear agreement could collapse if Washington pulls out.
Ortom said: "The crisis has turned Benue state into a huge refuge and IDPs camp". I can't hear that my children are in trouble and sit at home.
Time Warner Inc (TWX) Holdings Increased by Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd.
Callon Petroleum had 91 analyst reports since July 21, 2015 according to SRatingsIntel. (NYSE:TWX) rating on Monday, October 24. Harbert increased its stake in Liberty Global Plc (LBTYK) by 23.89% based on its latest 2017Q3 regulatory filing with the SEC.
The company reported $0.50 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.45 by $0.05. This represents a $0.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.75%. 47 funds opened positions while 92 raised stakes.
Pggm Invests invested 0.3% in Prudential Financial, Inc . (NYSE:PRU). 39,831 are held by New Mexico Educational Retirement Board. It improved, as 13 investors sold ELS shares while 54 reduced holdings. 16 funds opened positions while 15 raised stakes.
They said a bullet-resistant vest, military-style clothing and tactical items were also visible in the apartment. Additional bomb-making materials were found in two storage units being rented by Reynolds, investigators said.
There is no official confirmation from Priyanka's side though speculation is pointing towards her starring in the biopic. Anupam Kher, who is shooting for an untitled NBC series in NY , visited Priyanka Chopra on the set of Quantico .