Another summer transfer season is here. I'm happy to report that after moving from one country to another every summer since 2015, this year we are staying put.
This summer instead of updating my moving overseas checklist (from the US perspective), I am presenting a new Resident Country Exit Planning Checklist for those who are leaving your current overseas home for good, either to the next country or repatriate back to the US.
If you have not intentionally keep your financial home base in the US, or have lived in your current country for a long time, it's likely starting anew financially somewhere else is as complicated as when you left the US for the first time. Hopefully this checklist will help you think through all the steps you should take before you embark on another new chapter in your life.
Before we dive into the details and start organizing, you need to ask yourself two questions: are you keeping any immigration status with your current country, and are you keeping any financial ties? The answers to these questions will help determine what additional tasks to focus on.
It's possible that you've stayed in your current country long enough to obtain permanent residency or even citizenship. Do you intend to keep the status alive after your move? If so, you need to find out whether there is any financial obligation associated with keeping your residency status. Some countries may require you to keep a certain amount of cash in the bank, or maintain a real estate property. Make sure you understand the implications and how that may affect your financial plan going forward.
Even if your immigration status expires with your current country, you may in some cases need to keep some financial ties in the country. For example, if your spouse is a citizen of the country, or if you have accumulated substantial pension benefits that you cannot take with you immediately. This requires you to map out a game plan in advance. How do you access the assets or income in this country should you never return to become a resident again?
If you answer yes to the two questions above, your financial life is sure to be more complex in the future. You may have good reason to take on the challenge. Just be prepared that you may need to put in substantial time and engage financial professionals in several different fields to manage financial ties across multiple jurisdictions.
Please be aware that the checklist below is just a starting point to help you get organized. Depending on your unique situation, you may need to dig deeper on what steps to take.
If nothing else, it's likely your financial tie with the current country involves a bank account. If you wish to close it, it's generally the easiest to do it while you are in country. (I've tried to close accounts from overseas by phone, and it's not fun.) It might make your last week in the country less convenient, but try to put it in your schedule.
If you are still waiting for your last paycheck to come in after you leave the country, at least double check with your bank to understand the proper procedure to close it without being present. You may wish to set your account up for international transfer, either through a standing wire transfer order with your bank or through a 3rd party like Transferwise before you leave the country.
What's so bad about leaving an account with zero balance open? For one, you may incur account charges and technically owe the bank going forward. Even if there is no balance, in the future should you ever need to file for FBAR again, you need to continue to report this account with no balance.
Of course, if you wish or need to keep the account open with a balance, make sure you continue to have access to it through online banking and report the accounts properly for FBAR and FATCA reporting.
If you are moving to a new country for a while, you may find that you have to accumulate a credit history all over again. Therefore, make sure you have some interim measures, such as a bigger cash cushion to afford purchases without credit.
If you keep an income-producing real estate, it's likely you will continue to keep an active bank account, file taxes, make international money transfers, and have needs for local legal protection of property rights and estate planning. Even without immigration status, you will have financial planning needs in many different aspects in your current country.
If you have a taxable investment account in your current country, take this chance to determine whether it makes sense to maintain it. It's likely you've encountered some US tax and compliance headaches because of it.
Furthermore, if you have a professionally-managed account, you may be refused as a customer once you lose your residency in country. This might force you to incur a taxable event prematurely, so make sure you understand the implication first.
Nevertheless, there may be good reasons for you to keep it as is, such as large built-in capital gain, or potential to return to the country. Just make sure you understand the reporting and tax implications for the US, current country, and your future resident country.
If you have accumulated some retirement fund or pension, it's likely another financial tie that you need to maintain. Generally in tax treaties, the US recognizes the deferred tax benefit of such schemes before you actually begin taking an income from it. However, double check to make sure how that may play out, especially if you plan to retire in a third country.
In addition, while the US may not tax you before distribution starts, there is no way for you to move the accounts to the US without some tax consequences. Since 401(k)s and IRAs are unique tax-advantaged vehicles, any funds that are not already in these accounts cannot be transferred in. This is why it's likely your foreign pension or retirement fund needs to stay where it is.
Nevertheless, depending on the tax treaties and the type of pension, the retirement income may have different tax rates, or even impact your US social security income. These are the things you need to be aware of before receiving the retirement income.
In some cases, you might be required to take the retirement fund with you as you exit the country. Make sure you understand the tax treatment of such a large withdrawal. If you move the fund back to the US, it may be treated as taxable, if it hasn't been taxed in the past or specifically excluded in tax treaty.
Outside of the tax planning items mentioned above, also remember to file your last and exit tax return properly with your current country. Otherwise, you may be considered a tax resident going forward. Given the timing issue, you may want to look for professional help to close out the returns for you after you leave the country.
If your move involves returning to the US for an extended period of time, you may find that the last year you are eligible for Foreign Tax Credit or Foreign Earned Income Exclusion a good time to incur other taxable events, such as selling stocks with capital gains or Roth conversion. Make sure your US and local tax preparer are coordinated so you pay the least amount of taxes globally.
Depending on your situation, you may find that your insurance coverage is not affected, or becomes non-existent.
If you are on international health, life, and/or disability insurance that covers you all over the world, make sure you still double check if your new destination is an excluded country in any way.
If you will continue to have financial ties with your current country, make sure you understand how your income or asset can be passed on to heirs. You may need to leave legal directions with the financial institutions or government agencies depending on the country.
Sounds too complicated to keep everything straight? Find out how to get individual help to deal with your unique situation.


Exhibitions of paintings, photographs, and typical items are on show all year round. Sorrento and its coast are rich in venues where noteworthy cultural events have been held for many years. Some examples are the exhibition of Pirandello's work which was recently held or the exhibition of great photographers from the past such as Cecil Beaton, Cartier-Bresson, Avedon, and modern ones as well. The Sorentine Coast is a center for cultural events due to the numerous associations who put a great effort every year to enliven the tourist stay with attractive and successful initiatives.
One of the permanent venues is Museo Correale di Terranova , an ancestral home which once belonged to an old noble family, dates back to the fifteenth century. The last heirs of the family, Alfredo and Pompeo, declared that on their death the family's collections of works of art would be displayed in the Museum which was opened to the public in 1924. The Museum is made up of three floors where the treasures of all ages ranging from archeological relics to Sorrento in-laid word work of the nineteenth century are displayed parallel to old furniture and paintings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including foreign artists such as the Flemish school and the famous Neapolitan "Scuola di Posillipo". In addition Italian and foreign majolicas- ceramics, items of Eastern china, clocks of various origin, and old cameras may also be admired. Lastly the original writings of Torquato Tasso, the famous Italian poet born in Sorrento can be seen here.
Another place to visit is the Museum of Tarsia located in the old part of the town - a seventeenth century building where a multipurpose centre has been set up. Valuable items made by the in-laid technique and divided by age of production are here on display and also fragments of the past set in their context such as newspaper articles, prints, ordinary items and other odd things.


text:
Tales From the Return of In-Person Dating
An accidental kiss, mask negotiations, car sex—meeting up again is off to an awkward start.
So close yet so far. Dan Rentea/iStock/Getty Images Plus
On a recent Friday, a 28-year-old Torontonian named Natalia was on the first date she had been on in months, since her city and much of the world shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus. It was going well. She and her date met in a park near where she lives and shared a blanket, her sitting on one end, him on the other. He drank beer; she had cider. They seemed to be succeeding in both having fun and staying 6 feet apart the whole time.
Eventually it was time to say goodbye. "I was a little buzzed. He was also probably a little buzzed," Natalia said. "I was like, 'Oh, should we hug? I guess we shouldn't hug.' And then he was just like, 'Yeah, I guess we could.' And I was like, 'Yeah, OK … ' "
Natalia went in for a hug. Her date went in for a kiss.
"It just kind of happened," she said. "I'm definitely not proud of the fact that I ended up kissing this guy." (She, like several of the people quoted in this article, asked to be identified by her first name to preserve her privacy—and to prevent future dates from judging her.) She worried that she caught the virus and would expose her family, who lived nearby and who she'd been continuing to see throughout the pandemic. Or that she'd have to tell them the embarrassing reason she couldn't visit them: "They're gonna say, 'What is wrong with you? Control your hormones.' "
Two days later, she went for a COVID-19 test. "It did come out negative, so that's good," she said.
It was a rookie mistake on a "socially distanced" first date—but it's one many people in the coming weeks seem poised to repeat, as restrictions related to the virus start to loosen, especially in places that officials hope have put the worst of the crisis behind them. In New York, for example, last week marked the beginning of phase two, which allowed bars and restaurants to open for outdoor seating. To some single people, this looked like one more sign, after the widespread protests didn't appear to result in large outbreaks, that some version of in-person dating could work again. Not full-blown dating like people used to do, in the olden days of January and February, but phase two dating. Socially distant dating. And after months of video dating, in-person dating sounds great, even if has to be 6 feet apart.
"A woman I matched with was like, 'Oh no, I don't wear a mask.' I noped outta that."
A dating app called Iris attempted to quantify how many people are dating in person again with a survey it commissioned and published last week. In it, 1,000 single New Yorkers were asked, "How long will it be until you're comfortable doing an in-person date with someone?" Fourteen percent of respondents answered ASAP, 20.8 percent answered in a month, and another 21.3 percent answered in two to three months.
When I started to ask people this question, I found a considerable amount of excitement about going on dates again—"I'm being asked out left and right," said Jessica, a 31-year-old lawyer in Brooklyn—but also a sense that now is a time to be choosier.
"Pre-COVID, I would be eager to say, 'Hey, let's go meet up for a drink' with just about anyone," said Jonathan, a 45-year-old web developer in Santa Barbara, California. Now, he said, "I'm a lot more careful about who I meet and why. I make sure before I even meet someone that COVID-19 is a concern for them. There was a woman I matched with back in May who was like, 'Oh no, I don't wear a mask.' I noped outta that."
Of the handful of socially distanced dates he's been on, Nico, a 25-year-old law student in Charlottesville, Virginia, admitted, "I probably should have asked more bluntly, 'Have you been social distancing? Here's what I've been doing.' I guess it's just hard to make conversation flow naturally after that."
"At some point, we should probably talk about it," said Rebecca, a 20-year-old student in Panama City, Florida. But it could be awkward: "I don't want it to come across as being controlling by asking him, 'Are you wearing your mask to go out?' "
Nina Lam faced a related impasse on a recent date in New York's Central Park. Lam, who is 23 and works as an event planner, had already gotten together with a friend to sit in a park on a different day, and they'd taken their masks off, so she figured she would do the same on her date. "I got to the park and I sat down with [my date] and I was like, 'Should we take our masks off?' and he was like, 'I'm gonna leave mine on.' I was like, 'Oh, OK, then I guess I'll leave mine on too.' I felt kind of awkward at that point taking mine off and seeming like I'm shirking the rules. I had this really long date with him—we were there for like five hours—and we had masks on the entire time.
"It felt like I couldn't really tell what he was thinking as much, I couldn't really see his expressions," Lam said. "It was really fun to go on this date and get to flirt and be a normal person, but then it was so apparent for the entire thing that it was not normal life. Maybe we aren't a good match for a pandemic date, which is different than being a good match for a date in normal life."
In Providence, Rhode Island, Orion Dommisse's recent date was almost the inverse of Lam's. "I was wearing a mask," she said. "When I saw [my date], he wasn't wearing a mask, and then as I was walking, I saw all these people around not wearing masks, and it completely freaked me out. I felt like I was the weird one. I felt peer pressured into not wearing one." Dommisse said she took her mask off but wished she hadn't, or that she had discussed it with her date. But in the moment, she was flustered. "It's kind of like trying to have a safe-sex talk," she said.
This was not the only time the safe-sex comparison came up. Natalia, the Toronto accidental kisser, said, "I did, when I went to go get that COVID test, think, 'Shit, if it comes out positive I'm going to have to tell him, and it's going to be like telling somebody that you have an STD.' "
"After the park, what the hell do you do?"
Exclusivity has generally become a topic of conversation earlier than it usually does in the standard relationship timeline. Daniel, a 25-year-old tech writer in Brooklyn, said that he wouldn't, under normal circumstances, exclusively date the woman with whom he went on two socially distanced dates recently. But these aren't normal circumstances. "This weekend, we had an actual conversation about that, which was good, a more explicit setting of the terms," he said. She was cool with them seeing only each other for now. "She was like, 'I think this serves both of us.' "
A lot of people are still trying to figure out how to flirt without touching the other person. "At one point [my date] kind of, I guess, instinctually touched my arm," said Jessica, the Brooklyn lawyer. "I was like, 'I'm really enjoying myself here, but I feel like we shouldn't be touching yet,' which was awkward to say to someone that you're actually vibing with."
The question of what to do after sitting in a park not touching each other a couple times is also tricky. "There's a billion things I would do before," said Andrew Leamon, a 30-year-old copywriter in Chicago, ticking off concerts, museums, bocce ball. "It's been significantly reduced now to, I would say, about two options: video and walk. Not the greatest."
Ana Moss, a 30-year-old New Yorker, echoed this concern. "After the park, what the hell do you do?"
It's also just harder to get to know someone, Jessica said: "For me, seeing someone in their natural social setting, to see how they interact with their friends or what activities they do in their free time, if they know about cool events like concerts and movies and stuff like that, feeds into my attraction for someone. Now, all those things are canceled."
Lam said she wasn't sure how to proceed after the date she went on in Central Park—the one where they wore masks the whole time. "I would definitely go out with him again, but it feels like the thing to do is to go to a museum or to get dinner at a cute, romantic restaurant, or see a show or go to a movie or something, which obviously we can't do. It feels kind of silly to be like, 'Well, should we just do a repeat? Meet in the same place? Sit on a blanket again?' Is that really worth it?"
"I can't figure out whether or not it would have been different in a bar," Moss said of her park rendezvous. "It's hard to feel chemistry with someone. In some ways, we're creating the conditions for that in a wine bar: There's alcohol, there's mood lighting, it's nighttime, you dressed up, the seating arrangements. … There is a part of dating that is like we buy into the magic and the suspension of disbelief and the illusion that we're creating for each other. This is not that. We're just literally going to the park and having a walk."
Despite these drawbacks, certain previously unforeseen advantages have presented themselves. Jennifer Wexler, a dating coach who has been displeased to hear from her clients that men are trying to hug them, said that more time isn't always a bad thing: "What this pandemic is doing is really slowing everything down. People are not rushing to have sex, and they're not rushing into relationships. People are really taking the time to get to know one another."
"It's been really nice at the end of a date to not have to worry about whether he's going to try and kiss you," Rebecca, the Florida 20-year-old, added. "I just throw up a peace sign like, 'Stay 6 feet away!' "
This brings us back to the challenge of the socially distanced goodbye. Jessica, the lawyer, said park dating provides an easy out if the other person is a dud. "One of my dates was just bad," she said. "I just was not feeling him." The two had gotten to-go cocktails, then sat down on a bench. When she was ready to leave, "there was no waiting for the check. I was just done with my drink, and then I was like, 'Nice to meet you, bye!' "
Mackenzie, a 26-year-old Vancouverite, devised her own exit strategy for hiking dates. "I will give myself some credit. I was pretty clever," she said. "I picked some trails that actually had a shorter route or a longer route, so about halfway through when we reached the fork and I wasn't having a good time, I was like, 'All right, we're turning around and taking the shorter route. I'm going back to my car.' "
Nico, the law student, said wrapping up a date as a guy feels different now too: "It did increase the tension or the stress to some degree as you started nearing the end of walk, because it was so apparent that that was the end of it. I think I saw a couple of the girls go through the same mental calculus of like, 'OK, we have about five minutes left on this thing. What do we do—do we hug at the end, or do we just kind of wave at each other?' That's so weird."
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Nico hasn't been hugging on first dates. But even those with the best of intensions are bound to slip up occasionally, especially when they're up against extenuating circumstances.
Laura, a 30-year-old government worker in London, recently planned an in-person date with a woman who didn't live in her city whom she connected with on a dating app. They decided they would meet halfway between them and have a picnic.
The date was off to a good start, and Laura said she could tell from the woman's body language that she liked her. Then, a few hours in, "it started to rain really, really heavily, which is not what you want when you're having a picnic in the park."
They only had one umbrella, so they tried to share it. There goes the 6-feet rule. Then it got windy, and before long, her date invited her to sit in the date's car. So much for any social distancing at all.
"We did end up having sex in the back of her car," Laura said.
Listen to Bim Adewunmi and Nichole Perkins discuss their feelings about hot men in bad movies.
Dating and Relationships Sex Coronavirus

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Unesco Property : Island of Brijuni - Old Socialism there are still weird places in Europe "thanks Tito"
Is it soccer that wows you?
The impossible can always happen, be prepared.
We still have the time machine but we lost the keys.
Since this Job we are VIP's in Jamko Club Canaries.
We know every balcony in Barcelona but haven't lost a gram of weight.


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KIMBERLY CARMODY
heART with Kimberly
A visual artist and art educator, Kimberly Carmody has been making art and teaching for over twenty years. She grew up in Brattleboro, Vermont and began taking art classes at age eight at The River Gallery School with artist, Ric Campman, who was her mentor until his death in 2006. She studied ceramics and painting at The Evergreen State College in Washington State and in 1994 Kimberly moved to New York City to attend The New York Studio School. While there, she deepened her ability to see- by drawing, painting and sculpting from the human figure. In 2001 Kimberly volunteered at IMBALI Visual Literacy Project in Johannesburg, South Africa, and facilitated students in making a mural representing their township. There she conducted research for her Masters thesis that investigated the role of art and art education in post-apartheid South Africa. She then earned a Masters in Art Education from Teachers College at Columbia University. Since 2001 Kimberly has taught visual art to students of all ages and abilities in both public and independent schools, hospitals and homeless shelters, inspiring her students to cultivate their imagination and creativity. She has been selling and showing artwork in and around New York City for two decades.
Moved by the inaccessibility of art in underserved areas of New York City, Kimberly founded Urban River Arts, a community based non-profit, in her neighborhood of Crown Heights Brooklyn in 2009. By 2010 she was facilitating large scale interactive art installations inspired by Tibetan Sand Mandalas at a range of museums and galleries including, The Asia Society, The Rubin Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Michael C. Carolos Museum in Atlanta GA, and Four Eleven Studio in Provincetown, MA.
Over the years, Kimberly has developed a dynamic practice in which teaching and making art inform one another. She currently teaches visual art to Pre-K through eighth graders at The High Meadow School in Stone Ridge, NY. Kimberly's current studio practice is inspired by the upstate community and landscape, Her most recent series includes low-fire sculptural pieces that are abstract vessels, forms and slabs inspired by her own body and humanity. Their origins stem from the archetypal elements of earth, water, fire and air.
Kimberly with her French Bulldog, Preston, in Accord, New York.


Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to binge-watching shows. North Dakota has its own preference and we don't exactly follow the same trends as the rest of the country.
Regardless of what streaming service you use, it's always nice to take some time to relax and binge-watch a show, whether it's something brand new that you suddenly became hooked on or perhaps you're just trying to catch up on a season because you've been busy. Either way, North Dakota's favorite show to binge-watch is different from every other state in the country.
The series stars Troian Bellisario, Ashley Benson, Lucy Hale. As for what it's about, according to the synopsis from Netflix, 'four formerly tight high school friends band together when a blackmailer threatens to spill their dirt.' I can't tell you anything more about it due to the fact that I've never seen an episode. However, all seven seasons are on Netflix for those who are intrigued enough to check it out.
However, if PLL isn't exactly your cup of tea, the last three series I've binge-watched have been 'Mindhunter', 'New Girl', and currently, 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine.' I'd recommend any of those and I watch/stream more television than any human being should be allowed to during a given day, except for 'Pretty Little Liars' apparently. Have fun binge-watching, everyone!


Well, it's that time of the month again. Like last month, Google's a bit later than it usually is with these numbers, and it isn't because we have a new version of Android for the chart. Although 8.1 has been released, this month's platform distribution numbers don't include it. Nougat continues to make gains, cumulatively adding an extra 2.7% to its slice of the pie, and Oreo has almost doubled to 0.5%.
It was beginning to look like Google wouldn't get around to releasing platform distribution numbers this month, but it just came through. The news, however, isn't great if you've been pulling for Oreo to catch on. After debuting last month at 0.2% market share, Oreo is up just another tenth of a point this month. Meanwhile, Nougat saw a more substantial increase.
There's an Apple event happening at this moment, during which the company will probably brag about how unified its iOS user base it. Google chose right now to update the platform versions in the developer dashboard. Android is, well, not entirely unified, but that's nothing new. Nougat is still gaining this month, Marshmallow is on the decline, and there's no sign of Oreo yet.
Google has updated the developer dashboards for August, and that means a new glimpse at which versions of Android are floating around out there. Like last month, Android 7.0 and 7.1 saw a small gain, and most other versions saw a small drop. That leaves Nougat on just 13.5% of devices today, and it's entirely possible Android O will arrive before another platform update does.


text:
package edu.clemson.rsrg.typeandpopulate.entry;

import edu.clemson.rsrg.absyn.ResolveConceptualElement;
import edu.clemson.rsrg.absyn.clauses.AssertionClause;
import edu.clemson.rsrg.absyn.expressions.mathexpr.VarExp;
import edu.clemson.rsrg.parsing.data.Location;
import edu.clemson.rsrg.statushandling.exception.SourceErrorException;
import edu.clemson.rsrg.typeandpopulate.programtypes.PTType;
import edu.clemson.rsrg.typeandpopulate.utilities.ModuleIdentifier;

/**
 *

 * This creates a symbol table entry for a program type representation defined in a {@code Facility}.
 *

 *
 * @version 2.0
 */
public class FacilityTypeRepresentationEntry extends TypeRepresentationEntry {

    // ===========================================================
    // Constructors
    // ===========================================================

    /**
     *

     * This creates a symbol table entry for a facility type representation definition.
     *

     *
     * @param name
     *            Name associated with this entry.
     * @param definingElement
     *            The element that created this entry.
     * @param sourceModule
     *            The module where this entry was created from.
     * @param representation
     *            The program type used to implement this entry.
     * @param convention
     *            The mathematical convention expression for this entry.
     */
    public FacilityTypeRepresentationEntry(String name, ResolveConceptualElement definingElement,
            ModuleIdentifier sourceModule, PTType representation, AssertionClause convention) {
        super(name, definingElement, sourceModule, null, representation, convention,
                new AssertionClause(definingElement.getLocation().clone(), AssertionClause.ClauseType.CONVENTION,
                        VarExp.getTrueVarExp(definingElement.getLocation().clone(), representation.getTypeGraph())));
    }

    // ===========================================================
    // Public Methods
    // ===========================================================

    /**
     *

     * This method returns a description associated with this entry.
     *

     *
     * @return A string.
     */
    @Override
    public final String getEntryTypeDescription() {
        return "a facility type representation definition";
    }

    /**
     *

     * This method will attempt to convert this {@link SymbolTableEntry} into a {@link FacilityTypeRepresentationEntry}.
     *

     *
     * @param l
     *            Location where we encountered this entry.
     *
     * @return A {@link FacilityTypeRepresentationEntry} if possible. Otherwise, it throws a
     *         {@link SourceErrorException}.
     */
    @Override
    public final FacilityTypeRepresentationEntry toFacilityTypeRepresentationEntry(Location l) {
        return this;
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Colorado Legislature passes bill to create state-backed co-op bank for pot industry
Lines were once again large outside Denver's Evergreen Apothecary on Jan. 2, 2013, for the second day of legal recreational marijuana sales in Denver. Many had no luck on Jan. 1. (Photo: Twitter / Chris Jose)
DENVER (FOX31/KDVR) — The Colorado Legislature on Wednesday passed and sent the governor a bill to create a state-backed credit co-op to provide banking services to Colorado's all-cash marijuana industry.
The governor has said he will sign it.
"This bill will make marijuana businesses less likely to become targets for robbers," said Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, the bill's sponsor. "This is the last major piece of the pot puzzle."
Because the Federal Reserve Bank would still have to approve the creation of a state-backed credit co-op for marijuana businesses, the legislation is viewed as more of an ice-breaker, a way to send a message to Washington, D.C., to come up with a solution for marijuana businesses that are barred by federal law from using banks.


BROOKSVILLE — Singer, songwriter and storyteller Curtis Brand will perform on Tuesday, Aug. 28, at 7 p.m. at the Reversing Falls Sanctuary, 818 Bagaduce Road in Brooksville.
Brand tells stories through his music with songs that gently reveal the common threads of everyday life, touching on both humor and melancholy.
The Reversing Falls community is in the process of bringing water into this historic sacred building and Brand's concert will aid the cause.


text:
Interview with Pedro Perelman
We spoke with Pedro Perelman ahead of his new exhibition "Origen", which opens Friday September 30th in UNION Gallery. In a collection which includes over 15 original paintings and wood sculpture, the artist transcends the diversities and ethnicities of the characters that typify his work, in order to investigate his origins as an artist.
Origen is the title of this exhibition because, beyond the features, ethnicities and diversities of people, and the situations that make up my own universe, it's really about a personal search for my origin as an artist. Origin and the desire to paint meld together for me. The origin and the path of the visual artistic flow that discovers forms and changes, that lack an academic framework, and instead become part of history purely through work and effort.
I never studied drawing or art and I think that not having the baggage that comes along with an academic background has helped me to lighten up when I'm in the process of producing work. My studies in design gave me plenty of tools to work with which I used later on in painting, but my involvement with art came mostly thanks to my father, who comes from an artistic background and surrounded me with visual stimulus, friends' artist studios, museums, paper and pencils.
"Mala Mía" / Acrylic on canvas / 50 x 40cm / 2016
I created my first murals in the public space during a really complex time in the country, that I lived through with a lot of anxiety. Even if this isn't reflected explicitly in my work, it is manifested in the very attitude inherent in the act of going out to paint, as if the context was a trigger, or the initiator of a kind of chain reaction. But my reaction was from an almost optimistic frame of mind. I sought out the impact of color and forms as a remedy for the rawness of the gray.
Art is and will always be a disposable good, and in a country with continuous crisis and instability, the effect in this arena is immediately evident. I also think that the art scene needs to be updated; we need new visions for new times, new ways of handling artwork, projects, and institutional support. The scene is in need of a more broad legitimization. On the other hand, there are plenty of local artists who are very well positioned on a global level, and that's entirely thanks to their own merit.
Mural in Barracas, Buenos Aires / Pedro, Pol, MrL / 2016
As time goes by I've discovered various different artistic styles, but I'm restless and I find myself in constant search of another, or believing that I have none at all. I've matured in my way of looking at and thinking about art and with the passage of time I've seen that from my classic, graphic beginnings, in which the pictorial aspect was almost completely absent, I became friendly with light, shadow and details, while I also began to combine techniques. I explored from the most synthetic elements to the figurative, and utilized a combination of resources from design.
The context drastically changes the form and length of production time of an artwork. In the studio the time-frame is different; there are no fixed hours, and no influence from weather or other external factors. When you paint in the street there's adrenaline that comes with scale, people, reactions, commentary, and physical work. In that context there's a better optimization of time. From the perspective of technical and concrete aspects of the work, however, the processes of each space are quite similar.
"Piel de la Historia" / Barracas, Buenos Aires / Ph: Martin Tibabuzo
2016 has been a very productive and intense year and I'm very focused on the project Ruta de Murales. Together with Poeta and Lion, we've painted in many different provinces across Argentina, given workshops, and generally exchanged knowledge with a lot of people. It's been a fantastic experience together with Montana and Sinteplast, and it's headed for a second chapter in the South of the country starting in October.
Mural in Santiago del Estero / Ruta de Murales / 2016
Pedro, Poeta, Lion / Ruta de Murales / Buenos Aires / 2016
I really enjoy teaching, and my years at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) have helped me a lot. For example, my previous experience teaching has definitely influenced the development of the workshops we're doing as part of Ruta de Murales. It's very gratifying for me to transmit enthusiasm and strength, and no matter the context, I always end up feeling like I am the one who's really learning. Beyond the roles you have to play, large groups guarantee a lot of ideas and energy.
In my life music and painting feed into one another constantly: I think about sounds and I hear colors, and I think that the compositional criteria and creative processes of both worlds are quite similar. Together with a couple of musician and artist friends we have formed Kermesse, and this year we're travelling to Mexico to present our new live electronic music (house) show. At the same time I think that they're social universes which are very different but which create a healthy balance for me: music and painting are like night and day.
info@graffitimundo.com
International phone: 0054 911 3683 3219 / Local phone: 15 3683 3219


text:
Ilgaz 15 July Independence Tunnel, shortly Ilgaz Tunnel, ( or Ilgaz Tüneli), is a highway tunnel  through the Ilgaz Mountains between Kastamonu Province and Çankırı Province in northern Turkey. The tunnel has twin tubes of
 and
 in length. The tunnel was opened to traffic on December 26, 2016.

The construction cost of the tunnel was budgeted to  572 million (approx. US$200 million as of March 2016). The foundation stone laying ceremony took place on November 9, 2012. Tunnel boring works were completed on April 3, 2016.

References

Road tunnels in Turkey
Transport in Kastamonu Province
Transport in Çankırı Province
Tunnels completed in 2016
2016 establishments in Turkey

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Tributes were paid after schoolgirl Poonam Bhattal, 13, from Langley, died on an Italian school ski trip. The pupil at Guru Nanak Sikh Academy, in Hayes, fell from a chairlift at the Claviere resort and died as she was being rushed to hospital.
Frightened neighbours have spoken after shots were fired at a house in Slough in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Police were called to the shooting in Wellesley Road at 3.40am after the shooting which caused damage to the front of the property.
A drunk driver who ploughed into two horses and drove for 50 yards with one on his roof should have received a tougher sentence according to one of the riders he seriously injured. Hayley Gibbs was riding with daughter Lily, 22, and friend Ian Smeeth, when an Audi A4 smashed into them in Hatchet Lane, Winkfield, on December 8.
A man who threatened to jump from an M40 bridge is in police custody for causing a danger to road users. His threats caused huge delays for motorists after a section of the busy motorway was closed for nearly six hours.
Dog walkers and cyclists will be able to enjoy Dorney Lake again after it was opened to the public. The Marsh Lane venue has been out-of-bounds since September while work to transform it back to its pre-Olympic Games state went ahead.


text:
Climate change and the denial of reality
Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion have been raising awareness of the urgent need to stop talking and start acting on global warming. The evidence that global warming is real and that it is human-caused is now overwhelming, but the public debate is regularly swamped by science deniers who in most cases clearly simply ignore or are ignorant of the evidence, and often are clearly clueless about how to assess evidence, or even what constitutes evidence.
The first illustration below, from a recent Economist issue, summarises the rise in average temperature across the earth's surface in 2018 compared to the average for 1951-1980.
Many deniers claim that the current rising temperature is natural, resulting from ice age cycles or orbital variations of the earth. The graph below shows how current CO2 levels are dramatically higher and rising faster than in any interglacial period over the last half million years.
And our best climate models predict temperature rises associated with CO2 levels which match measured temperatures over the last 40 years. If the impact of CO2 is excluded from the models, it is not possible to explain the observed rise in temperature (see graph below).
Three recent studies published in Nature and Nature Geoscience use extensive historical data to show there has never been a period in the last 2,000 years when temperature changes have been as fast and extensive as in recent decades (1-3).
It had earlier been thought that similarly dramatic peaks and troughs might have occurred in the past, including in periods dubbed the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Climate Anomaly. But the three studies use reconstructions based on 700 proxy records of temperature change, such as trees, ice and sediment, from all continents that indicate none of these shifts took place in more than half the globe at any one time.
The Little Ice Age, for example, reached its extreme point in the 15th century in the Pacific Ocean, the 17th century in Europe and the 19th century elsewhere, says one of the studies. This localisation is markedly different from the trend since the late 20th century when records are being broken year after year over almost the entire globe, including this summer's European heatwave. Major temperature shifts in the distant past are also most likely to have been primarily caused by volcanic eruptions, according to one of the three studies.
The oft-quoted 97% figure
In the last few days I have seen several articles quoting the claim that 97% of climate scientists accept that humans are causing global warming. This figure actually comes from a 2013 article in Environmental Research Letters by Cook et al. titled "Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature" (4). It actually estimated that among abstracts expressing a position on global warming, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming". Not a per cent of scientists but a per cent of papers whose abstracts expressed a position. But the misquote has achieved the status of a universal factoid trotted out by those arguing that humans are causing global warming as well as climate sceptics, who point to 3% thinking it is not real means there is uncertainty.
A more recent review of abstracts from 2013 and 2014 (the_consensus_on_anthropogenic_global_warming) found that of 24,210 abstracts of papers on climate change, only five explicitly rejected human role in global warming. As two of these papers were by the same author, the final figure for scientists who publish on global warming and reject a human causative role is 1 in 17,352 or 0.006%. Almost certainly this percentage is even lower now as more evidence floods in every year. This is probably as close to unanimity as humans are capable of in areas of science that involve such massive amounts of data of different kinds. Its probably approaching the level of unanimity among physicists and geologists about the shape of the earth. In that case, the evidence is also overwhelming but quite straightforward and accessible to anyone. I suspect the number of scientists publishing papers arguing the earth is flat is actually a real zero per cent.
The obfuscation and undermining of science
I recently commented elsewhere that the climate change denial is being fuelled by deliberate obfuscation and funding of deniers, politicians and right-wing think tanks, that is reminiscent of the way that tobacco companies set out to confuse and obfuscate the very clear scientific consensus. And I went even further to say that in both cases, the relevant industries knew the truth from quite early on but hid that. After I posted it, I had some qualms. While I thought I was right, perhaps I was just remembering second hand comments and I should check my facts. So I did.
Cummings et al (6) have documented the evidence that the tobacco companies knew and for most part accepted the very strong evidence that cigarette smoking was a cause of cancer by the late 1950s. They and Brandt (7) also document how the tobacco companies' response was to deliberately undermine the acceptance of the facts by funding research intended to obfuscate the debate about smoking and health and to manufacture controversy about the facts.
In the immediate post-war years – the dawn of the nuclear age – science was in high esteem. Scientific advances (the bomb, radar, computing) had played a major role in winning the war, and continued to transform everyday life with radio, TV, electronics and electrical labour-saving devices. The tobacco industry launched an unprecedented strategy to undermine acceptance of scientific results through funding research intended to undo and obfuscate what was known. In doing so it provided substantial funding to researchers and doctors who would work to confuse the public and more or less invented the modern conflicts of interest that are now such a source of contention in science, medicine, media and public policy. This strategy of producing apparent uncertainty in the science (which actually largely did not really exist) undercut public health efforts and regulatory responses designed to reduce the harms of smoking.
Following the publication by Sir Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill in 1952 of a definitive review American, German and British studies which showed smoking was an important cause of lung cancer, the major tobacco companies of the time commissioned a public relations company, Hill and Knowlton, to regain public confidence in the tobacco industry.
In 1954 the British Medical Journal published the first prospective results from the British Doctors Study set up by Doll, confirming that lung cancer rates were much higher in smokers, and increased with the amount smoked. Doll and Hill reported that smokers also had higher death rates from heart disease, chronic lung disease, and many other conditions and, in 1957, the British and Dutch were the first governments to accept officially that smoking caused lung cancer.
John W. Hill, Hill and Knowlton's president at the time, said that denying the facts would not be enough as this would clearly be borne from self-interest. Instead, demanding more science was a better tactic. He suggested that the goal of the tobacco industry should be to build and broadcast a major scientific controversy which would convey the message that the health effects of smoking were not conclusively known. One way to achieve this end was to commission more research into the causes of illness. Hill proposed the creation of a research group which would serve a public relations purpose demonstrating the tobacco industry's collective concern for the public. The Tobacco Industry Research Committee was founded. In an advert published in more than 400 newspapers across the United States, tobacco companies promised to explore the science of tobacco and to ensure consumer well-being.
A wide range of other industries have subsequently adopted similar strategies to invent scientific controversy to undermine public action to address known harms. While the tobacco industries have now conceded and accept that tobacco smoking causes cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, the fossil fuel industries and their supporters are doing their utmost to undermine acceptance of the evidence and consensus on global warming.
The Guardian recently documented the evidence that the fossil fuel industries' own scientists were advising them in the 1970s that there was an "overwhelming" consensus that fossil fuels were responsible for atmospheric carbon dioxide increases (8). And a confidential report prepared for Shell found that CO2 could raise temperatures by 1C to 2C over the next 40 years with changes that may be "the greatest in recorded history". In 1990 Exxon funded two researchers, Dr Fred Seitz and Dr Fred Singer to dispute the mainstream consensus on climate science. Seitz and Singer were previously paid by the tobacco industry and questioned the hazards of smoking. Singer, who has denied being on the payroll of the tobacco or energy industry, has said his financial relationships do not influence his research (8).
Neikom R. et al. No evidence for globally coherent warm and cold periods over the pre-industrial Common Era. Nature 2019, Vol 571, pp550-554
Neikom R. et al. Consistent multidecadal variability in global temperature reconstructions and simulations over the Common Era. Nature Geoscience 2019, Vol 12, pp643-649
Brönnimann S, et al. Last phase of the Little Ice Age forced by volcanic eruptions. Nature Geoscience 2019, Vol 12, pp650-656
Cook J. et al. Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters 213, Vol 8 (2), 023024
Powell JR. The Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming. 2015, Vol 39(6). Available at https://skepticalinquirer.org/2015/11/the_consensus_on_anthropogenic_global_warming/?%2Fsi%2Fshow%2Fthe_consensus_on_anthropogenic_global_warming
Cummings KM, Brown A, O'Connor R. The Cigarette Controversy. Cance Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007, Vol 16(6), June 2007.
Brandt AM. Inventing conflicts of interest: a history of tobacco industry tactics. American Journal of Public Health 2012, Vol 102(1), pp63-71.
Watts J, Blight G and Gutierrez. Half a century of dither and denial – a climate crisis timeline. Guardian Wed 9 Oct 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/oct/09/half-century-dither-denial-climate-crisis-timeline
Posted in Uncategorized	| Tagged climate change, global warming, science denial, tobacco industry	| 1 Comment
Gun ownership and gun deaths
Posted on August 8, 2019	by colinmathers
Given recent events, I took a look at the data relating to gun deaths overall and the extraordinarily high rates of mass shootings in the USA compared to the rest of the world. Despite President Trump blaming video games and mental disorders, the data show that the US has similar levels of mental disorders and usage of video games as other high income countries. What does stand out is the difference in levels of gun ownership.
Based on results from the Small Arms Survey 2018(see smallarmssurvey), there are 150 guns per 100 adults in the USA, compared to 8.7 per 100 adults 15+ for the rest of the world combined.
According to the Small Arms Survey 2018 results, there are one billion firearms in global circulation as of 2017, 857 million (85 per cent) are in civilian hands, 133 million (13 per cent) are in military arsenals, and 23 million (2 per cent) are owned by law enforcement agencies. Of the 875 million guns in civilian hands, 393 million of them are in the USA. In other words, 46% of all guns in civilian hands in the world are in the hands of US civilians.
A 2017 US survey (pewsocialtrends) found that 30% of American adults currently own a gun, 4 in 10 US adults say they live in a gun-owning household and 72% of US adults have shot a gun. Among gun owners, 66% own more than one gun, with an average of 6 guns per multiple gun owner. However this statistic is skewed by the 3% of gun owners who own half of all guns in the USA, with an average of 17 each. 38% of gun owners say there is a gun loaded and easily accessible at all times in their home. 26% say they carry their gun with them outside the home all or most of the time.
44% of US adults personally know someone who has been shot, and 23% say they or someone in their family have been threated by someone using a gun.
I was interested to contrast these figures with those for Australia, where gun laws were somewhat tightened after the Port Arthur Massacre. In 2017 there were 18 guns per 100 adults aged 15 and over. Around 6% of households have a gun, down from 25% in 1988 before the Port Arthur Massacre. Apart from banning semi-automatic and automatic weapons, a key part of the Australian gun regime is the requirement to register weapons. Registered owners are responsible for the use of weapons registered to them, and for example, must report loss or theft to the police. An estimated 88% of weapons in Australia are registered, compared with 0.3% in the USA.
Posted in Global health trends	| Tagged global health statistics, gun ownership, homicide, mass shooting, small arms survey, violence	| Leave a comment
Latest data show accelerating rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide
Posted on June 5, 2019	by colinmathers
Back in January, I posted on climate change (are-humans-heating-up-the-world) and included a graph of the Keeling curve showing the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii has just released its latest results showing that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration hit 415 ppm on June 3rd (two days ago). This is the second highest annual rise in the past six decades.
May is the most significant month for global carbon dioxide concentrations because it is the peak value for the year, before the growth of vegetation in the northern hemisphere starts to absorb the gas from the air. The seasonal peak and fall can be seen in the Keeling curve, named after Charles Keeling, who started the observations on Mauna Loa in 1958 because of its isolation in the Pacific Ocean.
As recently as the 1990s, the average annual growth rate was about 1.5ppm, but in the past decade that has accelerated to 2.2ppm, and is now even higher. This brings the threshold of 450ppm closer sooner than had been anticipated. Concentrations of the gas have increased every year, reflecting our burning of fossil fuels.
Scientists have warned for more than a decade that concentrations of more than 450ppm risk triggering extreme weather events and temperature rises as high as 2C, beyond which the effects of global heating are likely to become catastrophic and essentially irreversible on a human time scale.
The Scripps Institute of Oceanography has a video animation showing the dramatic rise in carbon dioxide concentration from the mid-20th century. The screenshot below from the video shows that the carbon dioxide concentration was below 300 ppm for most of the last three centuries but started to rise dramatically after World War II.
The video then zooms out to show the Keeling curve for the last 800,000 years putting the accelerating rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide this century in stark perspective. For the evidence linking carbon dioxide rise to global warming refer to my previous post.
Posted in Global health trends	| Tagged climate change, global warming, Keeling Curve	| Leave a comment
State-level trends and levels of child mortality in India 2000-2015
Posted on May 20, 2019	by colinmathers
I've been involved for nearly 20 years in the estimation of global, regional and national causes of child death under the age of 5, in collaboration with academic researchers and a number of WHO technical departments (new-estimates-of-the-causes-of-child-death-under-age-5). This collaboration has just published a paper in the Lancet extending this work to state level for India:
Li Liu et al. National, regional, and state-level all-cause and cause-specific under-5
mortality in India in 2000–15: a systematic analysis with implications for the
Sustainable Development Goals.
India had a population 1.35 billion in 2018 and the larger states are bigger than most of the world's countries. If Indian states were countries, five of them would be among the 20 largest countries in the world. Uttar Pradesh is similar in size to Brazil or Indonesia, and Maharashra and Bihar are similar in size to Japan or Mexico. The map below graphically illustrates the size of Indian states by labelling them with the names of countries with similar population sizes.
The paper presents estimates and trends for causes of death in children under 5 in India for the 23 of the 29 states, together with smaller states grouped into two categories. In 2015, there were 25 million livebirths in India and 1·2 million under-5 deaths (under-5 mortality rate 48 per 1000 livebirths). 0·7 million (58%) of these deaths occurred in the first month of life (neonatal period). This quite a contrast to the rest of the world, for which 45% of under 5 deaths occurred in the neonatal period, and India is characterized by a substantially higher proportion of deaths associated with preterm birth (25% of all under 5 deaths, see figure below). Low birthweight deaths, as reported by the Million Deaths Study, were even higher, due to high numbers of deaths in full-term low birthweight babies.
The paper is the result of a collaboration between the Maternal and Child Epidemiology Estimation (MCEE) group, WHO staff, and the Million Death Study (MDS). The MCEE group, lead by Professor Bob Black and researchers at Johns Hopkins University, is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (MCEE).
India had the largest number of under-5 deaths of all countries in 2015, with substantial subnational disparities. The child mortality rates in 2015 ranged from 9.7 deaths under age 5 per 1,000 livebirths in Goa to 73.1 deaths per 1,000 livebirths in Assam. Overall, child mortality rates were lowest in the south and highest in the northeast of India. In 2015, India was ranked 158th out of 194 countries for child mortality. The graph below shows the rankings against countries of the Indian States, if they were treated as countries. Goa would have ranked 66th out of 218 "countries" and Assam 194th (or 25th worst).
Overall, the leading causes of under-5 deaths were preterm birth complications (0·330 million [95% uncertainty range 0·279–0·367]; 27·5% of under-5 deaths), pneumonia (0·191 million [0·168–0·219]; 15·9%), and intrapartum-related events (0·139 million [0·116–0·165]; 11·6%), with cause-of-death distributions varying across states and regions. In states with very high under-5 mortality, infectious-disease-related causes (pneumonia and diarrhoea) were among the three leading causes, whereas the three leading causes were all non-communicable in states with very low mortality.
India has made a sustained effort in recent years to increase vaccination coverage for children. The national coverage for the first dose of vaccine against measles has risen from around 56% in 2000 to 88 % and that for the second dose of vaccine against measles from under 25% t0 77%. Measles deaths in India have declined from around 90,000 in 2000 to 20,000 in 2017.
The number of child deaths under 5 reduced from 2·5 million in 2000 to 1.2 million in 2015, yet despite this progress, India did not meet target 4 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG 4) of a two-thirds reduction in under-5 mortality rate between 1990 and 2015. In the post-MDG period the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target for child mortality is to achieve ≤25 under-5 deaths per 1000 livebirths and ≤12 neonatal deaths per 1000 livebirths by 2030. The paper concluded that ten major states must accelerate progress to achieve the SDG under-5 mortality target, while 17 are not on track to meet the neonatal mortality target. Efforts to reduce vaccine-preventable deaths and to reduce geographical disparities should continue to maintain progress achieved in 2000–15. Enhanced policies and programmes are needed to accelerate mortality reduction in high-burden states and among neonates to achieve the SDG child survival targets in India by 2030.
Annual rate of reduction (ARR) of U5MR, NMR, mortality rate among 1-59 month olds (PNMR) by state in India in 2000-2015 (Webappendix 11 of Liu et al, Lancet 2019).
If the average rate of decline in child mortality from 2000-2015 is sustained unchanged until 2030, how would the Indian States compare with the countries of the world in 2030? The tables below show the change in global ranking (Indian States and other countries) for the five best and worst Indian States in 2015 and 2030. The paper provides more detailed analysis of State-level trends in specific causes of child death to help identify areas where more efforts are needed to achieve the SDG target for child mortality for India.
Posted in Global health trends, Projections	| Tagged causes of death, child mortality, global health statistics, India, Millenium Development Goals, Million Death Study, Prabhat Jha, sustainable development goals	| Leave a comment
As a former WHO staff member, who played a key role in the production and clearance of WHO health statistics over the last 15 years, and a long-time collaborator with the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) enterprise and with the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), I was interested to see two papers that were recently published discuss the roles of IHME and WHO in production of global health statistics. The IHME is located within the University of Washington in Seattle, USA and is primarily funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Manjari Mahajan. The IHME in the Shifting Landscape of Global Health Metrics. Global Policy 28 January 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12605 Available in the Wiley Online Library at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1758-5899.12605#.XIjcbywdSzk.email
Marless Tichenor and Devi Sridhar. Metric partnerships: global burden of disease estimates within the World Bank, the World Health Organisation and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Wellcome Open Research, 18 February 2019. Available at https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/4-35/v1
The first of these articles, by Mahajan, takes a reasonably sceptical view of the claims of the power of "big data" and modelling, but mistakenly characterises WHO global statistics as "traditionally relying on national statistics". In fact, WHO global health statistics also makes use of modelling and multiple sources of data, including national statistics as well as surveys and epidemiological studies to address issues of biased and missing data. However, the paper does give a reasonable overview of some of the issues arising from private sector production of global statistics outside the UN system, and with limited ability of outside experts or national-level users to assess and understand the derivation of the statistics.
The second paper is more problematic as the authors state that they primarily used notes taken at three IHME events. There were apparently no inputs from WHO staff involved in the interaction with IHME and GBD. This has resulted in some inaccuracies in the paper, some of which I address in the comments below. It is disappointing that an article examining the interaction between IHME and WHO/UN did not make the effort to include inputs from WHO and UN people who are closely involved in global estimates as well.
Despite what the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, is quoted as saying in the paper, there was no so-called "cold war" between WHO and IHME before 2012. Ties Boerma and I were members of the core scientific group for the first GBD2010. This was the central scientific decision-making group set up in 2007, with 15 members of whom 9 were from outside Chris Murray's research group. I and many other WHO staff contributed to the work of the GBD over the next five years, though Ties and I became increasingly concerned that the external core group were being excluded from access to the data and analyses. Around the period 2011 to 2012, six of the external core group members withdrew from the core group due to this and related issues. Apart from myself and Ties Boerma from WHO, this included Bob Black and Neff Walker from Johns Hopkins University, and Ken Hill and Dean Jamison from Harvard University. From WHO's point of view, there was no cold war (1), and various WHO staff continued to provide data and contribute to GBD analyses, and WHO continued to make use of analyses derived from the IHME GBD results. However, because we could not gain access to data and analyses, WHO staff were unable to agree to be authors on GBD papers and WHO as an institution was unable to endorse the results. Perhaps more importantly, WHO was also unable to examine areas where GBD results differed from WHO and other UN statistics in order to reconcile differences and potentially improve global health statistics.
On page 4, the paper claims that the GBD 1990 data were reworked in various ways and used for the next 25 years, until IHME undertook the GBD2010. This is quite incorrect. During the period from 1999 through to 2008, the majority of mortality and morbidity estimates (for almost all diseases of public health importance) were revised with new inputs. This included development of new model life tables at WHO, a big growth in disease-specific modelling both at WHO and by academic collaborators, and the establishment of various UN interagency groups, particularly for MDG targeted diseases. I have reviewed WHO work on GBD during the period 1999-2008 and estimate that morbidity and disability estimates were revised using new data for around 90% of the disease and injury causes (including all those of public health importance) and mortality estimates were revised for 100% of causes. Disability weights were the main area where a comprehensive update was not carried out, though quite a few were revised using a European study (2), the World Health Surveys (3) and other sources of population information on health states.
The paper is incorrect in saying that the difference in malaria mortality estimates is because the IHME uses MAP parasite prevalence. WHO also uses the same parasite prevalence data as a major input to its estimates of malaria mortality (4). The big difference arises from IHME interpretation of verbal autopsy data in a way which maps much more "fever of unknown cause" to malaria for adults than WHO does.
The paper notes the difference in the IHME estimated trend for maternal mortality compared to that estimated by WHO, although there is little difference in the latest year estimates. Both IHME and WHO methods estimate the proportion of all female deaths in the reproductive period that are maternal deaths, and these estimates are reasonably similar. The trend difference in numbers of deaths arises because the IHME life tables have flatter adult female mortality trends than the UN life tables (5). The IHME life tables place greater credence on sibling history data for periods long before surveys and have flatter adult mortality trends in parts of Africa. This results in flatter maternal mortality trends.
In the discussion, the authors question the value of competition in achieving global health goals and link this to the emphasis in the GBD and indeed in all the UN global health statistics on the comparability of statistics across locations and times. While it is arguable whether the whole global targets setting process spurs healthy competition between countries, the concern about comparability in statistics is essentially a concern to have meaningful statistics. And any statistic is only meaningful and interpretable through comparison. For example, an average death rate of 8,945 per 100,000 population is uninterpretable to almost everyone, unless put in a comparative context.
Measurement only has meaning if a standard scale is used (or at least fixed scales that can be translated to each other). Since bias varies over time as well as over space, you could argue that lack of concern for comparability would be like tracking your weight with a scale whose zero is varying in an unknown way over time.
The authors do raise relevant and important issues around the potential creation of a global health data monopoly, the concentration of analytic skills in a first-world institution, and the broader governance structures and accountability for statistics. Many developing countries have little interest in the outputs of a US academic group, but are very concerned about WHO and UN statistics. UN agencies have a mandate to produce statistics and some responsibility to consult with countries. IHME has tried to spin this as "political interference" which has largely not been the case, at least in my experience carrying out a central statistical clearance role in WHO and in working with the various UN interagency groups. The downside of IHME "independence" is that there have been quite drastic changes in methods and estimates from revision to revision for some causes and topics with little responsiveness in some cases to those who pointed out problems before publication. A recent example includes drug overdose deaths for USA, where GBD2016 excluded prescription opioid deaths (without documenting this) for unknown reasons, and GBD2017 included them, resulting in a more than doubling of drug overdose deaths. The sudden introduction of very different birth denominators in GBD2016 similarly knocked around half a million child deaths off the global total compared to UN (which previously was almost identical).
IHME is now estimating its own population and birth numbers. So the mortality and other outputs are inhabiting a parallel demographic universe to those of the UN agencies. This makes the issues of understanding difference even more complex and opaque. And I suspect will unfortunately limit the ability of UN agencies to make direct use of IHME results.
This is a great pity, as there is a lot to be gained by collaborating more closely and working together to improve both the primary data, the analyses and the statistical assessments that are increasingly important for guiding and tracking global health progress.
Boerma T, Mathers C. The World Health Organization and global health estimates: improving collaboration and capacity. BMC Medicine.2015, 13:50. doi: 10.1186/s12916-015-0286-7. Available online at http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/13/50
Stouthard M , Essink-Bot M, Bonsel G, Barendregt J, Kramers P. Disability weights for diseases in the Netherlands. Rotterdam, Department of Public Health, Erasmus University, 1997.
Ustun TB, Chatterji S, Mechbal A, Murray C.J.L, WHS Collaborating Groups. The world health surveys. In: Murray CJL, Evans D, eds. Health systems performance assessment: debates, methods and empiricism. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2003.
World Health Organization (2018). World Malaria Report 2018.
Gerland P, Masquelier B, Helleringer S, Hogan D, Mathers CD. Maternal mortality estimates.
Are humans heating up the world?
Posted on January 10, 2019	by colinmathers
I was in Australia over Christmas-New Year period and the southern parts of the country were sweltering in a heat wave. Yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued its 2018 climate statement, revealing a record breaking run of rising temperatures. The graph below shows average Australian temperature by year relative to the 1961-1990 average temperature.
The average maximum temperature for the country as a whole was particularly warm, 1.55 degrees Celsius above the 1961–1990 average, making 2018 Australia's second warmest year on record for daily high temperatures. Nine of the ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2005. These rising temperatures have been accompanied by drought, bushfires, and the death of half of the Great Barrier Reef.
I was astounded to read the comments to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on this, where many commentators expressed complete disbelief that the climate was changing, or that humans were responsible, or indeed that the science was settled and not in dispute. A recent major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ stated that human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate. Achieving the global greenhouse gas emission targets set in the Paris Agreement will limit global warming to below 2°C this century.
The report also makes clear that limiting warming to 1.5°C will have huge benefits compared with allowing temperatures to surge to the 2°C level. But keeping to 1.5°C would require aggressive action to curb greenhouse gas emission, going further than the targets set in the Paris Agreement. Even if nations could achieve that, the world would look very different: entire ecosystems could be destroyed across more than 6% of the earth's land surface, sea levels would rise between half and 1 metre, and 70–90% of coral reefs would disappear. Moreover, sea levels will continue to rise for centuries, with projected long term increases in the range 3-13 metres.
The most important greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, and the Keeling Curve summarizes the global accumulation of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere. It is based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii from 1958 to the present day. The curve is named for the scientist Charles David Keeling, who started the monitoring program and supervised it until his death in 2005.
Source: Delorme [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, from Wikimedia Commons https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Mauna_Loa_CO2_monthly_mean_concentration
This is one of the most important scientific results of the 20th century. It was the first significant evidence that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were rapidly increasing, and in a very real sense it continues to track our performance as a species. The curve continues to rise steadily at an undiminished pace, and is a stark indictment of a species that is ready to stand by as islands submerge, coastal lands flood, human habitats burn in wildfires, entire ecosystems disappear, species extinction accelerates, and coral reefs disappear.
Data from Antarctic ice cores has enabled levels of carbon dioxide to be measured back to 800,000 years ago. The graph below shows 800,000 years of CO2 data, based air bubbles trapped in ice cores. It shows that CO2 hasn't ever been greater than 300 parts per million, with very slow and cyclical increases and decreases about every 100,000 years. Today it's over 400 ppm, 33% higher than it's been in 800,000 years, and on a very sharp upwards trajectory.
Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
A 2009 study, published in the journal Science, analyzed shells in deep sea sediments to estimate past CO2 levels, and found that CO2 levels have not been as high as they are now for at least the past 10 to 15 million years, during the Miocene epoch.This was a time when global temperatures were substantially warmer than today, and there was very little ice around anywhere on the planet. And so the sea level was considerably higher — around 100 feet higher — than it is today.
With global CO2 emissions continuing on an upward trajectory that is likely to put CO2 concentrations above 450 ppm or higher, it is extremely unlikely that the steadily rising shape of the Keeling Curve is going to change anytime soon. Particularly, as the United States has repudiated the Paris Agreement and started dismantling climate change regulations. Australia also recently abandoned emissions targets or any policy to address climate change, effectively also abandoning the Paris Agreement https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06675-9
National emissions have risen each year since 2014, when the Australian government repealed laws requiring big industrial emitters to pay for their emissions. There are also no significant policies to reduce the other major sources of pollution, such as transport, agriculture, heavy industry and mining, which together generate nearly two-thirds of Australia's carbon emissions. Australia's conservative government has rejected four national climate policies since it was elected in 2013, and rejection of climate change policy arguably played a role in the abrupt replacement of then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull by a climate sceptic Scott Morrison.
The Australian government refusal to act on emissions is completely out of line with public opinion, with a recent poll finding that 68% of respondents wanted domestic climate targets in line with the Paris Agreement. Australia is among several industrialized nations that are not on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius as the Paris accord promises, according to independent analyses.
Australian climate change denialists, including the Murdoch-media, continue to claim that the science is in dispute. An oft-quoted statistic is that 3% if climate scientists don't think that human-caused global warming is real, often followed by a claim that the 97% who do think so are involved in some vast conspiracy or have vested interests (shares in solar panel companies perhaps?). If 3% of climate scientists really think that anthropogenic global warming is not real, then perhaps there possibly are real uncertainties about the science.
So is the 97% figure an urban myth or real? The figure actually comes from a 2013 article in Environmental Research Letters by Cook et al. titled "Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature." They reported that "Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming". The 97 percent figure went viral and, not surprisingly, the qualifying phrase "expressing a position"—the fine print, —got dropped. Most of the remaining 3% did not express a position, very different from a climate-sceptical position. A more recent review of abstracts from 2013 and 2014 (the_consensus_on_anthropogenic_global_warming) found that of 24,210 abstracts of papers on climate change, only five explicitly rejected human role in global warming. As two of these papers were by the same author, the final figure for scientists who publish on global warming and reject a human causative role is 1 in 17,352 or 0.006%. This is probably as close to unanimity as humans are capable of.
Does this mean the projections quoted above are exact? Of course not. I know perhaps more than most that projections are uncertain, sometimes highly uncertain, and there are plenty of arguments within the literature about the details and impacts of global warming. Whether scenario X or Y is likely optimistic or pessimistic, whether the sea level will rise more than half a metre by 2100 etc etc. But none of this means there is not a very strong consensus on the big picture, the need to act now, and the likely implications of not acting strongly enough.
Posted in Projections	| Tagged climate change, global warming, Keeling Curve, Paris Agreement, sustainable development goals	| 2 Comments
New estimates of the causes of child death under age 5
Posted on December 9, 2018	by colinmathers
WHO has just released the latest update on global causes of death for children under age 5 for years 2000-2017. These are available for download on the WHO website at https://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/estimates/en/index2.html and also in the Global Health Observatory at www.who.int/gho. A collaborating group of academic researchers led by Professor Bob Black from Johns Hopkins University carried out data analysis and modelling in collaboration with a number of WHO technical departments and myself.
Despite remarkable progress in the improvement of child survival globally, with a reduction in the annual number of child deaths from 10 million in 2000 to 5.4 million in 2017, this level of progress will need to accelerate to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal for child mortality in 2030. There remain many preventable child deaths in developing countries. The causes of the 5.4 million deaths of children under 5 are summarized in the following pie chart.
Global distribution of causes of child death under age 5, 2017
Almost half of deaths under 5 are now in the neonatal period (the first four weeks of life) where the causes of death are shaded yellow above and led by prematurity and birth asphyxia or trauma. In the period 1-11 months the leading cause of death is acute respiratory infection (ARI) which is mostly pneumonia, followed by diarrheal diseases and injuries.
Reductions in mortality rates for pneumonia, diarrhoea, neonatal intrapartum-related events, malaria, and measles were responsible for 65% of the total reduction of under 5 deaths, pr just under 3 million of the 4.6 million deaths per year averted between 2000 and 2017 (see Figure below). Most of these causes relate mainly to the period 1-59 months after the neonatal period. The faster decline in these "post-neonatal" causes over the last 15 years has resulted in preterm birth complications now being the leading cause of under 5 deaths in 2017.
Posted in Global health trends, World Health Organization	| Tagged causes of death, CHERG, child mortality, children, global health statistics, malaria, MCEE, preventable deaths	| 1 Comment


"Will you sit and knit with me, Mama?" my seven-year-old asks. A request to melt any mama's heart. Yet I reply with a list of morning chores I have to do, trying to keep my tone neutral so as not to also say, "See how much work I have? See how hard my life is?" The dirty cloth diaper needs to be rinsed out – the sooner the better. The breakfast dishes are piled on the counter, soggy cereal drying to the sides of the bowls. It will be annoying to have to scrape it off later when I can just rinse them out now. Crumbs are everywhere on the floor – if I don't sweep, the mice will come. I have a small window to get it all done after one meal and before the next, especially since a large percentage of that time will be spent changing (more) diapers, wiping butts, helping with sips of water, tying on capes, and kissing bumps and scrapes.
"Help me sweep the floor," I say to Katherine, "then I'll be finished sooner and we'll have time to knit." She frowns, "I don't want to sweep." Not wanting to engage in a battle over sweeping by holding her to my request, I let it go, shrugging. She hovers around me as I go about cleaning up, like a puppy underfoot. My mind drifts to Ma in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. We're reading On the Banks of Plum Creek at bedtime and the story is fresh in my mind. I am intrigued by the strong rhythm of their daily chores, children who help without being asked, the simplicity of survival on the harsh prairie.
I don't long to milk a cow at dawn, or polish the stove, or do the laundry by hand, day after day after day. The combination of obligation and monotony would not outweigh the benefits of its simplicity, at least not for me. But there is something to be said for a routine that never waivers, and upon which survival depends. If I don't clean the poopy diaper or rinse out the dishes first thing in the morning, scalding hot water and anti-bacterial soap will kill whatever grows in the meantime. Therefore, it is easy to feel the guilt of pushing my children aside. I don't really need to do the dishes right now, but I sort of wish I did.
All the slogans about choosing laughter over squeaky-clean floors and messy kitchens being happy kitchens let us off the hook. Choose your children over household duties. There will always be laundry, but your toddler will grow up. I don't disagree - but what if I want to do the dishes and put things away? Piles of stuff distract me and I function better all around when my surroundings are sparse. So I'm torn between wanting to do household chores and cherishing every moment of my daughters' one-, four-, and seven-year-oldness.
But just the other day, I had a rare morning alone with Katherine thanks to a dual play date for her two sisters. "Knit with me," she implored as soon as they were out the door. I surveyed the mess and sighed. "Let me clean up, then we'll knit. We'll have time," I promised. She scampered off to her room and I powered through the chores, in total, uninterrupted, quiet. Twenty minutes later she reappeared. "I neatened my room, Mom. Are you ready to knit?" I was.
It dawned on me, as I snuggled down on the couch with her, as promised, that I am still in the throes of early childhood, when needs run high, interruptions are constant, and just underneath the surface of all their cuteness, my kids can be exasperating. But my morning alone with Katherine was a reality check, a glimpse of what the future will be with children who can wipe their own butts, get their own drink of water, and tie on their own dress-up clothes.
Maybe I'll make it through without Ma's strict cleaning schedule. Or maybe that wouldn't help anyway. After all, Ma only had one small room to keep clean and could fit all of the family's possessions in a covered wagon. Besides, for all we know, she may have been just as exasperated as I am, and that sentiment simply isn't captured in the books because it was written by her child.
Regardless, I'm hanging onto hope that one day my three daughters and I will happily knit together by the fire. In the meantime, to give myself permission to do chores, I may paint across my kitchen wall: Clear counters keep me calm.


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