text:
Donald Trump Just Gave the Pope a Sculpture and It's Everything You Thought It Would Be
The bronze artwork is meant to evoke "unity and resilience."
Caroline Goldstein, May 24, 2017
Geoffrey C. Smith with his Rising Above sculpture, photo via geoffreysmith.com.
POTUS loves the lotus, apparently—so much so he just gave one to the Vatican. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump, accompanied by his wife, Melania, exchanged gifts with Pope Francis. Pope Francis gave the President a large medallion depicting an olive branch, saying, "I give this to you so that you can be an instrument of peace."
Along with the symbolic olive branch, the Pope presented Trump with copies of his writings, including his 2015 treatise on Climate Change. Trump, in turn, presented the pontiff with a bronze sculpture of the lotus plant, Rising Above, created by Florida-based artist Geoffrey C. Smith, along with a set of Martin Luther King Jr's writings, according to NPR.
'We Can Use Peace,' President Trump Says After Exchanging Gifts With Pope https://t.co/K7jliPHcVC pic.twitter.com/AgAu6DWmlm
— Todo Noticias (@Todonoticias21) May 24, 2017
The sculpture depicts a lotus plant because it "evokes two universal values: unity and resilience," according to the White House. Smith's works have served as tokens of appreciation for President George H.W. Bush, and Vice-President Dan Quayle, according to his website. Smith's milieu is inspired by his water front surroundings—his gallery and studio are both located in Stuart, Florida, about an hour's drive from Mar-a-Lago—and often depict wildlife and other aquatic themed subjects. Smith's works include the octopus-themed Dance of the Depths, and Spirit of the Sail, a 19-foot bronze sailfish, in which the needle-nosed fish is captured mid-leap, accompanied by gushing fountains, a monument to the fishing culture in Stuart.
Smith's gallery confirmed the White House's description of the work, but declined to elaborate further.
Caroline Goldstein
Contemporary Art at the Vatican? Pope Francis Shares His Views on Art in New Documentary
By Sarah Cascone , Jun 30, 2017
These Artists Are Leading a Miniature Rebellion Against Donald Trump (Literally)
By Sarah Cascone , Jun 9, 2017
Caravaggio's Last Paintings May Hold a Clue to the Controversial Painter's Mysterious Final Days
By , May 24, 2017
Art Industry News: The Pope Gifted Donald Trump Some Art + More Must-Read Stories


Hello friends! Debbie with you today sharing a fun technique using a Rebecca Baer Stencil and Utee Embossing Powder. I used Rebecca's Jamboree Medium Stencil for this card. Rebecca's stencils are elegant and give projects a unique finish which is why I love them. She has so many different patterns filled with flourishes and vines and dragonflies and butterflies, something for everyone! Here is the card I made along with a step by step so you can give this a try.
The supplies I used are pictured here.
The first step is to cut a piece of white card stock to 5"x 5". This is the piece you will be working with. You will also need a coordinating Piece of card stock 5-1/2" x 5-1/2". The base of your card will be 6" x 6". Place your white card stock down on a piece of plain paper and tape your stencil over it.
Using a VersaMark clear embossing pad go over the stencil. It doesn't have to be perfect you just want some random embossing.
Remove the stencil and clean it with a baby wipe or wet towel. Pour Utee thick embossing powder over your stenciled piece.
Heat set. Let dry completely. Your page will look like this after it's dry.
Using Distress ink and daubers you will rub each color over the embossing in a circular motion blending them as you go.
Here is what your card stock will look like when you're done adding the Distress Ink.
The final step is to die cut an oval, stamp a sentiment on it and using the same technique with the daubers and distress ink color the oval.
Add to your card and embellish as desired.


text:
@implementation UIImage (JLYLaunchImage)

// 引用自stackflow
+ (NSString *)jly_getLaunchImageName{
    NSString *viewOrientation = @"Portrait";
    if (UIInterfaceOrientationIsLandscape([[UIApplication sharedApplication] statusBarOrientation])) {
        viewOrientation = @"Landscape";
    }
    __block NSString *launchImageName = nil;
    NSArray<NSDictionary <NSString * ,id>*>* imagesDict = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] infoDictionary] valueForKey:@"UILaunchImages"];
    CGSize viewSize = tyCurrentWindow.bounds.size;
    [imagesDict enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(NSDictionary* dict ,NSUInteger idx ,BOOL *stop){
        CGSize imageSize = CGSizeFromString(dict[@"UILaunchImageSize"]);

        if (CGSizeEqualToSize(imageSize, viewSize) && [viewOrientation isEqualToString:dict[@"UILaunchImageOrientation"]]){
            launchImageName = dict[@"UILaunchImageName"];
        }

    }];
    return launchImageName;
}

+ (UIImage *)jly_getLaunchImage{
    return [UIImage imageNamed:[self jly_getLaunchImageName]];
}

@end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Los XIX Juegos Bolivarianos, oficialmente llamados XIX Juegos Deportivos Bolivarianos Valledupar 2022, se llevaron a cabo en la ciudad de Valledupar, departamento del Cesar, Colombia del 24 de junio al 5 de julio de 2022.

Originalmente, esta edición estaba programada para la región de los Valles del Tuy en Venezuela para 2021, pero debido a problemas financieros y organizativos, la región se vio obligada a renunciar al derecho a organizar los Juegos. Como resultado, ODEBO se vio obligada a presentar un nuevo proceso de selección e hizo una excepción en su regulación, creando la posibilidad de que Colombia pudiera ser sede de los Juegos dos veces seguidas, algo que sucedió cuando la ciudad de Valledupar presentó su proyecto y esto fue aceptado con éxito .

Ciudades candidatas
Se presentaron dos proyectos, el primero el de la ciudad de La Paz en Bolivia y el segundo el de la región venezolana de Valles del Tuy . La elección tuvo lugar el 20 de abril de 2018 en Colombia, durante la Asamblea General de la Odebo.

La Paz
El Comité Olímpico Boliviano inscribió la candidatura de La Paz el 2 de agosto de 2017. La Alcaldía de La Paz habría diseñado una candidatura para los juegos para la remodelación de todos los escenarios que tiene La Paz y construir unos nuevos con los más altos estándares de calidad.

Valles del Tuy
Al finalizar los Juegos Bolivarianos de 2017, el presidente del Comité Olímpico Venezolano declaró que Venezuela tenía grandes intenciones de albergar diversos eventos del próximo ciclo olímpico, entre los cuales se cuentan los Juegos Bolivarianos de 2021 en los Valles del Tuy y los Juegos Bolivarianos de Playa 2019 en Vargas, de manera que con estos 2 eventos el país tenga un buen historial organizativo.

Los Juegos serían organizados por la Organización Deportiva Bolivariana (Odebo), dependiente de la Organización Deportiva Panamericana, el Gobierno de Venezuela, CorpoMiranda, Comité Olímpico Venezolano y Ministerio del Poder Popular Para el Deporte con una inversión aproximada de 110 millones de dólares. Sin embargo, fue retirada la sede debido a la falta de presupuesto para cumplir con los compromisos de la organización.

Segunda designación

Valledupar
En una situación de emergencia, las autoridades del Comité Olímpico Colombiano visitaron la ciudad de Valledupar, la cual tuvo buenas reacciones sobre los escenarios deportivos de la ciudad. En junio de 2019 la ciudad fue postulada como sede, y el 24 de julio fue elegida por la Odebo en Lima como sede de los juegos.
Las Oficinas de los Juegos se encuentran ubicadas en la Calle 28 con Carrera 13, piso primero, Parque Barrio 12 de Octubre, Indupal, Valledupar, Cesar, Colombia. En reunión del Comité Ejecutivo de ODEBO del 3 de julio de 2020 se asigna como fecha de realización de los XIX Juegos Deportivos Bolivarianos Valledupar 2022 del 24 de junio al 5 de julio del año 2022. Por ahora las justas se mantienen con esta nueva fecha, aunque no se descarta que pueda haber alguna modificación frente a los cambios del calendario deportivo por la contingencia actual del COVID-19. "Los calendarios internacionales indudablemente se tendrán que modificar".

Símbolos

Mascota
La mascota oficial de los Juegos Bolivarianos de 2022 será "Guatapí", una iguana representativa de la ciudad de Valledupar. Su tiene su origen en el majestuoso e imponente río Guatapurí, el cual tiene gran importancia para la cultura vallenata; es además el hábitat de la mayor parte de la fauna del municipio, entre ellos de la emblemática iguana, símbolo del personaje oficial. Según la organización, Guatapí, "es la representación de una serie de habilidades tales como rapidez, agilidad y fuerza, cualidades que hacen parte de los deportistas que se involucran con las diferentes disciplinas que hacen parte de los XIX Juegos Bolivarianos Valledupar 2022″. La mascota tiene un traje de cuerpo completo que lo usan los atletas. En su pecho tiene unas franjas, en la parte superior de los hombros y en la parte inferior de la pantaloneta también. Las franjas incluyen los colores rojo, amarillo, azul y blanco

Lema
El lema oficial del evento será "El deporte se hizo leyenda".

Sedes e infraestructura
La ciudad de Valledupar es la sede principal de las justas, pero también habrá actividad deportiva en cuatro subsedes: Chimichagua, Bogotá, Cali y el departamento de Cundinamarca.

Unidad Deportiva "La Gota Fría"
La Unidad Deportiva La Gota Fría, nombrada así en honor a la canción compuesta por Emiliano Zuleta, será el epicentro de las competencias. Allí se realizaron las obras de construcción del estadio de atletismo, tres coliseos (combates, gimnasia y baloncesto), estadio para sóftbol y béisbol.

Otros escenarios en Valledupar
Asimismo, en la ciudad se construyó la pista de BMX Villa Dariana y se encuentran otros escenarios que fueron remodelados como el Estadio Armando Maestre Pavajeau, el complejo de tenis, el Coliseo Julio Monsalvo, el Patinódromo Elías Ochoa Daza y Coliseo de la Feria Ganadera.

Subsedes
En la Ciénaga de Zapatosa, ubicada en el municipio de Chimichagua, se desarrollarán los deportes de aguas abiertas. En Bogotá tendrán lugar las competencias de golf, esquí náutico, squash y ecuestre. En Cali, capital del Valle del Cauca, se llevará a cabo el ciclismo bajo techo. Las competencias de bádminton se llevarán a cabo también en la subsede alterna del Coliseo Arena de Sal de Zipaquirá. Finalmente, en el municipio cundinamarqués de Nilo y el Embalse de Tominé (ubicado entre Guatavita y Sesquilé) serán subsedes de tiro deportivo y vela.

Deportes
Durante las justas se disputarán 45 eventos en 33 deportes.

Países participantes
En los Juegos Bolivarianos se espera la participación de 11 países de América, los 7 integrantes de la Odebo y 4 países invitados. A continuación, los países junto al código COI de cada uno:

* Países invitados

Desarrollo

Calendario
En el siguiente calendario de eventos, cada casilla azul representa una competición (ronda clasificatoria), en ese día. Las casillas amarillas representan los días durante los cuales se llevaron a cabo los eventos finales y premiación de un deporte. El número en cada casilla representa el número de finales que se disputaron ese día. Los 382 eventos en 54 disciplinas de los 33 deportes de los Juegos Bolivarianos se desarrollarán desde el 23 de junio hasta el 5 de julio de 2022.

Medallero Final

Las medallas aparecen agrupadas por los Comités Olímpicos Nacionales participantes y se ordenan de forma decreciente contando las medallas de oro obtenidas; en caso de empate se ordena de igual forma, tienen la misma cantidad de medallas de oro, plata y bronce, se listan en la misma posición y se ordenan alfabéticamente.

Transmisión

  - Telecaribe, Antena 2
  - Tves
  Mundial - Panam Sports Channel

Así mismo, los XIX Juegos Bolivarianos Valledupar 2022 se podrán observar a través del canal Bolivarianos 2022, que puede ser consultada en el sitio web de la Organización Deportiva Bolivariana (ODEBO).

Referencias

Enlaces externos
 Sitio web oficial

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Stage set for major eviction drive in Amchang
By RITURAJ BORTHAKUR - 15 Sep 2010 12:00 AM GMT
GUWAHATI, Aug 23 - More than four years after the Gauhati High Court took up a suo moto PIL over the large-scale encroachments inside the Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary, the Assam government is readying to conduct a massive eviction drive � perhaps the biggest such operation so far � to clear the pristine habitat which has been providing the much needed oxygen to the people of the capital city.
The forest department today issued a public notice directing the encroachers to leave the sanctuary. �Or else, as per the directions of the High Court, the government will be forced to carry out an eviction,� the notice said.
A bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Ajit Singh and Justice Manojit Bhuyan had on August 2 last granted a month�s time to the government to evict encroachers.
Yesterday, a high level meeting was held by the government in presence of senior officers of the forest department, police, paramilitary and others to prepare the plan for the eviction. �We will review the preparation tomorrow again and depending on that we will take a call when to launch the operation,� a senior forest official told The Assam Tribune, indicating that the drive may be launched from Friday.
Sources said the operation is likely to be launched using bulldozers and other equipment from multiple directions and for the logistics, barracks will be set up at strategic locations. The finance department has sanctioned Rs 90.14 lakh for the eviction drive.
The government is also likely to disconnect the illegal power connections being availed by the encroachers and make announcements through loud speakers hours before the eviction is carried out.
Before Amchang was declared a wildlife sanctuary in June 2004, there were just six villages in the reserved forest areas � Ekarabari, Sowali, Lukuwa Sal, Shyam Pathar, Hatisila and Kilinghop. However, only two villages � Ekarabari and Sowali � were created prior to enactment of the Forest Land Conservation Act, 1980, hence all the other villages are illegal, according to official records.
According to a �rapid survey� conducted by a government department, there were 1,114 households spread across an area of 228.36 hectares of land in 24 locations. The number of encroachers could be over 6,000. However, a joint survey carried out recently stated that the area under encroachment could be around 500 hectares. The number of households would be over 1,414 in 34 locations.
Many encroachers were allegedly settled at the behest of two former MLAs, one of whom had even provided tin sheets to them, documents assessed by The Assam Tribune stated. There are even quarries operating illegally from inside the forest land and some of the settlers are also suspected to be illegal migrants.
The High Court had taken up the suo moto PIL in 2013 following a letter written by NGO Early Birds to the Chief Justice detailing how the area of the sanctuary was shrinking rapidly due to the encroachments.
Early Birds president Moloy Baruah said the sanctuary had an area of 78.64 sq km.
�In response to our RTI, the forest department in 2008 had stated that the area under encroachment is 9 sq km. In 2013, the department said in another RTI reply that the encroached area is 4.50 sq km. We then decided to write to the High Court. There have been sixteen hearings in the court till date,� Baruah said.
Earlier in 1993, Bibhav Talukdar of Aaranyak had also filed a petition in the High Court. The court had in 2000 directed the government to clear all encroachments from the forest areas in and around Guwahati. Baruah said that nothing had happened even after the court directive in the year 2000.
Baruah said this time the court is proceeding in phases and first the boundary was demarcated, followed by consolidation of the boundary pillars.
The Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary has three reserved forests (RF). Amchang RF comprises Block I of the sanctuary and has an area of 53.18 sq km. The Khanapara RF and South Amchang RF comprise Block II of the sanctuary with an area of 25.46 sq km.
The sanctuary is shelter to about 44 species of mammals and 250 avian species, besides varied numbers of reptiles and amphibians.
RITURAJ BORTHAKUR

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Civic service in L'Arche in France: how does it work?
Civic service in L'Arche: how does it work?
As a volunteer, you live and work in a house alongside people with a disability, other volunteers, assistants and leaders, thereby creating a "home". Supporting the educational staff, you contribute to bringing the soul of the home to life, both through your presence and your personal qualities. You participate in everyday activities, in the home and at work: meals, celebrations, housework and relaxation activities. You accompany people in their everyday routines. In short, it's like a family where everyone helps keep the house going!
Through a supportive, people-centred approach, the volunteer sets out to discover different cultures, traditions and nationalities. Life as a volunteer in L'Arche is a journey towards acceptance of difference: it is placing the weakest person at the heart of our lives and growing with him or her. It's being ready to be overwhelmed by an unexpected encounter from which you emerge transformed. It is allowing yourself time to reflect on your life choices and expectations. The spiritual dimension of each community allows and reinforces the value of this search.
As a volunteer, you are at the heart of life in the home and are supported by a team of professionals who train you, guide you and encourage you to take on responsibilities.
☛ You live in a L'Arche home. You are given board and lodging.
☛ You receive a monthly allowance (approximately 480 €).
☛ You receive formation, which enables you to perform your role, as well as civic and citizenship training.
☛ You are accompanied by a guardian.
☛ You benefit from full social security protection.
☛ Each month you are there entitles you to days off.
Every year, L'Arche in France sends an end-of-mission survey out to all volunteers who have just completed their civic service. It is their opportunity to review their experience: how did they find their civic service? How would they judge their experience? What difficulties did they confront? What have they taken away from this?
You can be a volunteer on a full-time civic service contract for 6 to 12 months.
The allowance is covered by the State.
You can be a volunteer on a full-time association volunteer contract for 6 to 24 months.
The allowance is covered by the association.
Civic service aims to enable young people to make a commitment to the community by carrying out missions serving the common good. By offering a life shared with people with an intellectual disability, L'Arche therefore offers a general interest mission which corresponds to the civic service programme.
The communities of L'Arche in France are approved by the French Civic Service agency in accordance with the civic service and association volunteering commitment.
The L'Arche communities regularly organise events open to young people from all walks of life: out-of-the ordinary WYD, sporting events, weekend meetings and spiritual retreats... Check out the calendar.
In L'Arche, we learn things we don't learn at school; we escape our social, cultural and intellectual backgrounds... Some discover this through an out-of-the-ordinary internship.


When a crisis occurs, it will not be enough to have a contingency plan ready, practised and understood. Communication is also essential – and that job cannot be left to just anyone.
Crisis communication remains an important chapter in the textbook. Brutal demands are made on the people in the front rank of responding to crises.
The questions they face include what they can say, when they should say it, when they should not say it, how should it be said, who can say it, and who is responsible for saying it.
But what about responsibility for communicating in a crisis?
Is this so clear-cut for everyone?
Most large petroleum-related companies, Norwegian or with a long presence in Norway, treat crisis communication as part of the expertise of their own organisation.
But the question is how players who are small and medium-sized, newcomers, or have a limited Norwegian organisation and a head office elsewhere are to take charge of an accident.
The number of companies in this category has increased markedly on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) in recent years. Several have opted for new organisational models.
At the same time, the PSA has seen that a number of the international operators have chosen to centralise their activities around their head offices. Many use or plan to employ external resources for discharging key responsibilities. The regulations permit this in a number of areas.
However, all operators on the NCS are required to have their own expertise in such areas as managing and coordinating emergency response to hazards or accidents.
Every operator and licensee, regardless of size, must have an organisation in Norway able to ensure – on an independent basis – that petroleum operations comply with the regulations.
This requirement is also relevant for communicating the strategic decisions which must constantly be taken during a possible crisis.
The question then becomes how far smaller operators plan to leave crisis communication to their head office, or to an agency with the relevant expertise but without responsibility for the company's operations.
In a performance based regulatory regime like Norway's, the way compliance is achieved can vary from company to company as long as each achieves the required level of safety.
But the operator also has the duty to maintain an organisation which allows it to fulfil its operator responsibility as defined in the regulations.
Although the latter give operators great freedom to organise their activities and to utilise external resources in pursuing them, some important restrictions apply.
One is that the operator must make its own assessments and take decisions at a strategic level, such as the third line in the emergency response organisation. The third-line concept relates precisely to strategic aspects such as the company's responsibility, commercial decisions and overall assessments – and communicating these to the media and the world at large.
So an operator must express its responsibility, assessments and duty to the public in Norway during a crisis.
Generally speaking, this role cannot be handled by consultants or be left to an office in another country. An operator on the NCS is also duty bound to keep the regulators continuously updated on developments in an emergency, and on the action it plans to take to manage the accident.
Many aspects of crisis communication are relevant for the PSA. It is itself an emergency response organisation, and has a duty phone staffed around the clock. The duty officer receives all notifications of undesirable incidents and is responsible for establishing the PSA's emergency response organisation when necessary.
Relevant personnel are then called to its response centre in Stavanger so that the authorities can maintain continuous supervision of the operator's actions.
The PSA's assessments of the position are also conveyed to the world at large, and information and media management specialists form part of the emergency response team.


Over the past week, the civil unrest in Egypt has taken a turn for the worst, developing into extreme violence. While the exact death toll is unknown, reports estimate that approximately 800 protesters have been killed and many more injured in the last week alone.
Videos and reports from the conflict show Muslim Brotherhood members and the military personnel engaging in open gun-battles in the street; in addition to these battles, the military has fired upon completely unarmed protesters—including first responders, reporters, and obvious non-combatants—and the Muslim Brotherhood has targeted the Egyptian Christian population under the assumption that they side with the military.
Personally, I have great sympathy for the Egyptian people and think that something needs to be done to stop this crisis immediately. Even if one disagrees with the Muslim Brotherhood in virtually every issue (as I do), they have the right to protest without fear of facing a firing squad in the streets. That said, the exact course of action that needs to be taken remains to be seen, as the very nature of this conflict makes choosing a good solution extremely difficult.
The situation is Egypt is incredibly tragic, but it is also unbelievable complicated: The Muslim Brotherhood won power democratically, but they started to pass theocratic and undemocratic legislation, so the military performed a coup—this coup was supported by many Egyptians, but it also was incredibly anti-democratic and resulted in massive protests. This situation was further complicated when the Muslim Brotherhood started to become violent in their protests and the military began shooting indiscriminately against unarmed protestors.
On one side, we have theocrats who won an election but who abused their power once in office being shot in the street and engaging in anti-Christian terrorism. On the other side, we have the military killing people indiscriminately in the aftermath of a coup (and yes, regardless of the word-games being played by the American government, that is what it was) which initially heralded great public support.
It is untenable for us to support the military while they shoot innocent people for exercising their rights. That said, their coup against the Muslim Brotherhood was not necessarily a bad thing, as the Morsi government was consolidating power in an attempt to subjugate Egypt under Islamic law and make it almost impossible to vote them out of power (against the will of the Egyptian people).
In my opinion, the best (but still imperfect) solution to this situation is for the Egyptian military to stop all violent opposition to protests and announce new elections, including a larger variety of candidates than were given during the election which Morsi was elected, and in far enough in the future to give all parties the ability to organize. This solution would ease pressure on all sides, as it would give the Muslim Brotherhood the ability to confirm Morsi as president through peaceful means while giving the rest of the population the ability to vote Morsi out now that they know what he intends for the country.
In addition to easing pressure and mitigating violence in Egypt, this solution would allow the Egyptian people to make a more free and informed choice in their governance. The election which elected Morsi was relatively soon after the toppling of a dictator and the only organized political entity was the Muslim Brotherhood—this gave them a massive advantage and allowed Morsi to beat the other potential candidates. To further compound this advantage, the person who Morsi was running against was Ahmed Mohamed Shafik Zaki—Mubarak's handpicked Prime Minister before the Egyptian revolution—thus reducing the choices in the election to the theocratic newcomer or a relic of the old regime. Opening this competition to more choices would give the Egyptian people the political equivalent to a mulligan and would ensure that democracy was sustained, even in the face of a coup.
Unfortunately, I see no way for the United States to exert any control over this situation without causing more problems than we solve. Any solution which we push on the Egyptians will be considered encroachment by western powers and any taking of sides will likely result in us alienating massive portions of the Egyptian people—if we support the protesting Muslim Brotherhood, we alienate the secular and military demographics of the Egyptian people while, if we support the military, we will alienate the more religious Egyptians and those who have been harmed by the military's brutal crackdown.
The USA must immediately stop giving aid money to Egypt, simply because federal law restricts the USA from giving military aid money to military governments established through a coup. This is the law and, unless it is changed, our government's hands are tied—the law doesn't give us an exemption to use if we support the military coup on ideological, strategic, or economic grounds. That said, such a withdrawal of funds is does pose a risk of decreasing our ability to affect the situation through exerting pressure against the Egyptian government.
At the end of the day, this situation is difficult because there is no real external solution to be seen. It is possible for foreign powers to exert pressure—the other Muslim countries in the area probably have a better chance of affecting change without blowback than the USA—but the solution will likely have to deal with their conflict internally. Unfortunately, this conflict could easily devolve into a civil war like Syria or a military autocracy (due to an overreaction to the protests and the desire to preserve "order" through any means necessary) before such a solution is worked out between the involved parties.
Most cogent observations I have read yet about Egypt. The only additional comments I would make is that if USA quits funding, many other middle east countries will continue.
It may not actually true that other countries would follow if the USA pulls out–in fact, several countries (including Saudi Arabia) agreed to continue aid to Egypt and were discussing providing matching funds if the USA were to cancel aid. I don't know how serious these discussions were, but they were certainly going on and by interests with the economic power to back them up.
I concur with restwelll. However, not strong enough on the "USA needs to stay out of its middle eastern meddling", PERIOD.
I agree that we should stop trying to take military action in the Middle East and attempting to play king-maker, we do have a very legitimate role in the region for a diplomatic agenda. The USA can act as an impartial mediator in a way which in not really possible for other countries, thus we should continue in this fashion–I don't consider that meddling.


For Mazen Rahhal, a shopowner in a bustling district of Beirut, Lebanon's economy has seldom felt more precarious. In one store, he sells clothes at a fraction of their previous price. Another, which he rented to a rival business, now lies empty.
For Lebanese businesses and people, economic unease and the lack of a government to take firm control over policy — some three months after they voted in a general election — have become ceaseless sources of worry.
"We are struggling just to manage the costs we have to pay: from electricity, employee wages, everything," said Rahhal. His family has owned shops on Hamra Street, the main business thoroughfare of west Beirut, since the 1970s.
As Lebanon rebuilt after its 15-year civil war ended in 1990, there was a period of economic growth, and as in its 1950s and '60s heyday, it drew Gulf Arab tourists ready to open their wallets as they escaped the stifling summer heat of home.
In 2005 prime minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated, opening up wide divisions over the roles of the Iran-backed Hezbollah and of powerful neighbor Syria.
Economic growth, which averaged 8% to 10% before the Syria war, has averaged 1% to 2% since it began, and a purchasing managers' index for Blom Bank has shown business activity in decline every month since 2013.
The state owes about 150% of the gross domestic product, much of it to local banks, whose own business is partly based on remittances paid into them by Lebanese working abroad, in turn partly drawn by attractive interest rates.
"Let's not make fools of each other. There is no money in the market and we need to adapt to this situation and get used to it," said Mathieu.
"We are selling more, our volumes are going up. But that's balanced by a price drop," he said.
Since May's election the rival political parties have squabbled over forming a new national unity government — one that contains enough of the major parties to ensure political backing across the country.
They have now canceled the wedding.
"We were already booking everything for the wedding. The roses, the restaurant, the church. Everything. We paid a deposit of $6,000, so how can we get it back?" she said.


text:
Q: Why should I urlencode URLs passed via GET Suppose I do
http://site.com/something?url=http://lol.com/lol

are there any advantages (eg security etc) of doing
'http://site.com/something?url=' . urlencode('http://lol.com/lol');

instead of just passing in an unencoded version of the url in? Why should I urlencode something passed via GET instead of just passing in an uncoded version (though of course if the url param has & or ? or = in it then I should definitely encode it...but suppose they don't, why should I encode them)

A: There are characters which have special meaning in URLs. Those characters will have special meaning in the outer URL (instead of the inner URL where they belong) if you pass them without encoding.
For example, if you want to pass
http://example.com/foo?1=2&3=4

And you don't encode it, then you will get:
http://example.com/?url=http://example.com/foo?1=2&3=4

with
url is http://example.com/foo?1=2
3 is 4

suppose they don't, why should I encode them

Because then you have to look at every URL you pass to decide if it needs encoding or not.
Always encoding is much simpler and less error prone then deciding on a case by case basis.

A: as long as i know the second sample is pretty good if you have the probalability to use unicode characters in your url.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Which rights do you have if you don't have documents of legal residency in the Netherlands?
In any case, you have a right to medically required care. You also have a right to legal assistance, and every child under the age of 18 is allowed to attend school.
Which rights do you not have if you don't have documents of legal residency in the Netherlands?
You do not have a right to collective government services. This means: you have no right to financial support, you cannot receive an individual housing subsidy, you cannot get insurance from a health insurance company, you have no right to child benefits, you have no right to an occupancy permit, and no employer is allowed to hire you.
Can you request asylum because you have HIV?
Having HIV is not a reason for being granted asylum. However, there can be reasons of a humanitarian nature if you fear your HIV status will result in your being persecuted and discriminated against in your own country.
What can you do if you find out during the asylum procedure that you have HIV?
In that case, you could start an application procedure for a residence permit on the grounds of a medical emergency, in addition to your request for asylum. You will have to meet special requirements for this.
Can you apply for legal residency in the Netherlands because you have HIV?
It is possible to start an application procedure for a residence permit on the grounds of a medical emergency.
Are you legal in the Netherlands if you have started an application procedure for residency on the grounds of a medical emergency?
During the procedure, your stay in the Netherlands will be legal and you will have the right to medically necessary care, but you will not have a right to make use of collective government services.
Can you get a postponement of departure due to illness?
If you are so ill that you are not capable of travelling, you may be granted a postponement of departure if you satisfy a number of very strict conditions. The Aliens Police/Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) must consult a doctor. The Medical Advice Bureau (BMA) is often involved as well. You can ask for temporary reception/accommodation on the basis of Art. 64 of the Aliens Act.
Can you get temporary accommodation?
Temporary reception/accommodation is possible in a number of different situations on the basis of the Aliens Act. In practice, however, this is often difficult to get.
Where can you get more information on Dutch legislation relating to aliens, on legal support, on the situation in specific countries and on access to care?
For information (in Dutch) on the laws relating to aliens and on legal support in the Netherlands, check out the website of Het Juridisch Loket: www.hetjl.nl - click on Vreemdelingen.
For information and advice on the access to medical care and how this can be paid for, or on the right of residence, accommodation possibilities and the situation in specific countries, your HIV nurse / social worker can consult Lampion via www.lampion.info.
For a list of organisations that provide or help you find emergency accommodation, check out the website (in Dutch) of Stichting Landelijke Ongedocumenteerden Steunpunt (LOS): www.stichtinglos.nl. Click on Informatie, then Steunorganisaties, then Noodopvang.
Always get advice from an experienced law firm that is specialised in the laws relating to aliens.Make sure your lawyer gets a copy of every letter you send to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND), the Medical Advice Bureau (BMA), etc. Fees will always need to be paid, but private funds may be able to offer you financial help for this.


BikeReady is about having the skills and experience to bike for life. It is New Zealand's national cycle education system and includes curriculum-based learning.
There are two components to how schools get involved with BikeReady. These are cycle skills training sessions with professional instructors, and teacher-led classroom learning.
Curriculum-based learning helps young people place their bike riding in a wider context of participation in a safe transport system. Lesson plans support students taking part in BikeReady Grade 1 skills training, or any class interested in exploring the context of bike riding.
An outline of big ideas students can explore in relation to bike riding, and how teachers can use this resource.
Activities for finding out what students know about safe riding and having fun on a bike.
Six resources full of classroom activities. These expand on the content of cycle skills training sessions through alignment to the learning areas of the New Zealand Curriculum.
Extension ideas for student inquiry projects looking into challenges and opportunities for cyclists in the local community.
National and regional cycling organisations. Key competencies SOLO self-assessment rubrics. Example planning when cycling as a context for Citizenship and Hauora.


After being delayed by almost an hour due to tornado warnings in the area, The Tigers came to Pendleton Heights to compete in the 2016 Arabian Roundup. The Yorktown Tiger Girls had another very impressive meet, placing 3rd in the overall team standings behind only Fishers (currently ranked 7th in the State), and Pendleton Heights (currently ranked 12th in the State). They placed 4 individuals in the top 20. Madeline Aul led the charge as the top ECI finisher in the meet with a 12th place finish in 21:21. She was followed by Suzanne Scanameo in 16th (22:18), Hannah Rapp in 17th (22:22), and Indira Brown in 19th (22:43).
The Tiger Boys finished 7th overall in the meet and were led by Kevin Kratz. Kratz had an outstanding race and finished 4th overall in 17:21. The rest of the Tiger's scorers were: Rob Lorch in 29th (19:07), Athi Mlungwana in 43rd (19:31), Caleb Bonsack in 56th (19:49), and Sean Weiss in 62nd (20:03).
The Yorktown Boys and Girls XC teams will next be in action this Saturday 8/27 at the Rushville Invite at 10:00am.


Hello freelancers. I need professional designer to re-design one section in 1 page. Be fast for you if you have good designer skills. I hire only 5 start rating and only if you bid be on budget. Also i need you start work right now.
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Hello Freelancers. Looking for some logo ideas. Ideally typography based logo and something that projects simplicity & positivity. Company name is attached.
Require professional company name logo plus professional email signature plus business card artwork. Company name is "RC Capital Finance"
I would like someone to translate 3 motivational videos from English to Arabic. Videos are not decided so you can just choose whatever video...inspiring and deliver good messages. Videos must not contain music and should be 3 minutes long maximum. I'll be adding them to my twitter account under my project name. New freelancers are more than welcome.
A freelancer designed me an image to be used on an embroidered patch but the .png image is too small and was done poorly. I need you to fix the image so that it can be used. It needs to be 2.5 inches in diameter. shouldn't take more than 15 minutes. Project will go to whoever can complete it faster. $20.
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Looking to hire someone to help write emails and content, I would estimate 3-4 times a week at most with 300-600 words per piece. Please note you will need to learn or know about cryptocurrency, but for a good writer I am very happy to help and help closely with the right person.
someone to code a way to go out and collect my reminders and calendar events form a few ...the ability to change the passwords form time to time when my company requires the reset. Once the collection is made i would ike the data logicaly sorted and dispalyed in an email that is sent at 0745am every day. I am very open to how to approach the end goal.
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We need...includes : 1. Setup new dedicated server with WHM 2. Shift all the domains/sites ( around 6 sites ) to new server on multiple ips. 3. Proper Domain server configuration 4. Email configurations 5. WHM configuration for security etc. 6. Proper backup procedure for all sites You need to suggest good dedicated server providers also.
We are looking for a person who knows well about how to scrape b2b email for list building / prospecting, using tools. Interested parties can answer this ad.
Dear freelancers, I am looking to hire someone with great knowledge of excel and understands the crypto trade. I have a crypto trade file with about 2500 rows of trade data and want to check the profit / loss / exchange fee etc per script wise based on the FIFO method. Quick turn around will be highly appreciated.
We are a company and would like to have explanatory videos for us and our product. More details you will see in the do...are a company and would like to have explanatory videos for us and our product. More details you will see in the document. Kindly go through it. We will eliminate those freelancers who don't read the document and make ROBOTIC bids.
We need a banner for sales, we will provide the product model, discount rate, slogan and wording in both Chinese and English version. Freelancers have to look for the correct product images in high quality resolution.


I sometimes surprise people by loving Paul. People expect me – as a woman, a feminist, a lifelong fan and (I hope!) practitioner of liberation theology – to squirm at least a bit at the mention of Paul's name. So I figured that as we as the Episcopal Church embark on reading Paul's longest contribution to the Biblical canon, I might just share all the reasons I love Paul, just in case your enthusiasm for reading the letter to the Romans needs a little boost.
I'll start by clarifying that I subscribe to the widely held academic view that the seven letters properly attributed to Paul himself are 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon, most of 2 Corinthians and Romans. If Paul was the credible author of some of the later epistles written in his name, we'd need to have a further conversation.
I love Paul because he is real. Through his letters, I can conjure Paul as a real Christian leader, not some dreamy ideal. He's faithful. He's annoying. He's limited in his understanding. He's brilliant. He's stuck up. He knows it and agonizes over it. He's a gossip. He worries constantly about his legacy. He loves the churches he has founded with all his heart.
I love Paul because he pays attention. He is careful with language. His writing shows signs of crafting and re-crafting in the hope of being precisely understood. Paul knows his knows his audience(s). He has observed and participated in their cultures, their public and private lives, the religious perspectives they bring with them. He speaks directly to the strengths, weaknesses, anxieties and temptations of each community within his experience.
I love Paul because he is woke. He understands privilege and power. Paul is deeply aware of his own privilege and of the relative privilege and disempowerment of the people around him. He is careful and considered in how he uses privilege. He provides the best Biblical critique of power. He fears for the church's relationship to worldly power and recognizes its potential for treachery. Paul's theology of the cross is not just a theory of salvation; he nails the church to the cross and doesn't let us get caught up in our fantasies of victory.
I love Paul because he is all about community. He loves and commits himself to church in all of its human messiness. He may rage at the church for its failings, but there's no doubt that he believes its work and witness is vitally important. Paul is committed to developing leadership beyond his own. He raises up new leaders (including women!) and expects them to know things he doesn't. Paul is an organizer par excellence.
I love Paul because he gets some stuff wrong. Who the hell doesn't? I don't need Paul to have progressive 21st century understandings of gender and sexuality in order to believe that were he alive now, he would be grappling with those questions in complex, faithful, forward-looking ways. As I near the half-century mark in my own life, I can see how tremendously my own perspectives have shifted as new experiences and other prophetic voices have crossed my path and called me to see and hear new things.
Finally, I love Paul because his pre-Christendom world speaks directly to our post-Christendom one. Every time I read Paul, I find good news that is directly relevant to the urban, multicultural world with chaotic and competing religious voices where I live my real life and my real ministry.
This blog is part of a series for the Good Book Club. Learn more about the Good Book Club here.


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NATO's proportional concept in the Eastern borders: the Stoltenberg policy
Eu Mundus / Relations extérieures
On April 20, 2016 the NATO-Russia Council meeting took place. This meeting was necessary because of the continuous offensive policies of Russia (mainly in Ukraine), but also because of the increasing tension along Eastern borders of the Atlantic Alliance. The Russian growing naval engagement in the Baltic region and in the Black Sea has caused NATO reaction, which has significantly increased its presence in the Eastern borders during the last year. For this reason, NATO and Russia strongly requested a Council meeting on April 20 in Brussels. The aim of this meeting was to both discuss the Ukrainian issue concerning the illegal annexation by Russia of the Crimea, and transparency between the two parties in order to reduce the risk of a conflict. Since 2010, NATO has put in place a new strategy based on collective security, conflict prevention and cooperation with neighbours countries in order to neutralize any type of threat for its member countries. This article initially will examine the post-Cold War NATO's key strategies, stressing out its « new » principles to deal with the threats of a multipolar world. Then, we will examine NATO reactions against the offensive policy of Russia and the conclusions of the meeting of 20 April. Finally, we will consider NATO policies founded on the increasing military presence along the Eastern border of the Alliance, highlighting the current political-military situation based on the concept of "action-reaction".
NATO's new keys strategies: the Strategic Concept
On November 19, 2010 at their Summit meeting in Lisbon, NATO leaders adopted a new «Strategic Concept». It served as an Alliance's roadmap for the following ten years and that reconfirmed the bedrock of Euro-Atlantic security: the commitment of countries to defend one another against attacks. The document presented NATO's vision for an evolving Alliance that wanted to defend its members against modern threats and committed NATO to become more agile, more capable and more effective. Stressing that «the time has come for NATO to develop new capabilities and new partnerships», the new Strategic Concept paved the way for the Alliance to modernise its ability to carry out its core mission of collective defence, while continuing to promote international stability. The document highlighted that NATO wanted to stay ready for playing an active role in crisis management operations. NATO wanted ensuring common defence and security, continuing to be effective in a changing world, against new threats, with new capabilities and new partners. Three essential core tasks were underlined:
Collective defence: NATO's member states want to assist each other against attack, in accordance with Article 5 of the Washington Treaty;
Crisis management: NATO's want to develop political and military tools in order to manage crisis and prevent it.
Cooperative security: the Alliance engages itself to enhance international security, developing partnership with other countries and international organisations.
Deterrence remained a core element of NATO strategy. Member states ensured their will to increase their capabilities to deter and defend their population against any threat, to maintain an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces, to make more robust, mobile and deployable the NATO Response Force (a high readiness and technologically advanced force comprising land, air, sea, and special forces units capable of being deployed quickly on operations wherever needed,established in 2003), and to carry out training, exercises contingency planning and information exchange to ensure defence.
In 2010, NATO identified new threats, such as proliferation of ballistic missiles, nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, but above all instability beyond its borders. In fact, since his return to the Kremlin, as reported by the «Group of policy experts report to the NATO Secretary General», President Vladimir Putin has imposed an authoritarian leadership over the Russian federation, undertaking an important significant military modernization programme. According to the «Strategic Concept», NATO developed its prevention politic, based on the concept «action-reaction»: NATO measures depend on Russia actions.
At NATO Summit in Wales, in September 2014 Allied leaders met Petro Poroshenko, Ukrainian President in the NATO-Ukraine Commission. In a joint statement, they condemned Russia's annexation of Crimea and its continued and deliberate destabilisation of eastern Ukraine violating of international law. They also agreed a comprehensive package of measures to help Ukraine dealing with its security. Trust Funds – a mechanism which allows individual Ally and partner countries to provide financial support on a voluntary basis – have been set up to support the launch of substantial new initiatives in five critical areas, including:
Command, control, communications and computers (C4): to support the modernisation of Ukraine's structures and capabilities;
Logistics and standardization: to help reform Ukraine's logistic system and increase its interoperability with NATO,
Cyber defence: to help Ukraine developing technical capabilities to contrast cyber threats, provide training and advice on policy development;
Military career transition: to assist Ukraine's defence ministry with the development of a sustainable resettlement programme
Medical rehabilitation: to ensure that injured Ukrainian servicemen and women have access to appropriate rehabilitation services.
NATO leaders also agreed to establish a «Very High Readiness Joint Task Force» (VJTF). It consists of a land brigade numbering around 5,000 troops, supported by air and sea. This continuous arms race was the basis of the debate that took place in Brussels during the NATO-Russia Council meeting.
The policy of deterrence persevered by the former Secretary General Anders Rasmussen, has been continued by his successor, Jens Stoltenberg, who has inherited the burden of a policy begun before his assignment to NATO. In fact, since 2015, the new Secretary General had to continue a chain reaction already started and forwarded. The meeting of April 2016 strongly asked both by himself and the Kremlin was a hope for a truce, but the results were not what we all expected.
«No business as usual»: the Stoltenberg answer
«We should not have high expectations from the NATO-Russia Council because Russia now perceives the Alliance as an enemy» said Bruno Lete, an expert on NATO affairs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) during an interview. In his opinion, one of the reasons why it is important for NATO to hold meetings with Russia is due to the Alliance's desire to understand Moscow's intentions before the big upcoming NATO meeting in Poland, where relations with Russia and the enlargement of NATO forces in the Baltic States will be one of the key issues on the agenda.
In the last two years NATO has continued to maintain a political and military dialogue with Russia in order to monitor the evolution of the crisis in Crimea (see article «NATO-Russia Council: on 20 April the new D-day for the international equilibrium»). On February 5, 2016, during the informal meeting of the European Ministers of Defence in Amsterdam, the debate dealt with two issues: the civil war in Syria and the Turkish engagement in the migration crisis. Moreover, the informal meeting was also the occasion to announce the United States plans in Europe. In fact, during this meeting, NATO Secretary General confirmed that the US have increased four time the amount they spend on military presence in Europe funding more troops in the Eastern part of the Alliance, and financing heavy equipment, tanks and armoured vehicles. In Amsterdam, NATO collaboration with the US and the European Union was strengthened in order to fight against hybrid threats, such as the effects of the Syrian civil war and migration. The Syrian civil war was another point stressed by the Alliance: the intense Russian airstrikes, mainly targeting opposition troops, was undermining the efforts to find a political solution in Syria and at the same time was causing increased tensions and violations of Turkish airspace. According to the Alliance, this created risks and heightened tensions inside NATO's space. In his statement, Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, repeatedly hinted that NATO reacts in order to prevent a conflict: every political and military measure implemented were the natural reaction to a measure already accomplished by the Kremlin.
In fact, on March 17, 2016, during the NATO meeting with Prime Minister of Latvia Republic, Stoltenberg presented the ongoing adaptation process to face the challenges that may endanger the security of the Alliance members. On one side, NATO wants to adapt to new threats, and on the other to become more flexible: this is the combination to become stronger. Actually, NATO doesn't see any imminent threat against the Baltic allied members, but it sees a more assertive Russia with a significant military build-up in the region. This is the reason why NATO is responding and responded increasing its presence in the Baltic Region with air policing, with naval presence in the Baltic Sea and also with more exercises of troops on the ground on a rotational basis. During the last month, NATO decided to further increase its presence in the Eastern part of the Alliance including the Baltic region, and the readiness and responsiveness of its forces: now the Alliance has tripled the size of theNATO Response Force so it can deploy forces quickly if needed. The aim is the prevention. According to Stoltenberg declaration «everything NATO does is defensive, it is proportionate and it is absolutely in line with our national commitments. And we do not seek confrontation with Russia».
On April 20, in this scenario marked by the action-reaction principle the NATO-Russia Council was opened. At the end of the meeting, NATO position remained unchanged: the concept of preventive action based on the action-reaction principle was reaffirmed. First, the press conference began with the phrase «..we all agree that it is in all our interest to keep political channels for political dialogue open. However, this does not mean that we are back to business as usual». In other words, the meeting was an opportunity to meet and discuss the issue of Ukraine, military activities, and transparency in order to reduce the risk of a conflict. However, NATO reaffirmed its support to Ukraine and to the preservation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Secondly, NATO activities in the Baltic and the Black Sea were defined transparent and in compliance with international law.
In fact, again, NATO message consist of:
Everything NATO does, even in the Baltic Region, is proportionate, it is defensive, and it is fully in line with its international commitments.
What NATO is doing is an answer to substantial military build-up in Russia.
It is important to remember that what NATO has done in the Baltic Region is in response to illegal annexation of Crimea and Russia's destabilizing behavior in Eastern Ukraine. NATO's increased military presence in the Baltic Region happened six months after the illegal annexation of Crimea. The actions taken and their timing confirm that what NATO has done is a response to the actions of Russia in Ukraine.
On May 2, 2016 according to an interview granted to Deutsche Welle, a Germany's international broadcaster, the future NATO Summit in Warsaw will provide further answers. The three most important points for the future of NATO-Russia relationship are the Polish question, the establishment of a new base in Romania, and finally the Summit in Warsaw.
NATO is discussing the possibility of deploying four battalions in the three Baltic countries and Poland. According to NATO, this multinational presence, with soldiers coming from different countries in each of these units, could send a very clear signal: an attack against one of the Baltic countries would be an attack against the entire alliance. Even if there is not an imminent threat against a member of NATO, this measure is justified by Russia behaviour: it has tripled its military expenditure since 2000, and it has used force to change European borders.
On May 12, 2016 a defence missile station was installed in Romania. In Deveselu, it was the ceremony for the activation of the Aegis Ashore missile defence that will provide defensive coverage of NATO territory against medium and short-range missile attacks. During NATO press conference in Romania, Secretary General underlined the importance of defending the Alliance from ballistic missile threat. However, the statements suggest that at the practical level, this base is a defensive one: the aim is to intercept ballistic missiles. No clear reference is against the Kremlin, because the base has a defensive purpose. Once again, the Secretary General said that NATO does not seek confrontation with Russia, or a new Cold War. It's always the prevention concept: the Alliance is conducting a dual approach towards Russia, being both strong and predictable, in order to avoid an international crisis.
Poland will host a second Aegis Ashore site at Redzikowo. Spain is providing a base for the Aegis ships. Germany is providing a missile defence command centre. Turkey hosts an early-warning radar station. The United Kingdom is investing in more ground-based radar. Denmark and the Netherlands are upgrading their frigates with new radar. The United States is making a major investment in Europe collective defence (the European phased adaptive approach).
According to Stoltenberg the system NATO is building is defensive. The projectiles NATO uses to knock out incoming missiles do not contain explosives; they simply punch their targets out of the sky. In other words, NATO could not use them offensively. Moreover, NATO will continue to engage in dialogue with Russia when and where it can. NATO-Russia Council proved that despite divergences, keeping channels of communication open is important. Notwithstanding the considerations of the international community, which sees the NATO-Russia issue as a return to the past in which the Alliance is controlled by the United States, and Russia is an offensive and destabilizing power, we should keep distance from clichés, because the current political causes of NATO and Russia antagonism are much deeper.
Today's NATO is not the same NATO of the Cold War. The new policy, strategic and military objectives are not only consequence of external threats, but also of internal pressures, and these must be considered. NATO's enlargement process incorporated countries that for many years have been under the Soviet control. This is why these new countries have a vision of the Alliance similar to that of the Cold War years. We must consider that after 1989, NATO had to re-invent its job in order to stay alive. The famous Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which sets out the terms of collective defence, was the magnet for adhesion of new countries between 1999 and 2004 (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia). Furthermore among countries seeking to entry into NATO there are Georgia and Ukraine. Leaving aside the weaknesses of NATO as institution, we must consider that after 2004 a new curtain in the Eastern borders was created.
NATO now runs at two speeds. On one side, there is the group of « elders » founders (Italy, Norway, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Luxembourg, Portugal, United Kingdom, United States, Netherlands) who see Russia as a threat (but that can be neutralize with economic and political instruments). They perceive NATO as a strong regional institution to be asked in case of extreme necessity. Then, on the other, there is the «newcomers» group, in which half of the countries see NATO as the anchor of salvation according to «anti-Soviet». If we add the deterioration of the international scenario and the Russian offensive politic we can understand NATO measures. Thus, today we find NATO hit by external pressures and internal differences. This is the reason of Jens Stoltenberg's appointment as NATO Secretary General (strongly supported by Germany, USA, UK, and countries of northern Europe) in 2014: a socialist, and a non-European who for years when he was prime minister of Norway was able to speak with Russia on issues related to the economy, politics and diplomacy.
The result of NATO policy is simply the sum of the matters listed above. There is a defensive policy (but never offensive), an adaptation to new threats, an increase in military spending (but in order to answer to Russian offensive), new military basis (but created to prevent). In short, a NATO that still adapts itself because of exogenous and endogenous forces, and who wants to satisfy all its member countries, be able to please everyone, founding itself (since 2014) on a policy based on conflict prevention.
Maria Elena Argano
NATO website, NATO adopts new Strategic Concept: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_68172.htm
NATO website, Active Engagement, modern defence: http://www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/official_texts_68580.htm?selectedLocale=en
NATO website, Collective Defence, Common security: http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2014_06/20140606_140602-peg-collective_defence.pdf
The German Marshall Fund of United States Site, We should not expect too much from the NATO-Russia Council: http://www.gmfus.org/commentary/%E2%80%9Cwe-should-not-expect-too-much-nato-russia-council%E2%80%9D
NATO website, Joint press point – by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Latvia: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_129339.htm
24 Heures Site, OTAN nous ne voulons pas d'une guerre froide : http://www.24heures.ch/monde/OTAN-Nous-ne-voulons-pas-d-une-nouvelle-guerre-froide/story/25515640
NATO website, Defending our nations from ballistic missile threat: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_130662.htm
NRK Site, Stoltenberg letter på sløret: Merkel ringte meg om NATO-jobben i oktober: http://www.nrk.no/norge/merkel-ringte-stoltenberg-i-host-1.11637880
Étiquettes : Black Sea, eastern borders, NATO, Russie
Article précédentNATO-Russia Council: on 20 April the new D-day for the international equilibrium
Article suivantThe European Power: operation Sophia in and within UN and NATO
Elections législatives en Ukraine (26 octobre 2014) , compte rendu de la réunion AFET du Parlement européen en présence de Tana Zulueta (OSCE/BIDDH)
Agenda européen en matière de migration : le plan d'action renouvelé et les recommandations de la Commission européenne
Le Sport en danger : corruption, paris illégaux, blanchiment d'argent, agents des sportifs et des clubs, arbitres etc …


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Team Academic Genealogy
Publications ASPLOS Hall of Fame PLDI Hall of Fame CGO Hall of Fame MICRO Hall of Fame ISCA Hall of Fame
Parallelization Security Frontend Fault Tolerance Compiler Foundations Structural Modeling
SCAF Perspective NOELLE
The VELOCITY Compiler Project aims to address computer architecture problems with a new approach to compiler organization. This compiler organization, embodied in the VELOCITY Compiler (and derivative run-time optimizers), enables true whole-program scope, practical iterative compilation, and smarter memory analysis. These properties make VELOCITY better at extracting threads, improving reliability, and enhancing security.
The focus of the VELOCITY compiler is the removal of impediments to optimization, whether they come from procedures formed for software-engineering instead of optimization concerns, optimizations and optimization orders that don't achieve optimal performance on all or even most codes, or a complex series of memory operations that leads to overly conservative analysis.
To avoid procedure limitations, VELOCITY allows optimizations to choose the scope at which they operate by removing procedure boundaries that are the limits at which most traditional optimizations operate. Optimizations then operate on regions of arbitrary code formed for the purpose of optimization rather than software-engineering. Even with this freedom, which optimizations and the order in which optimizations should be applied is not always obvious, as there are many dependencies between optimizations and their effectiveness varies based on properties of the code. VELOCITY deals with this by exploring the space of optimizations available, called optimization space exploration, and choosing the best set of optimizations and their order for each piece of code compiled.
VELOCITY is also designed to remove data depencences in code that hinder advanced optimizations, particularly memory dependences. Through the use of aggressive pointer and shape analysis, many memory dependences which traditionally inhibit optimizations are removed. Pointer analysis computes the set of memory locations each instruction may access. The result of this analysis is used to compute dependences between instructions and to provide valuable information for other analyses. Because our pointer analysis represents dynamically-allocated heap locations according to their static allocation sites, it cannot distinguish between elements of linked data structures. To do this, a more advanced memory analysis, shape analysis, is performed. It determines the "shape" properties of these data structures, e.g. whether the data structure is a tree or a list, whether it contains cycle, etc. Our shape analysis encodes the shape properties using recursive predicates written in separation logic, and leverages a machine learning technique to automatically synthesize these predicates.
When static analysis fails, VELOCITY can utilize profiling information to speculatively remove dependences, particularly memory dependences. Memory profilers provide useful information on the dynamic memory behavior of programs that static memory analysis can not provide. Velocity provides conventional memory profiling that reasons about individual loads and stores. However, this is often insufficient, as advanced optimizations need knowledge about how entire data structures are accessed and modified. SHARP (Shape Analysis using Runtime Profiling) is a memory profiler that identifies the recursive data structures created when a program is executed and provides useful information including the shape of the RDS (list, tree etc), the size of the data structure, the traversal pattern and the average access time of the data structure. The information provided by Sharp can be used to prefetch recursive data structures and potentially other optimizations that manipulate entire data structures.
Finally, VELOCITY is being used to advanced the state of automatic multi-threading. Our mutli-threading optimization, Decoupled Software Pipelining (DSWP), works by creating multiple threads while respecting dependences. Traditional automatic multi-threading tends to look for loops free of dependence recurences and would not operate on these codes. VELOCITY, on the other hand, embraces these recurences when looking for code to parallelize, allowing it to apply multi-threading optimizations to a broader variety of codes.
VELOCITY has also explored the removal of impediments to porting of a compiler to a new platform. Particularly, VELOCITY can reverse engineer the structural hazards from a processor to create a better scheduler without human intervention or reading of processor manuals.


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More Parties or Directly Elect the President. You Can't Have Both.
NFL Playoffs, Divisional Round: Texans-Chiefs — Four Things To Watch For
USA Gymnastics Has Backed Out Of Buying the Karolyi Ranch
Dianna Wray
With results like this why wouldn't USA Gymnastics want to buy Karolyi Ranch, the place where the 2016 U.S. Olympics Gymnastics Team honed their skills to win the gold? (There are reasons.)
Screengrab from NBC
Dianna Wray | May 18, 2017 | 6:00am
When USA Gymnastics announced last summer that the organization would purchase the Karolyi Ranch — the storied facility located in the Sam Houston National Forest just north of Houston where famed gymnastics coaches Bela and Marta Karolyi have been training female gymnasts for decades, it was a logical decision. Martha Karolyi was about to lead the 2016 U.S. Olympics Gymnastics Team to gold, and then she would join her husband in retirement.
At that point, it looked like the Karolyis – the former Romanian coaches who had defected and then ascended the ranks to coach U.S. gymnasts to Olympic gold – were set to ease into a graceful retirement from the sport, where the legendary couple would preside over the Karolyi Ranch as new flocks of elite gymnasts arrived each year to train on the hallowed ground.
The Karolyis had originally envisioned the facility as a sort of working monument to their contributions to U.S. gymnastics. However, the plans have changed.
Olympic Gymnast McKayla Maroney Says She Was Molested At Karolyi Ranch
In the wake of the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the gymnastics world, USA Gymnastics, the governing body of the sport in the United States that selects the Olympic team, has pulled out of its agreement to buy the Karolyi Ranch, a move that has left the fate of the ranch, and of the coaches' reputations, in limbo.
The pair spent decades building the ranch. They started buying land on the site as early as 1983, just as Bela Karolyi was beginning to get his footing in the U.S. gymnastics world by opening Karolyi's Gymnastics Club and training Mary Lou Retton. Initially, they held summer training camps at the ranch and then national training camps started being held there as well.
Meanwhile, over the years, there were rumblings about how the Karolyis created a harsh environment for the young athletes. Gold medal gymnast Dominique Moceanu spoke out about the abusive training environment and says she was then treated as a pariah in the gymnastics world. The rumors simply never stuck.
When Marta was named team coordinator in 2001, that sealed the deal for the camp, and the national women's team began training there officially, and in 2011 it became a certified site for the U.S. Olympics gymnastics team. After the Rio Olympics last year, Marta was set to retire and the ranch they'd built would be handed over to USA Gymnastics.
But that was before last fall when it was revealed that team doctor Larry Nassar was abusing former gymnasts, including numerous members of the Olympic teams when either Bela or Martha Karolyi were at the helm. (Nassar was also team doctor for Michigan State's gymnastics team and is currently in federal custody on charges including possessing child pornography.)
Since then, civil lawsuits have been filed against Nassar, USA Gymnastics and the Karolyis.
Officially, the scandal hasn't touched the Karolyis, who have denied all allegations of wrongdoing, as we've noted. But the accusations that Nassar – who is now accused of more than 20 counts of criminal sexual misconduct and has pleaded not guilty to all of them – abused young athletes on the Karolyi Ranch and on their watch has already changed how the facility is viewed.
More than 100 women and girls, most of them gymnasts, have filed sexual assault claims against Nassar, including former members of the U.S. national team. And the stories they tell paint a deeply troubling picture of what was actually going on at the Karolyi Ranch.
One woman, who has remained anonymous, a member of the 2010 team who won a silver medal at the 2010 world championships, has sued Nassar, declaring in the lawsuit that some of the sexual abuse occurred at the ranch. The lawsuit also states that the Karolyis created a "toxic" environment where the strict high-pressure training approach left girls and young women vulnerable. Bronze medalist Jamie Dantzscher and national champion rhythmic gymnast Jessica Howard have made similar allegations in their own lawsuits.
Nassar presented himself as the ally and friend of his young patients, cultivating their trust, according to court records. Then he was able to use his unmitigated access to the gymnasts — he reportedly treated them alone in their rooms without supervision, according to the various lawsuits filed against him — to sexually abuse the young athletes, according to court documents.
Jeanette Antolin, who was a member of the U.S. national gymnastics team from 1997 to 2000, recounted how Bela Karolyi grabbed her butt once as she was walking into the gym at the Karolyi Ranch and told her to lose weight. She has also described how Nassar used the negative environment to ingratiate himself with Antolin, and then to sexually abuse her, inserting an ungloved hand into her vagina sometimes as often as twice a day during Team USA international trips and at the Karolyi Ranch.
And so, this week USA Gymnastics officials apparently finally decided that owning the Karolyi Ranch was no longer the best idea. On Tuesday, the organization announced it had dropped plans to buy the place from the retired coaches, pairing the announcement with an appropriately vague reason:
"The USA Gymnastics Board of Directors has decided not to proceed with the organization's purchase of the Karolyi Ranch, which serves as the USA Gymnastics National Team Training Center. The decision was made for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to unexpected financial expenditures associated with the purchase. USA Gymnastics is presently continuing under the current lease arrangement to hold national team activities at the Ranch while it is exploring alternative locations for training activities and camps."
So yeah, the Karolyi Ranch will not, in fact, be owned by USA Gymnastics and will likely cease to be the spot where the national team meets to train once a month. As soon as the USA Gymnastics lease ends the group can find another location.
It's definitely not because USA Gymnastics is looking to get as far from the Karolyis, the Karolyi Ranch and the ugly stories about what happened there.
Nope. Certainly not.
Dianna Wray is a nationally award-winning journalist. Born and raised in Houston, she writes about everything from NASA to oil to horse races.
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Title: IPCC-DDC_CCSRNIES_SRES_A1T: 211 YEARS MONTHLY MEANS National Institute for Environmental Studies and Center for Climate System Research Japan
Created: Tue Sep 17 00:00:00 GMT 2002
The SRES data sets were published by the IPCC in 2000 and classified into four different scenario families (A1, A2, B1, B2). SRES_A1 storyline describes a future world of very rapid economic growth, global population that peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter and the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies. It is distinguished by their technological emphasis: A1FI: fossil intensiv, A1T : non-fossil energy sources and A1B : a balance across all sources. The model developed by the Center for Climate System Resaerch/ National Institute for Enviromental Studies in Tokyo consists of the atmospheric component which has vertical resolution of 20 levels and the triangular truncation at wavenumber 21 (T21). The ocean model has 17 vertical levels and the same resolution. ) The changes of anthropogenic emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O and sulphur dioxide are prescribed according to the above mentioned scenario.
Meteorological code: GRIB-WMO format GRIdded Binary data


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The Buzz: November 12, 2001
Site Helping Small Firms
In an effort to provide small companies with a jump-start in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Commerce Department, IT vendors and business executives have unveiled a Web site with links to IT service and equipment suppliers.
NYITAssist.com is part of the ReStart Central initiative to help businesses hurt by the terrorist attacks.
Suppliers listed provide hardware and software products based on Intel architecture and are Microsoft Certified Partners.
A notice on the site states, "More service suppliers will be added, representing a broad range of hardware and software products."
Ciscos Q1: Mixed News
Ciscos first quarter yielded good news and bad news for the networking equipment company. It beat analyst expectations, but the numbers were worse than last years.
First-quarter earnings were $332 million, or 4 cents per share, excluding charges, compared with earnings of $1.4 billion, or 18 cents per share, in the first quarter of last year. Revenue was down 32 percent from last year, to $4.4 billion.
The good news was that sales increased $100 million from the previous quarter, marking the first sequential growth in a year.
Cisco blamed the numbers on a faltering economy and the effects of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.
"If there is one lesson we learned over the past year, its how quickly things can change," CEO John Chambers said.
Leaders Mull Consortium
Some tape storage leaders will meet at Comdex in Las Vegas this week in hopes of bolstering the aging technology.
Developed by IBM in the late 1950s, the technology is considered by some to be outdated in comparison with newer products.
The businesses represented at Comdex—including IBM, Seagate, Sony Electronics, Storage Technologies and Tandberg Data—want to show that tape storage is still viable. Imation heads the group, which will discuss forming a consortium that could address tape-related issues.


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Game Night: Spot It
August 15, 2017 - Board Games
I keep getting prompted to wonder just how many "childish things" are actually for kids anymore, whether it's superhero movies pitched to millennials, animated films aimed at people steeped in pop culture, video games more obsessed with reinventing the medium than being engaging to young minds, or, of course, board games.
I own a lot of board games, I've played still more, and while it feels like a golden age of tabletop gaming for myself and my contemporaries, I can always remember the board game that was hidden away in one of the tiny, nearly inaccessible shelves in the laundry room. It wasn't risqué, or particularly complicated, just a trivia game pitched to a level well above what kids would engage with. Even casual players might have had trouble.
Oh sure, we eventually cracked it out and gave it a go, we said it was fun, and that was the end of it – but I still don't remember what it was called, and we certainly didn't mix it with the other games, let alone bring it out for another go. In the same vein, I can't imagine how many games a kid might see on my shelf that would get the childhood mind racing – but I can't imagine explaining Dead of Winter to an eight year old. Maybe that's just my bias – I'm an adult now, I've forgotten how to think from the eight-year old perspective – but then I also have to think from the perspective of an eight-year old who isn't me. I would have loved Dead of Winter at eight years of age. I would have been the only one.
So my arsenal of games, so carefully tailored to be suitable to various groups of adults, feels somewhat inadequate for actual family games. Perhaps it's just a function of not having any children of that age range in the family. Nevertheless, it's fun to find a new game that immediately presents itself as, quite literally, fun for all ages. That game is Spot It, an unassuming little gem packed in a round can.
In Spot It, each player has a card with a jumble of symbols on it – cheese, bananas, music notes, ghosts, keys, what have you – and a card is turned up from the center pile. Any given pair of cards in this game share one and only one symbol, and it's up to you to shout out what your match is before anyone else can do the same. If you're the first to correctly claim your match, you take the center card (which becomes your new card) and play continues. Once the center stack is exhausted, the player with the most cards wins.
That's all there is to Spot It, and I'd argue that's all that needs to be said. I don't need to tell you that's a fun premise – it's basically competitive Where's Waldo. You don't need a timer or pieces or convoluted scoring rules, just a set of pictures to compare as quickly as you're able. You can play this game in 15-20 minutes, easily. Kids will not only get it, they'll almost certainly be better at it than you.
Not everything needs to be an earthshaking addition to the world of tabletop gaming. Spot It is just really easy and straightforward fun, and I'd play it with adults or kids at the drop of a hat. Best of all, it's tiny and compact – great for traveling. There's an art to getting simple things right, and you can find a demonstration inside this little can full of engaging short-form gameplay. If you have the chance, give it a go. It's nothing world-changing, but again – it doesn't have to be. It's a small entertainment whose big value comes from how easy it is to play with anyone.
Tags: board games, card games, children's games, family games, Spot It, tabletop games


Salary: Annual income 3.5 million yen ~ 6 million yen (210,000 yen ~ 290,000 yen + monthly bonus) - Overtime fee included, including 20 hours per month.
• English business level, Japanese business level. • Able to respond flexibly without sticking to Japan or abroad. • Ready to accept Challenge & Committed to follow company rules & regulation.
【Possible conditions】 • Good Personality with having constantly smiling attitude will be preferable. • People who have good skill to convince people & Problem solving capability. • People who have good communication skill to work with overseas. • Those who can think systematically & strategically.


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Q: Opposite of adjacent sibling selector? Please check this fiddle - http://jsfiddle.net/vfMsS/. I need to write selectors which select the element after the "active" element and the element before it. The "before" part doesn't seem to work. How to select the element before the a.active?

A: Like BoltClock said, there is no way to due this in current day browsers.
However, I believe it is possible in CSS.
The CSS Selectors level 4 syntax (specifically see this) with the syntax E! + F for "An element E preceding an element F".
So in your case the syntax would be a! + a.active meaning "An element with tag a preceding an element with tag a and class active". As of today, this is not yet implemented in any layout engine

A: The adjacent sibling selector only looks forward, not backward. There is no - combinator for previous adjacent siblings.
If you simply need to select anything that isn't .active in the same parent, and you don't mind slightly reduced browser support, you can use :not() instead. If you need to specify a different style for the one that comes after .active, you need to override:
a:not(.active) { background:red }
a.active + a { background:yellow }

Again, this assumes they always share the same parent.
jsFiddle preview

A: I was looking for the same solution of targeting the elements behind the .activelink
I set a default style for any element before the one .active then I selected all after that one with the sibling selector.
a.active { background: #ccc;}
a.active ~ * { background: yellow }
a { background: red }

Demo: https://codepen.io/ramiro-ruiz/pen/gBOPQL
That worked for me, hope it helps.

A: Why don't you try using a sibling combinator?
a.active ~ a { background:red }

http://jsfiddle.net/VixedS/6x7d9vm7/

A: I have to say, this is an issue I had for a while, and one of the things I didn't like much ended up resolving this issue... float: right.
In my case, it was the input[type='radio'] + label element, and since CSS flows forward and not backwards, ~ input[type='radio'] + label would choose all the siblings after the element that was checked.
Since, float: right is responsible for taking "A, B, C" and positioning them as "C, B, A" - I changed the order of radio elements from 1-6 to 6-1 in the HTML, and made them float: right with CSS.
What this did was reverse them back into the order of 1-6 when rendered to the browser.
Now, when I used ~ input[type='radio'] + label, it still defined the styles the same way (which in my case, was the color of the label), however, the siblings being styled were now - visually - the preceding ones.
This thread is over a year old, but if anyone needs an example, I'll create and post a pen if asked.


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Zachary John Quinto (Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), 2 juni 1977) is een Amerikaanse acteur bekend door zijn rollen als Adam Kaufman in 24, Sasan in So NoTORIous, en Gabriel "Sylar" Gray in NBC's Heroes.

Quinto is half-Italiaans en half-Iers. Hij bezocht de Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, waar hij in 1999 afstudeerde.

Vanaf 2000 twas hij te zien in verschillende film- en televisieproducties. In 2006 kwam hij bij de cast van NBC's Heroes als de met duistere krachten uitgeruste seriemoordenaar Gabriel "Sylar" Gray. Hij speelde in twee seizoenen van American Horror Story. In 2009 was hij voor het eerst te zien als het bekende personage Spock in de film Star Trek. Hij herneemt deze rol ook in de volgende 2 films, Star Trek: Into Darkness en Star Trek: Beyond. Hierdoor wordt hij meerdere keren vermeld in de populaire tv-serie The Big Bang Theory.

In 2008 besloten Quinto en zijn vrienden Corey Moosa en Neal Dodson om een productiebedrijf op te richten. Het project kreeg de naam "before the door". De bedrijfsnaam verwijst naar een van de eerste acteeroefeningen die de drie op Carnegie Mellon University leerden.

Privé
Quinto heeft een Ierse wolfshond/Airedaleterriër genaamd Noah.

In oktober 2011 kwam Quinto publiekelijk uit de kast tijdens een interview over zijn rol in het toneelstuk Angels in America. In september 2012 werd bekend dat hij een relatie heeft met acteur Jonathan Groff.

Film- en televisieloopbaan
 The Others, (televisieserie) 2000
 Touched By An Angel, 2001
 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, 2002
 Off Centre, 2002
 Lizzie McGuire in episode #209, 'Party Over Here' , 2002
 Haunted (televisieserie), 2002
 The Agency, 2002
 Six Feet Under, 2003
 Charmed (Cat House), 2003
 Miracles, (televisieserie) 2003
 Murder Investigation, 2004
 24, (televisieserie) 2004
 Hawaï, (televisieserie) 2004
 Joan of Arcadia, 2004
 Blind Justice, 2005
 Crossing Jordan, 2006
 Twins, (televisieserie) 2006
 So NoTORIous, 2006
 Heroes, (televisieserie) 2006 - 2010
 Star Trek, 2009
 American Horror Story, 2011
 Margin Call, 2011
 What's Your Number?, 2011
 Star Trek Into Darkness, 2013
 I Am Michael, 2015
 Hitman: Agent 47, 2015
 Star Trek: Beyond, 2016
 Hotel Artemis (2018)

Externe link
 Interview with TheStarScoop, January 2007

Amerikaans acteur