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Why We Should Welcome Russia Rejoining PACE
Losing its place in the Сouncil of Еurope would hurt Russia's civil society and increase the country's isolation.
By	Vladimir Ryzhkov
After nine hours of heated and intransigent discussion in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the body decided to restore Russia's membership. A total of 118 deputies voted to allow the Russian parliamentary delegation back into PACE, with 62 against and 10 abstentions.
Votes in favour of Russia's reinstatement came from Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and the Nordic countries. Delegates from the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic states were opposed to Russia returning to Europe's most prominent rights body.
The vote and accompanying discussion showed that there is a deep rift in the Council of Europe — and in Europe as a whole — on the desirability of Russian participation in European institutions. An equally deep schism on the issue exists among the Russian elites. However, the decision has been made, and it will benefit both parties.
Russia joined the Council of Europe in 1996, and in 1998 Moscow ratified the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In doing so, Russia came under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), giving Russians the opportunity to defend themselves in the highest European legal body for human rights.
In 2018 alone, the total compensation paid out to Russian citizens who won cases in the ECHR came to more than 13 million euros ($15 million). In November 2018, opposition leader Alexei Navalny won a high-profile case against the Kremlin: the court ruled that by placing him under house arrest Russia had violated his rights, and that his detention was politically motivated.
Russia Evades Exclusion From Council of Europe
Russia has had more complaints filed against it in the ECHR than any other country — over 12,000 just in the last year. It has the same record for the number of cases won against the state by individuals, with 238 wins and only five losses. Russia dutifully carries out 95 percent of the ECHR's rulings.
Part of Russia's ruling elite has long been irritated by these constant defeats in the ECHR, the necessity of paying substantial sums in compensation from the budget for the human rights violations established by the court and the harsh criticism of Russian customs from the Сouncil of Еurope.
Many officials are in favor of quitting the Council of Europe and the Convention on Rights and Freedoms, or of going even further and making a complete break with Western institutions, a self-imposed isolation of the country from European organizations and values.
Just recently, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko announced that a decision was "ripening" in Russia on leaving the Сouncil of Еurope. Meanwhile, Constitutional Court Chairman Valery Zorkin has backed a law that allows Russia not to implement the rulings of the ECHR in certain cases.
In general, part of the Russian elite sees membership in the Сouncil of Еurope as an unwelcome legacy of the "wild 1990s," something that prevents the Kremlin from having complete freedom of movement in both domestic and foreign policy. However, there is another influential part of the Russian elite that realizes leaving the Сouncil of Еurope would be a substantial blow to the national interest.
Along with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe is the second pan-European international organization in which Russia has a full voice and significant political influence. Losing its place in the Сouncil of Еurope would weaken Russia's international clout, deepen its foreign policy problems, and increase the country's isolation. Leaving the Сouncil of Еurope would be a new kind of sanction, albeit one imposed by Russia upon itself.
The Russian Interior Ministry continuously makes statements about the positive role of the Сouncil of Еurope in the fields of international cooperation and domestic reform in Russia. Among other things, this means cooperation on legal reform (including of the penitentiary system), the fight against terrorism and the distribution of drugs, as well as cooperation in sport, culture, bioethics, personal data protection and much more.
Ministers Agree Way For Russia to Rejoin Europe's Human Rights Body
Under the Сouncil of Еurope, Russia has ratified and pledged to implement dozens of conventions that have a positive influence on processes taking place inside Russia. Russia's permanent representative to the Council of Europe, Ivan Saltonovsky, stresses that the body "is an extremely serious platform for dialogue with the participation of the Europeans, and an important part of our work on creating a single European legal and humanitarian space."
This "should I stay or should I go" dilemma has been resolved by the Russian leadership in favor of "stay." This means that Russian citizens will preserve the ability to defend their violated rights in the ECHR. It means that a series of reforms to humanize the legal and law enforcement spheres will continue. And it means that cooperation will continue in many areas in the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the organization's central institution.
At the same time, Russia will continue to attract harsh criticism over its human rights violations, corrupt legislation, and foreign policy (especially with regard to Ukraine). All these grievances against Russia remain, and may even escalate. The Council of Europe itself faces the very same dilemma, and it has nothing to do with the contributions of over 60 million euros that Russia has not paid into the organization's budget since 2016, following its decision to cease payments.
The main problem is the perception by opponents of the decision to restore Russia's membership of PACE that the move is a foreign-policy victory for Moscow, a capitulation by European institutions in the face of the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine. Their question is this: in principle, can a country with this kind of foreign policy and an authoritarian system be a member of an organization whose mission is to support peace and cooperation in Europe and human rights and freedoms?
These are issues of principle that will remain on the Council of Europe's agenda after the return of Russian deputies to Strasbourg. The decision to bring Russia back into PACE, and in doing so preserve its place in the Сouncil of Еurope, was taken with wider strategic perspectives in mind. The Council of Europe and the European Union will not change their principled positions on Crimea and the Donbass, the Minsk Agreements and sanctions or human rights.
But they continue to believe that defending the rights of Russians in the ECHR, the continuous monitoring of the human rights situation, the continuation of work on the implementation of European conventions and ongoing dialogue with Russian politicians in the Committee of Ministers and PACE will make changes in Russian law and foreign policy more likely than if the door to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg had been loudly slammed in Moscow's face.
For a different take on Russia rejoining PACE, click here for an opinion piece by Steward McDonald.
Vladimir Ryzhkov
Vladimir Ryzhkov is a politician and chairman of the Vybor Rossii ("Choice for Russia") movement.
Read more about: Europe
Looking outward
Most Russians Prefer Council of Europe Membership – Polls
Russia's relationship with the European human rights watchdog has been tense since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.
Western backlash
Russia Will Respond to New EU Sanctions — Reports
The sanctions came in response to Russia's activities in Crimea and Ukraine.
EU Moves Closer to Adopting Sanctions With Magnitsky Name
Reaching required unanimity on an EU-wide sanctions regime could prove difficult, however.
Lavrov: We're Not Rubbing Our Hands With Glee Over Brexit
Russia would like the EU to be strong and united, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.


Join Alliance Technologies and sell our portfolio of class leading technologies and services to businesses and organizations across the GTA and beyond. We are looking for a professional self-starter with a high degree of integrity and the drive to grow our business and their role within our company.
The ability to win and grow new accounts will be key to your success. You will report directly to the Partners and you will be expected to hit the ground running and quickly grow your pipeline.
Successful business-to-business sales experience is required, ideally in the technology sector (hardware, software and/or professional services). Superior communication and presentation skills, strong technical aptitude and, the discipline and motivation to work remotely with minimal supervision are also essential.
It is anticipated that the compensation package will be largely performance based and commensurate with experience.
Every application will be carefully considered and we look forward to hearing from you and what you can bring to this role.


The Side Utility model features the industry standard gable roof and side entry doors. It is available in 8', 10' and 12' widths (14' & 16' width available in some areas, depending on hauling regulations). The 8' wide model features a single metal door, the larger models include a double metal door. Shown here with Optional Windows. Windows are not included.


text:
//======================================================================================
// Copyright 5AM Solutions Inc, Yale University
//
// Distributed under the OSI-approved BSD 3-Clause License.
// See http://ncip.github.com/caarray/LICENSE.txt for details.
//======================================================================================
package gov.nih.nci.cagrid.caarray.service.globus.resource;

/**
 * DO NOT EDIT:  This class is autogenerated!
 *
 * This class is used by the resource to get configuration information about the
 * resource.
 *
 * @created by Introduce Toolkit version 1.1
 *
 */
public class ResourceConfiguration {
	private String registrationTemplateFile;
	private boolean performRegistration;
	private String serviceMetadataFile;
	private String domainModelFile;

	public boolean shouldPerformRegistration() {
		return performRegistration;
	}

	public void setPerformRegistration(boolean performRegistration) {
		this.performRegistration = performRegistration;
	}

	public String getRegistrationTemplateFile() {
		return registrationTemplateFile;
	}

	public void setRegistrationTemplateFile(String registrationTemplateFile) {
		this.registrationTemplateFile = registrationTemplateFile;
	}

	public String getServiceMetadataFile() {
		return serviceMetadataFile;
	}

	public void setServiceMetadataFile(String serviceMetadataFile) {
		this.serviceMetadataFile = serviceMetadataFile;
	}

	public String getDomainModelFile() {
		return domainModelFile;
	}

	public void setDomainModelFile(String domainModelFile) {
		this.domainModelFile = domainModelFile;
	}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Greta van der Rol loves writing action-packed adventures with a side salad of romance. Most of her work is space opera, but she has written paranormal and historical fiction. She lives not far from the coast in Queensland, Australia and enjoys photography and cooking when she isn't bent over the computer. She has a degree in history and a background in building information systems, both of which go a long way toward helping her in her writing endeavours.


Thank you for the interest you have shown in Wheatfields Infants' and Nursery School.
Wheatfields is a three form entry Infant School. The school was built in the sixties. Each year group has three classes led by three teachers and a team of learning assistants. The Nursery is led by a Teacher and is supported by a team of Early Years Practitioners.
At Wheatfields, we value everyone as an individual. We believe that it is important for our children to develop a love of learning through working hard, having fun and being happy. We are keen to involve our children and parents in all aspects of school life. We are always pleased to show prospective children and parents around our school.
For many parents one of the hardest decisions they need to make is where to send their child to school. Although all schools teach the Early Years Foundation and National Curriculum, every school has an individual style and ethos and it is important that your ideas of how your child should be educated match the style of the school to which you send your child. We would always strongly recommend to any prospective parent that they arrange to visit the school during a working day to see if they believe their child will be happy here.


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UFO's & Aliens
UFO's & Aliens
The Galactic Federation of Worlds is assisting Mankind in the development of a Starfleet for Planetary Defense
UFO Sighting and REAL Footage in Nevada
Mysterious UFO spotted by man who claims he saw 'light show like you wouldn't believe'
Life on Mars? UFO hunter is convinced NASA photo of 'alien face' proves aliens are real
UFO sighting: Giant 'alien ship' on the Moon is '100 percent' proof of ET life
UFO believers got one thing right. Here's what they get wrong
Perseverance rover: NASA's Mars car to seek signs of ancient life
Posted By news131daily Posted On July 1, 2021
The Perseverance rover will hunt for signs of ancient life and cache samples for future return to Earth.
Another artist's concept showing NASA's Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
NASA's Perseverance rover isn't just exploring the Red Planet. The life-hunting robot will also help a little bit of Mars make it to Earth a decade or so from now, if all goes according to plan.
Perseverance, the centerpiece of NASA's $2.7 billion Mars 2020 mission, touched down inside the Red Planet's Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. Once it's fully up and running, the car-sized robot will search for evidence of past microbial life and collect several dozen samples for future return to Earth, among other ambitious tasks.
"I don't think we've had a mission that is going to contribute so much to both science and technology," NASA Acting Administrator Steve Jurczyk told Space.com shortly before Perseverance touched down. "It's going to be truly amazing."
If Perseverance looks familiar, that's because the robotic explorer is largely based off its predecessor, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover, which landed in August 2012 and is still going strong today.
Like Curiosity, the Perseverance rover was built by engineers and scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Roughly 85% of Perseverance's mass is based on Curiosity "heritage hardware," saving NASA time and money and reducing risk considerably, agency officials have said.
Perseverance is about 10 feet long (not including its robotic arm), 9 feet wide, and 7 feet tall (about 3 meters long, 2.7 meters wide and 2.2 meters tall). At 2,260 lbs. (1,025 kilograms), Perseverance weighs less than a compact car.
Like Curiosity, Perseverance has a rectangular body, six wheels, a robotic arm, a drill for sampling rocks, cameras and scientific instruments. But those instruments are quite different than the gear aboard Curiosity, because the two rovers have divergent goals. Curiosity's main task involves assessing the habitability of ancient Mars, whereas Perseverance will hunt for evidence of ancient Martians.
Perseverance's seven instruments "build on the success of MSL, which was a proving ground for new technology," said George Tahu, NASA's Perseverance program executive. "These will gather science data in ways that weren't possible before."
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Perseverance also used the same entry, descent and landing (EDL) strategy as Curiosity. Both rovers hit the Mars atmosphere at tremendous speeds, deployed a supersonic parachute after friction slowed them down enough, and were finally lowered gently to the red dirt on cables by a rocket-powered "sky crane."
But Perseverance had some EDL upgrades that Curiosity did not enjoy. For example, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the Mars 2020 mission, developed new landing technology called terrain-relative navigation. As the rover descended through the Martian skies, it used a computer to compare the landscape with pre-loaded terrain maps, guiding itself to a safe landing site and making corrections on the way down.
Another new feature, known as range trigger, used location and velocity information to determine when to open the supersonic parachute, narrowing the landing ellipse by more than half.
"Terrain-relative navigation enables us to go to sites that were ruled too risky for Curiosity to explore," said JPL's Al Chen, Perseverance's EDL lead. "The ranger trigger lets us land closer to areas of scientific interest, shaving miles — potentially as much as a year — off a rover's journey."
Previous: Utah's Skinwalker Ranch: The Most Haunted Place In The US
Next: Here are some local UFO sightings throughout history, for your tinfoil hat thoughts
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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HAMAS/FATAH DISAGREEMENTS TAKE PLACE AGAIN
I thought it could happen:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh Thursday in a bid to resolve the political crisis in the Palestinian Authority. Abbas will deliver to Haniyeh the letter of appointment for the establishment of the coalition government.
The Palestinian unity government deal reached in Mecca between Hamas and Fatah was thrown into question Wednesday night when Abbas canceled the Thursday speech in which he intended to present the deal to the Palestinian people.
Abbas also called off a Thursday visit to the Gaza Strip, where he was slated to deliver to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh the letter of appointment for the establishment of the coalition government.
Palestinian sources said the crisis broke out due in part to disagreements over the Interior Ministry portfolio. According to the sources, the conflict primarily resulted from disagreement over appointments.
Haniyeh was supposed to serve his resignation Thursday immediately after Abbas' speech. Now, however, Haniyeh has delayed his resignation.
Hamas officials claimed the delay was due to technical problems, but Fatah representatives said it was because Hamas introduced conditions which contradicted the Mecca agreement.
Haniyeh won't resign. Not by a longshot. He'll keep on leading the Hamas itself in one way or another, for as long as he's in existence.


text:
Q: How is the Themosis framework able to call a function in a class that doesn't exist? I was taking a look a the Themosis framework for WordPress and saw in their docs that to make a custom post type you would call:
PostType::make('slug-books', 'Books', 'Book')->set();

I assumed that PostType must be a class with a static function make. However, looking at their code I found no PostType class.
How are they able to call a function in a class that doesn't exist?
I can kind of see how the Application class is being used to store instances of the classes when they are called, but I don't see how the code above would trigger the classes creation.

A: I'm the developer behind the Themosis framework. This "trick" is highly inspired by the Laravel framework where all credits are.
We're using a facade pattern in order to make this working. Basically we use a PHP magic method __callStatic() and behind we make it link the static method to an instance method.
Check documentation over here: http://php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.overloading.php#object.callstatic

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
FOUNDATION_EXPORT double NukeFLAnimatedImagePluginVersionNumber;
FOUNDATION_EXPORT const unsigned char NukeFLAnimatedImagePluginVersionString[];


text:
The Wall Street Journal 27 Aug 2019
Home DNA Tests Can Disrupt Family Dynamics. Here's How
More people are taking home DNA tests to learn about their background. For some, the results can be not only unexpected, but can radically change their lives. WSJ's Amy Dockser Marcus explains.
Photo illustration: Laura Kammermann/WSJ
#WSJ #DNATests
Wisconsin officials have partnered with a medical testing company to provide free at-home COVID-19 tests as the state set a new record for disease-related deaths. (Dec. 22)
Happy New Year! We are all turning the page, saying goodbye to 2020 and saying hello to 2021. The year saw many lives lost to the pandemic, financial stress as many Americans were out of work and loved ones kept apart as a result of social distancing. We're all looking forward to a better 2021 with hope vaccines can be put an end to Covid-19 and life can return to normal. Tom Kersting, licensed psychotherapist and author of "Disconnected," gives advice on New Year's resolutions, what to avoid and how to make this year a better one.
The SpaceX launch was a historic time for NASA, ending its almost decade long drought. Some say it is pushing a new era of commercial space flight. We revisit our interview with Astrophysicist, tv host and director of New York's Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson to and his reaction to the SpaceX launch, what the future of space tourism could look like, and if there really are aliens out there.
Plus, commentary by FOX News Contributor Liz Peek.
The husband of a West Vancouver woman who is battling leukemia is asking that households with immunocompromised people get priority access to the vaccine.
More on this story: www.cbc.ca/1.5862514
Sen. Ted Cruz gives students his advice for how to "defend" free speech from those that would censor it.
… show captions ↓
- [Narrator] You might've seen one of these before,
an at-home DNA test.
The boxes might look small,
but they're making a big impact on some people's lives.
Kits like these have exploded in popularity
over the past five years.
Most people take them
because they wanna know more about their background,
like what countries their ancestors were from
or if they're really related to George Washington.
And for many, the results are what they expect.
But for others,
the results can radically change their lives.
- A lotta people take these tests
hoping for something entertaining.
Maybe they heard they're Italian or German
and they think it would be fun to find out more.
But often when they get the results back,
they're surprised by what they find.
- [Narrator] So how can that happen?
Meet Sally.
We made her up to show how this can work.
Sally took DNA tests with her family,
her mom, her dad, her brother, and her sister.
Six weeks later, they went online to check their results.
The company provided a long list of genetic matches
ranked in order by the amount of DNA shared
and measured in a unit called centimorgans.
- Often DNA testing companies
will return a list of your genetic matches to you.
They usually rank your genetic matches
from the highest number of centimorgans
you share with someone
to down to the fewest number of centimorgans.
So you're gonna expect to share the most centimorgans
with the people who are closest to you.
- [Narrator] Parents and children
share around half of their DNA.
Siblings share a little bit less.
Half-siblings share around a quarter, you get the idea.
So naturally, Sally saw both of her parents
at the top of the list.
They each shared around 3400 centimorgan in common with her.
Next she saw her brother, who shared 2700 centimorgan.
And then her sister, who she shared around 1700 centimorgan.
This was the first red flag for Sally.
Why do these numbers look so different?
It turns out 1700 centimorgan
isn't enough for Sally's sister to be her full sister.
But it is enough for them to be half-siblings.
They talked to their mother
and it turns out she had an affair.
- In our hypothetical example,
Sally found out that her mother had an affair,
but that's not the only thing that people find out.
Many people have been able to identify
their biological relatives when they were adopted.
Other people have discovered
that they were conceived using sperm donations.
- [Narrator] But that wasn't the only surprise in store
for Sally and her family.
Sally's father Andy checked out his DNA results too.
He already knew about the affair,
so he wasn't surprised
that one of his daughters wasn't a match.
But he did notice several names high up on the list
that he didn't recognize.
When Andy was a college student,
he made sperm donations in order to earn extra money
and he assumed that his sperm donations
would always remain anonymous.
But now many people who were donor-conceived
can find their sperm donors via DNA testing.
This person shared 3400 centimorgan with Andy,
and as it turned out. was his biological son.
So Sally's been through a lot.
She's learned that her sister is her half-sister
and now she has another half-sibling on her dad's side.
Sally was reeling from the twist
and turns in their family DNA when
the phone rings at Sally's home.
(phone rings)
It's the police.
They found Sally's DNA in a database.
- Many people take more than one test.
They want to expand the number of relatives
they can potentially match with.
Another way to do this is to take the results
and put them on a website that has a public database.
Many consumers, if not most,
are taking these tests for purposes of genealogy.
They're not expecting that law enforcement
might be interested in using the results
to track down possible criminals.
- [Narrator] But increasingly,
law enforcement officials use the databases as well,
working with genealogists to try and solve crimes,
mainly cold cases and missing persons.
Here's how that works.
Police take DNA from a crime scene,
it usually comes from the victim or a suspected criminal.
Then police upload the DNA into one of the big DNA databases
and look for genetic matches between the crime scene DNA
and others who have tested.
- When there is a genetic match, genealogists are able
to use the information in the databases
to build a rough family tree.
They're then able to use publicly available information,
such as obituaries or wedding announcements,
which are often available online, to get more names.
They might look at Facebook and other social media postings,
again, to find more connections between people.
Once investigators and genealogists
have created a family tree,
the investigators can narrow down the leads
and figure out from the family tree
who was born at the most likely time
that the suspect was born,
who was living in the most likely place
where the crime was committed, or someone disappeared.
- [Narrator] For Sally's family,
the call from the police helped solve a mystery.
Law enforcement used clues from their family tree
to find a missing person.
To be clear, Sally's experience with DNA
is not the typical one.
It's not every day that someone discovers a family affair,
a distant half-brother, and helps solve a crime.
But all of these things do happen
and they're happening more often
as DNA tests gain popularity.
- The growing popularity of DNA testing,
and the increasing sizes of the databases,
have really raised privacy concerns.
Decades ago, people were promised anonymity
when they gave up their children for adoption
or when they participated in sperm donation,
and now suddenly, thanks to DNA testing,
people are able to track down
the identities of these people.
There are a number of people
who say that they don't wanna do DNA testing
because they wanna preserve their genetic privacy,
but the fact is that even if you choose not to do a DNA test
a distant cousin that you don't know and may have never met
is possibly making another decision
and that decision is gonna affect your privacy as well.
Some of your DNA may be used by people
to unravel family secrets or track down potential criminals
or all the other uses that it's currently being used for.
Even some uses that we haven't anticipated yet.
<iframe width="728" height="410" src="https://videonews.today/embed/20190827/71159" frameborder="0" allow="fullscreen; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
22 Dec 2020 Associated Press
Wis. gives at-home COVID tests amid record deaths
1 Jan 2021 Fox News
2021 Has arrived, Here's how we can make the New Year better
7 Jan 2021 CBC News
Cancer patient's family pleading for COVID-19 vaccine
23 Nov 2020 The Hill
Ted Cruz: Here's how to "defend free speech"
8 Dec 2020 Fox News
Here's how much McConnell, Pelosi will influence a potential relief package
15 Dec 2020 Washington Post
Here's how U.S.-China relations might change under Biden
21 Dec 2020 Euronews
New hacking scams - Here's how to avoid them
30 Dec 2020 Seeker
The Amazon Rainforest Could Become A Savannah Within 15 Years, Here's How
11 Jan 2021 MSNBC
As Trump Supporters Cling To Conspiracies, Here's How To Help Them Face The Truth
DC on high-alert as threats expand to all 50 states ahead of Biden's inauguration


text:
Six-Point Syria Plan On The Brink Of Failure The White House announced Tuesday that there are "no signs yet" that President Assad has pulled back troops and stopped attacks on civilians. Monday, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said violence spilled across the border when Syrian forces fired shots into a refugee camp in Turkey.
Six-Point Syria Plan On The Brink Of Failure
April 10, 20121:00 PM ET
The White House announced Tuesday that there are "no signs yet" that President Assad has pulled back troops and stopped attacks on civilians. Monday, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said violence spilled across the border when Syrian forces fired shots into a refugee camp in Turkey.
Rami Khouri, director, Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, American University of Beirut
Nadim Houry, deputy director, Middle East and North Africa Division, Human Rights Watch
FyodorLukyanov, editor in chief,Russia in Global Affairs
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today that the peace plan for Syria is not dead yet, but he may be alone in that view. Syrian forces continue to bombard and besiege cities they were supposed to have left by today, and after incidents on the borders of Lebanon and Turkey yesterday, a Turkish government spokesman said the conflict has entered a new stage.
Some believe we're on the cusp of a bloody civil war. Others worry about an even wider regional conflict. Some call for Libya-style intervention, and if Russia and China continue to block action by the U.N. Security Council for a coalition of the willing, where does this conflict end?
800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. Later in the program, why we continue to tell and retell the story of the Titanic 100 years on. Underwater explorer Robert Ballard will join us.
But first, what's next for Syria? We begin with Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, editor at large of the Daily Star. He joins us from his home in Beirut, and it's nice to have you back on the program.
RAMI KHOURI: Thank you, glad to be with you.
CONAN: In refusing to bury his six-point plan, Kofi Annan asked a rhetorical question in Turkey today: If this plan is not still on the table, what is? And that's a pretty good question.
KHOURI: Well, if the plan gets nowhere, then we're going to see a continuation of what we've seen in the last 10 months or so, which is escalating violence by several parties, the government, those in the opposition who are armed, who are very, very few, and then massive peaceful demonstrations by the majority of people who are opposing the government.
And stepped up involvement by a whole range of regional and international parties that are either trying to wind this thing down and find a political solution, get rid of the Assad regime for some people, and of course other people to escalate the resistance by the opposition by arming them and training them and funding them. And that's already started.
So we're likely to see a continuation of this trend until somebody cracks. And the government would possibly crack at some point if the economy goes bust, which is possible in some months. Or the opposition might crack at some point. That's less likely because the trend has been to have bigger and bigger demonstrations and more and more determined resistance.
And now that they're getting Saudi and Gulf funding, the armed - the army, resistance army fighting the government will be more organized, better equipped, better trained, and hopefully with a more coherent political agenda. So that's the trend that I think we're likely to see, and it's what we've seen in the last four or five months.
CONAN: We saw yesterday a Lebanese journalist shot and killed from across the border. We saw shots fired from Syria into Turkey, injuring several people there. This is - could this get even wider?
KHOURI: Possibly a little bit, but I don't think this is going to morph into a regional conflict. I think these are signals, possibly, that the Syrians are sending. There has been border tension for some time in Lebanon and Turkey, not so much directly. But the political deterioration, relations between Syria and Turkey, has been profound in the last five months.
And the Turks are now openly calling for the Assad regime to leave. So these are - you know, this is part of the language of confrontation and determination and militarization that the Syrians use. It's not going to really result in anything other than to firm up the determination of the Turks and others to get rid of the regime.
CONAN: In a piece you wrote that came out just the other day, you said it's common for people in the Middle East and overseas to view this conflict in Syria through any number of lenses, including an Iranian-Saudi proxy war or the conservative Arab monarchies versus Arab populist revolutionary and democracy movements and - or pro-American hegemony or anti-American resistance.
You take another view. You describe this piece as the counter-revolution in full swing.
KHOURI: Well, yes, the counter-revolution is wider than just what's going on in Syria. You know, what's happening in Egypt, to some extent, you've got, you know, Omar Suleiman, the former intelligence chief, running for president if he's allowed to do so. You've got this new bizarre organization - well, I think it's bizarre, the security cooperation forum that the American government and the six GCC, Gulf Cooperation Council countries, the wealthy oil states just created, and Hillary Clinton was there launching it about five, six days ago.
This is probably the biggest sign we have that there is now going to be significant attempts to dampen down most of the serious revolutions around the region, like in Bahrain, for instance, and in Egypt and other places.
But at the same time, some people, like the American government, seem to be supporting the rebels against the Syrian government. So there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of contradiction. But that's how politics works. I mean, this is, when you get politics on a global scale, these contradictions happen.
But the counter-revolution is there also with the Russians and the Chinese and the Syrian government and the Iranian government trying to beat back the revolt in Syria, in Yemen and Bahrain. So this is now a full-fledged counter-revolution across the region in different forms and different guises with different players.
And some of them, like the American government, supporting some revolutionaries and supporting anti-revolutionaries in other places.
CONAN: Supporting, in short, their interests.
KHOURI: Yeah, well, their interests, but without any consistency and often without any principles. But again, that's how politics works, and people in the Arab world do the same thing. We can, you know, make the same accusations against people in the Arab world or in Israel or some other countries. So this is nothing peculiar to the United States, but it's peculiar to the exercise of power.
And this is one of the reasons people are rising up and trying to overthrow their governments, because they don't want to be treated on the basis of double-standards, of hypocritical, self-serving, expedient, whimsical political decisions by big governments far away who decide that one Arab people should be free and another Arab people should not be free.
We've had enough of this. People have put up with it for three generations, and they want to, you know, to have something closer to Belgium or Switzerland or even the United States, where people can more or less live a decent life knowing that there's a single standard of law that applies to everybody.
And these kinds of double-standards will keep eliciting greater and greater reaction. So the counter-revolution will elicit greater revolutionary forces or rebellions, at least, and uprisings across the region.
CONAN: Let's get back to Syria and what you talked about, the rule of law. Joining us now, Nadim Houry, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Division for Human Rights Watch. He worked on a recent report entitled "In Cold Blood" and joins us now from his home in Beirut. And it's good to have you with us tonight.
NADIM HOURY: Thank you for having me.
CONAN: And your report details mass killings. We've heard so much about the violence, and we've also heard how difficult it is to get confirmed reports of what happens. Your report details witnesses, eyewitness accounts of cold-blooded executions by Syrian government forces and Syrian government-sponsored militia of civilians, of injured fighters, many people, hundreds of people in the streets.
HOURY: Correct. I mean it is a challenge to gather information from Syria, but there are ways around it. For example, for this report all the cases we included were based on in-person interviews with people who managed to leave, sometimes days after the killing, to neighboring countries like Lebanon and Turkey.
Some of them were wounded and left to die but actually survived and were carried over the border. (technical difficulty) obviously corroborate information from multiple sources. The finding - you know, we focus on around 103 people who were killed over the last two months after the Syrian army retook their neighborhood or their town.
And they were killed not during fighting, not during shelling but actually in cold blood, either after they were found, you know, in the case of some of the fighters wounded, and they were shot point-blank, and we've had, you know, sometimes friends of these fighters who survived who told us the tale.
But also in other cases it was mostly civilians who remain in opposition strongholds like Baba Amr, like certain parts of Idlib, like Saraqeb in the north. And when the army went in, particularly the (unintelligible), we don't know which one, but basically one of the government forces went into that town, you know, these people were killed and were found often with bullets in their heads or in their bodies, shot at close range.
CONAN: And what does it say when these executions are carried out in broad daylight in front of witnesses?
HOURY: Look, I think it says two things. One, it is a testament to the absolute impunity under which the Syrian security forces and the Shabiha, this pro-government militia, have been operating under. And two, I think it is not - it is to send a message to the opposition and particularly to the opposition fighters that this will be your fate if you continue to oppose the government.
There's a clear attempt in Syria today to re-establish that wall of fear, to scare people back into their homes, to get them to stop the protests. I don't think it will be successful, but it's clearly, the regime is using the tactics that it has used in the past, which is shock and awe people and force them into accepting, you know, the rule of the Assads.
CONAN: And these are, as you describe them, war crimes. Would it be - would indictments on war crimes make it, the political situation, better or worse? Would it make people dig in their heels?
HOURY: I think - I mean they have already dug in their heels. I think justice is very important for the future of Syria and to ensure any stability. You know, these are crimes against humanity. We've been documenting them now for months. We've been documenting systematic torture, a systematic campaign of arbitrary arrests.
Today there is always - people always say, well, you know, if you push too much for justice, you will make any negotiation very complicated, likely to fail. But at the same time, if you don't actually ask for justice, you're likely to end up with unstable situations because today in Syria you've got more than 9,000 people killed.
There's a real thirst for justice, and if the international community does not call for it and is willing to cut a deal just for the sake of expediency, these people are going to seek revenge in their own ways, and you end up in this cycle of violence, and you cannot get out of it.
I think the key - you know, one has to remember it's been sort of a messy year and difficult year in the Arab world, but the initial uprising in Syria, like the one in Tunisia before it and the one in Egypt, was prompted by a profound sense of unfairness at the treatment of the Muhaberat, the feared security forces, services, of children in Daraa.
And so people want justice, and that cannot be set aside.
CONAN: Nadim Houry, thank you very much for your time, appreciate it.
HOURY: Thank you.
CONAN: Nadim Houry, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, with us by phone from his home in Beirut. You can find a link to the Human Rights Watch report "In Cold Blood" at our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. More with Rami Khouri of the Daily Star when we return. This is NPR News.
CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. By all accounts, Syria did not meet today's deadline to withdraw troops from cities and will not meet the deadline to - for a ceasefire on Thursday. The government of Bashar al-Assad has been given 48 more hours to comply. Many remain deeply skeptical, and the six-point peace plan brokered by Kofi Annan appears all but dead, even before it reached step one.
We're talking about what's next in Syria. Where does this conflict end? Our phone number, 800-989-8255. Email is talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION. Our guest is Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, editor at large of the Daily Star. And let's see if we can get Bob(ph) on the line, Bob's calling us from Naples, Florida.
BOB: Yes.
CONAN: Hi, Bob, go ahead, please.
BOB: My comment is: I think that all the people involved in these atrocities need to be held to account, not just Assad, all the way down to the guy in the street that pulls the trigger. When this is all over, they need to have a tribunal and bring them all in and prosecute all of them. That might get somebody in the future, the guy in the street that's doing the execution, to think that he might be held to account, too, not just the big dogs.
CONAN: Rami Khouri, that's the rule of justice. Is that likely to happen, and is that likely, even if it does, to change people's minds in Damascus?
KHOURI: Well, the evidence so far with the use of the International Criminal Court, for instance indicting the Libyan, the late Libyan leader, indicting the Sudanese president now and a couple of others around the region, hasn't deterred people, unfortunately. And there is no evidence yet that this will be the case.
Now, if people are actually taken to court, given a fair trial, and if the evidence is enough they're found guilty and they're imprisoned, perhaps this might deter people in the future, but that's unlikely to happen.
More likely is that some of these revolutions and uprisings will succeed in Tunisia and Egypt and other places, possibly, you will get democratic, reasonably democratic government with reasonably credible rule of law establishments. And that is what in the end is going to get rid of the impunity with which people just kill each other and use barbarism.
And I would just add one caveat to that, also, that it's not only the Arabs who need to be held accountable but foreign armies that invade the region, occupation forces like the Israelis and others, the Iranians, the Turks who send their troops around sometimes or who use military action or covert action. Everybody must be held accountable: Arabs, Israelis, Iranians, Turks, Americans, British.
Otherwise, if this is selectively done, this isn't justice. It's a new form of colonialism, which treats some people with one law and another people with a lesser law. So really, universality is as critical as justice itself.
CONAN: One of the key players regarding Syria is Russia. Fyodor Lukyanov is editor in chief for the journal Russia in Global Affairs. His piece, "The Importance of Being Russia," ran in that publication on April 5. He joins us now by phone from Moscow. Nice to have you with us today.
FYODOR LUKYANOV: Yes, hello.
CONAN: The Syrian foreign minister is in Moscow today. The Russian government is urging them to comply with the U.N.-sponsored plan, sponsored by Kofi Annan. It does not look like that's going to happen. What happens next?
LUKYANOV: Yeah, I think the argumentation which Syrian foreign minister, he is from - his Russian counterpart, Mr. Lavrov, is very simple. This is the last chance to try to influence the situation, to negotiate a way out from the deadlock from Syria. If you will fail, you means Syrian government, then Russia will not be able to protect you anymore because in case of the failure of Annan's plan, it will be very difficult for Russian side to urge another attempt to establish a dialogue.
So I think Russian authorities and Mr. Lavrov, who is playing a key role in this whole Syrian affair, he is extremely clear to Syrian counterparts to say that this is really the last chance, this is not a joke.
CONAN: What is Russia's interest in its support, thus far, of the Assad regime?
LUKYANOV: You know, that's a long story because the whole Russian policy vis-a-vis Syria started from one kind of assumptions, and they were rather mercantilist ones, ones connected to Russian interest in contracts, arm sales, contracts with Syrian and Russian strategic interest in Syria, the base for Russian fleet there. But that was only in the beginning.
Now, recent period, recent weeks, maybe two months, it's not about Syria basically. Russia is not protecting Assad's regime. Russia is trying to prove that it is able to play important role in world affairs and that no one can solve any serious regional crisis beyond Russia, so bypassing Russia.
CONAN: So Russia must be consulted. Russia must be counted in as a major player in the game. Nevertheless, Russia has come under tremendous pressure for, well, not to put too fine a point on it, for aiding and abetting in genocide.
LUKYANOV: Whether this is genocide or not, this is of course a discussion which should be conducted in legal terms. So Russian position from the beginning was that the approach taken by international community in the Syrian case and earlier in Libyan case was wrong conceptually because when it is a civil war in the country, and there is no doubt that we have elements, huge elements of civil war in Syria, it's absolutely wrong, conceptually wrong, and unfair from international community to intervene in civil war and one of (unintelligible).
And I think this is the position which at the end started to prevail because two months ago and one and a half months ago, Russia has been blamed to be completely isolated and alone. But now we see that Russia is playing big role, and Annan plan basically is a result of the product of Russian diplomacy.
CONAN: But you just told us a few minutes ago if the Annan plan fails, Russia can no longer block further action by the Security Council. Does that mean further action along the lines of Libya?
LUKYANOV: No, that's absolutely clear that Russia will never endorse any kind of Libyan scenario anymore. Russia can endorse a resolution which would apply harder sanctions on Syria, which would maybe even impose some kind of embargo.
But any kind of international intervention is out of question because of - by the way because of Libyan experience, because if you ask I think majority of people here in - I mean not only ordinary people but also strategic community about last year's decision to abstain during the war vote in Security Council and let the resolution on military intervention to go, this is the widespread view that that was a mistake because Russian goodwill has been totally abused by Arab countries and NATO, who - which concerns no-fly zone resolution into (unintelligible).
CONAN: Thanks very much for your time, Fyodor Lukyanov.
LUKYANOV: Thank you.
CONAN: Fyodor Lukyanov, with us from Moscow, editor in chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs. Still with us from Beirut is Rami Khouri, editor of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut and editor at large of the Daily Star. And I wonder, Rami Khouri, we see steps being taken towards international - the internationalization of the conflict whether or not they are sponsored by the Security Council or not.
KHOURI: Well, yes, I think what's happened is there have been several attempts, going back about four or five months or so. You had unilateral diplomacy. The Turks and others tried unilaterally to step in and do something they couldn't. Then you had the Arab League take a couple of different steps, including monitors and other things. And then they went to the Security Council, and then the Security Council stepped in.
And then you had the Friends of Syria group created by, you know, American-led Turkish and others, who were critical of the Syrians, and this Friends of Syria group is now a major forum. And then recently the Gulf Cooperation Council, led by Saudi Arabia, has unilaterally decided to provide funding for the Free Syrian Army.
So there are various elements of the international mechanisms that are being attempted to be used to either negotiate a transition to a more democratic system in Syrian and end the fighting, or to bring down the Syrian regime and do the transition that way.
But I think what's important, what we just heard from Moscow is very important because what you have happening in Syria today is three simultaneous battles or conflicts. The internal rebellion against Assad and his fighting back is one. The second one is the regional conflict which pits people in the Arab world against each other, and Iran supporting Syria and then most of the other Arabs who are critical of Syria. And the third one is the global one where the Russians and the Chinese are now playing an important role countering the American-led tendency to decide where regime changes happened, where wars happened.
And so these three simultaneous conflicts have converged together in Syria which is one reason why this is such an intense battle. It's not just about Syria's government and its opposition. It's an existential battle by forces in the region who see themselves as, you know, cooked ducks if they don't win this battle and the other side wins.
And then globally, the big powers are also really worried that if they step back and fall down that their long-term interests will be damaged. And then these three things are going to keep happening together for some months probably until a breakthrough happens somewhere.
CONAN: Let's get Blake(ph) on the line. And Blake is with us from San Antonio.
BLAKE: Hi. Just something I never heard discussed in all of this is that I'm very sure that there's a significant portion of a stratum in Syrian society that depends on the survival of the Assad regime, and so he must be under enormous internal pressure to not fail.
CONAN: Who are Assad's supporters in Syria, Rami Khouri?
KHOURI: Well, you know, the Syrian regime is like the Ceausescu regime in Romania for those of us old enough to remember where there's probably a couple of million people in Syrian who will fight and maybe fight to the death to keep the regime in power because they benefit from it enormously. These are members of the armed forces that are close to the Syrian government, members of the Alawite community from which Assad comes, a minority group in Syria.
You have some other small minority groups possibly here and there who are close to the government because they fear that an overthrow of the government may lead to ethnic tensions. You have the business people. You have the civil servants and the security forces members. So there's all kinds of people. Remember, this regime has been in power between Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, for 42 years. And that's a long time. And these regimes build up huge groups of supporters and dependents who depend on them.
And they, you know, a lot of these guys really believe they're fighting a noble cause by defending the regime, and that's why they do it so ferociously. And a lot of this barbarism that goes on is actually done with great sincerity by those who do it because they feel this is - the best thing for Syria is to keep this regime in power. So there are supporters of the regime. But like the Ceausescu supporters, they're doomed. These guys have no future because a overwhelming majority of Syrians, it seems, want the regime to change.
And I think this is now matched by a strong majority of the Arab world and around the world as a whole, and that's why I think the regime has had it, but it's just a question of how does it exit.
CONAN: Blake, thanks very much for the call.
BLAKE: Thank you. That's a very thorough answer.
CONAN: We're talking with Rami Khouri of the Beirut Daily Star. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And let's go next to Nour(ph), and Nour is with us from Bucks County in Pennsylvania.
NOUR: Actually, Berks County.
CONAN: Oh, Berks County, forgive me.
NOUR: All right. Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. Hi. Thank you. Thank you both for having this show. I'm a Syrian-American. I grew up in the United States. My parents decided to leave Syria when Hafez al-Assad was in power. And, of course, the heir apparent was always his son Bassel. It was not Bashar. Bassel was killed. And then when Bashar came into power, my parents decided to move back to Syria. We're Christian. And I have to say that we've had a nice life.
I mean, I go back - I had been going back and forth, yeah, every holiday to celebrate. In Syria, we've never had - we have friends who are of all ethnic backgrounds - Alawites, Shia, Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Armenians in the north. And it's - I have to say we've had religion - freedom of religion. And things actually have been quite good under Bashar al-Assad. And to tell you the truth, it's - what started at Homs kind of took everyone by surprise. People think that everyone is in favor of a change of government, but I'm not.
I'm afraid of what's going to happen afterwards. The people in the streets are Islamists. And we don't want an Islamic country. It is a secular government. Yeah, it's not perfect. The curse of the Middle East is in its rulers, unfortunately. I'll tell you whatever is going to come after him is going to be far much worse. Look at what's happening in Egypt. The Islamic brotherhood said they'd never float a candidate for president. Now, they're doing it. They will always go back on their words. It's a shame. But it's true.
But we have - and so the majority that I know - and I know a lot of people in Damascus. They're just hunkered down in the houses right now, and they're afraid to go in the streets, but they're supporting Bashar al-Assad.
CONAN: Nour, I don't mean to cut you off, but we wanted to give Rami Khouri a chance to respond. And, yes, the record for Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities has not always been happy as these regimes have changed in many Arab states.
KHOURI: Well, we haven't really had many experiences in regime changes. And what Nour is saying is correct to a certain extent where you do have a lot of people, as I said, interior who support the regime, some of them because they feel that a different regime might actually not give everybody the same opportunities. But the problem is that, like in Iraq, it was the same thing. You had Christians who could do everything they want - Jews, Christian. And I'm a Christian myself and - but the fact is that an overwhelming majority of the entire population had no real civil rights or political rights or equal opportunity.
And there was massive deterioration in quality, in economic access to resources and job opportunities. And this is one of the reasons why this uprising is so widely supported. I think about the Islamists taking over across the Arab world, I think one of the things that we have to really follow very closely now, including the Muslim brothers in Syria who made some statements recently, the groups in Tunisia, the Nahda Party that is sharing in the coalition that won the elections, they're all coming out now with very clear statements about their commitment to secular governments.
These are Muslim people. The majority of the Arabs are Muslim. Like the majority of Americans, they are Christians and - but they recognize the rights of the people who are a different minority. And they're committed to a secular government. And this is something that has to be monitored very, very closely...
CONAN: Rami...
KHOURI: ...who...
CONAN: Rami Khouri, thanks very much. I'm afraid we're out of time. But we thank you very much for your time today.
KHOURI: OK. Glad to be with you.
CONAN: Rami Khouri of the American University of Beirut and The Daily Star. Former senator and Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum just announced he's suspending his campaign. Stay with NPR News. We'll have more on that in just a minute or so. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
Syria Says It Is Pulling Troops Back, Activists Say Army Continues To Attack April 10, 2012
Syrian Government Fires On Refugees In Turkey April 9, 2012
Check Out The Human Rights Watch Report, 'In Cold Blood'
Read Fyodor Lukyanov's Piece, 'The Importance of Being Russia'


text:
Time for Leicester City to take a break, but not for Claude Puel
Change may be as good as a rest for City's internationals, says City boss.
Claude Puel believes a change of environment for his international players will be a welcome distraction from the trauma of losing chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in a horrific helicopter crash.
City have been on an emotional rollercoaster since the crash outside the King Power Stadium following the West Ham United game on October 27 and, as midfielder Marc Albrighton has admitted, it has left the players emotionally and physically drained.
Puel will use the two week break from Premier League action to give some rest away from the club to those most affected by the death of Khun Vichai, while it will also be a chance for others to get some training in after the disruption of the Thailand trip.
However, the players who have now joined up with their national squads will also benefit from a change of environment, Puel believes.
"Some players will remain and we have the possibility to give some a rest," said Puel. "Not just a physical rest.
"It will help their minds to have more time with their families. It is a good thing.
Leicester City players led by goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel (right) bring individual wreaths to add to the tributes (Image: PA)
"We also need to train because we didn't have a lot of training sessions last week.
"For the international players it will be another thing. There will be some tiredness perhaps or a strong game to play with their national team.
"It will be another context, other team-mates and another team. They can forget a little the atmosphere around Leicester City.
"I think this time will help us maintain the squad. We have to manage their comeback also and to continue the way."
As for Puel himself, the City boss said he cannot afford any time of personally and must remain focused on preparing City for their return to action at Brighton and Hove Albion on November 24.
"No, I do not rest," said Puel.
"For me I am a manager. Of course I didn't know this situation before but like all the managers we have a lot of different situations to manage, to find the words and find the good understanding, to see all the different reactions of the players when facing this moment.
"The manager must manage and anticipate all the time, to understand his players and staff.
"Always we examine the training sessions, watch the different players and staff because it was a shock. It was a terrible situation but we must manage this situation to continue to grow up together.
"We need this solidarity and for myself I need my focus and concentration for my players.
"They gave their best and I have to try to keep them in the right condition to play a good game."


This paper will discuss the difference between business-oriented networks and enterprise social networks. What makes up a social-networking site and what makes up a business-oriented social networking site and why are they different?
Another topic concerns why do organizations need a business continuity plan? Why is it important to determine what business will do if a disaster, man-made or natural, strikes? Three issues that a business continuity plan should cover concern identifying assets, controlling the flow if information, and determining who is in charge, what is the line of succession?
Many companies have created profitable businesses from selling small amounts of products previously sold in bigger chunks. Music and books are two such products. The market started asking to buy single songs and not the whole album; so how do you serve that market and still make a profit? Micropayment systems seemed to have come up with an answer, and it serves more than just the entertainment industry. This paper will discuss how this system works and how it is expanding beyond music and books.
A social network is defined as a place where people can create a personalized homepage writing about events in their lives, post pictures of the family, short video's, music, post and exchange thoughts and ideas, and link to their friend's websites; in essence, they create their space on the internet. They can even tag, or create hashtags (#thisisme) for their content, add keywords, so the content is searchable. Others can comment, like, or share your content should you allow them to do so (Turban, 2012).
Mobile devices play a big role in social networking; enter mobile social networking. Users can let their social network know that they're checking in at a local restaurant for dinner, or they're at a favorite watering hole watching a live band. They can even post pictures as well as live videos of the event. Many entertainers encourage people attending these events to share their experience as it is free advertising and helps to increase sales of their products such as music or films. Data has shown that mobile social networking has increased subscribers by substantial amounts; the number of mobile subscribers accessing Facebook increased over 100% in one year from2009 to 2010 (Stackpole, 2012). Two basic types of mobile social networks exist; companies are partnering up with wireless carriers such as Yahoo and MySpace via AT&Ts wireless network, and companies that do not have such relationships with cell companies; they use other means in which to attract users such as mobile apps. Examples of these include Classmates.com and Couchsurfing.com.
Business Oriented sites, also known as professional social networks, primary objective are to foster business relationships amongst its members and subscribers. Examples of these sites include LinkedIn, ViaDeo, and Zing.
Many businesses are increasingly using these sites to increase their business contacts, especially in a global economy. Social networks make it easier to maintain contact with colleagues around the world. Companies can advertise businesses services and products. They can show expertise in their field using multiple media including educational presentations, articles, videos; all at virtually no cost to host. This low cost is especially beneficial to small companies. The small business can contact potential customers on the other side of the world. This type of connection was impossible ten years ago. This type of cross-border networking makes globalization available for the individual and the small business (Turban, 2012).
The number one reason for a company to have a formalized disaster plan in place is to ensure ongoing business activities that provide business continuity with the least amount of disruption and costs for the business. Many businesses have failed due to a lack of disaster recovery planning because they could not guarantee business continuity that would allow them to survive an unexpected disaster (Turban, 2012).
Part of a company's security efforts involve preparing for man-made or natural disasters since these may occur without any warning at any time. It is best to prepare an actual plan that will work effectively in the face of calamity. The most important part of this plan is the business continuity plan. It addresses the question of how the business is going to operate should an unexpected disaster occur. Most likely a disaster will be localized; if it's a worldwide disaster, a plan would be unnecessary.
A disaster recovery plan confronts two issues: one how does the business recover from a disaster; two, how does it continue to operate should a disaster affect the business. This continuity is especially true for global businesses since, as stated earlier, a disaster is usually a localized event, and the business will want to ensure the rest of the business continues as those operations will help to pay for the cost of recovery. It is imperative for a business to have a disaster recovery plan in place to obtain insurance that covers the cost of recovery from the disaster. Disaster recovery describes the events linking the business continuity plan to safeguarding and ensuring recovery.
The purpose of a business continuity plan is to keep the business running after a disaster occurs. All functions and departments need to have in place an effective recovery plan. Part of that plan includes asset protection and recovery, even replacement. The plan needs to detail who makes the decisions, even to the point of secession. The plan needs to concentrate on total recovery from a total loss. The plan needs to be kept current due to changes in technologies, circumstances, even personnel. Critical applications need identifying. And the plan needs to be kept in a safe and accessible place.
A disaster recovery plan needs to cover many areas sufficiently to ensure recovery. It includes identification of assets and their value; including people, buildings, hardware, software, data, and supplies. A threat assessment needs to be conducted to include man-made and natural threats from inside or outside the business. Conduct a vulnerability assessment, and calculate the probability for exploitation, and evaluate all policies and procedures.
The shopkeeper gathers all the purchases subscribers make until they are sufficient enough to submit to the credit card company to be cost effective. It's much like gathering all the days sales at a cash only business and depositing the money in the bank at the end of the day. The problem is the shopkeeper risks waiting a long time on some low volume customers. By aggregating these purchases together, the shopkeepers lower their costs per transaction to the credit card company enabling to operate profitably.
Other industries that are successfully taking advantage of micropayments include mobile banking and microfinancing to poor, underdeveloped areas of Africa; M-Pesa has been successfully operating in Kenya and Tanzania, and has spread to India and Afghanistan as well. Cell phone technology has allowed people in remote areas to apply for and receives loans as small as $100.00 allowing them to finance business operations and providing electricity to their homes using solar powered generators (Mutiga, 2014).
The difference between business-oriented networks and enterprise social networks occur in the area of concentration addressed by the individual sites and how they meet their subscriber needs. FaceBook addresses the need for their subscribers to interact on a social basis, sharing thoughts, family news and photos, opinions are important to this group. LinkedIn allows for sharing contact information, providing specifications on products, showing expertise, getting a job. Mobile devices have played a big role in both businesses oriented as well as the social networking sites so that people can share and talk with each other at anytime from anywhere.
The need for a disaster recovery plan must include a business continuity plan. With a business continuity plan, the business will find it difficult, if not impossible, to find the resources needed to recover from a man-made or natural disaster. Business continuity ensures that the business has continual incoming resources adequately funding the recovery.
Micropayment of become successful because it addressed a need and demand in the marketplace for services otherwise unavailable without it. The market was demanding the ability to be supplied with goods and services on a smaller scale rather than previously available; especially with entertainment and finance products. Entrepreneur's stepped up and began to determine that if they aggregated their sales receipts and submitted them in bundles rather than individually, they could cut their costs while also serving their customers. The rest of the market, mostly the credit card industry, had to change to meet the demand.
networks perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.


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A lender will assess each application according to their own specific lending criteria. These vary from lender to lender, but typically take into account the amount you want to borrow, the property in question, your credit history and your employment status. Lenders do this to assess your ability to repay the mortgage. We at Citrus Mortgages will carry out comprehensive research to ensure that the lender is likely to accept your application before we submit it.
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Brendan Patrick McHugh (born April 11, 1990) is an American swimmer who specializes in breaststroke events.  He is the former U.S. Open record holder in the 50 meters breaststroke (27.10) and the 2014 National Champion in that event. His time of 27.10 was the sixth (6th) fastest in the World for 2014. He is a two-time member of U.S.A. Swimming's National Team for the 100 meters breaststroke (2014–15, 2015–16) and represented the United States at the 2015 FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia.

McHugh grew up in the Sicklerville neighborhood of Winslow Township, New Jersey and attended St. Augustine Preparatory School.
  He led the Hermits to three Non-Public "A" State Championships (2005, 2007, and 2008), with the team amassing a 54–1 record during McHugh's four (4) years. McHugh also won the individual state title in the 100 breaststroke three times, as a sophomore (2006), junior (2007), and senior (2008).  At the University of Pennsylvania, McHugh was an All-American, multiple time Ivy League champion, and, at the time, the Ivy-League record holder in the 100 and 200 breaststrokes.  He turned professional while pursuing his J.D. degree at Washington and Lee University School of Law and is currently an attorney in Philadelphia.

References

External links
 https://web.archive.org/web/20160303230933/http://www.pennathletics.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=1594798&
 http://articles.philly.com/2014-08-18/sports/52906020_1_law-student-national-record-law-school

1990 births
Living people
American male breaststroke swimmers
People from Winslow Township, New Jersey
Sportspeople from Camden County, New Jersey
St. Augustine Preparatory School alumni
University of Pennsylvania alumni

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


I first encountered encountered Hawkes Crystal at a pop-up shop at the Columbus Museum of Art. The shop sat on a sunny day in Derby Court. You couldn't miss the sparkling crystal under the glass ceiling. These were not your standard crystal pieces. It was clear this cut glass work was that of a master craftsman. And in fact, I soon learned of Hawkes Crystal's owner & Brilliant Master Cutter, Aidan Scully.


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Telehealth booms amid Covid-19 crisis; virtual care is here to stay
The coronavirus pandemic that has erupted worldwide has pushed telehealth to the forefront. It's unlikely remote medicine will go away, even after the current crisis abates
Matthew Finnegan (Computerworld (US)) 28 April, 2020 05:00
Credit: Dreamstime
Demand for telehealth systems has boomed in response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, setting the stage for telemedicine to finally achieve at least some of its long-promised benefits. And analysts expect widespread use to continue even after the current crisis abates.
The coronavirus outbreak that has infected almost three million people worldwide and killed nearly 200,000 (including more than 50,00 in the U.S. alone) will "forever change the way consumers seek and receive healthcare," said Arielle Trzcinski, a senior analyst at Forrester.
"While the pandemic will prove the value of virtual care in a crisis, it will also demonstrate the effectiveness for ongoing chronic care management," she said. "This moment will have a lasting effect on the adoption of virtual care and accelerate the shift from in-person care to virtual first engagement for multiple conditions and use cases."
Telehealth broadly involves the remote provision of healthcare between doctors and patients, most often by way of video consultations, though it can also be used for teleradiology and remote patient monitoring.
Use of telehealth applications has been rising steadily for years, though adoption has varied across different organisations. As of January, only 24 per cent of U.S. healthcare organisations had a virtual care program in place, according to Forrester.
That's changed rapidly in recent months as Covid-19 spread, forcing people to avoid doctors' offices, hospitals, medical clinics – and, of course, the workplace. Into the resulting gap, telehealth companies have moved to enable doctors to connect with their patients remotely.
Telehealth firms see 'explosive' spikes in demand
The crisis has led to telehealth vendors seeing huge spikes in demand, said Daniel Ruppar, a consulting director at Frost & Sullivan; some have gotten a year's worth of traffic on their platforms in the space of a month.
"That is explosive growth," Ruppar said. "Similar to how other consumer platforms like Zoom have exploded, that's the same impact that's gone on in telehealth."
He was referring to the Zoom videoconferencing platform, which has had a quick, but rocky, growth spot as work-from-home employees have turned to what is seen as an easy-to-use way to video chat with colleagues. That, in turn, exposed a number of security vulnerabilities in the platform that Zoom is working to correct.
For Amwell, a telehealth software vendor, the recent surge meant a 2,000 per cent increase in visits on its platform as demand for virtual consultations surged. The rapid uptick in demand meant Amwell had to work with its customers deploy its software much faster than normal.
"Normally, we spend two to four months deploying and implementing a system for a health system; there's lots of integration, we want to be embedded in their EHR [electronic health record systems], etc.," said Mike Baird, president for customer solutions at Amwell.
"Obviously we didn't have time for that in this crisis, and so we had an offering that we could literally stand up in three or four days," Baird said.
In a shift, the company began offering customers short-term access to its platform – for a few months rather than requiring multi-year contracts. "We had dozens of systems take us up on that to get up to speed very quickly," Baird said.
It was a new experience for many. Although various telehealth tools have been available for some time, most patients using virtual care in March (83.9 per cent) were doing so for the first time, according to an IDC report.
While the need for remote care will not be as acute once the pandemic crisis subsides, demand for telehealth systems will likely remain high. Forrester now expects more than one billion virtual care visits this year, the vast majority of them related to Covid-19.
"There's definitely going to be a behavioural change with both providers and consumers around telehealth that will be lasting," said Ruppar.
As patients become more familiar with the technology, teleheath systems could be used widely for non-Covid-19 issues, said Lynne Dunbrack, a research vice president at research firm IDC's Health Insights Division.
"…After the crisis subsides, there will be a patient population that will want to continue to receive care online for some things, like managing chronic conditions, follow-up visits after an inpatient stay, surgery or to discuss diagnostic results," she said.
In this case, it will be important for healthcare providers to ensure that patients are aware of the availability of services.
"While patients may be aware of virtual care services provided by their health plan or employer, they many not be aware that their healthcare provider is also offering virtual care visits for non-Covid-19 issues," she said.
Baird is bullish on the long-term prospects for adoption after the crisis. "While we expect that the waters will recede a little … we think that the providers that have now used [telehealth] and have seen that this is very useful in surveying their patients, and to help them reach more people and provide quality care – there's no way that doesn't stick in some way."
Telehealth regulation changes spur growth, too
A key factor in the recent boom has been the rollout of changes to government regulations around the use of telehealth systems. This includes, critically the expansion of insurance reimbursement by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to extend coverage for telehealth appointments.
And HIPAA data privacy rules have been relaxed to enable the use of consumer video apps such Apple's FaceTime and Microsoft's Skype as a temporary means of connecting doctors and patients.
"When you have major health plans and insurance companies embrace and enable coverage for telehealth or other things of that nature, that's definitely helped," said Ruppar.
"The most significant impact is from [the] expansion of payment from CMS for telehealth, including for new patient use. The HIPAA relaxation on platform selection does help as well, especially for practices which did not deploy telehealth, [allowing practices to] still conduct business and patient care."
While it is likely that some of the rule changes, such as those involving HIPAA enforcement, will be pulled back when the current crisis ends, certain regulations that are beneficial to the deployment of telehealth could remain in place.
"The government has moved very rapidly to pull down any remaining regulatory [barriers] that were slowing telehealth down," said Baird.
"We'd like to see that continue and we hope that it will. Now that people have seen [telehealth's] effectiveness, they've seen that it can treat patients, I think most legislators will be hard-pressed to give justifications for rolling all of that back."
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Rachel J. Whitaker
C222 CLSL
MC-110
rwhitakr@illinois.edu
Archaeal Biology
Bacteriophage Biology
Eukaryotic Virology
Microbial Communities/Microbiome
Microbial Physiology
Molecular Evolution
Harry E. Preble Professor in Liberal Arts and Sciences
Whitaker Lab
Archaea, Bioinformatics, Genome Organization, Host-Pathogen Interactions, Microbial Ecology, Microbial Physiology, Molecular Evolution, Virology
Disease Research Interests
The Whitaker Lab studies the evolution of Archaea, Bacteria and Viruses in natural and clinical environments.
All who are paying attention now appreciate the complexity, connectivity, and interdependence of biological systems wherein a single 30kb piece of single-stranded RNA can have planetary impacts. It is now abundantly clear that all living organisms are connected to each other through hidden microbial networks, and that while these connections are highly localized, microbial meta-populations act globally. Solving the global challenges of infectious disease, antibiotic resistance, and stabilization of healthy microbial ecosystems depends upon understanding the evolutionary dynamics of microbes and co-evolution of microbes and their own infectious elements. The Whitaker Lab studies on the dynamics of microbes and their viruses using a combination of genomics, experimental evolution, modeling, and molecular biology in a diversity of systems to provide a comparative context for discovering foundational rules of infection genomics. We focus on understanding how the physiology and evolution of rapidly changing components of microbial genomes including CRISPR-Cas immunity and genomic islands change microbial interactions in their natural contexts.
Viral Symbiosis
Viruses are the next frontier of microbiology not only because they are often pathogens, but also because they are the infectious source of genome innovation. Our research explores how viruses that are integrated in their host's genome confer new evolutionary traits to their hosts and change their eco-evolutionary interactions with other organisms. With funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation our lab studies how viral symbioses results in dynamics and eco-evolutionary feedbacks in highly structured, wild archaeal and viral populations from Yellowstone hot springs. We focus on terrestrial hot springs as an example of highly structured populations in which local adaptation and random processes will likely play an important role in shaping symbiotic interactions.
Viruses (phage) that infect bacterial pathogens such as P. aeruginosa are a key determinant of virulence, pathogenicity, epidemiology, adaptation, and evolution within and between the human host islands. We explore the transmission dynamics of P. aeruginosa phage within and between P. aeruginosa strains and how CRISPR-Cas immunity reflects the coevolutionary dynamics of P. aeruginosa and its viral populations. We extend this to other pathogen systems in which CRISPR-Cas systems are active to develop predictive models for the spread of virulence and antibiotic resistance in these systems. Through the Infection Genomics for One Health Theme at the Carl R. Woese Institute of Genomic Biology we extend the theoretical and molecular understanding of these systems further into a diversity of systems that connect observation to experiment across the continuum of symbiosis from antagonism to mutualism.
Archaeal Cell Biology
The movement of new genes and alleles into, and out of, microbial genomes defines rates of adaptation, population diversity, and genome architecture. Working in the only experimentally tractable crenarchaea (Sulfolobus) as our model system we are exploring the physiological and evolutionary basis of archaeal genome architecture including viruses, plasmids, and other mobile elements and their organization and integration into the multi-origin chromosome of the last genetically tractable common ancestor to eukaryotic cells.
Schematic of the CRSPR-Cas system (credit Maria A. Bautista)
B.A, (Biology, SiSP), Wesleyan University, 1993
Ph.D., (Microbiology), University of California, Berkeley, 1998-2004
Postdoctoral Researcher, (Geomicrobiolgy), University of California, Berkeley, 2004-2006
Teachers Ranked as Excellent
Allen Distinguished Investigator Award (2017)
University Scholar Award (2020)
American Academy of Microbiology Fellow
Co-Director of the Microbial Diversity Course at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, MA
Advisory Committee Member, Microbial Systems Initiative
Co-editor of "Women in Microbiology"
Highlighted Publications
DeWerff, Samantha J., Maria A. Bautista, Matthew Pauly, Changyi Zhang, and Rachel J. Whitaker. "Killer Archaea: Virus-Mediated Antagonism to CRISPR-Immune Populations Results in Emergent Virus-Host Mutualism." MBio 11, no. 2 (April 28, 2020). https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00404-20.
Rowland, Elizabeth F., Maria A. Bautista, Changyi Zhang, and Rachel J. Whitaker. "Surface Resistance to SSVs and SIRVs in Pilin Deletions of Sulfolobus Islandicus." Molecular Microbiology 113, no. 4 (2020): 718–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/mmi.14435.
Pilosof, Shai, Sergio A. Alcala-Corona, Tong Wang, Ted Kim, Sergei Maslov, Rachel J. Whitaker, and Mercedes Pascual. "The Network Structure and Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics of CRISPR-Induced Immune Diversification." BioRxiv, November 22, 2019, 850800. https://doi.org/10.1101/850800.
England, Whitney E., Ted Kim, and Rachel J. Whitaker. "Metapopulation Structure of CRISPR-Cas Immunity in Pseudomonas Aeruginosa and Its Viruses." MSystems 3, no. 5 (October 30, 2018). https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00075-18.
Westra, Edze R., Stineke van Houte, Sylvain Gandon, and Rachel Whitaker. "The Ecology and Evolution of Microbial CRISPR-Cas Adaptive Immune Systems." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1772 (May 13, 2019): 20190101. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0101.
Zhang, Changyi, Alex P. R. Phillips, Rebecca L. Wipfler, Gary J. Olsen, and Rachel J. Whitaker. "The Essential Genome of the Crenarchaeal Model Sulfolobus Islandicus." Nature Communications 9, no. 1 (December 2018): 4908. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07379-4.
Zhang, Changyi, Rebecca L. Wipfler, Yuan Li, Zhiyu Wang, Emily N. Hallett, and Rachel J. Whitaker. "Cell Structure Changes in the Hyperthermophilic Crenarchaeon Sulfolobus Islandicus Lacking the S-Layer." MBio 10, no. 4 (August 27, 2019): e01589-19. https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01589-19.
Dewerff, S. J., Zhang, C., Schneider, J., & Whitaker, R. J. (2022). Intraspecific antagonism through viral toxin encoded by chronic Sulfolobus spindle-shaped virus. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1842), [20200476]. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0476
Kim, H. W., Kim, N. K., Phillips, A. P. R., Parker, D. A., Liu, P., Whitaker, R. J., Rao, C. V., & Mackie, R. I. (2022). Genome Sequence of a Thermoacidophilic Methanotroph Belonging to the Verrucomicrobiota Phylum from Geothermal Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park: A Metagenomic Assembly and Reconstruction. Microorganisms, 10(1), [142]. https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10010142
Landa, K. J., Mossman, L. M., Whitaker, R. J., Rapti, Z., & Clifton, S. M. (2022). Phage–Antibiotic Synergy Inhibited by Temperate and Chronic Virus Competition. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 84(5), [54]. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-022-01006-6
Orazi, G., Collins, A. J., & Whitaker, R. J. (2022). Prediction of Prophages and Their Host Ranges in Pathogenic and Commensal Neisseria Species. mSystems, 7(3). https://doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00083-22
Zeng, Z., Chen, Y., Pinilla-Redondo, R., Shah, S. A., Zhao, F., Wang, C., Hu, Z., Wu, C., Zhang, C., Whitaker, R. J., She, Q., & Han, W. (2022). A short prokaryotic Argonaute activates membrane effector to confer antiviral defense. Cell Host and Microbe, 30(7), 930-943.e6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2022.04.015
Context matters: Whitaker combines her passions for microbiology and education to better understand our world
Microbes, human beings, and the many systems we inhabit, from farms to factories and hospitals to high schools, are all connected. Working in natural environments, research labs, and local communities, Rachel Whitaker has been...
Young Innovator program successfully concludes its second year
The Young Innovator program is designed to help trainees become innovative leaders in their fields. The students attended classes for ten weeks over the summer and, at the end of the program, participated in an idea competition, showcasing the projects.
Latest Jump ARCHES Awards Focus on Medical Tech Solutions to Meet Vexing Health Care Challenges
Twenty research projects are sharing slightly more than $1.4 million in funding through the Jump ARCHES research and development program to address a variety of vexing medical challenges including neurological testing for children and athletes (such as concussions), migraines, and stress among...
Effort to curb COVID-19 leads to a deeper understanding of communities and the disease
Several faculty from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, including microbiology professor Rachel Whitaker, are collaborating to help and learn from a town struck by the pandemic.
Microbiology professor Rachel Whitaker named a University Scholar
Congratulations to Rachel Whitaker for being chosen as a University Scholar. Whitaker, a professor of microbiology...


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You are here: Home / Publications / Peer-reviewed papers / lmd_Dufresne2007_abstracts.html
lmd_Dufresne2007_abstracts.html
P. Braconnot, F. Hourdin, S. Bony, J. L. Dufresne, J. Y. Grandpeix, and O. Marti. Impact of different convective cloud schemes on the simulation of the tropical seasonal cycle in a coupled ocean atmosphere model. Climate Dynamics, 29:501, October 2007. [ bib | DOI | ADS link ]
The simulation of the mean seasonal cycle of sea surface temperature (SST) remains a challenge for coupled ocean atmosphere general circulation models (OAGCMs). Here we investigate how the numerical representation of clouds and convection affects the simulation of the seasonal variations of tropical SST. For this purpose, we compare simulations performed with two versions of the same OAGCM differing only by their convection and cloud schemes. Most of the atmospheric temperature and precipitation differences between the two simulations reflect differences found in atmosphere-alone simulations. They affect the ocean interior down to 1,000 m. Substantial differences are found between the two coupled simulations in the seasonal march of the Intertropical Convergence Zone in the eastern part of the Pacific and Atlantic basins, where the equatorial upwelling develops. The results confirm that the distribution of atmospheric convection between ocean and land during the American and African boreal summer monsoons plays a key role in maintaining a cross equatorial flow and a strong windstress along the equator, and thereby the equatorial upwelling. Feedbacks between convection, large-scale circulation, SST and clouds are highlighted from the differences between the two simulations. In one case, these feedbacks maintain the ITCZ in a quite realistic position, whereas in the other case the ITCZ is located too far south close to the equator.
G. Krinner, O. Magand, I. Simmonds, C. Genthon, and J.-L. Dufresne. Simulated Antarctic precipitation and surface mass balance at the end of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Climate Dynamics, 28:215-230, February 2007. [ bib | DOI | ADS link ]
The aim of this work is to assess potential future Antarctic surface mass balance changes, the underlying mechanisms, and the impact of these changes on global sea level. To this end, this paper presents simulations of the Antarctic climate for the end of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The simulations were carried out with a stretched-grid atmospheric general circulation model, allowing for high horizontal resolution (60 km) over Antarctica. It is found that the simulated present-day surface mass balance is skilful on continental scales. Errors on regional scales are moderate when observed sea surface conditions are used; more significant regional biases appear when sea surface conditions from a coupled model run are prescribed. The simulated Antarctic surface mass balance increases by 32 mm water equivalent per year in the next century, corresponding to a sea level decrease of 1.2 mm year-1 by the end of the twenty-first century. This surface mass balance increase is largely due to precipitation changes, while changes in snow melt and turbulent latent surface fluxes are weak. The temperature increase leads to an increased moisture transport towards the interior of the continent because of the higher moisture holding capacity of warmer air, but changes in atmospheric dynamics, in particular off the Antarctic coast, regionally modulate this signal.
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Sàbba Sign to DHU Records; Pentacle Vinyl Coming Soon
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 14th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
New York trio Sàbba released their debut EP, Pentacle, in the early hours of 2019. The tape edition largely gone (Sludgelord Records still has it) and I wouldn't expect much different as the response when DHU Records gets behind the vinyl release for a very, very limited pressing of 66 copies. I think they'll probably do a second run somewhere down the line — or at least I'd kind of hope? — but if you ever needed an example of it paying to get your preorders in, this has to be it. 66 copies! That's like nothing. The wax is clear, and if you haven't heard the tracks yet, they're name-your-price on Bandcamp. I'd just hate to see you miss out on it twice. You know me. Looking out.
DHU sent the following down the PR wire:
SÀBBA sign to DHU Records to release debut Pentacle
DHU Records is proud to announce the signing of Brooklyn, New York's Occult Doom band SÀBBA to release their debut record "Pentacle" on extremely Limited Edition vinyl!
Sàbba is a Brooklyn bred doom metal/stoner rock band with themes ranging from total obliteration to daunting practices of the occult. Sàbba, meaning Sabbath in southern Italian, offers a sound which mushrooms from psychedelic, trance-inducing hypnotism into a brick wall of crushing annihilation.
"Pentacle" will be the first release in the Exclusive Press series Limited to 66 copies on Crystal Clear Lathe Cut which will be pressed by Royal Mint Records
Info and details for pre orders coming real soon
A1. Pentacle
A2. Smoke Goddess
B1. IVPITER
Pentacle was Recorded and Mixed at AVERNVS BK Studio in Brooklyn, NY
Mixed by Kevin Dawkins
Engineered by Kevin Dawkins and Mike Calabrese
Produced by Sàbba
Art Design by Kevin Dawkins
Cover photo by Hex Kim
SÀBBA
Drums- Kevin Dawkins
Guitar/Bass- Mike Calabrese
Vocals- Valerie Russo
https://www.facebook.com/sabbadoom/
https://www.instagram.com/sabbadoom/
https://sabbadoom.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/DHURecords/
https://www.instagram.com/dhu_records/
https://twitter.com/dhu_records
https://darkhedonisticunionrecords.bandcamp.com/
darkhedonisticunionrecords.bigcartel.com/
Sàbba, Pentacle (2019)
Pentacle by Sàbba
Tags: Brooklyn, DHU Records, New York City, Pentacle, Sabba, Sàbba Pentacle