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The Treholt Case
The spy charges and court case against Arne Treholt, a Norwegian civil servant and politician, have led to a long-standing controversy in the Norwegian media. This article examines the literature on the Treholt case for the first ten years after his arrest. The literature is classified under a scheme borrowed from Cold War history: traditionalist ('Arne Treholt was the greatest spy ever caught in Norway'), revisionist ('Treholt was a victim of a political vendetta against the left'), and post-revisionism (studies using greater historical distance and declassified archives to gain a more independent perspective – and it remains to be seen what the conclusion will be). Most of the published literature is revisionist, but none of the books classified under this heading offer a fully satisfactory answer to the traditionalist account. In particular, the revisionist literature fails to explain plausibly why Treholt and his case officers engaged in so much risky and covert behavior if all they did was to exchange political views. The effects of Treholt's espionage in the sense of traditional national security may have been overestimated; his value as a political informer was probably far greater.
Defense College
Case Officer
Independent Perspective
The spy charges and court case against Arne Treholt, a Norwegian civil servant and politician, have led to a long-standing controversy in the Norwegian media.Footnote 1 This article examines the literature on the Treholt case for the first ten years after his arrest. The literature is classified under a scheme borrowed from Cold War history: traditionalist ('Arne Treholt was the greatest spy ever caught in Norway'), revisionist ('Treholt was a victim of a political vendetta against the left'), and post-revisionism (studies using greater historical distance and declassified archives to gain a more independent perspective – and it remains to be seen what the conclusion will be). Most of the published literature is revisionist, but none of the books classified under this heading offer a fully satisfactory answer to the traditionalist account. In particular, the revisionist literature fails to explain plausibly why Treholt and his case officers engaged in so much risky and covert behavior if all they did was to exchange political views. The effects of Treholt's espionage in the sense of traditional national security may have been overestimated; his value as a political informer was probably far greater.
The Treholt case is, arguably, the most serious political spy case to be revealed in the West after the Second World War. Of course, in several NATO countries spies within the military establishment and in the intelligence agencies have had access to more sensitive national security material than Treholt in Norway and the opportunity to pass along greater volumes of it. But one is hard put to name a spy with a higher political position than Arne Treholt, who served as a state secretary (the second highest political position) in Norway's Ministry of Ocean Law, and before that as Political Secretary to the same minister, then Minister of Commerce and, as such, a member of the exclusive Security Committee of the Norwegian Cabinet. In 1978 the tasks of the Ministry of Ocean Law were completed, the Ministry was incorporated into the Foreign Ministry, and Treholt—then already on the short list of suspected spies—became a regular Foreign Service officer, although he continued to play an informal role in Labor Party politics. Treholt held higher formal office than Günther Guillaume, although the politician to which he had attached his career, Jens Evensen, was not as centrally placed as Willy Brandt and the country in which he operated was of course much smaller and more peripheral than West Germany. Nevertheless, he has been characterized by Oleg Gordievsky as one of the KGB's ten most important agents.
In Norway the Treholt case came as a big shock when revealed to the public on 21 January 1984, the day after his arrest at Oslo airport while on his way to a meeting in Vienna with his case officer, KGB General Gennadi Titov. The case has remained embroiled in political controversy, much like the Rosenberg case in the USA or the Petrov case in Australia.
The first book with Treholt's picture on the front cover was published just a few months after his arrest. His wife published a revealing book about a year later, before the trial started, and by the summer of 1994 my count had reached 17 non-fiction books dealing exclusively with the Treholt case. Add to this two slightly disguised novels on the case, and a half a dozen non-fiction books where the Treholt case played a major role. In addition, Norwegian law journals have published relevant articles, and there have been two debates in Parliament, one of them preceded by a lengthy committee report on why Treholt was admitted as a student at the Norwegian National Defense College. I have provided an extensive bibliography in an article for a Norwegian journal, along with a more detailed discussion of the literatureFootnote 2 and will limit myself here to the more important contributions to the debate, as well as the few contributions available in English.
The Treholt case belongs to the Cold War and it seems appropriate to interpret it within the framework of the tri-partite division of the literature on the Cold War: There is, first, the traditionalist school, an explanation of and to a large measure an apology for the official Western position. Then there is the revisionist school of critical studies, frequently coming close to an apology for the other side, and finally, there is the postrevisionist school, with a diverse set of studies using greater historical distance and recently opened archives to gain a more independent perspective.
2 Traditionalism
The two most important works in the traditionalist literature are the verdict (Eidsivating Lagmannsrett 1985)Footnote 3 and the volume by Michael Grundt Spang.Footnote 4 The lower court verdict (which eventually became final) was published as a 250-page book and there is also an English translation—although it is not as readily accessible.Footnote 5 Michael Grundt Spang, a senior journalist in Norway's largest newspaper VG, has based his account on the extremely detailed reports of his paper. Since verbatim court records are not available from Norwegian trials, the VG reports and other news reporting, will remain the major source of what was said at the trial.Footnote 6 Spang's views are close to views of the prosecutor, 'a betrayal of dizzying proportions', and his conclusion close to that of the court which imposed the maximum of penalty of 20 years. Treholt was convicted of handing over to KGB representatives a great deal of information to which he had access in the line of duty, and which was judged to be detrimental to national security. A great deal of this information he acquired while a student at the Defense College, which he attended as an official of the Foreign Ministry. In addition, he was also convicted for espionage for Iraq.
Other important books in the same tradition are the memoirs of Haarstad (1988), head of the Norwegian Special Branch for most of the seven-year period when Treholt was under investigation, and Tofte (1987), the Special Branch veteran who led the investigation, made the arrest, and conducted most of the interrogation. The two books of Treholt's (now former) wife, which provide ample documentation of how Treholt kept family and friends completely in the dark, must be included in the same category.
The most troublesome point in the traditionalist literature concerns the proof for the actual transmission of sensitive information. Although Treholt initially confessed to being caught in a trap by the KGB (he later retracted this) he never admitted having handed over national security information. Broadly speaking, the stronger the evidence for transmission—or attempted transmission, the less significance for national security. For example, the 66 documents found in Treholt's briefcase when he was arrested, were judged by the court not to be relevant to national security, either separately or as a whole.Footnote 7
In the end, the verdict relied heavily on the damage done by the transmission to the KGB of information Treholt acquired at the Defense College. By the time he was admitted to the Defense College he was under very strong suspicion, although definitive evidence to convict him was still lacking. Thus, the question arises whether the Norwegian authorities should not have prevented his term at the Defense College. Sending Treholt to the Defense College was the idea of a Foreign Ministry colleague in charge of finding suitable entrants who was not cleared for the information about Treholt's probable espionage.
Another weakness (more from a historical than from a legal point of view) of the traditionalist literature is that it assumes that Treholt needed a motive for espionage, but fails to establish conclusive what that motive might be. Initially, the prosecution placed great emphasis on Treholt's own confession (the one he had later retracted) which told in detail how as a student political activist he became involved in a relationship which he lost control of. Towards the end of the case, the profit motive came to the fore and the verdict explicitly rejected the idea that he was pressured by the Russians. These two motives might, of course, apply to different phases of his secret life. There was never any suggestion of pressure in the case of his espionage for Iraq, and this belongs to the late phase. The uncertainty about motives derives in great measure from Treholt's retraction of his first statements to the police. By insisting that he was acting freely at all times, and insisting on full acquittal, Treholt and his lawyers awarded a walkover victory to the prosecution. However, for anyone who attempts to comprehend why the career of a talented and ambitious young politician ended in such a tragedy, the traditionalist literature seems ambiguous and incomplete. The second book by his estranged wife reveals that one of the FBI officers assigned to his case (posing as a friendly neighbor in Manhattan) thought that he was a communist; such ideological motives find little support in the Norwegian literature.
3 The Revisionist Critique
In the dozen revisionist works it is not simple to point to the main contributions. Jo Bech-KarlsenFootnote 8 covered the court case for a left-wing weekly and his book is a good summary which includes the many second thoughts and question-marks that many radicals had about the case, once the initial shock (and condemnation) had receded into the background. Treholt's own bookFootnote 9 about the arrest and interrogation is a literary masterpiece, which received a prize in a non-fiction literature competition. His argument is so self-serving, however, and some of his excuses so transparent that the book might have been better submitted in a competition for fiction. A very interesting book by Calmeyer (1993) about political surveillance in the Norwegian labor movement attempts to link this to the Treholt case, but not very successfully.
A separate strand of revisionist literature deals with the pre-trial publicity. This literature provides extensive documentation that there was a massive pre-trial condemnation of Treholt in quasi-legal terms from politicians and the media, with Prime Minister Kåre Willoch as the most prominent example. This has led to a great deal of self-criticism in the journalistic profession, and to a lesser extent among politicians. However, it is impossible to assess the significance of this publicity for the verdict. Treholt's status as a media star (even before his arrest) clearly works both ways. Quite apart from the pre-trial condemnation, he has also had a very active circle of friends who have argued his case publicly, a degree of public support not enjoyed by any other Norwegian charged with espionage.
The mainstream revisionist critique of the verdict relates to lack of concrete proof for the transmission of national security information, as well as the unfortunate admission of Treholt to the Defense College. Some go beyond this to argue that his term at the Defense College was a deliberate trap that the government set in order to obtain sufficient evidence to convict him. This question was extensively investigated by Parliament and the weight of the evidence clearly indicates that his admission was a bureaucratic error, although there is disagreement about how the error might have been prevented, by whom, and at what stage.
Several law professors have criticized various aspects of the investigation and the trial, notably the legality of a secret raid on Treholt's apartment in Oslo, on the interpretation of the relevant paragraphs in the penal code, on the question of intent, etc. To a non-lawyer like myself, much of this criticism seems sufficiently well-founded to make it a reasonable expectation that the Supreme Court would have reduced the sentence, perhaps significantly. Treholt actively prevented this, by with-drawing his appeal after the Supreme Court proceedings had started (as a reaction to some procedural decisions of the court which went against him). Instead, he put his trust in a full new review on the lower court (a strategy which was unsuccessful) and eventually in asking for a pardon (finally granted on 3 July 1992). Some revisionists consider that the Court should have limited the verdict to the Civil Service Act (which Treholt clearly had violated), such violations have an upper limit of three years; while others portray him merely as an unconventional diplomat carrying out the kind of private diplomacy and openness which has been publicly applauded after the demise of the East-West conflict. Calmeyer, among others, interprets the persecution of Treholt as the culmination of a long struggle for power within the Labor Party, through which the establishment was finally able to discredit the left wing.
A detailed discussion of the revisionist position would easily lead to a new book. However, a couple of frequently made points are worth mentioning. First, it has become a favorite theme for the revisionists that Treholt cannot be a major spy because he was photographed with his case officers in restaurants. Given how frequently spies have met their case officers in restaurants and the origin of that covertly obtained picture (taken apparently, by Norwegian Special Branch operatives using a camera hidden in a baby carriage) this argument does not have much force. Treholt's extensive 'home archive' has also been adduced as proof that he cannot have been much of a spy because he failed to take elementary precautions. This argument overlooks the most important aspect of his home archive: that it does not contain any notes from his meetings with his case officers, even though Treholt was a compulsive note-taker. His calendar entries about the time for next meetings were carefully coded, although the Special Branch broke the code after they had covertly obtained copies of his calendars. This ultimate consequence of this line of argument is that no one can be a major spy if he is ever caught. Or in other words: If there is no evidence of espionage, the defendant must of course be acquitted. If there is evidence, he is unprofessional and therefore not a major spy, and therefore must also be acquitted.
The charge that the Treholt case was a politically manipulated move, relies on a supposition that other leftist politicians behaved in the same way as Treholt. No one, however, has been able to point to another left-wing politicians who conducted secret meetings with senior KGB officials (one of whom had been publicly expelled from Norway because of his involvement in an earlier Foreign Ministry spy case) behind the back of his friends, family, and colleagues. In fact, the authorities were careful to stress the uniqueness of the Treholt case and the faint beginnings of a political witchhunt were squashed very quickly. Thus, the Treholt case is very different from the British saga of the Cambridge ring, with its endless quest for the third man, etc. When a few people on the Left have equated Treholt's modus operandi with standard political practice on the Left, they have invited a criminalization of their own political activity—an invitation their political opponents, not to speak of the prosecuting authorities, have declined to accept.Footnote 10
The greatest problem with the revisionist literature, however, is that it contains no plausible explanation of why Treholt and General Titov should take the trouble, risk, and expense of meeting covertly in Helsinki and Vienna if all they ever did was to exchange political generalities which Treholt never even bothered to record or pass on to anyone. While the revisionists have a point when they criticize the court for not entertaining rival interpretations to the espionage hypothesis, they themselves have been unable to suggest any plausible hypothesis for Treholt's behavior, or for Titov's.
4 A Post-revisionist Synthesis?
By and large, the existing literature is strongly polarized and rather unsatisfactory. The revisionist writings are the most voluminous and also contain the strongest exaggerations. This proves nothing about the case itself but illustrates the common phenomenon that while the establishment rules, the opposition argues. There is an asymmetry in exaggeration: the establishment rules to excess, by sending Treholt to jail for an unprecedentedly long period and on somewhat shaky evidence, the opposition engages in conspiracy theories and other strained theorizing.
Norwegian historians, now actively involved in several studies of the connections between the intelligence services and political surveillance in the postwar period, have not yet tackled the Treholt case. Short treatments in a popular history of the postwar period by radio journalist Yngvar Ustvedt (1992) as well as the entry in the leading Norwegian encyclopedia Store norske konversasjonsleksikon (1987) have a mildly revisionist flavor. Apart from a book by Arne Treholt's father, a former Cabinet Minister,Footnote 11 politicians' memoirs have not yet shed any light on the case. Kåre Willoch's half-page treatment of the Treholt case in his volume from his 5½ years as Prime MinisterFootnote 12 (when the decision was made to let Treholt into the Defense College, and later to arrest him) is reminiscent of Harold Wilson's cursory treatment of the secret services in his memoirs. More recently, a biography of Thorvald Stoltenberg,Footnote 13 a close colleague in the Labor Party, dealt more extensively with the case—but without providing any significant new information.
Excellent post-revisionist works exist for the politically controversial Rosenberg of 1946 caseFootnote 14 and the equally controversial Petrov case of 1955 in Australia.Footnote 15 Both of these books made extensive use of previously unavailable archival material. While the main positions of the revisionist critiques—that the Rosenbergs were not spies and that the Petrov case was a plot to discredit the Australian Labour Party—were refuted in these works, the traditionalist position was modified in very significant ways, What are the prospects for a post-revisionist reinterpretation of the Treholt case?
To some extent the future is already here. The volume on the KGB by Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky published in 1990Footnote 16 provided the first confirmation from inside the KGB of Treholt's perceived value as a spy. Some of this information had been revealed in a secret session in the Treholt trial, but it was then presented in extremely veiled terms because Gordievsky was still in place. The book does not provide much new information on the case (in fact it relies mostly on Tofte's memoirs and does not even cite the more extensive and authoritative court verdict); the force lies in Gordievsky's personal observations and his authority as an official of the KGB department dealing with Scandinavian affairs. Two years later, another KGB officer, Mikhail Butkov,Footnote 17 who had left the sinking ship in 1991, published a volume of memoirs augmenting Gordievsky's information. While Butkov was much less senior, he had been stationed in Oslo after the Treholt trial and confirms that official policy of the KGB was to deny Treholt's status as an agent and that it was seen as a publicity victory for the KGB when Calmeyer published an interview with Titov in Arbeiderbladet in 1990. It may safely be assumed that journalists of all persuasions have conducted a fairly intensive search for former KGB officials willing to talk about the Treholt case. Apart from the rather unconvincing interview with Titov (and another interview with Treholt's case officer in during the UN period, Vladimir Zhizhin, published in Aftenposten in 1993, in which he refused to talk about the Treholt case) all such revelations to date have gone in Treholt's disfavor.
Statements by former KGB officials about Treholt's significance as an agent are very destructive for the revisionist interpretation, but do not necessarily provide any support for the traditionalists. The ex-KGB'niks have provided no new documentation of Treholt revelations which concern national security. In fact, Gordievsky has emphasized Treholt's role as an agent of influence and as a collector of political intelligence.Footnote 18 But Treholt was not charged with such offenses, and apart from violating his obligations as a civil servant it is very hard to see what charges they could have led to. If there had been concrete evidence, for instance, of leaks from Treholt of Norwegian negotiating positions during the talks on the delimitation of the economic zone on the Barents Sea (in which Treholt played a key role and which ended in a very controversial agreement) the political condemnation would have been massive, but it is not obvious that this would have been a chargeable offence under the espionage legislation. The prosecution did make an attempt to extend the concept of a secret as described in the penal code, but this attempt was largely rejected by the court, in line with the argument by a minority of the court-appointed experts.
In August 1991 the Court declassified information from 18 pages of the secret part of the Treholt verdict. Even though the new information does in my view add to the evidence for his technical guilt under these particular paragraphs, still, approximately 100 pages of the verdict remain wholly or partly classified. Treholt's defense lawyer has argued that increased openness about the verdict and the court proceedings will speak to the defendant's favor. This may be correct in the limited sense that some of the mystique about the closed sessions evaporates. However, so far Treholt has not had much more success with either Norwegian or Russian glasnost' than the sons of the Rosenbergs have had with Khrushchev's unexpurgated memoirs, Sadupletov's memoirs, or and other new information on the Rosenberg case.
An uncertain factor is whether the authorities possessed any information which they refrained from presenting in court. The fact that they revealed some of Gordievsky's information (even though it occurred in a super-secret session and though he was not named, he must have been exposed to considerable danger) and presented the illegally obtained evidence from the search of Treholt's apartment in court, indicates that the prosecution was hard pressed to make its case stick. However, if the authorities had had access to signals intelligence, it seems very likely that it would not have been kept outside the courtroom, in order not to endanger 'sources and methods'. We know that signals intelligence—the Venona material—played an important role behind the scenes in the Rosenberg case. A slight preview of a possible future development in the Treholt case was provided by Ørnulf Tofte, who is cited by Treholt as having said in an early interrogation that there was a significant increase in radio traffic from the Soviet embassy in 1973–74, that is, several years after Treholt was recruited and when he was first employed in an official position (as politically secretary to Jens Evensen during the negotiations for a trade agreement between Norway and the Common Market). It is not known whether reference was made to such traffic analyses in closed sessions of the trial, but it would in any case be a large step from that to reveal the contents of decrypted intelligence, if any such exists.
In spy cases prosecuting authorities have been known to cut corners. They represent the collective anger of the nation over treasonous activities, they 'know' that the defendant lies through his teeth, they may know more than they can reveal to the court, technical guilt is notoriously hard to establish, and the secrecy of the proceedings provide a golden opportunity for getting away with more than would be possible in other criminal cases. When, as in the Rosenberg and Treholt trials, they get free points from the defense lawyers by unrealistic insistence on total acquittal, the outcome may turn out to be unduly harsh. My tentative guess about a post-revisionist literature on the Treholt case is that he may be seen to have provided the Russians with much more information than included in the charges, while the legal basis for his conviction under the national security paragraphs of the penal code was nevertheless weaker than the verdict made out. The drastic conclusion here may be that an involuntary alliance of Cold War crusaders on both sides sent Treholt to prison for much longer than would have been justified, had the complete evidence been publicly available, but that he may have been let off too lightly in the political arena.
When the Norwegian book market is overloaded with Treholt books, the available English-language information is remarkably sparse.Footnote 19 So while waiting for the post-revisionist revelations, a solid journalistic book in English could serve a useful function.
This article was originally published in Intelligence and National Security 10(3): 529–538. The abstract has been added. The past 20 years have seen a large increase in writings on the Treholt case, few of which add materially to the substance. The remaining portions of the verdict have now been declassified.
Gleditsch (1994).
Further material from the verdict was declassified on 23 August 1991 and is available from the Norwegian Special Branch, Politiets Overvåkingstjeneste.
Spang (1986).
I obtained my copy from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.
Extensive records of court sessions in early 1986 recording evidence for the (later aborted) Supreme Court review of the case are, however, available for inspection in the Special Branch.
The Norwegian Supreme Court has laid down a doctrine ('the combination principle' or 'the puzzle principle') whereby pieces of information which separately are not judged to have national security implications may have such implications if revealed together. This doctrine, when applied to information revealed publicly rather than transmitted to case officers in secret, has some troubling implications for freedom of expression. Cf. Gleditsch (1987) and Gleditsch/Wolland (1991).
Bech-Karlsen (1985).
Treholt (1985).
Shawcross (1986) speculates that 'the politics of the time', particularly anti-Americanism was an important motive behind Treholt's espionage. He cites an anonymous Norwegian official to the effect that 'If Treholt could do it, how many more like him are there who grew up in his generation, not only in Norway but in all of Europe?' Eight years later there is a great deal of political debate about the politics of the Left during the Cold War, but little evidence for the idea that this created a generation of spies.
Treholt/Hegge (1989).
Willoch (1990).
Salvesen (1994).
Radosh/Milton (1983).
Manne (1987).
Andrew/Gordievsky (1990).
Butkov (1992). As far as I have been able to ascertain, Butkov has not published anything in English.
Andrew/Gordievsky (1990: 476) and my interview with Gordievsky in London, 30 March 1992.
A short early summary of the case can be found in Ausland (1984). A more recent assessment is Shawcross (1988). A short treatment of the Treholt case in Brook-Shepherd (1988: 275) contains several major errors. There must have been a fair amount of coverage in English-language newspapers at the time, but searches on National Newspaper Index and Magazine Index on Dialog yielded only 16 and 4 items respectively. Apart from the information attributed to Gordievsky in his joint book with Andrew, I am not aware of any first-hand material in the English-language literature on the case.
Andrew, Christopher; Gordievsky, Oleg, 1990: KGB. The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (New York: HarperCollins/London: Hodder).
Ausland, John, 1984: "A Mole Unmasked: The Arne Treholt Spy Case", in: The Norseman, 2: 55–57.
Bech-Karlsen, Jo, 1985: Bange anelser. En bok om Treholt-saken [Anxious Premonitions. A Book about the Treholt Case] (Oslo: Gyldendal).
Brook-Shepherd, Gordon, 1988: The Storm Birds: Soviet Post-War Defectors (London: Weidenfeld).
Butkov, Mikhail V., 1992: KGB i Norge – det siste kapittel [KGB in Norway—the Last Chapter] (Oslo: Tiden).
Calmeyer, Bengt, 1993: Forsinket oppgjør. Arbeiderbevegelsen og den politiske overvåking [Delayed Reckoning. The Labor Movement and Political Surveillance] (Oslo: Aschehoug).
Eidsivating Lagmannsrett, 1985: Treholtdommen [The Treholt Verdict] (Oslo: Norwegian University Press).
Gleditsch, Nils Petter, 1987: "National Security and Freedom of Expression. The Scandinavian Legal Battles", in: Journal of Media Law and Practice (June): 2–5.
Gleditsch, Nils Petter, 1994: "Treholt-litteraturen: en studie i polarisering [The Treholt Literature: A Study in Polarization]", in: Internasjonal Politikk, 52,2: 275–87.
Gleditsch, Nils Petter; Wolland, Steingrim, 1991: "Norway", in: D'Souza, Frances et al. (Eds.): Information Freedom and Censorship. World Report 1991 (London: Library Association): 287–291.
Gordievsky, Oleg, 1992: Interviewed by Nils Petter Gleditsch, London, 30 March.
Haarstad, Gunnar, 1988: I hemmelig tjeneste. Etterretning og overvåking i krig og fred [In Secret Service, Intelligence and Surveillance in Times of War and Peace] (Oslo: Aschehoug).
Manne, Robert, 1987: The Petrov Affair: Politics and Espionage (Sydney: Pergamon).
Radosh, Ronald; Milton, Joyce, 1983: The Rosenberg File. A Search for the Truth (New York: Rinehart & Winston/London: Weidenfeld).
Salvesen, Geir, 1994: Thorvalds verden [Thorvald's World] (Oslo: Schibsted).
Shawcross, William, 1986: "The New Breed of Anti-US Spy in Europe", in: Spectator, 7 June [Reprinted in Washington Post, 15 June].
Shawcross, William, 1988: "The Case of the Pampered Spy", in: Readers Digest (June): 55–57.
Spang, Michael Grundt, 1986: Treholtsaken. Hva skjedde? [The Treholt Case—What Happened?] (Oslo: Aschehoug).
Tofte, Ørnulf, 1987: Spaneren. Overvåking for rikets sikkerhet [Undercover Agent. Surveillance for National Security] (Oslo: Gyldendal).
Treholt, Arne, 1985: Alene [Alone] (Oslo: Cappelen).
Treholt, Thorstein; Hegge, Oddvar, 1989: I sol og skygge [In the Sun and in the Shadows] (Oslo: Gyldendal).
Willoch, Kåre, 1990: Statsminister [Prime Minister] (Oslo: Schibsted).
Gleditsch, N.P. (2015). The Treholt Case. In: Nils Petter Gleditsch: Pioneer in the Analysis of War and Peace. SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03820-9_5


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What Mahatma Gandhi means to us today?
What can we learn from Mahatma Gandhi as far as leadership is concerned? And can we put those lessons to good use now? Inspirational guru Virender Kapoor comes out with an incisive analysis of the phenomenon called the Mahatma.
What can we learn from Mahatma Gandhi as far as leadership is concerned? Was there anything new about his style of leadership? And can we put those lessons to good use now? Posing these questions, educationalist and inspirational guru Virender Kapoor (Author of Leadership The Gandhi Way) comes out with an incisive analysis of the phenomenon called the Mahatma and how his deeds and words can still be relevant today.
The slim volume is not a biography of Mahatma Gandhi. Nor is it about his politics. It is an autopsy of how Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi became an icon by leading a life of simplicity and honesty; preached through practice, motivated millions (rich and poor, men and women) to follow him, and developed strong will power that amazed even his foes.
There is a rigorous analysis of the Mahatma's various qualities including his political skills, the way he communicated with millions of Indians the illiterate included, led from the front, maintained self-discipline, developed an unmatched charisma and also brought spirituality into politics.
"I was amazed to discover how relevant Gandhi's style of leadership remains in today's world. The key is to adapt to - rather than adopt - his philosophy in action and it will work for sure," says Kapoor, author of several books on leadership, motivation and emotional intelligence.
"The Living Gandhi" by Tara Sethi and Anjana Narayan is an eclectic collection of informed articles on the various facets of the Mahatma. American civil rights activist Bernard Lafayette Jr writes about a killer gang in Colombia whose leader enjoyed - yes, enjoyed- murdering people but refused to kill after he saw the movie "Gandhi".
Author-journalist Rajni Bakshi is happy that although leaders of independent India rejected "Gandhi's civilizational critique, subsequent generations of social and political workers kept rediscovering it". Grandson Rajmohan Gandhi details the influences that led Gandhi to embrace ahimsa or non-violence as his political will; one major push was Tolstoy's gripping "The Kingdom of God Is Within You".
In more than one way, the authors in the volume are emphatic that Gandhi's thoughts and actions offer today lasting solutions to the global crises: "violence and war, the corrupt nature of politics and self-promoting leadership, the broken education system, the rising social and economic inequity, and a threat of an impending ecological collapse". I hope this is so; not everyone is likely to agree.


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Technology and the arts play a central role in our curriculum, studied as separate disciplines and integrated into projects of other subjects. Most disciplines provide opportunities for advanced studies, including AP courses in Mathematics, Science, and Language, as well as Honors courses in the Arts. Beyond the academic program, Beacon gives students extensive opportunities to participate actively in clubs, sports teams, community service, and international travel. In 2015, Beacon moved into a magnificent, state-of-the-art building on West 44th Street near 10th Avenue in New York. Staff helped design the look and outfitting of the space, including classrooms, science laboratories, art, photography, and film studios, an art gallery, dance studio, two new theaters, a full gym, exercise rooms, and a music suite.
The Beacon School provides students with an exceptional well-rounded educational experience designed to promote independent and critical thinking, communication, collaboration and problem-solving skills. Inquiry and critical thinking are at the center of teaching and learning. Students are encouraged to question, take responsibility for their own learning, and actively engage in the work of the classroom and the community. We expect our students to be curious, intellectually agile, open-minded, kind, and empathetic. Student skill development and content mastery at Beacon are assessed through discipline-appropriate performance assessment tasks. These tasks allow for the demonstration of a full picture of what students know and can do through problem-solving, creative expression, research, writing, and presentation in a variety of media.
Beacon is a founding member of the New York Performance Standards Consortium and adheres to its practices of staff collaboration, inquiry-based education, performance-based assessment, and student civic engagement. Beacon offers thoughtful, challenging, and deep coursework in mathematics, the physical and natural sciences, language, literature, writing, history, and the social sciences—all with various pathways to achieve a depth of study and academic mastery. As central to its program, the Beacon School also offers robust opportunities for students to examine themselves and the world through the visual and performing arts— allowing them to fully engage in the creative process, make meaning, inspire, and achieve excellence.
Beacon maintains a wide range of extra-curricular activities for students to develop their interests and pursue their passions in athletics, politics. civil rights and activism, social, racial and environmental justice, the arts, and diverse cultural, academic, and recreational endeavors. These programs connect students to the wider world and advance values of teamwork, cooperation, collaboration, hard work, shared responsibility, and humility. Together with its advisory system and caring staff, these programs provide the lynchpin for Beacon's humanistic approach to building a joyful community.
Beacon is fully committed to adolescent development as full healthy human beings. The school actively promotes the social and emotional and physical well-being of its community and provides the necessary academic and social supports and services so that all students can learn and flourish in the Beacon program.
Beacon is committed to being a diverse, equitable and inclusive community and to offering equitable access to its program to all students in New York City interested in attending. Beacon adheres to non-discriminatory, inclusive, and anti-racist policies, practices and pedagogies in all facets of its program and administration. We provide a welcoming environment for intellectual and social development to students of all gender, sexual, racial, ethnic and religious identities.
Graduates of Beacon will be prepared to advance to institutions of high learning, enter the larger world and lead meaningful, self-actualizing, personally fulfilling lives. The goal is for all students to become people of integrity: honorable, ethical, humane, creative, skillful and responsible global citizens who advance justice and make positive contributions to their communities and the world.
Beacon's Commitment to Equity
Beacon High School's purpose and work are to create and sustain a student-centered, inquiry-focused educational space by establishing liberatory pathways in order to dismantle white supremacy and other systems of oppression. We believe it is important to center empathy, curiosity, and joy along with a diverse and inclusive education. We seek results that are not only quantitative but qualitative.
As an educational institution for young people in New York City, we are co-conspiring towards justice in the present, which requires us to reconcile foundational and unresolved traumas. We must examine the institutional inequities upon which our school has been built and reflect on the ways we have upheld these systems and the resulting impacts within Beacon and beyond.
Our aim is to holistically care for all members of our diverse community by consistently accounting for our actions and redressing structural inequities. In the context of a white supremacist, capitalist, imperialist, patriarchal society, we radically commit our energies and resources to a vigilantly self-reflexive, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive school environment. Our journey is individual and collective.
"Our purpose is to give our students the opportunities, the resources, and the go-ahead to find meaning and success in their lives…"

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Born in 1963 in Mito.
Graduated the Royal College of Art with MA.
Graduated the University of Tsukuba with MA.
Worked at Taisei Corporation Design Div.
Established Milligram architectural studio 1998.
Lecturer of Keio University SFC 2005 to 2009.
Lecturer of Nihon University 2010.
© 2019 milligram / all rights reserved.


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Listen to the full series on Audible!
The Golden State Killer. The East Area Rapist. The Original Night Stalker. The Visalia Ransacker.
The monster who preyed on Californians from 1976 to 1986 was known by many aliases. And while numerous police sketches tried to capture his often-masked visage, the Golden State Killer spent more than 40 years not only faceless, but nameless.
For his victims, for their families and for the investigators tasked with finding him, the senselessness and brutality of the Golden State Killer's acts were matched only by the powerlessness they felt at failing to uncover his identity. To be sure, the chances of obtaining closure - or any form of justice - after so many years were slim to none, at best.
Then, on April 24, 2018, authorities arrested 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo at his home in Citrus Heights, Calif., based on DNA evidence linked to the crimes. Amazingly, it seemed, evil finally had a name.
Delivering all-new details about the investigation and a stunning final act to the events of Michelle McNamara's haunting bestseller, I'll Be Gone in the Dark, this is the true story of how the suspected Golden State Killer was captured, as told, first-hand, by those closest to the case:
Paul Holes - the forensic criminologist and retired Costa County detective who spent 20 years trying to crack the Golden State Killer case, and finally did.
Jim Clemente (Host) - a retired FBI profiler and former New York City prosecutor who has investigated some of the highest profile criminal cases in U.S. history, including The Unabomber.


The (free) get going confederate is tomorrow at 6pm, with a talk from the curator, and the exhibition's until 23rd June so you drink lavishness of past to muse on to visit. They seethe the button, they intermission, and again they moody when the for the nonce at once is right.
Moreover, AirTel continues to be lone of the firstly network providers to be known to emancipating 4G solutions in India.
The ownership of a real estate is not a use one's head to be granted residency. There obligated to somewhere be an unremitting replenish of diaphanous stickers, and someone's gone unembellished adding pink exercise book next to all the stations connect to Olympic venues.
rstevewarmorycom Perfectly aware what a straw man is you used it, as you well know 15-20 pages ago.
Laci Green has aids. This explains a lot.
Posted on 06.04.2018 06.04.2018 by Kira R.


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Q: How can I implement two functions with same name with in one class in C++? I have two void functions with the same name, but different parameters. and, Code is not compiling. I am using eclipse for compiling.
Note: Here I was looking for override function. Problem is solved.

A:
How can I implement two functions with same name with in one class in
  C?

C++ has classes not C.
Use method/function overloading:
class MyClass
{
   void method1(int x) {}
   void method1(int x, int y) {}

   void method2(int x) const {}
   void method2(int x) {}

   void method3(int x) {};
   void method3(int x, int y = 1) {}; // ERROR ambiguity! when .method3(1)
};

Notice, everything is the same but the signature of parameters or qualifiers.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
HARRIS J. ZAKARIN
APPELLATE COUNSEL
United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
Touro College, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, 1995
Binghamton University, 1992
900 Walt Whitman Road, Suite 103
Harris J. Zakarin is appellate counsel to Hollander Legal Group, P.C. Mr. Zakarin is also the principal of Harris J. Zakarin, P.C., located in Melville, NY, where he represents clients in all appellate courts in New York State, including the New York Court of Appeals, New York's highest court, and in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He also collaborates and consults with the attorneys of Hollander Legal Group, P.C. to ensure that issues are properly and adequately preserved for appellate review and assists in all phases of litigation strategy, including the handling of motion practice in both trial and appellate courts.
Mr. Zakarin was previously a partner at a national law firm where he co-chaired the firm's appellate practice group. In that regard, he represented individuals, closely-held businesses, and major insurance companies in all aspects of commercial and civil litigation, with an emphasis in appellate litigation. A former law clerk in the Appellate Division, his name appears on countless appellate decisions that he has briefed and argued in nearly every area of civil law.
For the past five years, Mr. Zakarin has been selected as a Super Lawyer in Appellate Practice, a recognition bestowed only upon five percent of New York lawyers. In 2010, Harris was named as one of the Top 40 Under 40 Rising Stars by the Long Island Business News.


Spencer Ludwig is a singer, songwriter, and trumpet virtuoso born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Picking up the trumpet at the age of 17, he immediately started making his mark in LA's Indie, EDM & Pop world. While still an undergraduate studying music at the California Institute of the Arts, he was hired to be the featured trumpeter in the indie-pop group Capital Cities in 2011.
During his time with Capital Cities he recorded on their platinum Capitol Records debut album, "In A Tidal Wave of Mystery", opened for Katy Perry on her Prismatic World Tour, toured the US and the world five times, and performed at festivals around the globe including Coachella, Bonnaroo, and many others.
In January of 2015, Spencer signed a worldwide record deal as a solo artist with Warner Bros. Records. Spencer just recently wrapped the recording process of his debut album with a star-studded group of producers: RedOne, Jesse Shatkin, Jake Sinclair and Bram Inscore. Spencer's first two singles will be released in July 2016, followed by a multi-city tour.


Pir Panjal Trek will lead you to turquoise lakes, via alpine passes through the breathtaking scenery of the Kashmir Himalayas. Tosa Maidan is the base of all trekking expeditions in the area. It's a magnificent meadow situated at an altitude of 3200m. Shepherds with their herd spend the summers in the meadow. Around half a dozen Alpine lakes are situated at the far end of this Meadow close to the mighty Pir Panjal wall.
We would leave early morning from Srinagar and reach Khag Shanglipora village. After having tea, we would start climbing towards the famous Tosa Maidaan meadow. Trek starts with a gradual ascent through dense forest for 3-4 hours before one enters the meadow. The area offers a panoramic view of surroundings with lush green vast meadows bordered by famous Sheene Myean peak in the Backdrop.
The next day we will walk towards the other end of the vast meadow over an inclined path alongside the stream that originates from a high altitude lake Damam Sar. A Day long trek would take us to the banks of Gadtarsar Lake (3900m). This lake offers Trout Fishes. This would be our Base camp for next 3 days.
After Breakfast we would start exploring the lakes in the area situated at an altitude of approx. 4000m. The beauty of these lakes is enchanting. We will visit 3 more alpine lakes in the vicinity namely Gaadtar Sar II, III and the famous Damam Sar. By afternoon we will be back to the campsite.
Next morning we will cross a mountain pass to visit Boadsar lake (The largest in the Area) followed by Boadsar II, and Pamsar lake. One can overlook the vast meadows of Tosa Maidan from the mountain top.
This will be the last day of this memorable trek. Team members will pack up and start descending all the way towards Shanglipora village via Tosa Maidan Meadows.


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President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo urged all parties to exercise restraint, reminding them not to taint the holy month of Ramadan. (Antara Photo/Akbar Nugroho Gumay)
Jokowi Says He Will Not Tolerate Election Rioters
Jakarta. President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said the government will not tolerate anyone orchestrating violence and sowing chaos in the country and called on all Indonesians to reconcile after mass protests over the past 24 hours turned violent and resulted in the deaths of at least six people.
Mass protests since Tuesday against the results of the 2019 presidential and legislative elections have turned into open skirmishes in Jakarta's back alleys between groups of rioters and police. National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian said he received a report of six dead and hundreds wounded during the rioting and that police were investigating the cause.
Police also found evidence that the escalation was orchestrated, detaining 69 people and confiscating weapons, including several firearms.
"The election is just an event in a long Indonesian journey. And as the head of state and the head of government I have an obligation to maintain political stability and security," Jokowi said in a televised statement from the State Palace on Wednesday.
"It is prescribed in our constitution that all [election] disputes are resolved through the Constitutional Court," he said.
"I appreciate Mr. Prabowo [Subianto] for taking the dispute on the result of the presidential election to the Constitutional Court. I also believe the judges in the Constitutional Court will make their decision based on the facts," the president added.
Jokowi urged all parties to exercise restraint, reminding them not to taint the holy month of Ramadan.
"This is the month of Ramadan, a month full of blessings, that is full of forgiveness, a month full of love for our brothers and sisters of mutual respect. And it is our obligation as Muslims to do good deeds," he said.
The president extended a conciliatory gesture to his political rivals, similar to what he did by meeting with Democratic Party executive Agus Yudhoyono earlier in the day.
"I open myself to anyone to work together to build this country; to advance this country," he said.
Jokowi added that he had been working toward opening a line of communication with rival Prabowo, and that he sought to meet with the former Army general in person, but to no avail.
The president said he would not hesitate to take strong action against anyone jeopardizing the national unity.
"I do not tolerate anyone who disturbs security, who undermines the democratic process and who will disrupt unity in the country we love so much. Especially rioters," Jokowi said.
"We will not give any room to rioters, who will damage our country, who will damage the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia," he said.
The president also called on the people to remain calm and strive to preserve the national unity.
"I believe the situation is still under control. People don't need to worry. I invite you to knit back our relationship, let us knit back our brotherhood to weave back our harmony because Indonesia is our home," Jokowi said.
#2019 Elections
May 22 Protest
Indonesia protest
2019 legislative election


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Q: Authorizations and Groups with Rails and CanCanCan I have a User and an Organization model with a many-to-many association, via a Membership model. Users (there are no roles) should only be able to create, read, and update Organizations to which they belong as members.
I've put the following in from CanCanCan's Ability class and have a   load_and_authorize_resource on the Organization model.
can [:create, :read, :update], Organization do |organization|
    !(organization.memberships & user.memberships).empty?
end

When I load /organizations (index page), @organizations is nil.
When I set @organizations = Article.accessible_by(current_ability) I get the following error:

The accessible_by call cannot be used with a block 'can' definition.
  The SQL cannot be determined for :index Organization(id:integer...

The docs mention advice to use SQL, but I don't quite understand how.

A: It looks like this line was part of the problem.
!(organization.memberships & user.memberships).empty?

I went with the version below which appears simpler and correct.
organization.memberships.pluck(:user_id).include?(user.id)

The error remains when calling accessible_by(current_ability) with a block, but I was able to workaround with Devise's current_user method.


text:
ExploreEuropeWould You Brave the Cold for This Surreal Experience?
Would You Brave the Cold for This Surreal Experience?
By Kendall Hill
The unforgiving frontiers of Earth's icy extremes are attracting an increasing number of travellers keen for adventure, writes Kendall Hill.
Deep within the Arctic Circle's white and blue wilderness of ice and snow, sea and sky, the light can be as deceptive as it is dazzling. The lines between reality and fantasy dissolve.
Polar mirages transform barren coastlines into skyscraper cities or conjure phantom ships on far horizons. Ice blink, Arctic haze and the chimera of the aurora borealis further confound the senses. The Arctic is a mirror world where reference points melt into thin air and leave humans disorientated. "Our brain isn't built to handle all those different horizons," explains John Houston, filmmaker and expedition guide aboard Adventure Canada's Into the Northwest Passage voyage. "This land is fraught with dangers. People can lose their minds."
I lose my mind a little, too. During 17 days floating in ice, virtually everything I see, hear and sense is a revelation. I've never been anywhere remotely like this before and, looking back, it's hard to believe that even half of it happened. The one thing that still holds true is the freedom I felt above the 66th parallel, unshackled from everything familiar. Perhaps that's the greatest lure of this region – and, more generally, of the globe's frozen extremes. Holidays to hip cities or tropical resorts offer easy hits of happy, whereas our frigid limits promise rare, untouristed travel. The cold casts a spell.
Antarctica is the ultimate big-chill destination; a continent that demands courage, commitment and a fair whack of cash to visit. Lapland in Finland's faraway north entices those chasing the Northern Lights. Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula combines ice and fire in a phenomenal setting of Arctic tundra and seething volcanoes (see below). All are experiences for the few, not the masses; the intrepid, not the idle.
Elite tour operators and expedition cruises now make it possible to explore these challenging environments with relative ease. To reach the Arctic, our group of more than 100, including 18 expert guides, boards a charter jet from Toronto to Greenland. The flight north over Quebec to the world's largest island takes about four hours. We disembark in Kangerlussuaq to a remarkably balmy 15°C August day.
The Northwest Passage, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, defied human navigation and claimed countless lives over four centuries until Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen finally conquered its ice-choked waterways in 1906.
Climate change means that the once impenetrable passage has admitted tourist vessels for a decade. Even large ships such as the 1000-passenger Crystal Serenity have plied the route. But this isn't to suggest the experience is familiar or predictable; no-one, not even our seasoned guides, could have imagined what the next fortnight would hold. How could anyone have dreamed up a polar bear floating on an iceberg shaped like a colossal top hat?
When we first see the creature, pacing along the iceberg's brim, I'm convinced it must be another mirage – like those skyscrapers we saw on Baffin Island. But no, it's real. As we edge closer to our quarry, I dare to hope that I'll soon have an intimate audience with a king of the Arctic.
It's not to be. The bear does a Houdini and disappears before we arrive. A fellow passenger later spots it emerging from the sea, safely on a very distant shore.
There's almost nothing near the North Pole to suggest life as we know it. How do I convey what it's like to wake on a crisp blue morning in an ice-crowded bay, the sun's rays sparkling with diamond clarity? Or the adventure of tracking musk ox through knee-deep snow? Or the thrilling wonder of drifting on a glassy sea while pods of unicorned narwhals play peekaboo all around?
How do I describe the Arctic to someone who's never encountered life in a land of ice? It would require a whole other language. Thankfully, the Inuit invented one. Inuktitut is more specifically expressive than any language I know of. It's also utterly unpronounceable.
The verb ullisaqtuq means to wait all day at a seal breathing hole (unnuijuq is to wait all night). Ujjaq is an aged seal flipper. Iqquttikataak is the last dog on a sled team. Kitigaq is a rarely used antler part. All are words that transcend mere description to depict an entire alien lifestyle.
My favourite, for its sheer visual power, is the Inuktitut word immitittijuq – offering fresh water to a sea mammal just after it's been killed. The hunter dribbles water from his lips into the mouth of the dead creature, a thanksgiving for a life sacrificed.
The Inuit believe every animal has a soul and that taking a life is a solemn affair necessary for human survival. They carefully manage populations of seals, whales and bears because, without them, they would fall ill and die. Mammal meat provides vital vitamins and minerals; the blubber sustains them through dark, glacial winters when the sun never shines.
"There's only the moon, the stars and the streetlights – and sometimes it's minus 40," explains an official at the Pond Inlet National Parks office in Canada's isolated Nunavut province. "Even minus 45," his colleague chimes in.
At the Pond Inlet community centre, locals perform traditional Inuit games such as the musk ox push – a sort of crouching, shoving tug of war in which contestants use their heads and shoulders to overcome their opponents – and a violent mouth-pulling spectacle where rivals apparently try to tear each other's face off. It's horrific and hilarious.
Throat-singing competitions start sombre and slightly menacing as the singers' dual tones resonate in primal grunts and gasps. But duels invariably end in gales of laughter when one woman breaks the other's rhythm. The Inuit amuse themselves with these games during winter's long nights.
Of course, the Arctic is cold but during our voyage it's also unseasonably warm at times. Anchored alongside Greenland's Karrat Island, we wear shorts and shirts for a deck barbecue in baking 15°C sunshine. The summer days become progressively colder, peaking at -2°C in desolate Resolute at the end of the voyage, but – as with any weather – you dress for it and adapt.
On our second last morning, when the ship's PA system announces that the temperature for our landing at Port Leopold will be 5°C, I'm sure I'm not the only one to think, "Mild. Nice."
7 Other Cold Climate Destinations That are Hot Right Now
In December, with its Baroque streetscapes and fortified hilltops blanketed in snow, Salzburg resembles a Christmas postcard. Locals and tourists embrace the season with gusto and yuletide markets sprout across the city with hot spiced wine to warm the arteries. Stay at the Sacher Salzburg for the complete chocolate-box experience.
It's been called the most inhospitable place on earth but adventurers can't resist the siren call of Antarctica. Nothing about it is easy: the Drake Passage sail is notoriously nauseating and even those who fly into King George Island must endure the Southern Ocean's moods. It's accessible for just four months a year and can cost about $20,000 but the effort is well rewarded.
Kamchatka Peninsula
Spouting geysers and active volcanoes take the chill off the snowy extremities of Far East Russia. Besides the scenery, it's known for its wildlife, from reindeer and moose to brown bears gorging on running salmon. Ocean voyages are the usual way to explore this UNESCO-listed wilderness but key attractions such as the Valley of Geysers can only be reached by helicopter.
Once upon a time, mainlanders wouldn't dare visit Tasmania in the dead of winter. But in the almost six years since the subversive Dark Mofo festival debuted, Hobart's the hottest place in the country to spend the winter solstice. Pagan feasts, big-name acts, avant-garde art and ceremonial fires lend the city a weird and wonderful glow.
In the remote Lapland wilderness, stilted tree houses, glass-ceilinged suites and transparent igloos maximise northern exposure and the chances of seeing the Northern Lights, which can be visible for up to 200 nights a year in Finland's deep north, weather permitting. September to April are prime viewing months; the further north you venture, the better the borealis.
About 90 per cent of travellers visit Patagonia during the milder months of October to April. But arrive between May and early June, before the snow closes many lodges and walks, and you'll find much sparser crowds and calmer conditions than the wild gales of summer. Hiking is also more pleasant when the temperature tops out at 10°C.
Hakuba Valley
The premier ski destination in the Japanese Alps, the Hakuba Valley contains nine resorts linked by a single lift pass (and shuttle buses) so there are slopes to suit every budget and level of ability. A former Winter Olympics venue, Hakuba has no shortage of epic runs for skiers, skaters
and snowboarders, plus the infrastructure is second to none.
SEE ALSO: Unlocking the World's Most Exotic Locations
This Arctic Island is Made For Adventurers
There's an Exclusive Island Hideaway Not Far From London
Formentera is Spain's Hottest Low-key Island
The Best Boutique Hotels in Paris


Channels are essentially folders for you to organize your meetings for easy viewing and reviewing.
Currently, we do not support the deletion of channels, however, this is a feature that is coming up soon!
Find out how to delete a redundant meeting here!


When Ashley turned two months old two weeks ago, she went for her 2nd month checkup at the hospital.
She tipped the scales at 6.1 kg/13.4 lbs. She has put on 1.1 kg/2.4 lbs since her first check up.
She is now 57 cm/22.4 in long with a growth of 2 cm/0.8 in compared to last month.
Her head circumference measured 39 cm/15.4 in, 1.5 cm/ 0.6 in bigger than last month.
Then she got her ears and mouth checked.
Finally, she got her 2nd month vaccination and we have a video clip of it! Like last month, she wailed for 5 seconds and then she fell asleep. She is one funny gal!
Mom must have pulled a tendon or something while carrying Ashley and had been complaining about the pain on her left hand for a week, doctor said that she has what they call here the Mother's Hand (媽媽手).
She got an injection for it. Ouch!!!
And got a wrist guard to help it heal. Oh my poor mommy!
Before Grandma left for Singapore, Dad, Mom and Ashley brought her out to dinner at a very nice steak house.
The restaurant was all packed on that Saturday night.
Staff were all wearing T-shirts with 48 oz. at the back. Apparently, if you are able to finish 40 oz. of beef steak, you would be eligible to take part in their 48 oz. challenge. Burp!!!
For starters, they had bread, soup and salad.
Over the Border wings - absolutely yummy, a must order at every table!!!
Grandma had the BBQ pork spare ribs.
All smiles after a good meal. They found out that the restaurant is dog-friendly too and I will be going next time. Yay!


Ah, minimal effort and no money, was there ever a sweeter combination?
Bacon and honey comes pretty close ("Everything is better with bacon and honey. Even bacon. Or honey!" my now-vegan brother used to say and I'm pretty sure he still stands by it) but the relevance of either bacon or honey to language learning has not been proven to date, so we'll circle back to minimal effort and no money.
If you can already read the alphabet, change language settings to your target language on all devices and websites you use often. #Lifehack: if you're not completely fluent, remember how to change the language settings back to your native language if you ever need to change something you don't regularly do, or you'll be trying to figure out how to change the privacy settings on your Facebook photos in Latin and believe me, never has 'mihi placet' been more mistaken and unhelpful.
Change your homepage to a website in your target language, ideally about a topic you enjoy. Whatever that topic is. No judgement. I tried to be classy and changed my home page to the Brazilian daily newspaper Folha De S.Paulo. After a month of reading zero articles I took a long, hard look at myself and changed my homepage to Cosmopolitan Brasil (yup, really) and I haven't looked back since. It also came with the added bonus that I'm now in the know about which hairstyles (the long bob is easy and timeless!) are trendy in Brazil.
Use Wikipedia's random article generator (available in all of Wikipedia's languages!) to get a fresh article about a random topic. When I used it, I learned fun facts about the Acherontia atropos, the Monrovia Transit Authority, Mazuposhteh, Polish footballer Kamil Lech, and the list goes on. If facts about the Acherontia atropos are not your cup of tea (this is a hypothetical example of course, as this bad boy is notorious for a vaguely skull-shaped pattern on the thorax and is the most widely known of the three species of death's-head hawkmoth, so why are you not reading up on this champ already?), you quickly click the "random article" button again and a new wealth of information instantly appears. Bonus points if you combine tip 3 and 4 and make Wikipedia's random article generator your homepage!
These are just a few ideas and I'm sure there are many more. Most importantly, make language learning your easy default option so it's easier to persevere when the going gets tough. Most people give up on their New Year's resolutions by the second Friday in January, so the fact that you've statistically given up on going to the gym by now should give you plenty of time to refresh Wikipedia!


text:
Home » Who is Richard Cottingham?('I had over 80 perfect murders they never even knew about' : New doc details the heinous crimes of NYC's 'torso killer' who is currently serving a 200-year prison ) Wiki, Bio, Age, Instagram, Twitter & Quick Facts
Who is Richard Cottingham?('I had over 80 perfect murders they never even knew about' : New doc details the heinous crimes of NYC's 'torso killer' who is currently serving a 200-year prison ) Wiki, Bio, Age, Instagram, Twitter & Quick Facts
Richard Cottingham Wiki
Richard Cottingham Biography
Who is Richard Cottingham ?
The Netflix documentary Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer examines the notorious case of Richard Cottingham, also known as 'The Torso Killer,' who claimed to have raped, massacred and mutilated more than 100 women between 1967 and 1980.
The series begins with a gruesome discovery at the Travel Inn Motor Hotel in Times Square on December 2, 1979. Police responded to a fire in room 417, where two women had been discovered in a pair of twin beds. But when rescuers attempted CPR, they realized that the bodies had no heads or hands.
With only torsos, the police could not identify the victims. One detective said it was "the cleanest crime scene I have ever seen." Splashes, blood, fingerprints, pools of blood, there was no evidence except for his clothes, a pair of Bonjour jeans, a white leotard, patent leather boots and a black fur coat, which the killer had curiously folded neatly in the bathtub .
Confused, the investigators used mannequins from nearby department stores and dressed them in the victims' clothing, hoping someone could give them information.
A murdered woman was positively identified through a cesarean scar as 22-year-old Iranian prostitute Deedeh Goodarzi. The other female victim has never been identified and to this day she remains a Jane Doe. Her skulls were never found.
Later, Cottingham claimed that Times Square police officers detained him when he carried the severed heads in a large sack of potatoes to his car before letting him go. He returned to the hotel to soak the crime scene in lighter fluid and set the room on fire.
The crime scene was particularly gruesome
Six months later, in early May 1980, the 'psychopathic s*xual sadist' who had been officially dubbed in the press as 'The Torso Killer' struck again. This time, he strangled and slit her throat 25-year-old Jean Reyner, a single mother who had been working as a prostitute to finance a custody battle.
The crime scene was particularly gruesome. "It was pretty much the hotel room from hell," Detective Malcolm Reiman said in the documentary. The killer had cut off her breasts and placed them on the headboard, "for impact value," recalled Vernon Geberth, a former Bronx Homicide commanding officer.
As before, the murderous butcher had set the room on fire, immediately warning authorities that they had a serial killer on his hands. "When you look for a murderer in 1970s Times Square, you look for a needle in a haystack," Geberth said.
His monster would end up being Richard Cottingham, 33, a married father of three from Lodi, New Jersey, who worked as a computer operator for BlueCross BlueShield in Manhattan. He later admitted that his psychopathic pastime of hunting down s*x workers in Times Square "was a game."
By all accounts, he was "an average guy who drove an average car and lived in an average house," explained reporter Rod Leith on the series.
No one at the time suspected that the Cottingham murder spree had started more than a decade earlier with the murder of Nancy Vogel in 1967 and five New Jersey high school girls in 1968 and 1969.
Despite the obvious similarities
A week before Jean Reyner's body was discovered in a Manhattan hotel, an employee at the Quality Inn in New Jersey found the naked body of Valerie Ann Street under the bed, her hands tightly handcuffed behind her back. She had recently been arrested in Miami for prostitution and was last seen when a John picked her up in New York City on May 5, 1980.
Valerie Street's body was covered in bite marks and brutally beaten in a chilling manner similar to the murder of 26-year-old Maryann Carr, which had occurred at the same motel three years earlier.
Despite the obvious similarities, "no one in New Jersey linked them to the Times Square killer," explained former NYPD detective Malcolm Reiman in the documentary. Criminal profiling was still in her infancy and it was before CCTV footage was common and the use of computers helped detectives share information between states.
Cottingham shed the noose of law enforcement by deliberately targeting marginalized s*x workers during a time when crime-ridden New York City was plunged into anarchy.
It was the time when the Big Apple was dubbed 'City of Fear' and Times Square was a deviant drain on illicit emotions, pornography, prostitution and criminals, providing the s*xual predator with the perfect hunting ground.
Richard Cottingham was detained by police
Cops had a fluke in the case nearly six months after the two headless torsos were first found in Times Square. On May 22, 1980, Cottingham picked up Leslie Ann O'Dell in Midtown Manhattan and dragged her back to the same New Jersey motel where she mutilated her last victim just 18 days earlier.
At knife point, he proceeded to torture, beat, and s*xually assault the 19-year-old fugitive for hours (almost biting one of her nipples) until a maid heard her gasp for her. When hotel staff investigated further, Leslie Ann O'Dell opened the door and silently called for help.
Richard Cottingham was detained by police while he was trying to flee. In his possession were handcuffs, a leather gag, two slave collars, a razor, replica pistols, and a stock of sedatives.
After his arrest, the NYPD drew comparisons to the numerous unsolved s*xual assault cases with similar characteristics to New Jersey crimes. They executed a search warrant at the Cottingham family home, where they found a secret and locked 'trophy room' hiding memories of his wrongdoing. Among the S&M books and pornographic works of art were the key to Maryann Carr's apartment and jewelry that belonged to her other victims.
Richard Cottingham was found guilty of five murders and numerous counts of kidnapping and s*xual assault using evidence found in his 'trophy room' combined with a matching fingerprint left on the handcuffs used in the Valerie Street murder. He was sentenced to 173 to 197 years, which he is currently serving at Trenton State Prison in New Jersey.
'It was a game for me. It was mainly psychological. I was able to get almost any woman to do what I wanted them to do, psychologically, " the sinister 75-year-old woman said in a recent prison interview with journalist Nadia Fezzani. He is almost like a god. You are in full control of someone's destiny. '
Weiss was put up for adoption when she was less than two weeks old. It wasn't until she tried to reconnect with her biological mother in 2002 that she discovered the disturbing truth of her violent disappearance through old newspaper clippings. Looking for more answers, she reached out to Richard Cottingham in prison and has visited him more than 30 times.
"All the women Richard killed left this world in a horrible way," she said in the document. It always weighs heavily on me.
'So now I have a relationship with Richard because I want the names of the unidentified victims that he took. Lives that never materialized. I think we should remember them because they deserve justice. "
Richard Cottingham Quick and Facts
A new Netflix docuseries details the notorious case of 'The Times Square Torso Killer' who hunted and preyed on NYC prostitutes between 1967 and 1980
Richard Cottingham earned the moniker the 'Torso Killer' for cutting off the limbs of victims and decapitating their heads
He is currently serving a 200-year prison sentence and says he's raped and killed over 100 women – but has been convicted and charged of 11 murders
Richard Cottingham was a married father of three from Lodi, New Jersey, who worked as a computer operator for BlueCross BlueShield during his killing spree
Cottingham claimed that he committed murder every other week for 13 years: 'It was a constant type of thing,' he said. 'I flew under the radar, nobody knew'
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Is this the end of Airbnb?
Hosts are calling it the Airbnb apocalypse. But it's more akin to an enema
By James Temperton
Getty Images / Kieran Walsh
Brian Chesky is no stranger to big lifts. The 38-year-old former bodybuilder and Airbnb CEO has, in the space of 11 years, hauled his property rental dream from a single air mattress to a multi-billion dollar startup success story. But as hosts rage and debt piles up, the huge weight of the coronavirus pandemic might be too much for Chesky to bear.
The numbers are devastating. According to AirDNA, an online rental analytics firm, new bookings on Airbnb are down 85 per cent; cancellation rates are close to 90 per cent. Revenue generated by Airbnb's platform in March was down 25 per cent year-on-year, wiping out $1 billion in bookings. With much of the world still on lockdown, those numbers are unlikely to pick up anytime soon. For some, Airbnb's folly is a potential fortune. In Prague, officials are using the pandemic to try and regain control over the burgeoning short-term rental market that has decimated the supply of housing available to local residents. Other cities may soon follow suit.
Hosts are calling it the Airbnb apocalypse. But it's more akin to an enema. Airbnb maintains that it's "powered by local hosts", but the reality is quite different. Yes, there are many hosts on Airbnb who live in the properties they list on the platform. But, in many markets, including the entire of the United States, the number of "professional" hosts seemingly outnumbers those listing on Airbnb to earn a bit of extra cash from their cosy spare room. According GlobalData, an analytics firm, Airbnb could lose a "significant portion" of its host community as a result of the pandemic. These "professional" hosts, the scourge of local residents and housing officials, could soon be flushed out of Airbnb in their thousands.
This was meant to be Airbnb's year. The year when the company, which was recently valued at between $50bn and $70bn, went public. It is now worth less than $30bn. Even before coronavirus, Airbnb was struggling to turn scale into profits. The company lost $674 million last year as costs soared to $5.3bn. Behind these numbers are Airbnb's hosts, who range from retiree holiday home owners to investors with vast but flimsy rental empires. While the former will lament the loss of a reliable secondary income, the latter now face financial ruin as their business model – a sort of ponzi scheme built off the back of Airbnb's market-busting rental yields – turns to dust in the grip of coronavirus.
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To understand the scale of the crisis you need to understand that Airbnb isn't a holiday rental company, it's a hotel chain. In fact, it's the world's biggest. Airbnb's global inventory of seven million listings – that's listings, not individual rooms – makes it bigger than the top-ten hotel chains combined, which have 5.48m guestrooms. In many markets, as many as half of the listings on Airbnb are advertised by hosts with at least one other listing. Less mom and pop operation and more Mom & Pop Property Investments Limited. As the world went into lockdown, some of these hosts pivoted to advertising deep-cleaned, coronavirus-proof bunkers – much to the chagrin of public health officials.
Data from AirDNA shows that of the 1.1 million Airbnb listings in the US, some 600,000 are from hosts that have at least two other listings. Around 600,000 of those 1.1 million listings are also available for more than six months of the year. Both are key indicators of properties that are more akin to hotel rooms than sharing economy holiday rentals. Many of those listings are also rent-to-rent properties, run by companies or individuals who take out loans to secure a number of properties on a long term basis knowing that they can get substantially higher rates by subletting them through Airbnb, Booking.com and other online platforms.
The business model has created a rental arbitrage boom, especially in cities popular with tourists such as London, Paris and Barcelona. In YouTube videos and at expensively-priced private events, Airbnb entrepreneurs extol the virtues of this get-rich-quick scheme. The only problem? With no guests, there's nobody to pay the rent. And that leaves Airbnb entrepreneurs open to huge financial liabilities. "There's a possibility that this business model – of master leasing properties, furnishing them and relisting them on Airbnb – is not going to be attractive for people now they understand how volatile this environment can be," says Scott Shatford, CEO of AirDNA. "There will still be people chasing yield. But will they get back into the one bedroom apartments in London or New York? Probably not."
Take London as an example. In March, there were more than 87,000 Airbnb listings across the UK's capital city according to analytics platform Inside Airbnb. Of those, 43,112 – almost half – were listed by hosts with at least one other listing. Some of these could be separate rooms in the same apartment, or multiple apartments in the same building. Or they could be precarious ghost hotels made up of dozens of apartments spread out across the city, all built on the precarious notion that the sun would never set on the Airbnb empire. Yet the impact of the coronavirus pandemic was more akin to the sun being ripped from the sky than a lazy, gradual sunset. "People who were leasing apartments to put them on Airbnb in major metropolitan markets – those businesses are decimated and most of those companies will be out of business if not now then in the next few months," says Shatford.
To understand the scale of the problem, just look at what happens as the number of listings per host goes up. In London alone, there are 2,919 Airbnb hosts with between three and five listings, accounting for 10,318 listings across the city, or 12 per cent of Airbnb's total inventory. At the higher end of the scale, there are 645 hosts with ten or more listings. Combined, these hosts are responsible for 16,758 Airbnb rentals in London.
London's rental market is being flooded by bargain Airbnb listings
Look behind these numbers and you get a glimpse of the real issue: tens of thousands of rental bills and mortgages that need paying and, potentially, no income with which to do so. An Airbnb spokesperson says that "the vast majority of hosts" on its platform share their own homes. The data suggests otherwise, but Airbnb's refusal to open up its platform to scrutiny makes studying it akin to observing a black hole – you know it's there, but only because you can see the effect it has on the universe around it. But as coronavirus lockdowns came into force, the Airbnb effect became more visible than ever before. In cities across the world, long-term rental websites have been flooded with identikit one and two-bedroom apartments, replete with bedrooms adorned with neatly-folded towels and prominently-displayed Nespresso coffee machines.
According to GlobalData, a growing number of Airbnb hosts are deleting their listings and moving their properties to month-to-month platforms that are less lucrative but potentially more reliable. Homads, a monthly rental listings startup, saw a 500 per cent month-on-month increase in site visits in mid-March. Kopa, which also specialises in monthly rentals, has seen a tenfold increase in hosts and listings on its platform. "Airbnb's business model has been exposed in recent times," says Ralph Hollister, an associate analyst at GlobalData. He points to problems with Airbnb listings that "defy local laws and regulations" and argues that shifting these properties to longer-term rental platforms, where they can be of use to local residents, would help to undo some the damage Airbnb has done in many cities. "The company still can be a success, as long as it embraces the idea that it may have to be smaller in scale in the short to medium term." That issue of scale is a common growing pain for Silicon Valley startups. For Airbnb, the only way to continue growing was to add more listings, a substantial percentage of which are run as professional operations.
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated change at many companies, and Airbnb is unlikely to be an exception. Before coronavirus brought the world to a standstill, this was also meant to be the year when Airbnb conducted a comprehensive review of every single listing on its platform. The aim? To make sure all listings and hosts are being presented honestly and accurately. As the coronavirus pandemic has shown, Airbnb's reliance on trust – that hosts aren't, say, turning entire buildings in London into de facto, unregulated hotels and scamming guests – is becoming a liability.
That tension between Airbnb and its hosts has been brought kicking and screaming into the spotlight by the pandemic. "Although it may not have felt like it, we are partners," Chesky wrote on March 30 in an open letter to Airbnb hosts. "When your business suffers, our business suffers." Much of the rage directed at Airbnb by its hosts stems from the company's decision to allow guests to cancel bookings with a check-in date between March 14 and May 31 without penalty. Unlike traditional hotels, which take payment on arrival, Airbnb collects the bulk of the reservation before guests check-in. That money has now vanished, giving hosts – especially those with multiple listings they do not own – a major financial headache.
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To tide itself over, Airbnb has raised $1bn in funding – reportedly with a hefty interest rate of more than ten per cent – and a further $1bn in senior debt. For hosts, Airbnb points to a $250m fund to support with cancellations caused by the pandemic. Members of the Superhost club, which gives Airbnb hosts "more visibility, earning potential, and exclusive rewards", also have access to a $17m fund to help with mortgage costs.
There is, amongst the chaos, a hint of change. Airbnb has subtly changed its offering, with its homepage now prominently promoting "monthly stays" over weekend getaways. Shatford says the emphasis on longer rentals is akin to putting a "bandaid on the bloodbath in the short term rental industry". If analyst predictions of scores of hosts going bankrupt or abandoning Airbnb altogether are on the right track, then the bloodbath could have a positive outcome: an Airbnb that is more about spare rooms and real homes and less about high-yield investment opportunities.
Last month, in a video message to hosts, Chesky returned to a familiar theme: community. "When [people] do get out of their homes they're going to want to explore the world and they're going to stay in communities with you." But, for Chesky, the key question is this: who is this amorphous you? It's a question brought into sharp relief as "professionalised" Airbnb hosts have lashed out at their paymasters for a sudden and devastating loss of income. Call it a much-needed enema, call it the removal of a burdensome weight, but the coronavirus pandemic might just force the creation of a trimmer, better Airbnb.
Updated 22.04.20, 19:10 BST: Revenue generated by Airbnb's platform in March, not revenue specific to Airbnb, was down 25 per cent year-on-year.
James Temperton is WIRED's digital editor. He tweets from @jtemperton
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It is time again for staff to send in nominations to the University Awards for Excellence Program. Established in 1996, this awards program recognizes the accomplishments and achievements of employees who contribute to the University's success, and demonstrates its appreciation and gratitude. It is advantageous to note that the Office of Information Technology had an award added in our department in 2009 recognizing a non-faculty EPA employee. This brought our department level awards to three, 2 SPA and 1 EPA. Therefore, it is important that both SPA and EPA employees are nominated for the awards.
You are invited, and encouraged, to participate by taking the time to nominate a fellow co-worker or supervisor for the 2012 Office of Information Technology/University Awards for Excellence. Any permanent SPA employee or non-faculty EPA employee can be nominated. All campus employees—individuals or groups—may submit nominations; however, nominees must be individuals. Nominations of groups cannot be accepted.
Please submit completed nomination forms, along with the written recommendations, electronically to Kim McAllister, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Information Technology, at kim_mcallister@ncsu.edu It is beneficial to provide detailed examples of your nominee's exceptionalefforts and contributions, particularly as they relate to a specific selection criteria on the attached nomination form. Note, however, that the recommendation must be limited to two pages. The deadline for the Office of Information Technology nominations is 5 p.m., Wednesday, March 14, 2012.
What elements add up to a strong nomination? They're enumerated in the comments of these nominations for past winners: John Martin and Nick Young. Take a look at them and consider using them as a model for the nominiation you're writing.
The top two OIT SPA and the top one OIT EPA nominees will each be awarded a $250 check and eight hours of paid time-off. Award recipients within OIT will go on to the University-wide Awards for Excellence selection committee and be eligible for another $250 check and an additional eight hours of paid time off if chosen as a University-wide winner.
The Office of Information Technology will recognize all nominees during an Awards Reception from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 10, 2012 in the Grand Ballroom of the Talley Student Center.


(Natural News) It seems that the French are bidding farewell to free re-fills and saying hello to an over-inflated government. Late last week, it was announced that restaurants in France would be subject to prosecution, should they continue to offer unlimited amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages for free or at a fixed price. The French government has actually made it illegal to sell unlimited amounts of sugary drinks.
Now, we all know that sugar is not a benign substance: it contributes to disease risk and the raising rates of obesity. In fact, some research has indicated that sugar has a substantially more profound impact on diabetes risk than other foods. And, it is also a well-known fact that sugar consumption is on the rise — especially in Western cultures like the US. Sugar is a problem. But, is big government really the way to solve it?
In 2012, the French government imposed a tax on sweet drinks. Taxing sweet drinks may seem like a reasonable approach, but it inevitably does more harm than good. Statistics from Mexico showed that sugary drink sales fell by 6% in just a single year. However, statistics also showed that this decrease translated only to a very modest decrease in calorie consumption: the average calorie intake in Mexico dropped by a mere 5 calories a day. That's not exactly enough to help a country win the war against obesity. Furthermore, statistics have shown that the poor lost more of their income to the sugary drink tax than the wealthy.
To put it simply, taxes on sugary beverages did not yield the kind of benefits they were purported to, and the tax put more fiscal stress on poor people than the rich. Who knew.
This new piece of legislation out of France takes the notion of sugary drink taxes one step further by mandating how much soda restaurants can give to their patrons, and forcing restaurants to charge their customers each time they need another beverage.
The government claims this latest idea will help to combat obesity and diabetes. While a recent health study has indicated that about half of France's population is overweight, only about 15 percent appear to be obese.
The government clearly wants to put a stop on obesity before it becomes more problematic, but can they truly legislate such an issue out of existence?
People may drink less soda in restaurants, but one cannot predict what other choices they may make. Perhaps more people will choose to order dessert, instead of drinking the same amount of dollars in soda.
In addition to the taxes and the unlimited soda ban, the French have already limited school vending machines to providing only fruit and water, have banned ketchup in school cafeterias and only permit chips to appear in school lunches once a week. When it comes to school lunches, these parameters are slightly more agreeable, because school lunches are provided by the government. In that regard, they are actively trying to improve the nutrition they provide to children.
It is not that the desire to encourage citizens to drink less soda is bad: it's not. Drinking less soda is a very good thing. But, the government believing that it can simply legislate its desires into action is a very dangerous line of thinking.