text:
Over a year ago we offered in these pages an adage of Chinese politicians who advise "crossing the river by feeling for the stones." We remarked that Daniel Ortega would have to feel for quite a few stones to get across his third reelection river. Have their numbers multiplied or dropped 15 months later?
Envío team
Just why President Ortega has dragged his feet for so long in giving the electoral branch the order to officially call the elections remains unanswered six months after that call was first expected. Does his inner circle want him to extend his administration five more years without having to campaign? Could it be problems going out to campaign in the interior of the country?
Might it be that he has no attractive project to offer his followers? An April 3 New York Times article said that now "cows graze in the field" where the interoceanic canal construction was officially inaugurated in December 2014. Nothing currently suggests we are any closer to realizing "the largest engineering work in the history of humanity," as the Chinese corporate chief who holds the canal concession boasted two years ago.
Or might the reason be the continuing lack of definition of Ortega's running mate or of who will get the prime places on the slate of legislative candidates for the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)?
"Nicaragua's on a good path"
Despite everything, including possibly some close to him who would like to do away with the electoral race altogether, Ortega seems to have decided to cross that river. Among other reasons, he is surely encouraged by his popularity levels of over 70% in poll after poll, a very high parameter of sympathy shared only by First Lady Rosario Murillo and National Police Chief Aminta Granera, the official figure who has most consistently preserved her popularity over the years.
He is also enthusiastic to make the crossing because his administration receives high praise in visit after visit by top representatives of the international financial institutions. Juan Zalduendo, the International Monetary Fund representative for Nicaragua, said in late March that our country has a "thriving economy" and a "significant drop in poverty levels."
Soon after, Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno defined Nicaragua as "well positioned" and "on a good path" during a visit to the country. With respect to economic growth, he added that "I have no doubt Nicaragua will know how to hit it out of the stadium."
The most recent visitor was Jorge Familiar, the World Bank's vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, who congratulated Ortega because his government "has the best-executed project portfolio in Latin America."
Washington's position
Will the United States put stones in the river? The US State Department's annual human rights report, published on April 13, isn't as glowing about the way Ortega is running things. "That report is more critical than on previous occasions; I would even say it's blunt," commented Vilma Núñez de Escorcia, president of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH). The text contains a very detailed list of cases of human rights violations, and for the first time directly points the finger at the National Police and the judicial branch as responsible for acts of corruption and violations of human rights.
The US government representatives want elections and want them observed by national and international missions, as US ambassador in Nicaragua Laura Dogu has made clear on numerous occasions. To bolster that position, Michael G. Kozak, deputy assistant secretary of state to the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, paid an unusual visit to the country in late April. Speaking to government officials and civil society representatives, he stressed that the upcoming Nicaraguan elections are an "issue of concern" in Washington, and linked their legitimacy to respect for human rights.
Whatever happens—or doesn't happen—on November 6, the putative date for our elections, will strongly color the position taken in relation to Nicaragua by the new US President, who will be elected only two days later.
Tailor-made opposition
Will Ortega be motivated to permit electoral observation? He's surely encouraged by the limited number of stones he believes the opposition leaders are putting in the river. So far, they haven't presented any leaders or messages that will encourage a massive turnout by the 43% defining themselves as "independents" in the latest M&R poll to express their rejection of the governing party at the ballot box.
For more than 12 years now, ever since his pact with then-President Arnoldo Alemán and even more actively in the lead-up to the 2006 elections, Daniel Ortega has been reshaping the opposition to fit his needs. He has done so by aggravating the nascent splits among the leaders of what was for the better part of two decades Nicaragua's largest political force, Alemán's Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC), or by offering perks to those open to being bought off. He has also done it "legally." At his orders, the electoral branch approves or cancels the legal status of political parties that don't bend to his will, annuls candidacies, reforms regulations and laws to jeopardize some and benefit others… and at the end of the day counts the votes, always coming up with a total that favors Ortega and his party.
No party or candidate that shows any signs of competing can avoid the legalistic winnowing the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) engages in to liquidate them. Evoking Rubén Darío, these maneuvers have produced "uncountable deaths and damages" in the national political panorama, which has helped erode the credibility of the political class in the population's eyes.
"The worst thing is not to vote"
As in the 2011 elections, there is again a broad-spectrum opposition coalition headed by the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) that includes Sandinistas, different PLC splinter groups, Evan¬gelicals, Social Christians and Nicaraguan Resistance veterans. This time they are calling themselves the National Coalition for Democracy.
However, they are still trying to recover from the decision announced on April 7 by radio businessman/politician Fabio Gadea to reject the offer to be their presidential candidate for the second time. His refusal has discouraged many people in rural areas who now can't decide whether or not to vote in November. That in turn is surely encouraging Ortega to cross the river because a sizable abstention would allow him to win an absolute majority of legislative seats again, this time without fraud, even if some of his own sympathizers also abstain from voting as they did in 1990, as a form of silent punishment for the strict control imposed on them by his model.
Massive opposition abstention motivated by having no one and no attractive alternative program to vote for would legitimate Ortega's next term. Gadea issued the following message to those discouraged by his refusal to run: "The worst thing is not to vote. Abstention does the government a favor."
Those working to break through the opposition electorate's discouragement see three scenarios: 1) Daniel Ortega loses the presidency; 2) he wins it but loses his absolutely majority in the National Assembly, which would be very important to the opposition; or 3) he feels obliged to commit fraud again, which would put him under a lot more pressure in today's more adverse international setting than five years ago.
The challenge of the rural vote
After turning down the presidential candidacy, Gadea began acting as the "great conciliator" between PLI and Coalition leader Eduardo Montealegre and Edgard Matamoros, who heads the Unity with Dignity Movement (MUD), made up of Liberals who split from the PLI after the 2012 municipal elections, when Matamoros ran for mayor in Ciudad Darío and was apparently the victim of fraud. The two Liberal politicians became abrasively distanced after that. In the past three years the MUD has dedicated itself to capturing rank-and-file Liberals in rural areas, most of whom were traditionally PLC sympathizers. As it now claims to have a presence in 90% of the country's 154 municipalities, bringing it into the Coalition appears important to motivate the rural vote and put a brake on abstention.
It's anyone's guess how big or how solid that presence is given that the PLC still has well-organized territorial structures. Nonetheless, Noel Vidaurre's resignation as presidential candidate of the alliance organized around the PLC after refusing to countenance PLC strongman Arnoldo Alemán imposing his own wife's candidacy at the top of the party's legislative slate is just the most recent blow to Alemán's increasingly exhausted leadership of his party. But it has improved Vidaurre's image and favors the Coalition.
The electoral machinery
moves into action
Given this situation, Ortega will do everything possible to avoid the bulk of the other opposition groups joining the Coalition. To that end, he immediately initiated a series of simultaneous maneuvers before issuing the call to the elections.
On the one hand the Supreme Court has been told to decide this month who the PLI "belongs" to, with politicians from four factions, each with scant social representation, claiming to be its rightful representative. The obvious objective is to pull the Coalition apart, and even more importantly take its representation away from Montealegre.
In case that doesn't do the trick, he also began to cob together "another opposition." First the CSE gave the green light to a new Liberal Party that sprouted up a few weeks ago with a discourse promoting the country's stability and implicitly backing Ortega's policies. It is headed by well-known but discredited PLC leader Wilfredo Navarro, who has been siding with Ortega for years now. Here the objective is to intensify the confusion and fragmentation of the Liberal base.
Next, operators of the governing party began to encourage a new "opposition unity" around the PLC, in which the MUD, other adversaries of Monte¬alegre, groups that could be persuaded to split off from the Coalition and political hacks would participate. Among the politicians invited to the "unity" meetings and touted as its presidential candidate is Resistance veteran Maximino Rodríguez, trusting in his capacity to attract rural voters in the former war zones. The objective in this case is that if this "united" opposition actually coalesces, it would split the rightwing vote with the PLI, as happened in 2006, making it unnecessary for Ortega to show his hand by eliminating the PLI's legal status.
Luis Callejas:
"I was in the contra"
In Nicaragua the presidential candidate carries much more weight than the party or coalition on whose ticket he or she is running.
After Gadea's resignation, the PLI proposed the presidential candidacy of 57-year-old Luis Callejas, an epidemiological doctor by profession, who never left the country during the eighties but worked treating the wounded in the "contra" hospitals. Today he's a sugar grower in Chinandega and a legislator with recognized social sensitivity whose word can be trusted. Callejas doesn't deny his membership in what later came to be called the Resistance and is known from back then in rural areas. "It doesn't matter whether I'm the candidate or not; what matters to me is that we bring Ortega down," he has said on various occasions.
The vice presidential candidate on the Coalition ticket remains to be defined, and it will be a strategic selection. Callejas has said he would like it to be a woman from one of the civil society organizations. Others in the Coalition say it doesn't matter whether it's a man or woman, but it must be a young person. Both the urban and rural youth want to feel represented.
Almost half of the Nicaraguan electorate is under 30 years old, meaning they either weren't born or were children during the war of the eighties. Coming up with a ticket that effectively has consensus, represents today's plurality and can present a motivating proposal is the enormous challenge facing the opposition.
The opposition's advantages
Despite all its weaknesses, what the opposition most has going for it today is growing discontent about life's shortages and the country's structural unemployment, to which the government has largely "responded" by leaving thousands of Nicaraguans with the choice of either emigrating or working in the precarious informal sector. Today eight out of ten Nicaraguans subsist with informal jobs, while the remittances Nicaraguan emigrants send back to their families are now equivalent to nearly half the value of Nica¬ragua's total exports.
The opposition is also favored by the unconcealable income and opportunity inequalities between "those who are with them," meaning the governing party, and everybody else. Those most closely "with them" are the representatives of big Nicaraguan capital, who are also proponents of the model Ortega has imposed on the country. The have/have-not exclusion characterizing that model is increasingly visible to and felt by the have-not population.
"Daniel Ortega never
took us into account"
Ortega has also failed to win over the peasantry. Despite the evident infra¬structural improvements, particularly highways and roads, and the advances in rural electrification, the scars of the war haven't disappeared, and the control, intimidation and repression by the Army and Police are reviving old feelings, feeding the rejection by increasing numbers of people who live in the areas that were battle zones for most of the eighties.
The peasant movement that has emerged against the interoceanic canal contract and law in many of those same battle zones in the central and Caribbean swath of the country is showing not only organization and a determination to struggle, but also a revival of all those old feelings and experiences. "Ortega never cared for us or took us into account or even stopped to look at us," say those in the National Council in Defense of Our Land, Lake and Sovereignty. "We peasants never mattered to him." Paradoxically, though many of those same people participated in or sympathized with the Resistance, today they evoke Sandino. "The canal is a disgrace Sandino never would have permitted," they insist. In the 65 marches they have organized against the canal law so far, four of them national, they call Ortega a "vende¬patria" (traitor to the country), just as Sandino did the sell-out politicians of his time.
An estimated 20,000 participated in the latest national march on April 22 in Nueva Guinea, South Caribbean. Days earlier the National Council delivered a citizen's bill to the National Assembly to repeal Law 840, which conceded the canal project to the Chinese company HKND. According to the Constitution, 5,000 signatures are enough to submit such an initiative. The Council had 7,000 notarized signatures and 28,000 more not yet notarized. The National Assembly, totally controlled by the governing party, declared itself "incompetent" to process the bill, arguing that the Supreme Court, also controlled by the governing party, had already declared that Law 840 does not violate the Constitution.
The canal construction is losing credibility among the population because "they aren't doing anything" other than periodically reporting that they are still "doing studies." Meanwhile this month the Chinese government announced that it will promote its commercial ships using the Northeast Passage through the Arctic to get to ports on the Atlantic side of the Americas. That passage, which is opening up again with the melting of the ice cap by global warming, would take 30% less time than crossing the Panama Canal.
The risk of the rearmed
The increasing ill will in the peasant zones that experienced the war puts sizable stones in the river that will take us to the elections. It not only complicates Ortega's plans, but is a risk for the entire country. A new fraud or even five more legitimately won years of a model that continues concentrating land and wealth, compensates for the inequality with crumbs to the poor and sidelines anyone who thinks differently could easily become a time bomb.
Resistance veteran Andrés Cerrato from Ayapal, Jinotega, suffered intimidation and threats on March 5 from soldiers demanding information about rearmed men operating in those mountains. In denouncing this to La Prensa, he charged that the Army interrogators had told him "if we see you trying to leave, we'll kill you." Cerrato, well known as a PLI activist, a member of the local peace commission and also the "little mayor" of his small community, San Martín de Daca, was taken from his home early on April 18 by unidentified men, gruesomely tortured then executed. His murder exacerbated the growing conviction that military or paramilitary forces at the service of the regime are murdering peasants as a way of wiping out the rearmed groups.
PLI legislators Luis Callejas and Eliseo Núñez Morales visited Cerrato's family and other community members days later to learn the facts in more detail. "This crime," said Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH) President Vilma Núñez, "is a message intended to terrorize and bears the characteristics of a counterintelligence action."
According to Juan Carlos Arce, who heads the CENIDH branch in Mata¬galpa and Jinotega, his organization has recorded at least 31 violent deaths related to the rearmed phenomenon just in the last three months. The PLI, which has welcomed Resistance veterans into its ranks, says that 15 of its activists have been murdered in crimes that have gone unpunished and virtually uninvestigated.
Two weeks after Cerrato's death, Enrique Aguinaga, a rearmed Resistance veteran who went by the name Comandante Invisible, was tortured and killed some 10 miles north of Río Blanco, Matagalpa. He had posted a video on Youtube in February explaining the political motivations behind the struggle being waged against the government by what he said are more than 45 armed peasant groups. In the video he emphasized the need for free elections.
History is repeating itself
Arce says there is "terror and insecurity in Jinotega's rural areas because the entire population is repeatedly seeing the extremely violent deaths of people while the State is doing nothing, neither investigating nor even sanctioning." CENIDH has documented more than 500 cases of extrajudicial execution that went unpunished in the nineties, when the Army set about exterminating the remnants of the Resistance in the war zones. It would appear that history is now repeating itself.
The Army continues to deny the existence of politically motivated rearmed groups, insisting they are just common criminals. And in addition to combating them with the weapons of an undeclared war, it is also allegedly using paramilitary tactics, although of course it denies doing so.
After the crime against Cerrato, the Franciscan bishop of Jinotega, Carlos Herrera, spoke out in defense of the civilian victims of this tragedy. "The Army," he said, "must proceed ethically and morally if it believes they are groups that only want to do harm. They must find a way to act without troubling civilians. They are trained military and know how to do it." At the same time he opposed the treatment of the peasants who have taken up arms. "The military can engage in a dialogue so these people do not continue forming groups. If you kill the father of a family, those who remain may take up arms. And this just increases the violence."
"The killers in the mountains"
The cases of Cerrato and Aguinaga caught national attention, but the murders of many more haven't appeared in the media and they extend beyond these communities.
On May 3, the bishop of Mata¬galpa, Rolando Álvarez, held a Mass in the community of El Cacao, Ciudad Darío. "I'm thinking of all those who were killed in the mountains. A case from the community of Wanawás in Río Blanco particularly comes to mind, where a brother of ours was tortured and murdered. We must denounce these actions."
And lamenting the murder of Aguinaga, he said: "It is important to demilitarize the countryside. The people are feeling terror. It worries us that crimes are being committed in the northern zone, even with cruelty, savagery and brutality. Many populations are living in panic and fear; many people feel threatened; there is great fear of speaking and expressing any type of political point of view other than one that favors the powerful."
The "Albanisa papers"
In this uncertain pre-electoral scenario, the "Albanisa papers" were made public around the same date as the "Panama Papers." The latter reportedly cite Nicaragua some ten thousand times although we don't yet know what Nicaraguan figures are involved…
In mid-April, the journalist team of Nicaragua's weekly bulletin Confidencial reported on the contents of 1,207 documents leaked by sources inside Albanisa, the joint Venezuelan-Nicaraguan consortium responsible for investing the funds from the Venezuelan oil deal (49% of that consortium belongs to Petronic, Nicaragua's state oil distribution company, and the other 51% to PDVSA, Vene¬zuela's state oil producing company). "There are still decent people who work for them and don't agree with what they are doing," said journalist Iván Olivares, who analyzed the papers.
The documents contain 62 "business plans," some formulated in two or three pages and others as long as 80 detailed pages. These plans were prepared by people close to the presidential circle to take advantage of the hundreds of millions of dollars from the oil sale that stayed in Nicaragua as available credit due to the cooperation agreement.
According to former Albanisa vice president Rodrigo Obregón, "the intellectual authors of this [rash of business proposals] saw there was a quantity of money that had to be made use of so as not to end up again as many did after February 25, 1990 [when the FSLN lost the elections], and they said: that's not going to happen to us again." Obregón was fired in 2014 for refusing to accept certain orders from Albanisa president Francisco López, who is also the governing party's treasurer.
The privatization of the
Venezuelan oil agreement
The Petrocaribe oil agreement signed by Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 2007 stipulated that Venezuela would supply all the oil Nicaragua needed under very favorable conditions: Nicaragua would pay 50% of the international value of the oil in 90 days, with the other 50% to be paid over 25 years with a 2% interest rate, remaining in the country meanwhile as credit for development works.
Since then, Petronic has been selling that oil and has reportedly paid PDVSA for all of it, then PDVSA granted Ortega—not the country—a credit equivalent to 50% of the value of the oil bill, all with Chávez's agreement. Those resources were received here by FSLN-owned CARUNA, which suddenly went from being a small first-tier credit cooperative to managing millions. And thus was privatized the Venezuelan oil agreement.
Between 2007 and the start of this year, the total amount received this way, according to Central Bank of Nicaragua figures, was just over US$3.5 billion, which, had it been used strategically and responsibly with appropriate accountability, would have transformed much of Nicaragua's backwardness in health, education, productivity, job generation and more… Instead, it has only served to underpin a populist government model and bankroll the governing party. Above all it has served to convert the presidential family into a powerful business group. All those leaked "Albanisa papers" are only the "throwaways," the business proposals that never materialized or that failed.
There were always doubts
According to the agreement with Venezuela, 38% of the funds that stayed in the country as credit to be paid over the long haul were to be dedicated to social programs and 62% to lucrative investments whose earnings could be used to cancel the debt service.
Given the utter lack of transparency that has enveloped everything related to Venezuela's oil cooperation, doubts still remain about who will finally pay the debt: the Nicaraguan State, as the agreement was signed between two state companies, or the private enterprises administering and benefiting from these resources.
A year ago, former Foreign Minister Francisco Aguirre Sacasa explained to envío that there should be no doubts: "The Constitution of Nicaragua stipulates categorically that only the National Assembly can approve indebtedness of the Republic of Nicaragua and that indebtedness with Venezuela was never approved in our parliament. What is going to happen to that debt? Possibly the same thing that happened to the ones Nicaragua acquired in the eighties with Iran, Russia, Libya and Costa Rica: we're not going to pay it! Or one of these Alba companies that are all over the place will take charge of it."
The creditor is
now someone else
This month we learned an important and very different piece of news. It turns out that in October of last year, the Venezuelan government, which was suffering an acute liquidity crisis, asked its Nicaraguan counterpart to transfer the assets and liabilities of the resources derived from the oil agreement from CARUNA to Albanisa. That transaction, enormously important for Nicaragua, appeared in a footnote of a report the International Monetary Fund prepared about the Nicaraguan economy that same month and was only discovered by someone who read that report meticulously. Neither the government nor the IMF has made any public reference to it since.
According to a report by the government of Venezuela that Nicaragua's government apparently did not mention to the IMF of, PDVSA, acting as the majority Albanisa partner, later sold Nicaragua's debt to the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), which makes it now the debt's creditor.
So who's going to pay it?
What are the implications of all this maneuvering, silenced by the government for months? Will this debt, now in the BCV's hands, become "sovereign" and therefore payable by the Nicaraguan State? Will Venezuela condone part of it, as it has done with the debts of other countries benefited by Petrocaribe? Will Albanisa pay it with the earnings from the profitable businesses it created with the oil money that are managed by the presidential family and its circle? Are those businesses in the name of Albanisa or of individuals? Why does the IMF report speak of concern about Nicaragua's "quasi-fiscal debt," which is like calling it an almost public debt? Will Ortega be able to use his control over all the branches of government to convert that debt, which has benefitted only a few, into a full-fledged public debt owed by all? And if he does, will Nicaragua be able to pay it?
On April 19, the PLI-MRS National Assembly representatives announced they will request that the Assembly's board require President Ortega to clarify the legal status of the oil debt with Venezuela. Six days later, the president of Nicaragua's Central Bank, questioned by journalists regarding the arrival of an IMF technical mission, made a slippery first allusion to the issue: "So far this debt does not represent, nor do we expect it in the immediate moment to come to have, any effect on the budget or on the public debt in general."
This time the IMF mission met with the Albanisa authorities to analyze the situation, but afterwards only told the media that the IMF recommended the government "monitor" the debt's growth, which they referred to as "private"…
The bishops "ask
for forgiveness"
In these uncertain pre-electoral months, the opposition political class requested—in fact nearly demanded—to know what happened to the pastoral letter the 10 bishops of the Episcopal Conference normally publish during Lent.
This year the bishops took another path. Once Lent was over, Jorge Solórzano, the bishop of Granada, a diocese that also includes the departments of Rivas and Boaco, published his own text about his pastoral agents' organization and tasks, supporting them with quotes from Pope Francis' two latest encyclicals.
And on April 12, aware of the strong complaints and speculation on why there had been no pastoral letter, all the bishops issued a brief communique that said: "While there still exists among us a sincere friendship and solid unity of criteria of faith and pastoral vision about the national reality, diverse points of view have come up about the most adequate points and approaches to adopt in the historical moment the country is going through…. We regret the absence of our timely collegiate voice for Lent, a time of reflection, for which we ask forgiveness of our Catholic faithful, who have always been open to the voice of their shepherds."
That they have apologized is a very positive gesture, surely inspired by the new style Pope Francis wants to imprint on the Church.
"No one lives forever,"
said the bishops
Although the bishops didn't publish a pastoral letter for the elections, the extensive text they published and delivered personally to President Ortega two years ago, on May 21, 2014, still has a special validity today.
In it they warned about Nica¬ragua's future: "We do not believe the current institutional and political structure of the country will bring any benefit to the current rulers, members of the ruling party or any Nicaraguan in either the medium or the long term." And they spoke directly to Ortega: "Mr. President, you have the ability to not disappoint the hope that many Nicaraguans placed in you at the start of your first presidential term in 2007 and to leave the nation a historical legacy worthy of being remembered by future generations. The years pass and no one lives forever.…"
They proposed two alternatives for the President. One was transparent elections: "We very respectfully ask that you give your word of honor to ensure that the 2016 presidential electoral process in Nicaragua will be absolutely transparent and honest…, in which there is no doubt that the will of the people is shining through." The other was dialogue: "We respectfully urge you, Mr. President, to open the dialogue to all the nation's sectors, welcome other opinions… starting as soon as possible on this road of national dialogues to save the future of the country."
Care of our common home
On that occasion the bishops referred to the country's institutional and political future, its democratic future. The environment did not yet appear in those reflections. Pope Francis' encyclical letter, "Laudato Si,'" has since launched an urgent call to put the "care of our common home," battered by climate change, at the center of the agenda and of the debates and dialogues of both governors and governed around the world. That call is also urgent in Nicaragua.
The worrying evidence we've seen in recent months—the disappearance of rivers and other bodies of water, the environmental and social results of an unstoppable deforestation combined with almost three years of drought and other effects of climate change—speak of the exhaustion of an unsustainable pattern of productive development.
The current model, in effect since colonial times and based on irrational exploitation of the natural resources, is giving alarming signs of such exhaustion, making it urgent to take up that "road of national dialogues" in the form of inclusive debates that can ensure our country's environmental future and the future of its inhabitants…
There is still time to change course, to "restitute" Nature's rights. But that time is running out, as both the Centro Humboldt's report, which we reproduce in full, and the reflections by water resource expert Ruth Selma Herrera explain in the following pages.


Some of my favourite weddings that we have attended and captured have been casual, laidback events held on a quiet beach or a friend or family member's property. Therefore, this Northern Ontario wedding that took place at the groom's family cottage was the perfect setting to take stunning images of the newlyweds. Across from the quaint summer home was a private beach area where the couple exchanged vows. The ceremony was romantic and intimate with only the closest friends and family members as witnesses. As they stood under the manmade arbor that backed onto a gorgeous, sparkling lake, these two said I do and officially became husband and wife. The combination of the sand on the ground, the waves from boats passing by, and the sun reflecting off the water, created a breathtaking, private oasis for a dreamy ceremony.
In order to capture the elements of this cottage venue, I wanted to get a photo from a different perspective. It is not unusual for me to take off my shoes and wander barefoot into knee-deep waters in order to get the perfect shot. I was very happy with the image I was able to create, incorporating the ceremony location and the bride and groom reflected perfectly in the calm water.


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The Trial of Pope Benedict
By Daniel Gawthrop
Categories: History, Biography & Memoir
On February 28, 2013, Benedict XVI became the first pope in nearly 600 years to resign. In abandoning a role that nearly every one of his predecessors had seen as a calling from God to be heeded until ...
How Poetry Saved My Life
By Amber Dawn
Categories: Biography & Memoir, Women's Literature, LGBTQ+, Lesbian Literature
Vancouver Book Award winner; Lambda Literary Award finalist
A memoir about sex work and sexuality, and how writing became the author's lifeline.
Amber Dawn's acclaimed first novel Sub Rosa, a darkly intoxicating ...
The World Is Moving around Me
By Dany Laferriere
Translated by David Homel
Categories: Social Issues, BIPOC, Black Literature, Cultural Studies, Biography & Memoir
On January 12, 2010, novelist Dany Laferriere had just ordered dinner at a Port-au-Prince restaurant with a friend when the earthquake struck. He survived; some 300,000 others did not. The quake caused ...
The Last Genet
By Hadrien Laroche
Categories: Cultural Studies, Biography & Memoir, LGBTQ+, Gay Literature
During the last eighteen years of his life (1968-86), Jean Genet was preoccupied with the struggles of the disenfranchised and displaced: among them, the Black Panthers, the Baader-Meinhof, and the Palestinians. ...
Second Person Queer
Edited by Richard Labonté & Lawrence Schimel
Categories: LGBTQ+, Lesbian Literature, Biography & Memoir, Gay Literature, Social Issues, Anthologies
First Person Queer, an anthology of non-fiction essays written in the first person by a variety of gay and lesbian authors, was a snapshot of LGBT life and experience in the modern age. Published in 2007, ...
Peter Flinsch
By Ross Higgins
Categories: Cultural Studies, History, LGBTQ+, Gay Literature, Erotica, Visual Arts, Biography & Memoir
Peter Flinsch, who passed away in March 2010 at the age of eighty-nine, was one of the art world's unsung heroes; for more than 60 years, he produced hundreds of paintings, drawings, and sculptures which ...
queersexlife
By Terry Goldie
Categories: LGBTQ+, Gay Literature, Cultural Studies, Biography & Memoir
Evocative of writers Patrick Califia-Rice and Kate Bornstein, whose best works explore gender and sexuality through personal memoir, queersexlife is a frank and intimate collection of responses to theories ...
First Person Queer
Categories: LGBTQ+, Gay Literature, Anthologies, Biography & Memoir, Cultural Studies, Social Issues, Lesbian Literature
Winner, Lambda Literary Award, LGBT Anthologies
Winner, Independent Publisher Award (GOLD), Gay/Lesbian
In this amazing, wide-ranging anthology of non-fiction essays, contributors write intimate and honest ...
By Matthew Hays
Categories: Film & Media, LGBTQ+, Gay Literature, Lesbian Literature, Biography & Memoir
Winner, Lambda Literary Award, LGBT Arts/Culture
One of Quill & Quire's Books of the Year, 2007
The history of gay and lesbian cinema is a storied one, and one that became much larger with the recent success ...
Comfort Food for Breakups
By Marusya Bociurkiw
Categories: Cooking, Biography & Memoir, Women's Literature, LGBTQ+, Lesbian Literature
Finalist,The Golden Crown Literary Award, Lesbian Short Story Essay Collection
Winner, Independent Publisher Award (SILVER), Autobiography/Memoir
Winner, ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award (GOLD), ...
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Anna comes to us from the beautiful Sunshine State, which probably explains her bubbly and always sunny disposition. She knows no stranger and greets everyone with a smile.
Boats will share her passion for climbing and love of the Wrangell-St. Elias ecosystems with anyone lucky enough to join her on a trip!
Chad started his guiding career as a day guide with St. Elias Alpine Guides, and we are honored that he still comes back to visit, train our new guides, and do some big-mountain guiding for his old alma mater!
Whether it's on the rivers, glacier, or in the backcountry, keep an eye out for Harrison and his signature smile lighting up the Wrangells!
Kristin will greet you with a smile and help you pick the right adventure for you!
Born and raised in Minnesota, Kyle is the epitome of "Minnesota Nice!" – you betcha!
Full of bubbling natural energy, Leslie's varied background as an all-around wilderness gal made her a perfect fit for the St. Elias team!
Merritt is a nomad who has seen many, many parts of North America, both the flat, and the pointy. He prefers the pointy.
With his big smile and unlimited enthusiasm, Ryan is sure to turn your Alaska trip into the trip of a lifetime!
Scott's rugged toughness is definitely represented in his amazing beard (we dare you to compete for awesome facial hair!).


Thank you for comming along to a glorious day at West Wood.
I was concerned when Gideon from the battle re-enactment club came and discussed our double booking of the West Woods just as the first runners were registering.
As there weapons are lightweight and not dangerous I decided that there wasn't a hazard, but arranged for everyone to be warned, so that you didn't get any suprises.
As it turned out, once they had gone into the woods I didn't see any more of them. I hope you were all warned and were not put off by the other activity.
Thank you to everyone who came to Westwood, I hope you enjoyed your runs! It was great to see so many of you there.
This was my first attempt at planning and due to the rapidly growing undergrowth, I decided to make the main challenge of the more technical courses come from route choice rather than flag hunting, with a few sections of short technical legs to keep you on your toes! Believe it or not, I tried to keep you away from the worst of the brambles (or at least always give you a plausible alternative route), although unfortunately it wasn't possible to avoid them completely without seriously compromising the courses.
In retrospect, the light green was probably ~0.5 km too long, so apologies and I hope it didn't detract from your enjoyment too much.
Many thanks to Peter Stewart for providing invaluable assistance as controller, organiser and mentor and thanks also to all the other volunteers whose hard work was much appreciated.


Customer Effort Score: What's Yours?
Consider this: If you need a product, you can usually order it online and get it the same day. If you need a ride, an Uber can be at your location in five minutes. If you want to watch a certain movie, you can start streaming in seconds. Amazon Fresh makes it possible to stay clear of grocery stores with just a few keystrokes and Alexa has replaced the need to look up a recipe (and she even gives me daily compliments!). Americans love immediate gratification, especially since they can get it in most parts of their lives. Why shouldn't businesses, including car dealerships, function in the same way?
If you're in business, you probably have employees. And if you have employees, you have people whose skills need to be developed and refined.
When people learn, they need feedback that tells them whether or not they are doing the right thing. Mastery requires feedback; so, the more you can provide feedback, the better your coaching and development efforts will be.
However, if you ask the average person when feedback happens in business, the annual performance review or a disciplinary conversation are usually what come to mind. That's definitely not immediate and likely not frequent. That needs to change.
In order to explain how important feedback is to an employee's development, let's consider a few examples.
One of your expectations for employees who use the phone is that they must provide a friendly greeting and create a positive atmosphere by asking the customer questions. When Full-Time Fred gets on the phone, he is taking "friendly" to a whole new level — he is greeting the customer in a friendly way, developing connections with callers and engaging them with conversational questions. In this case, you provide Fred with positive and specific feedback in the moment so that he keeps grinning and winning over new customers.
Now, let's take the same scenario, but paint a different picture. You hear Fred's stellar performance on the phone, but you say nothing to him because of course Fred is friendly on the phones; he is supposed to be. It's our standard! In this case, we can't predict what Fred will do moving forward because you're leaving his excellent performance up to his interpretation and not providing any feedback to reinforce his positive behaviors.
1. Review Paula's performance data with her and identify key areas for improvement.
2. Have a conversation with her to understand what might be driving her unsatisfactory performance.
3. Determine if this is a skill, desire or environment issue. Ensure that Paula is clear on phone performance standards.
4. Provide specific and corrective feedback on her performance while getting buy in from her.
5. Create an action plan that includes helpful tasks such as listening to her own calls and scoring them, shadowing more successful "Freds" and signing up for phone skills training.
Alternatively, if you do nothing because you need a body on the phones, Paula showed up and you don't have time to worry about how friendly she is, Paula's not magically going to start spewing great experiences for your callers. Not only does doing nothing do a disservice to customers, it deflates morale and is a huge disservice to your employees. Without accountability, you're silently saying that it's OK to disregard behavioral standards and provide subpar service to every member of the team. Not only are you saying it to her, along with all of your other Paulas, but you're also telling your high-performing Freds that poor performance will go unchecked.
For Fred, your reinforcement will result in higher engagement. For Paula, your redirection will lead to performance improvement — or she may consider that the role isn't right for her. Regardless, something positive will happen. Feedback begets development and moves people towards actions that improve or change behavior.
A constant stream of performance feedback is immediate gratification for what's working and what needs improvement and is essential for personalized development. Coaching and feedback efforts can be easy if you have the right tools in place. Training is all about improving skills, and measurement is all about KPIs and data for decision making. Consider blending the two to improve processes and skills at the same time.
Coming soon, we'll discuss the last step in the employee engagement process: engagement and retention.
Click here to view more solutions from Holly Markel and CallRevu.


Apart from online storage services in the form of Virtualisation and Cloud, we also sell servers from reputed manufacturers guaranteeing you high quality, reliability and 24/7 onsite support and assistance.
GeekIT stocks up on the updated and outdated servers to ensure that we have all types of servers for our clients. To have a look at our online catalogue for servers.


text:
Pierwszy rząd Wincentego Witosa – rząd 1920-1921
 Drugi rząd Wincentego Witosa – rząd 1923
 Trzeci rząd Wincentego Witosa – rząd 1926

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
The Use and Misuse of Comparative Constitutional Law (the George
Share The Use and Misuse of Comparative Constitutional Law (the George
Indiana Journal of Global LegalStudies Volume 13|Issue 1 Article 2 Winter 2006 Te Use and Misuse of ComparativeConstitutional Law (Te George P. Smith Lecturein International Law) Cheryl Saunders University of Melbourne Follow this and additional works at:hp://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ijglsPart of theComparative and Foreign Law Commons ,Constitutional Law Commons , and theInternational Law Commons Tis Lecture is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School Journals at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted forinclusion in Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies by an authorizedadministrator of Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information,please contact wan@indiana.edu. Recommended Citation Saunders, Cheryl (2006) Te Use and Misuse of Comparative Constitutional Law (Te George P. Smith Lecture in InternationalLaw), Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies : Vol. 13: Iss. 1, Article 2. Available at:hp://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ijgls/vol13/iss1/2 The Use and Misuse of Comparative Constitutional Law CHERYL S UNDERS ABSTRACT This article examines the extent and nature of the use offoreign law in constitu- tional adjudication n common law systems outside the United States with special ref- erence to Australia. Demonstrating hat the courts of other common law jurisdictions use oreign case law readily naturally and or a variety ofpurposes the article reachestwo broad conclusions: 1) as a generalization other common law countries do not share the concern about the legitimacy of comparative precedents that manifests itself in the United States, and 2) as a consequence other common law countries necessar-ily share with the United States an interest in the methodology ofcomparative consti- tutional law in order to avoid its misuse. Throughout this article a series of three decisions handed down by the High Court ofAustralia over the course of the 1990s is used as a case study to give the arguments context and greater substance. INTRODUCTION This article deals with one particular aspect of comparative constitutional law: recourse y domestic courts to foreign law and legal experience in the course of deciding constitutional cases. Comparative constitutional law has other uses as well, of course. It is an essential tool for understanding the gover- nance systems of other countries and, therefore, the countries themselves.' It is *Professor of Law, University of Melbourne; Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor of Legal Science, University of Cambridge, 2005-2006; Ph.D., LL.B., B.A., University of Melbourne. In an earlier form, this article was delivered as a public lecture at the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington, during my visit to the school as the George P Smith II Professor of Law, in March and April of 2005. owe thanks to many people for that opportunity, not least Dean Lauren Robel and George Smith II himself. In finalizing the article, benefited greatly fromquestions asked during the lecture and comments received afterwards. also received helpful re- search assistance from Megan Donaldson, for which I express my appreciation. I C RNES LORD THE MODERN PRINCE: WH T LEADERS NEED T NOw Now 28 2003) (noting the stress placed y Aristotle on political leaders learning about other states as well as one's own,including lessons that might be gleaned from their domestic politics ). CHERYL SAUNDERS inevitably engaged in any constitution-making process, 2 with Iraq only the most recent example, although one which has also served to focus new attention on the nature of the challenge. 3 My subject is deliberately confined to courts, how- ever, and to their use of foreign law. It thus also excludes recourse by domesticcourts to international law, for assistance in resolving constitutional questions.' Although a parallel phenomenon, now tending to converge with the use of for- eign law, 5 the consideration of international law by national courts raises some- 2. There is a vast literature, which tends to be regional, because of differences in the constitu- tion-making experience. To substantiate the point, however, in relation to different countries, see D.M. Davis, Constitutional Borrowing: The Influence of Legal Culture and Local History in the Re- constitution of Comparative nfluence: The South African Experience INT L J CONST. L. 181,185-89 2003); NICHOLAS R.L. HAYSOM, Constitution Making and Nation Building in FEDERALISM IN A CHANGING WORLD-LEARNING FROM EACH OTH R 216 Raoul Blindenbacher Arnold Koller eds., 2003); Fiji CONSTITUTION REVIEW COMM N, TOWARDS A UNITED FUTURE 1.10 1996). In Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck told a special session of the Lhengye Zhungtsho on March 21, 2005, shortly before the public release of the draft Constitution, that the Constitutiondrafting committee had studied the Constitutions of more than 50 other countries.... [Nlot tocopy other Constitutions but to study and adopt what was good and relevant for Bhutan. KinleyDorji, Draft Constitution o Be Distributed o All Bhutanese KUENSEL ONLINE, Mar. 23, 2005, http:// www. k uenselonline.com/modules.php? name= News&file = a rticle sid = 5207. 3. DAVID L. PHILLIPS, POWER-SHARING IN IRAQ Council on Foreign Relations, Council Special Report No. 6,2005) (appending an analysis of Federalism and Autonomy Arrangements poten- tially then relevant to the constitution-making task of the National Assembly), available at http:// www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Iraq-CSR.pdf. See also Brendan O'Leary, Power- Sharing Pluralist Federation and Federacy in THE FUTURE OF KURDISTAN IN IRAQ 47 Brendan O'Leary et al. eds., 2005). 4. Australian examples may be found in a series of judgments of Justice Michael Kirby. Newcrest Mining (WA) Ltd. v. Commonwealth 1997) 190 C.L.R. 513, 657, 661; Kartinyeri v. Commonwealth 1998) 195 C.L.R. 337, 386. Other members of the High Court of Australia have expressly rejected the use of international law for this purpose. For a recent, vigorous rebuttal, see Al-Kateb v. Godwin 2004) 78 A.L.J.R. 1099, 1112-15 (McHugh, J.). For a more detailed account of the debate within the High Court of Australia, see The Honorable Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG, High Court of Austl., International Law The Impact on National Constitutions, Ad- dress at the American Society of International Law Seventh Annual Grotius Lecture (Mar. 30,2005), available at http'/www.hcourt.gov.au/speeches/kirbyj/kirbyj30mar05.html. 5. Convergence is occurring in a variety of ways, including reliance on both sources without clearly distinguishing between them in judgments and scholarship, and in the ambiguous status of supra-national courts from the standpoint of countries that are not parties to the supra-national arrangement. E.g. The Honorable Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG, High Court of Austl., Inter- national Law The Impact on National Constitutions, Address at the American Society of Inter- national Law Seventh Annual Grotius Lecture (Mar. 30, 2005), available at http:// www.hcourt.gov.au/speeches/kirbyj/kirbyj30mar05.htm; Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 5 S. Ct. 1183 2005). For the latter, consider the treatment of decisions of the European Court of USE AND MISUSE OF COMP R TIVE CONSTITUTION L L W 39 what different questions of principle and method, 6 affecting analysis of both its use and misuse, which distinguishes it from foreign law for present purposes. Reference by courts to foreign law in determining constitutional questions is presently a controversial practice in the United States. The controversy should be kept in perspective, however. Reference to foreign law in the course of consti- tutional adjudication in the United States is not a recent phenomenon, 7 nor is it confined to the Supreme Court. 8 Most members of the current Court have re- ferred to comparative sources, at some stage, for a reason other than to dismissthe legitimacy of reliance on them. 9 At least four justices also have made extra- judicial remarks that appear to endorse the use of comparative constitutional law in some circumstances.' Based on present indications, it seems likely that references by U.S. judges to foreign law will increase, if cautiously, although changes pending in the composition of the Supreme Court make prediction risky. Human Rights as foreign law in Lawrence v. Texas 539 U.S. 558 2003), and as international law in Al-Kateb, 78 A.L.J.R. at 1112-15. Logically, the characterization of the Supreme Court of theUnited States is preferable in this instance. 6. Arguably, the claims of international law are stronger, deriving from membership of theinternational community and, in some cases, from commitments to international norms accepted by other branches of government, on behalf of the country as a whole. These points of distinction also help to explain the resistance to it: as potentially a much more intrusive influence on domesticlaw (if influence is allowed), which also circumvents the legislative role of Parliament in common law parliamentary systems. By contrast, the weaker claims of foreign law are generally recognized in the indirect manner in which it is used, through a process of reasoning that lies entirely withinthe discretion of the court. 7. Harold Hongju Koh, Foreword, On American Exceptionalism, 55 STAN. L. REv. 1479, 1513 2003). 8. Margaret H. Marshall, Speech, Wise Parents Do Not Hesitate o Learn From Their Children : Interpreting State Constitutions in an Age of Global Jurisprudence, 79 N.Y.U. L. REv. 1633, 1641 2004). 9. Koh,supra note 7 t 1514. 10. Justice Stephen Breyer, Keynote Address at the Ninety-Seventh Annual Meeting of theAmerican Society o nternational Law (Apr. 4, 2003), in 97 AM. Soc Y INT L L. PRoc. 265 2003); Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Looking Beyond Our Borders: The Value of a Comparative Perspective in Constitutional Adjudication, Keynote Address at the First National Convention of the American Constitution Society (Aug. 2, 2003), in 22 YALE L. POL Y REv. 329 2004); Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Keynote Address to the 96th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (Mar. 15, 2002 , in 96 AM. Soc Y INT'L L. PRoC. 348 2002); William H. Rehnquist, Constitu- tional Courts-Comparative Remarks in GERMANY AND ITS BASIc LAW: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE: A GERMAN-AMERICAN SYMpOSiUM 411 (Paul Kirchhof Donald P. Kommers eds., 1993).
Book Of Kai Training.pdf
product-guide-mci.pdf
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use and misuse of Information technology and Comparative constitutional law and religionThe comparison of the use and function of théuse and utilization of ICT in the EducationalComparative Constitutional LawComparative Constitutional Law \u0026 TheoryComparative Constitutional Law, InternationalUse and effects of mobile phone among studentUse and Introduction of LoanwordsComparative Constitutional Law; Comparative s


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Japan's Princess Mako marries boyfriend, loses royal status
Philippine News Agency•October 26, 2021
ISTANBUL – Princess Mako of Japan's imperial family married her "commoner" boyfriend on Tuesday, thus losing her royal status.
Mako married her university sweetheart Kei Komuro, also 30, and Japan's Imperial Household Agency submitted the legal paperwork in capital Tokyo to register their marriage, Kyodo News reported.
Niece of Emperor Naruhito, Princess Mako now became Mako Komuro under family registry with Komuro who called her marriage a "necessary choice" for her.
Mako is the eldest daughter of Crown Prince Fumihito, the younger brother of Emperor Naruhito. Mako's parents and younger sister saw her off when she left the family's residence in the Akasaka Estate in Tokyo.
The couple first met in 2012 and has been in a relationship since their schooling at the International Christian University in Tokyo. They were unofficially engaged in 2017 but the marriage was postponed due to a financial dispute involving Komuro's mother.
Komuro has said he was "trying to settle a financial dispute involving his mother."
Japan's imperial agency had earlier this month announced a date for their marriage following which Komuro returned from New York where he works for a law firm.
The duo plan to settle down in the US after the former princess receives her passport.
Japan's imperial family does not need travel documents for travel. However, if a female member decides to marry outside, she loses the status and has to formally apply for travel documents.
Soon after their restricted marriage ceremony was held, Mako and Komuro opted to only give opening remarks during a news conference and released answers to five selected questions.
The imperial agency had revealed that Mako has been "diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder caused by what is claimed to be mental abuse", blaming the excessive media coverage around the princess and Komuro's family in the past few years.
The wedding ceremony was held without the related ritual ceremonies, making Mako the first female member of the royal family to skip the traditions after World War II.
By marrying an outsider, Mako lost her royal status but is entitled to a lump-sum payment of about USD1.3 million from the imperial family.
However, the princess has indicated she will not take the money, making her the first Japanese royal to forego such an offer. (Anadolu)


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Shoreham woman reaches finals of entrepreneur awards for her holistic health business
Worthing snooker club reveals proposed opening date after move to new home
Southwick houses torn down to make way for 50-home block
Demolition crews have cleared the site of a new 50-home development in Southwick.
By Isabella Cipirska
Demolition underway in Albion Street, Southwick
The scheme in Albion Street will include some of the first council housing built in Adur in more than 30 years.
The plans were approved by Adur District Council's planning committee in November.Vacant houses at the site, which were formerly used for emergency hostel accommodation, have been reduced to rubble.
They will be replaced by two buildings, ranging from four to six storeys in height, containing 44 homes.
The smaller building will accommodate 15 affordable flats owned and let by the council.
A further six flats will be created within existing semi-detached buildings located on the western parcel of land.
The first job for demolition crews was to remove the fly-tipping from the land before creating a safe access route onto the land, a council spokesman said.
Due to an industrial estate nearby, some of the buildings have been dismantled by hand, but the majority of the work has been carried out by an excavator with materials being segregated on site for recycling.
Artists' impression of the new block
Councillor Carson Albury, cabinet member for customer services at Adur District Council, was recently given a tour of the site and said: "It's been a long time coming for council housing to be built in Adur which is why I'm delighted to see the progress being made at Albion Street.
"In a short space of time, the site has been transformed.
"It is only now with a number of the properties reduced to rubble that you can see the size and scale of the project.
"I was extremely impressed to see the skill that the teams from Dde are displaying to safely carry out the work.
"A safe and speedy demolition is just the first phase. With planning secured I'm confident that the new homes will be available for tenants very soon."
The development is being brought forward jointly by the council and Albion Street Developments and focuses on two plots of land which overlook Shoreham Harbour.
The scheme is part of a wider three-year investment plan by the council in providing affordable and temporary accommodation across the district.
SEE MORE: This is how the council plans to invest £14.2m in AdurSix empty Southwick homes to be torn down for 50 new flatsPlans submitted for 50 new homes in Southwick
Shoe Zone to open new shop in Worthing
The Sussex Produce Company in Steyning is sold to new owners
Long-standing Shoreham postmaster and wife applauded as they retire after 26 years
Shoreham nail firm boss admits she 'let her customers down' after being ordered to pay back £300,000
Shoreham nail firm ordered to pay back more than £300,000 to customers
Here's when child friendly Worthing cafe is due to open


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Long-Term Outcomes of Left Atrial Appendage Electrical Isolation in Patients With Nonparoxysmal Atrial Fibrillation: A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis
Jorge Romero, Luigi Di Biase, Sanghamitra Mohanty, Chintan Trivedi, Kavisha Patel, Michael Parides, Isabella Alviz, Juan C. Diaz, Veronica Natale, Javier Sanchez, Domenico G. Della Rocca, Ruike Yang, Prasant Mohanty, Carola Gianni, Rodney Horton, David Burkhardt, Amin Al-Ahmad, Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy, Andrea Natale
Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery
BACKGROUND: Left atrial appendage electrical isolation (LAAEI) has been proposed for the treatment of nonparoxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF). The long-term clinical outcomes of this approach remain unclear. The objective of our study was to investigate the incremental benefit and safety of LAAEI in patients undergoing catheter ablation for nonparoxysmal AF. METHODS: Propensity score-matched analysis was performed using a prospective registry database from 2010 to 2014. All patients in the LAAEI group were matched based on baseline characteristics, echocardiographic parameters, and procedural ablation techniques. RESULTS: We identified 1842 patients who underwent catheter ablation for nonparoxysmal AF. Propensity score matching yielded 1092 patients, 546 patients with LAAEI, and 546 patients without LAAEI. At 5-year follow-up, overall freedom from all-atrial arrhythmia recurrence, off-antiarrhythmic drugs, in patients who underwent LAAEI was 68.9% versus 50.2% in those who underwent standard ablation alone (P<0.001). Acute complication rates were similar between groups (LAAEI 1.3% versus non-LAAEI 0.73%, P=0.36). At 5-year follow-up, 382 (70%) patients in the LAAEI group remained on oral anticoagulation versus 217 (39.7%) in the non-LAAEI group. At 5-year follow-up, thromboembolic events occurred in 15/546 (2.75%) in the LAAEI group and 4/546 (0.73%) in the non-LAAEI group (P=0.01). No thromboembolic events occurred in either group on-oral anticoagulation. In patients who were off-oral anticoagulation, at 5-year follow-up, thromboembolic events occurred in 15/164 (9.1%) in the LAAEI group and 4/329 (1.2%) in the non-LAAEI group (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: At 5-year follow-up, LAAEI was associated with significantly higher freedom from all-atrial arrhythmia recurrence in patients with persistent and long-standing persistent AF without increasing acute procedural complication rate. In patients off-oral anticoagulation, there appears to be a higher risk of thromboembolic events in the LAAEI group.
Circulation. Arrhythmia and electrophysiology
https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCEP.120.008390
left atrial appendage
10.1161/CIRCEP.120.008390
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Long-Term Outcomes of Left Atrial Appendage Electrical Isolation in Patients With Nonparoxysmal Atrial Fibrillation: A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Patient Isolation Medicine & Life Sciences
Atrial Appendage Medicine & Life Sciences
Propensity Score Medicine & Life Sciences
Atrial Fibrillation Medicine & Life Sciences
Catheter Ablation Medicine & Life Sciences
Cardiac Arrhythmias Medicine & Life Sciences
Ablation Techniques Medicine & Life Sciences
Recurrence Medicine & Life Sciences
Romero, J., Di Biase, L., Mohanty, S., Trivedi, C., Patel, K., Parides, M., Alviz, I., Diaz, J. C., Natale, V., Sanchez, J., Della Rocca, D. G., Yang, R., Mohanty, P., Gianni, C., Horton, R., Burkhardt, D., Al-Ahmad, A., Lakkireddy, D., & Natale, A. (2020). Long-Term Outcomes of Left Atrial Appendage Electrical Isolation in Patients With Nonparoxysmal Atrial Fibrillation: A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis. Circulation. Arrhythmia and electrophysiology, 13(11), e008390. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCEP.120.008390
Long-Term Outcomes of Left Atrial Appendage Electrical Isolation in Patients With Nonparoxysmal Atrial Fibrillation : A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis. / Romero, Jorge; Di Biase, Luigi; Mohanty, Sanghamitra; Trivedi, Chintan; Patel, Kavisha; Parides, Michael; Alviz, Isabella; Diaz, Juan C.; Natale, Veronica; Sanchez, Javier; Della Rocca, Domenico G.; Yang, Ruike; Mohanty, Prasant; Gianni, Carola; Horton, Rodney; Burkhardt, David; Al-Ahmad, Amin; Lakkireddy, Dhanunjaya; Natale, Andrea.
In: Circulation. Arrhythmia and electrophysiology, Vol. 13, No. 11, 01.11.2020, p. e008390.
Romero, J, Di Biase, L, Mohanty, S, Trivedi, C, Patel, K, Parides, M, Alviz, I, Diaz, JC, Natale, V, Sanchez, J, Della Rocca, DG, Yang, R, Mohanty, P, Gianni, C, Horton, R, Burkhardt, D, Al-Ahmad, A, Lakkireddy, D & Natale, A 2020, 'Long-Term Outcomes of Left Atrial Appendage Electrical Isolation in Patients With Nonparoxysmal Atrial Fibrillation: A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis', Circulation. Arrhythmia and electrophysiology, vol. 13, no. 11, pp. e008390. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCEP.120.008390
Romero J, Di Biase L, Mohanty S, Trivedi C, Patel K, Parides M et al. Long-Term Outcomes of Left Atrial Appendage Electrical Isolation in Patients With Nonparoxysmal Atrial Fibrillation: A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis. Circulation. Arrhythmia and electrophysiology. 2020 Nov 1;13(11):e008390. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCEP.120.008390
Romero, Jorge ; Di Biase, Luigi ; Mohanty, Sanghamitra ; Trivedi, Chintan ; Patel, Kavisha ; Parides, Michael ; Alviz, Isabella ; Diaz, Juan C. ; Natale, Veronica ; Sanchez, Javier ; Della Rocca, Domenico G. ; Yang, Ruike ; Mohanty, Prasant ; Gianni, Carola ; Horton, Rodney ; Burkhardt, David ; Al-Ahmad, Amin ; Lakkireddy, Dhanunjaya ; Natale, Andrea. / Long-Term Outcomes of Left Atrial Appendage Electrical Isolation in Patients With Nonparoxysmal Atrial Fibrillation : A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis. In: Circulation. Arrhythmia and electrophysiology. 2020 ; Vol. 13, No. 11. pp. e008390.
@article{490d23c948cd4bb4be6e142a07dae800,
title = "Long-Term Outcomes of Left Atrial Appendage Electrical Isolation in Patients With Nonparoxysmal Atrial Fibrillation: A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis",
abstract = "BACKGROUND: Left atrial appendage electrical isolation (LAAEI) has been proposed for the treatment of nonparoxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF). The long-term clinical outcomes of this approach remain unclear. The objective of our study was to investigate the incremental benefit and safety of LAAEI in patients undergoing catheter ablation for nonparoxysmal AF. METHODS: Propensity score-matched analysis was performed using a prospective registry database from 2010 to 2014. All patients in the LAAEI group were matched based on baseline characteristics, echocardiographic parameters, and procedural ablation techniques. RESULTS: We identified 1842 patients who underwent catheter ablation for nonparoxysmal AF. Propensity score matching yielded 1092 patients, 546 patients with LAAEI, and 546 patients without LAAEI. At 5-year follow-up, overall freedom from all-atrial arrhythmia recurrence, off-antiarrhythmic drugs, in patients who underwent LAAEI was 68.9% versus 50.2% in those who underwent standard ablation alone (P<0.001). Acute complication rates were similar between groups (LAAEI 1.3% versus non-LAAEI 0.73%, P=0.36). At 5-year follow-up, 382 (70%) patients in the LAAEI group remained on oral anticoagulation versus 217 (39.7%) in the non-LAAEI group. At 5-year follow-up, thromboembolic events occurred in 15/546 (2.75%) in the LAAEI group and 4/546 (0.73%) in the non-LAAEI group (P=0.01). No thromboembolic events occurred in either group on-oral anticoagulation. In patients who were off-oral anticoagulation, at 5-year follow-up, thromboembolic events occurred in 15/164 (9.1%) in the LAAEI group and 4/329 (1.2%) in the non-LAAEI group (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: At 5-year follow-up, LAAEI was associated with significantly higher freedom from all-atrial arrhythmia recurrence in patients with persistent and long-standing persistent AF without increasing acute procedural complication rate. In patients off-oral anticoagulation, there appears to be a higher risk of thromboembolic events in the LAAEI group.",
keywords = "atrial fibrillation, catheter ablation, left atrial appendage, radiofrequency ablation, stroke",
author = "Jorge Romero and {Di Biase}, Luigi and Sanghamitra Mohanty and Chintan Trivedi and Kavisha Patel and Michael Parides and Isabella Alviz and Diaz, {Juan C.} and Veronica Natale and Javier Sanchez and {Della Rocca}, {Domenico G.} and Ruike Yang and Prasant Mohanty and Carola Gianni and Rodney Horton and David Burkhardt and Amin Al-Ahmad and Dhanunjaya Lakkireddy and Andrea Natale",
note = "Copyright: This record is sourced from MEDLINE/PubMed, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine",
doi = "10.1161/CIRCEP.120.008390",
pages = "e008390",
journal = "Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology",
T1 - Long-Term Outcomes of Left Atrial Appendage Electrical Isolation in Patients With Nonparoxysmal Atrial Fibrillation
T2 - A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis
AU - Romero, Jorge
AU - Di Biase, Luigi
AU - Mohanty, Sanghamitra
AU - Trivedi, Chintan
AU - Patel, Kavisha
AU - Parides, Michael
AU - Alviz, Isabella
AU - Diaz, Juan C.
AU - Natale, Veronica
AU - Sanchez, Javier
AU - Della Rocca, Domenico G.
AU - Yang, Ruike
AU - Mohanty, Prasant
AU - Gianni, Carola
AU - Horton, Rodney
AU - Burkhardt, David
AU - Al-Ahmad, Amin
AU - Lakkireddy, Dhanunjaya
AU - Natale, Andrea
N1 - Copyright: This record is sourced from MEDLINE/PubMed, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
N2 - BACKGROUND: Left atrial appendage electrical isolation (LAAEI) has been proposed for the treatment of nonparoxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF). The long-term clinical outcomes of this approach remain unclear. The objective of our study was to investigate the incremental benefit and safety of LAAEI in patients undergoing catheter ablation for nonparoxysmal AF. METHODS: Propensity score-matched analysis was performed using a prospective registry database from 2010 to 2014. All patients in the LAAEI group were matched based on baseline characteristics, echocardiographic parameters, and procedural ablation techniques. RESULTS: We identified 1842 patients who underwent catheter ablation for nonparoxysmal AF. Propensity score matching yielded 1092 patients, 546 patients with LAAEI, and 546 patients without LAAEI. At 5-year follow-up, overall freedom from all-atrial arrhythmia recurrence, off-antiarrhythmic drugs, in patients who underwent LAAEI was 68.9% versus 50.2% in those who underwent standard ablation alone (P<0.001). Acute complication rates were similar between groups (LAAEI 1.3% versus non-LAAEI 0.73%, P=0.36). At 5-year follow-up, 382 (70%) patients in the LAAEI group remained on oral anticoagulation versus 217 (39.7%) in the non-LAAEI group. At 5-year follow-up, thromboembolic events occurred in 15/546 (2.75%) in the LAAEI group and 4/546 (0.73%) in the non-LAAEI group (P=0.01). No thromboembolic events occurred in either group on-oral anticoagulation. In patients who were off-oral anticoagulation, at 5-year follow-up, thromboembolic events occurred in 15/164 (9.1%) in the LAAEI group and 4/329 (1.2%) in the non-LAAEI group (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: At 5-year follow-up, LAAEI was associated with significantly higher freedom from all-atrial arrhythmia recurrence in patients with persistent and long-standing persistent AF without increasing acute procedural complication rate. In patients off-oral anticoagulation, there appears to be a higher risk of thromboembolic events in the LAAEI group.
AB - BACKGROUND: Left atrial appendage electrical isolation (LAAEI) has been proposed for the treatment of nonparoxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF). The long-term clinical outcomes of this approach remain unclear. The objective of our study was to investigate the incremental benefit and safety of LAAEI in patients undergoing catheter ablation for nonparoxysmal AF. METHODS: Propensity score-matched analysis was performed using a prospective registry database from 2010 to 2014. All patients in the LAAEI group were matched based on baseline characteristics, echocardiographic parameters, and procedural ablation techniques. RESULTS: We identified 1842 patients who underwent catheter ablation for nonparoxysmal AF. Propensity score matching yielded 1092 patients, 546 patients with LAAEI, and 546 patients without LAAEI. At 5-year follow-up, overall freedom from all-atrial arrhythmia recurrence, off-antiarrhythmic drugs, in patients who underwent LAAEI was 68.9% versus 50.2% in those who underwent standard ablation alone (P<0.001). Acute complication rates were similar between groups (LAAEI 1.3% versus non-LAAEI 0.73%, P=0.36). At 5-year follow-up, 382 (70%) patients in the LAAEI group remained on oral anticoagulation versus 217 (39.7%) in the non-LAAEI group. At 5-year follow-up, thromboembolic events occurred in 15/546 (2.75%) in the LAAEI group and 4/546 (0.73%) in the non-LAAEI group (P=0.01). No thromboembolic events occurred in either group on-oral anticoagulation. In patients who were off-oral anticoagulation, at 5-year follow-up, thromboembolic events occurred in 15/164 (9.1%) in the LAAEI group and 4/329 (1.2%) in the non-LAAEI group (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: At 5-year follow-up, LAAEI was associated with significantly higher freedom from all-atrial arrhythmia recurrence in patients with persistent and long-standing persistent AF without increasing acute procedural complication rate. In patients off-oral anticoagulation, there appears to be a higher risk of thromboembolic events in the LAAEI group.
KW - atrial fibrillation
KW - catheter ablation
KW - left atrial appendage
KW - radiofrequency ablation
U2 - 10.1161/CIRCEP.120.008390
DO - 10.1161/CIRCEP.120.008390
SP - e008390
JO - Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology
JF - Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology


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A north-east engine pump manufacturing specialist has secured a six-figure contract to provide its products and expertise to a leading supply company in the Far East.
Ellon-based LFH Engineering has secured a £100,000 contract with South Korean firm STX Engine to supply several pumps for industrial projects in Asia.
STX Engine specialise in engine production for large container ships, LNG vessels, oil tankers as well as industrial engines including engines for onshore plants, gas engines and those for railroad vehicles.
Les Hill, Chief Executive Officer of LFH Engineering, said: "International sales are a large part of our business and we are delighted to have secured a contract with STX Engine which we hope will lead to more work with them in the future.
In addition, LFH is also working on the next stage of a multi-year contract with UDMZ, part of the Sinara Group in Russia. The latest order of £40,000 from UDMZ will see the next phase of bespoke diesel engine pumps fitted for prototype testing in the Russian locomotive industry.
Mr Hill added: "The work we are doing with STX Engine and UDMZ highlights the importance we place on increasing the level of business we do in international markets.
LFH Engineering's link with UDMZ has been developed over several years. It initially came around through an introduction from a design house in Germany following the successful delivery of a project with them.
The businesses then signed a multi-year agreement in 2013 which has seen LFH design and supply diesel engine pumps for UDMZ locomotives in Russia.
Mr Hill said: "There is currently a large modernisation project across the Russian railway fleet which means new locomotives and rolling stock are being developed and built for use across their vast network.
With a workforce of 34 employees all based in Ellon, LFH Engineering specialises in the design and manufacture of diesel engine coolant pumps, and offers full in-house pump production, repair and refurbishment services.
Around 75 percent of the firm's work comes from overseas markets in Europe, North America and Asia, including the ship repair and shipbuilding markets, the nuclear energy sector and the locomotive industry.
Earlier this year, the business reported sales of £3m for its 2017/18 financial year up to the end of March, an increase of eight percent on the previous year's figures.
LFH Engineering also offers a full range of pump tooling and service kits along with repair and refurbishment services.


Window cleaning services are essential mainly if you have no time to do-it-yourself; hence, once a person realizes they are in need of these services, it should be the ideal time to evaluate the companies' at your disposal and see which one matches to work correctly for you. An individual should remember that many people have gone through a stringent selection process, since nobody wants to lose money by hiring companies that will not be ideal for you. Use the following factors when looking for window cleaning services because there are a bunch of enterprises, you have to follow these steps in making sure that one gets the best services, as indicated here.
It is best for an individual to maintain their calmness no matter how fast you want those services; therefore, a person must research and interview a couple of people before deciding who to select. The right way to make sure that you do not stray would be by having an idea of what a perfect team for you is; hence, write the characteristics you are looking for in a company during the interviews.
It is vital to find a window cleaning company that understands that people have a busy schedule and these should be the people looking forward to making sure that you get the best services, within your plan. Ensure that the person lets you choose the date and time on when cleaning should occur, since that is the only way a person will avoid future issues, and see to it that you can develop a close relationship with the team.
A firm that is willing to give an estimate from the start is the best to work with since there is nothing to fear, and most of these people are always looking forward to making sure that their clients feel comfortable hiring them.


text:
Bermuda Law Blog
Bermuda Registrar of Companies Introduces Electronic Registration System
The Companies and Partnerships Electronic Registry Amendment Act 2020 (the "Act"), eagerly welcomed by industry, was recently passed into law and will come into operation on a date to be appointed by notice by the Minister of Finance (the "Minister"). The Act principally amends the Companies...
12:44 / Bermuda Case Law & Legislation / Bermuda Government / Commercial Law	/ Brian Holdipp
Employment Law Update: Covid Implications & Amendments to the Act
It was unfortunately all too clear that once the pandemic was declared there would be immediate consequences for the employment market. We saw this across the globe, but in Bermuda, our hospitality industry was hit particularly hard with layoffs being made in March. We discussed...
15:33 / COVID-19	/ Jennifer Haworth
Covid-19 and Public Law
On the 18 March 2020, the first Covid-19 case was diagnosed in Bermuda. During the "first wave" of the Covid-19 Pandemic, the Government of Bermuda has taken extraordinary measures to deal with the crisis through the declaration of an emergency passed pursuant to Bermuda's Constitution,...
16:50 / COVID-19	/ Allan Doughty
Supreme Court Removes 'Light Touch" JPLs, Replaces with JPLs with Full Powers
Co-authors Jennifer Haworth & Allan Doughty On the 20 July 2020, the Supreme Court of Bermuda issued a significant insolvency law decision in FDG Electric Vehicles Limited [2020] SC (Bda) 32 Com. In the FDG case, the Supreme Court chose to order the removal of the...
16:43 / MJM Barristers & Attorneys	/ Jennifer Haworth
2020 Trust Law Developments
Re B Trust [2020] SC (Bda) 30 Com (23 July 2020) This trust is said to hold substantial assets worth billions of dollars. The proceedings were commenced by the Plaintiff Trustee seeking, inter alia, directions in relation to disclosure of confidential and sealed documents on the...
16:35 / MJM Barristers & Attorneys	/ Fozeia Rana-Fahy
MJM Receives International Recognition
The guide to the world's leading financial and corporate law firms, the IFLR 1000, in its October 2020 release, recognised MJM for its work with a Tier 2 ranking and recognition of individual attorneys. IFLR1000 ranked MJM's Finance and Corporate team as Tier 2 and highlighted...
I recently completed my Master of Arts in Classics and Ancient History at Newcastle University. It has been a long-held ambition that I was delighted (and thankful) to have had the opportunity to fulfil. It was a rewarding experience in very many ways, and gave me...
21:48 / Miscellaneous	/ Andrew A. Martin
Doing Business in…
Bermuda had a very good 2019 – business was on the up, tourism figures were promising, and there was a general feeling of optimism in looking to 2020. We all know what happened next. No one could have planned for what transpired, but the restrictions imposed...
17:31 / MJM Barristers & Attorneys	/ Jeremy Leese
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text:
Q: How do I reference X1, X2, X3 after an rbind operation I used RBIND to stack 3 datasets no column names:  combined <- rbind(df1, df2, df3)
It worked fine.
It assigned X1, X2 and X3 to the columns.
I renamed the columns using:
names(combineddf)[names(combineddf)=="X1"] <- "date"

I used head(combineddf) to verify it worked.  I see the new "date" name.
But where I reference "date" I get an error.
When I do str(combineddf) I still see X1, X2 X3.
How do I fix this, and why is R doing this?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Digital Narrative Arcade
Planes, trains, and automobiles: Physics at home
Liza Dill '21|October 13, 2020
Bruce Jagid '21
Mushrooms, record players, basketball hoops; not the latest art from ceramics, but the latest builds from the physics K'Nex Kits. RE students eagerly anticipated their STEM courses for the 2020-2021 school year that were to take place in the newly built STEM center. Now they are remote, yet the physics department is set to facilitate the same engaging classroom experience from the comfort of students' homes. At the laptop pick-up, students were given large boxes of physics supplies.
"As I pulled up to the school, emotionally I was feeling very overwhelmed because it had been months since I had seen my teachers and I missed my school dearly… Seeing Mr. Natland rolling around on the cart made my heart skip a beat," said Isabel Almada '21.
When asked about his curriculum choices for the 2020-2021 school year, Natland explained, "I wanted you to be able to do stuff away from the screen that was meaningful." Students were sent home with five-foot-long pieces of lumber, assorted balls, rubber bands, and springs, a scale, and a K'Nex kit. Natland went through three different scales trying to choose one for the class and over one hundred springs to find the perfect one to use for his mechanics assignments. What sits in the kits at home with students required tens of hours of research and development.
Yuhan Liu '21
"I first got the idea from my son's kit. We built a car. I then bought six kits and built a bunch of different things. I found out I could fulfill my entire mechanics program," he said. Students will be doing motion video analysis, oscillating a mass on a spring, making a pendulum, creating a modified Atwood's machine and more all from their home.
Natland asked students to send in photos of themselves with their creations to prove that they completed their coursework. Naturally, the AP Physics C class became creative with their photos while turning in their first K'Nex assignment, standing on refrigerators, photoshopping their arms reaching out of the toilet with the project, and making a photo that appeared as if their project was being held hostage.
Natland revealed plans that would challenge students to build large structures using the tools in the kit. "It's something fun to do and that was intentional," said Natland. "Yes, the kit says seven and up, – some people might ask 'what is this?' But there aren't kits like this. We are using K'Nex in a way they aren't designed for – utilizing their modularity." Virtual school has led teachers, like Natland, to turn ordinary into the extraordinary.
When Jordan Hoffman'21 was asked to submit a photo of his K'Nex build, he took advantage of his artistic freedoms. "Since we have had all the materials [I have enjoyed labs from home]," he said, noting that the labs at home ran smoothly. Hoffman's friends Justin Wong '21 and Bruce Jagid '21 also took the liberty to create candid and quirky photos.
"I thought it would be funny, and since we know Mr. Natland, we thought he would be okay with it," Hoffman is looking forward to continuing his physics studies at home. "This year we have a lot more materials. I am sure it will go well."
Danny Mendoza '21
Liza Dill '21, Opinion Editor
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