text:
May 9, 2019 / 7:46 AM / 2 months ago
More China policy easing seen as lending slows, trade risks rise
Yawen Chen, Kevin Yao
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese banks throttled back new lending in April after a record first quarter that sparked fears of more bad loans, but analysts say the central bank will likely have to step up support for the economy as trade tensions with the United States escalate.
FILE PHOTO: Containers and cargo vessels are seen at sunset at a port in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China March 12, 2019. Picture taken March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer
Global investors are closely watching to see how much more support Beijing will inject to shore up growth. But those policy expectations are swinging wildly as a sudden blowup in diplomatic ties threatens China's nascent recovery.
U.S. President Donald Trump stunned financial markets this week by announcing he will hike tariffs on Chinese goods on Friday unless Beijing agrees to a trade deal, sharply escalating their dispute after months of negotiations. Beijing has vowed to retaliate.
The resurgence in external risks comes as China's economy was beginning to show tentative signs of stabilizing after a raft of growth-boosting measures.
More modest bank lending last month suggested the central bank was fine-tuning policy in light of recent encouraging data and concerns about a rapid rise in debt, economists at Nomura said in a note.
But they added: "We expect a rebound of money and credit in May.
"The sudden escalation of U.S.-China trade tensions and the recent sharp drop of stock prices could convince Beijing to take further easing measures to bolster confidence and stabilize growth."
Chinese banks extended 1.02 trillion yuan ($150.16 billion) in net new yuan loans in April, the central bank said on Thursday, well below analysts' expectations of 1.2 trillion yuan in a Reuters poll and March's surprisingly strong 1.69 trillion yuan.
Growth of outstanding total social financing (TSF), a broad measure of credit and liquidity in the economy, slowed to 10.4 percent from a year earlier from 10.7 percent in March. TSF growth is a rough gauge of credit conditions.
"The slowdown in credit growth underlines the need for further monetary policy easing in order to keep credit expanding fast enough to provide a floor to economic growth," Julian Evans-Pritchard at Capital Economics said in a note.
The credit data was released unexpectedly early, hours ahead of the resumption of last-ditch U.S.-China trade talks and a day ahead of the threatened U.S. tariff hike. The data is typically released between the 10th and 15th of every month.
While April lending levels have tended to moderate from March in past years, investors had been looking to details of the data for clues on how much more policy easing to expect.
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said on Monday it will cut reserve requirement ratios (RRR) for some small and medium-sized banks, in the latest in a series of moves specially tailored to help small firms struggling amid the economic slowdown.
PRICE PRESSURES
Other data on Thursday showed price pressures in China were rising, with April consumer inflation quickening to a six-month high of 2.5 percent.
But analysts noted much of the pick-up was due to higher pork prices, and the trend did not stand in the way of policymakers if further easing is needed to offset mounting trade pressures. The CPI reading remained below the government's annual target of around 3 percent.
Indeed, factory-gate inflation also quickened in April, to a four-month high of 0.9 percent, suggesting underlying demand may be starting to improve.
"Renewed uncertainty in China-U.S trade relations will likely add to policymakers' determination to stay the course on policy easing," said Julia Wang, China economist at HSBC.
"There is still a lot of slack in the economy. This means the PBoC has room to look past temporary shocks in pork or oil prices and focus instead on core inflation," which has been relatively steady.
LESS ROOM FOR POLICY EASING?
Some analysts believe the PBOC has less room to ease monetary policy this year after it cut RRRs and interest rates aggressively in past economic downturns. Beijing has been leaning more on fiscal stimulus this time, counting on higher infrastructure spending and tax cuts to stoke growth.
The OECD has estimated that China's fiscal stimulus was equivalent to 4.25 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019, up from 2.94 percent last year.
ING estimates China has announced support measures worth about 8 trillion yuan in 2018 and 2019, twice as much as its last major stimulus program during the global financial crisis, though a smaller proportion of GDP than a decade ago.
Top officials have repeatedly vowed not to open the credit floodgates in an economy already saddled with piles of debt - a legacy of massive stimulus during the financial crisis and subsequent downturns.
Analysts believe the central bank will continue to cut reserve requirements for lenders, on top of five reductions since early 2018, though they expect it will refrain from more aggressive measures such as cutting benchmark interest rates which could add to debt levels and pressure the yuan currency.
However, some China watchers believe a benchmark rate cut cannot be ruled out if conditions sharply deteriorate.
Additional reporting by Lusha Zhang; Editing by Kim Coghill


text:
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
When was the last time you enjoyed a...
When was the last time you enjoyed a good read?
This book fair reminded us to go read a damn book
TEXT YAZHMIN MALAJITO
I'm glad I didn't grow up like my brothers—they avoid reading books because somehow they've equated it with some boring household chore.
It's easy to dismiss reading as another tiresome activity. Maybe because schools made it appear that way with textbooks and reading assignments.
A trove of children's books was open in Komura; for reading and buying.
Even Czyka Tumaliuan, owner of Kwago Library and co-founder of Komura; Book Fair, has a fair share of this experience. "I grew up reading because it's required and because my teachers told me that it will make me smart and successful. It was mostly functional," she says.
Functional is not bad. But literature is much more than a learning platform.
"My goal now is to show people that literature could also be a source of pleasure, relieve stress, deepen empathy, and enrich creativity," she adds. This is why she founded Komura;, a book fair gathering local independent bookstores, publishers, and art shops held on Nov. 18 at Warehouse Eight in Makati. The event also presented new forms of storytelling through performances by local bands and artists, quick live plays, and zine artists and independent publishers' exploration of new methods of presenting narratives through prints.
Lions and Acrobats performing an acoustic set
The book fair was a quick literary respite. If you plan on taking this kind of lull from your daily grind soon (without creating an event, of course), here's a list of books the Nolisoli.ph staff last enjoyed.
Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
The book is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary history of colors, but the narrative reads like a travelogue. This, by far, is one of the best non-fiction reads I've come across and the research that went into making it makes it even more valuable.
– Alyosha Robillos, Associate Editor
Detective Boys of Masangkay: Ang Mangkukulam by Bernalyn Hapin Sastrillo
Even if it's written in Filipino, it's a quick and easy read. It's like a Filipino version of Detective Conan's detective boys (the story does cite Detective Conan as the main characters' inspiration). Enjoyed this because I love that Japanese manga series.
– Pauline Miranda, Associate Editor
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
It's a poignant recollection of friendship, love, and heartbreak. André Aciman was able to craft a delicious novel that lingers for so long. It's a piece that you'd keep coming back to even if it makes you an emotional wreck every single time.
– Oliver Emocling, Editorial Assistant
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
The title sounds counterintuitive, but that's because it is. I learned to filter things having little or no value in my life. There's no sugarcoating in this book, unlike most self-help. Plus, I enjoyed the abundance of cuss words in every chapter.
– Bea Llagas, Editorial Assistant
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
This heart-wrenching book is a first-person narration of a 15-year-old with Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism. It made me look at the world through this teenager's eyes albeit fictional.
– Yazhmin Malajito, Editorial Assistant
This urban fantasy gives the reader another underworld with that trademark Neil Gaiman urban fantasy feel. What appears to be an innocent children's story at first gradually turns into a thrilling adventure that dabbles into the philosophy of what makes a child's identity and the limits of love and family.
– Anthea Reyes, Editorial Assistant
Photos courtesy of Martina De Vera
Here's a book fair that isn't just about books
Seven heavens in Manila for every bibliophile
The new Chinese library turns out to be a sham, but these others are not
TAGS: arts be books Cultural Center of the Philippines culture komura book fair kwago nolisoliph Warehouse Eight
Here's what to expect at the first ALT Philippines 2020
Artists Martha Atienza and Yee I-Lann on the universal struggle of island communities
3 adventures perfect for the long weekend
5 new thought-provoking documentaries this 2020

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Home Switzerland
vaccine side effects reported in Switzerland
Basel to become the fifth canton with a minimum wage
Swiss government to donate its stock of Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccine
As at 21 January 2021, Swissmedic, Switzerland's drug approval authority, had received 42 reports of suspected adverse drug reactions in connection with the first COVID-19 vaccinations in Switzerland, it said in a press release.
© Olena Yakobchuk | Dreamstime.com
Experts at Swissmedic, are currently looking these cases. However, so far their analysis has not found anything leading the body to change its positive benefit/risk ratio of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines it has approved, which include the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
26 (62%) of the 42 cases were not serious and involved mild reactions that are already known from earlier clinical trials. 16 (38%) were classified as serious, including 5 associated with a fatal outcome. However, the 5 who died were all aged between 84 and 92 years old and died of illnesses that commonly occur at this age, said Swissmedic. Despite a chronological correlation with vaccination, there is no concrete evidence to suggest that vaccination was the cause of death.
On 22 January 2021, Switzerland's Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) announced that close to 170,000 vaccine doses had been administered in Switzerland, mainly to people above the age of 75 or to people with chronic diseases. Given the vulnerability of most of those currently receiving the shots, a certain baseline level of death is to be expected.
Swissmedic press release (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
For more stories like this on Switzerland follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Tags: https://lenews.ch/feed/
Brisbane Roar's tactical flexibility and youthful exuberance a recipe for A-League success
200 religious scholars in Mauritania deny normalization with Israel
18 June 2021. By Neptune PETER RABBIT 2 – The Runaway ** Doesn't everyone love Peter Rabbit? We certainly did when the first one in this franchise was...
Over the weekend, a majority of voters in the canton of Basel-City voted in favour of a minimum wage of CHF 21 (US$ 23) an hour. © Andreadonetti...
After ordering millions of doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, Switzerland has decided to stick to using only the two mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna and donate...
Swiss commission decides vaccine protection lasts 12 months
After studying the available data, Switzerland's federal vaccination commission has decided that vaccination protects patients from all forms of Covid-19 for at least 12 months, and even longer...
Biden and Putin shake hands in Geneva
Around midday on Wednesday 16 June 2021, Vladimir Putin landed at Geneva Airport, according to RTS. Geneva Airport before the arrival of the two presidents – source: FacebookSwiss...
NBA: Kyrie Irving stars in Brooklyn Nets' NINTH straight win over New York Knicks
Each year, Mexico emits more than 6.3 million tons of methane
Iran reviews drone attack on protection facility in Isfahan


This is a simple tooling holder for my Shapeoko 3. It has various slots to house the tools needed for regular machine maintenance, collets, and of course ample space for 1/4″ and 1/8″ endmills.
The part was designed in Fusion 360 and milled out of knotty alder using the Shapeoko 3. Finished with a spray-on lacquer.


text:
Great Read: Meditation booms as people seek a way to slow down
Participants meditate during a class at Unplug, a new meditation studio in Los Angeles, on April 24, 2014.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
By Mary MacVean
One hundred fifty people sat in the big meeting room, hands on laps, eyes closed, feet flat on the floor.
"Bring your attention to this moment," Janice Marturano instructed. "Be open to sensations of warmth or coolness, sensations of fullness from breakfast, or perhaps hunger." Minutes later, the meditation ended with the traditional strikes of little hand cymbals.
Buddhists? Old hippies? New Agers?
Nope. The room was full of hospital executives and managers in lab coats and scrubs, jeans and sports coats at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. And the teacher was Marturano, once a top executive at General Mills.
The founder of the Institute for Mindful Leadership, Marturano is about as far from woo-woo as the spectrum allows — and a sign that meditation has snaked its way into every sector of our lives. The hospital employees were learning a practice shared by millions these days: college students, parents and prisoners; soldiers, the overweight and the lovelorn; the Seattle Seahawks, public school kids and members of Congress; Oprah, Chopra and Arianna.
And perhaps you. What? You're not meditating?
Meditation, primarily a 2,500-year-old form called mindfulness meditation that emphasizes paying attention to the present moment, has gone viral.
The unrelenting siege on our attention can take a good share of the credit; stress has bombarded people from executives on 24/7 schedules to kids who feel the pressure to succeed even before puberty. Meditation has been lauded as a way to reduce stress, ease physical ailments like headaches and increase compassion and productivity.
Religious practitioners have long claimed that, adopted by enough people, meditation could bring us world peace. Now we hear that from Chade-Meng Tan, a Google executive charged with making the company more mindful. You needn't even put down your phone, with apps like Insight Timer, which has guided meditations and ways to track your stillness.
It has moved from its Asian, monastic roots to become a practice requiring no particular dogma on a path not necessarily toward nirvana but toward a more mindful everyday life. Some serious advocates worry it's becoming another feel-good commodity.
The practice of mindfulness meditation has become more widespread at a time when the fastest-growing group demographic is made up of people who say they are unaffiliated with a particular denomination, said Varun Soni, the dean of religious life at USC, which has launched a university-wide effort toward mindfulness.
"Every religious tradition changes when it moves to a new place," Soni said.
In the case of meditation, it's also moved full force into the academic realm. Aside from the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the UCs in San Diego, Los Angeles and Berkeley are among universities that also have meditation programs. Hundreds of research papers have been published. At Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., students can earn a master's degree in mindfulness studies.
"It's mind-blowing," said Sharon Salzberg, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and one of the people who brought Buddhist meditation to the United States in the 1970s.
"It fits a lot about the American spirit," she said. "You don't have to join anything. It's very private. It's a very direct answer to an awful lot of stress and confusion."
Marturano was one of those modern jugglers: a spouse, mother to school-age children, daughter to aging parents, president of an arts board in the Twin Cities and a top executive at General Mills.
"Every day I juggled faster and faster, and on most days, most of the time, most of the balls stayed in the air," she told the hospital group.
You know where this is going: What goes up must come down.
She was put in charge of a protracted buyout of Pillsbury by General Mills; failure would have meant 10,000 layoffs (as she put it, 10,000 families losing an income, some of them people she knew). Then, within months, both of her parents died.
Marturano was depleted; a friend suggested a spa — not really her thing. Her friend insisted, and what finally lured Marturano was that it was an "intensive" retreat to study mindfulness. She figured, if it was intensive, then it might be OK.
And so she found herself at a spa in Arizona, studying with Jon Kabat-Zinn, pioneer in bringing meditation to a secular audience. She was hooked.
When she returned to General Mills, she was for a time a "closet meditator." Slowly, she shared what she'd learned and her thinking on about using mindfulness as a leader. The company now has dedicated meditation rooms, and Marturano left in 2010 to found her institute.
"You do not have to chant, shave your head or wear a robe," she told the Long Beach group.
"Being mindful or meditating does not mean that thoughts don't intrude, that the mind doesn't wander. It does," she said. "Mindfulness occurs at the moment you are aware of the distraction. Then, escort the mind back to the breath."
When Suze Yalof Schwartz opened her pristine, white-walled West L.A. meditation studio nearly a year ago, she kept in mind just the sort of people Marturano knows well.
Unplug aims to be a place where "my husband, who's a venture capitalist and has zero tolerance for woo-woo things, won't walk out." There are no zafu cushions or incense sticks. Instead, meditators come into the studio and take a sleek black folding floor chair — no sitting cross-legged required. The lighting is a pink-violet, inspired by the artist James Turrell.
Unplug appeals to the meditation skeptics, to "the people who don't want to meditate but their shrinks told them they should," said Schwartz, who calls herself a spiritual entrepreneur. The formula for classes is simple, she said: Tell people what the point is, show them how to do it.
Meditation, said Schwartz, who spent years as a makeover maven and fashion editor in New York, speaks to our moment.
"We're all over-stimulated. It doesn't matter whether you are 3 or 93. People are not going to the bathroom without their iPhones, and if they tell you they are, they're lying," she said. "We need a place to take a time out."
Olivia Rosewood, a teacher at Unplug who said she learned to meditate from former Beatle George Harrison when they happened to meet in Fiji, pointed to other 21st century stresses.
"There is an acceleration of a level of suffering and an acceleration of the violence in the world. And I don't think anyone is untouched," she said. "That intensity increases the value of any experience that brings you to your own inner peace."
A sign outside Unplug calls passersby to find that peace: "Hurry up and slow down."
It's advice Jason Garner eventually took.
A child of poverty who grew up in the Arizona desert, he rose to become CEO of global music at the concert promoter Live Nation and on Forbes list of Top 40 Earners Under 40. Through all that, he never felt "good enough." He was unhappy, married and divorced twice, more wrapped up in quarterly results than in his true self.
"In the business world, we were just so bombarded with work all the time. The mobile devices — you're expected to be on call at the movie theater, at your children's recital, even in bed. I was just looking for a way to find peace," said Garner, now 42, sitting cross-legged in the cushion-filled meditation room of his Manhattan Beach home one gray afternoon with his wife, Christy, and Salzberg, who has become a friend.
In his book "…And I Breathed," he chronicled his journey, including time with monks at the Shaolin Temple in China, to a more mindful life — not a checked-out life. These days, he consults people in the entertainment, sports and business worlds using "the blend of my experiences from the executive desk to the meditation cushion to share with them on their journeys," he said.
Garner noted, with a touch of wonder, that the interconnectivity that has made so many people stressed out also can offer them a solution.
"The Beatles and Sharon went to India. They took a plane to far-out places," he said. "Now you can just go to YouTube."
mary.macvean@latimes.com
Twitter: @mmacvean
Vegan January was full of good food and wise lessons
UCLA, heirs wrangle over fate of a tranquil Japanese garden
Op-Ed: How to overcome distraction, seize the 'meta-moment' and do the right thing
Mary MacVean
Mary MacVean is the former Mind & Body editor at the Los Angeles Times.


text:
Willem Darry
Master-at-arms at the Red Keep
House Darry
House Targaryen
In 289 AC or 290 AC (roughly)[1], at Braavos
A Game of Thrones (mentioned)
A Clash of Kings (appears)
Ser Willem Darry was a knight from House Darry who served as the Red Keep's master-at-arms for King Aerys II Targaryen. He remained deeply loyal to House Targaryen during and after Robert's Rebellion. According to semi-canon sources, he was the brother of Ser Jonothor Darry of the Kingsguard.[2]
4 Quotes by Willem
5 Quotes about Willem
Willem was staunchly loyal to House Targaryen. By the end of his life, he was a grey bear of a man who was half-blind[3] and walked with the aid of a stick.[4] He had a gruff, kind voice, and big wrinkled hands, soft as old leather.[4] Daenerys Targaryen remembers him as a gentle,[5] "sweet old bear,"[4] who roared orders at the servants from his sickbed, but was always kind to her.[3]
When a new master-at-arms of the Red Keep needed appointing, Lord Tywin Lannister, the Hand of the King, wished to name his brother Ser Tygett to the post, but King Aerys II Targaryen chose Willem instead.[6] When young Prince Rhaegar Targaryen decided that he must be a knight, he went to Willem to be trained.[7]
After King Aerys II learned of the death of Prince Rhaegar at the Battle of the Trident, the king sent Queen Rhaella Targaryen and Prince Viserys to Dragonstone,[3][8] along with Willem.[9] After Aerys's death in the Sack of King's Landing and Rhaella's death in childbirth, the garrison of Dragonstone considered selling the two Targaryen children, Viserys and the infant Princess Daenerys, to the new king, Robert I Baratheon. However, before the garrison could come to a decision and before Stannis Baratheon arrived for his assault on Dragonstone, Willem and four loyal men broke into the nursery at Dragonstone, and escaped with Viserys and Daenerys under cover of darkness, sailing for the safety of the Braavosian coast.[3][10]
Willem and the Targaryen children then settled in Braavos, living in a house with a red door.[3] While in Braavos, Willem was visited by Prince Oberyn Martell, and together, with the Sealord of Braavos as witness, they signed a pact promising that Viserys Targaryen would one day wed Princess Arianne Martell in return for the support of Dorne in winning Viserys the Iron Throne.[11] However, Willem became ill from a wasting sickness when Daenerys was five years old (either in 289 AC or 290 AC).[12][5] He slowly wasted away, dying an unknown amount of time later, after which the servants of the house stole their money, and Viserys and Daenerys were thrown into the streets to fend for themselves.[3]
In a vision at the House of the Undying in Qarth, Daenerys Targaryen sees a room within the house with the red door, where Willem Darry beckons to her, but she remembers that he is dead and rejects it as false.[4]
In Meereen, Daenerys Targaryen is visited by Prince Quentyn Martell, who presents her with a parchment. The parchment details the secret pact contracting a marriage between Viserys Targaryen and Arianne Martell, and is signed by Willem Darry for the Targaryens and Oberyn Martell for Dorne.[11]
Quotes by Willem
Little princess, there you are. Come, come to me, my lady, you're home now, you're safe now.[4]
—Willem to Daenerys Targaryen, in a vision at the House of the Undying
Quotes about Willem
Eddard: Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him.
Oswell: Ser Willem is a good man and true.[9]
—Eddard Stark to Oswell Whent, Arthur Dayne, and Gerold Hightower in Eddard's dream
No one ever kept me safe when I was little. Well, Ser Willem did, but then he died.[13]
—Daenerys Targaryen to Missandei
Lord Darry
3 older
Raymun
Cleos
Jonothor
Tywin
Pate of the
Blue Fork
Amerei
"Fat" Walda
Roose
"Little" Walder
↑ See the Willem Darry calculation.
↑ So Spake Martin: Aerys's Kingsguard, (May 27, 1999)
↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 A Game of Thrones, Chapter 3, Daenerys I.
↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 A Clash of Kings, Chapter 48, Daenerys IV.
↑ 5.0 5.1 A Clash of Kings, Chapter 12, Daenerys I.
↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 8, Daenerys I.
↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 37, Jaime V.
↑ 9.0 9.1 A Game of Thrones, Chapter 39, Eddard X.
↑ 11.0 11.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 43, Daenerys VII.
↑ George R. R. Martin's A World of Ice and Fire, Daenerys Targaryen.
↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 11, Daenerys II.
Retrieved from "https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?title=Willem_Darry&oldid=244830"
House Targaryen retainers
Masters-at-arms
Members of Aerys II Targaryen's court
Royalists of Robert's Rebellion
Characters without images


CPROP Update: January 2019 | .: CPROP :.
For those wondering what the team has been up to, we are releasing a January update.
The team held meetings with partners and potential partners in the United States, Saudi Arabia, China, United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, and Holland comprising a significant amount of travel and resources. But partnerships are either in place or awaiting signature in most of these jurisdictions.
"The Potential Role of Tokenization in Affordable Housing" – This paper explores the unique use for tokenization to support the financing of affordable housing, a worldwide challenge exacerbated by the worldwide urbanization trend. Why is affordable housing such a special use case? It is because the tokens can serve double duty to not only expand the potential pool of capital available to finance this property class, but also to create meaningful financial incentives for tenant behaviors that are favorable to ownership, e.g., paying rent on time.
"Introducing PropAbilitySM" – This paper announces a data platform that we have been incubating within CPROP since the early days and you may have remembered from our whitepaper to which we referred as "Carfax for Buildings". There are presently two products we are launching on this platform, one each for residential (hFAQSM) and commercial (cFAQSM). Both products are groundbreaking in their use of data and blockchain to create a higher level of transparency on residential and commercial buildings with several potential commercial applications. Read the paper to learn more.
The publishing of these Whitepapers has accelerated discussions with numerous large commercial and residential real estate players, which we believe will bear fruit soon. These efforts are in keeping with CPROP's mission to bring practical, value-adding blockchain applications to the mainstream.
We are issuing a press release announcing a pilot of hFAQSM in partnership with RE/MAX Action First Realty, the largest RE/MAX franchise in the Tampa Bay region. You will see that shortly. We expect to expand that pilot beyond Tampa during the second quarter with a view toward scaling nationally by the end of 2019. Our development team is doing a great job getting the app field-ready and will continue to implement refinements as we move forward with the pilot.
We were invited to speak at a two-day executive symposium sponsored by Old Republic Title (ORT), the third largest title company in the US with annual revenue of $2.3 billion. Invited guests included ORT's largest and best clients from the title agency, settlement services, brokerage and mortgage sectors. Sandy Selman spoke about technology trends, property tokenization, the launch of PropAbility and our Tampa pilot. Audience response, particularly to hFAQSM, was highly enthusiastic. One ORT executive stood up and commented that if our Tampa pilot is successful, CPROP will revolutionize the residential brokerage business. Several potential commercial collaborations with ORT are under discussion.
We filed paperwork for several exchanges to list the CPROP token. There were at least two exchanges to whom we did NOT apply as their NDAs were unacceptable and not in keeping with industry practice. But discussions with other exchanges are in process.
For a token to increase in value, there must be demand. Currently, with the markets so depressed, even coins such as BTC and ETH are struggling.
We need to make more news so that people begin to recognize our brand; this is ongoing.
We need to establish more uses for the token so there is a constant stream of buying in the market, as currently speculators are not generating enough demand for tokens.
We need strong partnerships internationally to support token growth.
Be assured we are working on all the above.
And, as always, thank you for your continued support of our project!


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Home Orlando SeaWorld Orlando SeaWorld Orlando Announces New Coaster Coming in 2016
SeaWorld Orlando Announces New Coaster Coming in 2016
Brian Glenn
SeaWorld Orlando has announced that there will be an all-new roller coaster coming to their park in 2016.
The ride will be "Orlando's tallest, fastest and longest coaster".
An official statement was released by SeaWorld:
Something is stirring beneath the surface at SeaWorld Orlando, preparing to rise from the ocean depths and soar to thrilling new heights. Get ready for the frenzy of SeaWorld's new 200-foot-tall coaster. In 2016, this thriller will take its place atop the food chain as Orlando's tallest, fastest and longest coaster. More details on the new addition will surface in late-May. SeaWorld is a one-of-a-kind theme park with a variety of attractions including awe-inspiring animal encounters, thrilling rides and spectacular shows. Follow #nothingfaster as the frenzy starts.
Rumors have been circulating for several years that another coaster would be coming to SeaWorld, and just recently the rumors started to heat up again. Speculation is that the new coaster will be located by the Nautilus theater.
Based on certain verbiage in SeaWorld's official statement—such as "frenzy" and "atop the food chain"—together with the rumored location being in close proximity to Shark Encounter, the obvious guess would be that the new coaster will be themed to sharks.
Further details will be officially revealed by SeaWorld in late-May. Stay tuned to Orlando United for this and more information about SeaWorld and all the new attractions coming to Orlando.
Join the discussion about SeaWorld's new coaster announcement on the Orlando United forums!
fastest coaster
hypercoaster
nautilus theater
nothingfaster
shark encounter
tallest coaster
Previous articlePhoto Update: April 19, 2015 – Wizarding World West, Lankershim Projects and More!
Next articleMovie Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron
Brian may be reached at brian.g@insideuniversal.net - Editor-in-Chief
SeaWorld Orlando gives first look at Pipeline: The Surf Coaster ride vehicle
SeaWorld Orlando's Christmas Celebration returns for the 2022 Holiday Season
SeaWorld Orlando shares more details on Pipeline – The Surf Coaster; opening Spring 2023


Want to schedule a FREE consultation with Leslie?
Leslie joined the Body Shaping Company team in 2018. She is a NCCA Certified Trainer, as well as Les Mills Instructor.
You can't miss her warm welcoming smile and exuberant spirt around the gym! She is a positive addition to our amazing team of trainers and coaches.
She was born and raised in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, and has a deep passion for health and fitness. Using nutrition and fitness to overcome her own challenges with asthma and personal life experiences, Leslie has learned how to incorporate healthy ways to empower herself as well as greatly benefit the health of others.
Leslie discovered what it means to love your own body and be strong while continually inspiring herself, and others around her. She applies that passion to encourage and support others in their own personal wellness journey's.
In her own words she is a self described "total nutrition nerd".


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New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
21 that the creation itself will also be set free+ from enslavement to corruption and have the glorious freedom of the children of God.
The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures
21 ὅτι that καὶ also αὐτὴ very ἡ the κτίσις creation ἐλευθερωθήσεται will be freed ἀπὸ from τῆς the δουλείας slavery τῆς of the φθορᾶς corruption εἰς into τὴν the ἐλευθερίαν freedom τῆς of the δόξης glory τῶν of the τέκνων children τοῦ of the θεοῦ. God.
New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures—With References
21 that* the creation+ itself also will be set free+ from enslavement to corruption and have the glorious freedom of the children of God.
The Bible in Living English
21 that creation itself is to be set free out of slavery to decay, into the liberty of the glory of God's children.
21 that creation itself also shall be freed—From the bondage of the decay Into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God;
21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Watch Tower Publications Index 1986-2023
8:21 mwb19.02 5; it-1 596-597, 1140, 1197; it-2 123, 249, 999-1000; w12 3/15 23; w12 7/15 7, 11; jr 181; w03 9/1 10-11; wt 184-185, 187-189, 191; w00 10/15 19; w99 5/1 6; w99 6/15 21; w98 2/15 17-19; w98 9/15 19; ct 114-119; w97 2/1 13; w91 2/15 18; rs 304; w87 1/1 24, 28, 30; w86 7/1 8; ws 187
8:21 w85 12/1 18; w83 4/15 20; uw 185, 188, 190-191; w82 2/1 27; w80 1/1 10; w80 4/1 16-21; w80 11/15 31; dt 14; w76 310; w76 344; w75 309; g75 3/22 5-6; w74 448; g74 10/8 21-22; w73 606; w73 638; w71 431; ad 788; li 40, 57; w64 448; g64 2/8 28; w52 401; w51 464; fd 5; w38 86; w31 93
Research Guide for Jehovah's Witnesses—2019 Edition
Life and Ministry Meeting Workbook,
2/2019, p. 5
Insight, Volume 1, pp. 596-597, 1139-1140, 1197
Insight, Volume 2, pp. 123, 249, 999-1000
7/15/2012, pp. 7, 11
1/1/1987, pp. 24, 27-28, 30
10/15/1973, p. 638
Jeremiah, p. 181
Worship God, pp. 184-185, 187, 188-191
Creator, pp. 114-119
Worldwide Security, pp. 186-187
United in Worship, pp. 184-185, 188-189, 190-191
Liberation, p. 14
3/22/1975, pp. 5-6
10/8/1974, pp. 21-22
Romans Study Notes—Chapter 8
enslavement to corruption: The Greek term rendered "corruption" denotes "decay; deterioration; destruction." This "enslavement to corruption" is the result of sin, producing bodily imperfection, aging, disease, and death. Even perfect humans have a corruptible body, which is indicated by what Paul said regarding Jesus: God "resurrected him from the dead never again to return to corruption," that is, never to return to life in a corruptible human body. (Ac 13:34) Likewise, perfect Adam had a corruptible body, one that could die. However, obedience to God would have enabled Adam to live forever. It was only when Adam sinned that he became enslaved to corruption and its deteriorating effects. He passed this enslavement on to all his offspring, the human race. (Ro 5:12) The glorious freedom of the children of God refers to a release from such enslavement and the eventual privilege of entering into a relationship of actual sonship with God, as enjoyed by Adam. (Lu 3:38) Jehovah has promised such freedom and everlasting life to "the one sowing with a view to the spirit." On the other hand, "the one sowing with a view to his flesh will reap corruption from his flesh" and will fail to gain such freedom and everlasting life.—Ga 6:8.


Maybe it's due to all my bread fails in the past, but when I crack open the oven door and peak in at my golden loaf, I feel giddy. In the past, I avoided bread out of intimidation, but after binge watching episodes of The Great British Bakeoff I was encouraged to roll up my sleeves and give it another try.
While other recipes can seem daunting, this simple white loaf is easy to follow and perfect for those who are new to baking bread! After a bit of patience, you will have a warm loaf of bread ready to be topped with honey butter and savored.
Looking for something a little sweeter? This basic bread recipe can be used to make cinnamon rolls!
Combine the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, then slowly incorporate the water, oil and yeast mixture. Stir until well combined.


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Q: When do you *not* need to use grid_forget when updating a widget? I was watching a tkinter tutorial in which the instructor used the grid_forget method to remove a label containing an image before adding a new one. He explained that this was to prevent the new image from overlapping the old one. However, later in the tutorial, he updated a button's functionality by creating a new button and adding it to the same cell in the grid, without ever calling grid_forget. He never explained why grid_forget wasn't needed here.
It seemed to me that, if the new image would overlap the old one without grid_forget, then the new button would overlap the old one too, which could cause a memory leak if this kept being called. But apparently this isn't the case. Why is this situation different?
More generally, when does a widget need to be explicitly cleared with grid_forget, and when will it be implicitly cleared simply by adding to the same cell?

A: That is a terrible tutorial. You should never update a widget by recreating it, you should use the config method to update the already existing one.
But to answer your question: He should have removed the old Button, but presumably didn't because the new Button was guaranteed to be the same size or bigger than the old one, therefore covering it completely. The old Button will still be in memory though, and as you build a stack of them they will slow down your program, so again it's a very bad idea to do this. It will never be implicitly cleared, only covered.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Golf course removed from Pebble Beach Co. plan
By Larry Parsons | Monterey County Herald, Mercury News
PEBBLE BEACH — The Monterey Peninsula's periodic debate over development of the Del Monte Forest appears ready to hit the restart button.
The Pebble Beach Co. says it will move forward with a new, scaled-down development plan for its prized real estate after a concerted and, apparently, successful effort to reach a meeting of the minds with key staff members of the state Coastal Commission.
"The staff and the company decided to take a look at what … would be palatable and consistent with the Coastal Act," said Monterey County Supervisor Dave Potter, a former member of the commission. The meetings took place last year, he said.
In a prepared statement, company chief executive Bill Perocchi said, "The commission staff and Pebble Beach Co. have been working to develop a project we could both support before Monterey County and the Coastal Commission. We are very pleased that, together, we have been able to achieve that goal."
The biggest change between the old and new plan boils down to three words: no golf course.
That is a key difference between the new plan and the proposal that engendered fierce environmental opposition during much of the past decade and ultimate denial by the Coastal Commission in 2007.
"With the golf course eliminated that would eliminate a large amount of controversy," Potter said Tuesday. "That was the deal killer because of the issue of a massive tree loss."
In June 2007, the Coastal Commission thwarted a company plan that would have allowed
development of a new 18-hole golf course, 160 hotel rooms, 36 new homes, 60 employee units and a relocated equestrian center.
That plan was built around a 2000 ballot measure approved by county voters and trumpeted by the company as a forest-saving measure, but the commission ultimately voted 8-4 against the "Measure A" coastal plan seven years later.
Opponents said the development would destroy up to 18,000 Monterey pines, and commission staff members said it was at odds with coastal policies to protect environmentally sensitive habitat.
The new plan calls for a small hotel with up to 100 homes at the old Spyglass quarry; 80 new rooms at the Lodge at Pebble Beach and 60 new rooms at the Inn at Spanish Bay; and 90 single-family homes.
Those developments would occur on existing lots or land that is already disturbed, Potter said, which would sharply reduce potential environmental impacts.
The company said the new plan would preserve 635 acres of sensitive forest habitat, including all the remaining land in Pescadero Canyon, 137 acres that had been proposed for the new golf course and 120 acres next to the Huckleberry Hill nature preserve.
Under the new plan, the Pebble Beach equestrian center would remain at its current location, while 42 acres near Sawmill Gulch that had been proposed for a new equestrian center would be preserved.
The new plan calls for new parking near Spanish Bay resort and a relocated golf driving range in the Collins Field area, the company said.
"We think the project is a drastic improvement over what was originally proposed," said commission spokeswoman Sarah Christie.
Potter said Pebble Beach Co. officials hashed out the new plan in meetings with commission staff members, including longtime Executive Director Peter Douglas and senior deputy director Charles Lester.
While the new proposal may be a more realistic starting point, Potter noted that the plan still faces county and commission scrutiny.
"That could be rather protracted," he said.
The company said the new plan will require environmental review, coastal plan amendments and development permits. Getting the plan through county and commission review is expected to take two years, the company said.
Christie said the staff-level agreement doesn't bind the commission to approve the plan.
"The commission will have full discretion as they always do," she said. "This will be the staff recommendation and they can agree or disagree."
Larry Parsons


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Q: jQuery move contents of one div into another append() not working I am working on a tabbed layout using Bootstrap 2.3.2 in Joomla and due to the way Hikashop generates a product layout, I have an outer "tab-content" div and when putting in a product description, the result is an inner "tab-content div within a "tab-pane" with a single nav at the top of the page. I am attempting to move the inner "tab-pane"s to the outer "tab-content" via jQuery using append() so that the nav will function correctly. Needless to say this is not working. The nav is not functioning period, and the content that has been appended is getting duplicated.
here is what my code looks like:

Home

Profile

Messages

Settings

...

...

...

and here is the desired outcome:

...

...

...

...

A: Use appendTo:
jQuery("#inner").children().appendTo("#outer");

A: try this:

 jQuery(document).ready(function() {
       jQuery("#inner").appendTo('#outer');
 });

      --start inside #home --

#profile

#messages

      --end inside #home --

--inside #settings --

  -- outside tab-pane --


text:
Diese Liste enthält Berge im Kanton St. Gallen und Grenzberge zu den benachbarten Kantonen. Die St. Galler Berge umfassen 10 Dreitausender, 195 Zweitausender und 36 unter

Siehe auch
 Liste von Bergen in der Schweiz

Weblinks
 Gipfelverzeichnis Christian Thöni

St. Gallen
!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Tag Archives: Ubaldo Jimenez
Rockies will listen to offers for Dexter Fowler
Dan O'Dowd and I had lunch at Zi South by the ballpark today. We had the place almost to ourselves, which gave us a chance to talk a lot of baseball.
Perhaps the biggest news out of our conversation was his acknowledgement that the Rockies will listen to offers for center fielder Dexter Fowler, who regressed last season from a productive 2012 and appeared in only 119 games. That may not come as a surprise, but in light of owner Dick Monfort taking Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez off the market before it opened, at least it indicates the Rocks aren't disconnecting the phones.
Whether Fowler spends the 2014 season in Colorado or elsewhere, O'Dowd said it will be an important one for his reputation in the industry. He also said the Rocks won't trade him without getting appropriate value back.
O'Dowd acknowledged pursuing catchers Carlos Ruiz and Brian McCann in free agency and being outbid for both. Ruiz signed a three-year, $26 million deal with the Phillies, which works out to more than $8.5 million a year for a catcher who will be 35 when spring training opens. McCann reportedly got $85 million over five years from the Yankees, an average of $17 million per.
The Rockies made a substantial offer to McCann not merely for the obvious reasons — he's a seven-time All-Star with power — but because the team could use a double dose of his attitude and competitiveness. But what's reasonable financially for the Yankees is unreasonable for most other teams, and this again was the case.
Here are excerpts from our conversation:
Q: What was your game plan going into this off-season?
A: I think as an organization we feel like we've got a window of competitiveness with two of our best players and we were trying to figure out a way to impact those guys within our means as much as we possibly could in the positions where we felt like we could impact them.
The free agent market was not flush with impact players. We earmarked a few and up 'til now haven't been able to get any of those done, but I think that was our overall game plan, was to try to create some versatility in our lineup but also try to create a window here to take another step.
Q: It's been widely reported you pursued Carlos Ruiz and Brian McCann. What does that say about your view of Wilin Rosario as a catcher?
A: I think that had as much to do with what we thought his gifts were, rather than his liabilities. An average catcher here since we've been in existence has caught somewhere between 100 and 110 games. And this kid's bat is pretty special, and the power is pretty special. I think he caught 102 last year — he started 102. Then you've got to factor in how many of those 102 did he feel really good physically hitting because of the wear and tear?
I think you've got to catch an average of 130 pitches here a night, and that's not just physically but mentally, calling 130 pitches. So I think it was just a function of we could make one move and affect two different positions on the field. And notwithstanding, maybe get a defensive catcher that would be a little bit further along in his career, because it takes a long time to get good in that particular role. So we thought we might be able to help our pitching staff in that way, too, but I think it was more a function of giving him an opportunity to get more at-bats.
Q: Where else could Wilin play?
A: We think Wilin's a really good athlete. We felt pretty comfortable that giving him enough time he could play right field. He's got a plus arm, he's a good enough athlete, he runs pretty well. Sure, it would have been a risk, but we're going to have to take some risks at times to get where we want to go, and that was one risk I think everybody was willing to take if we could find the right guy.
Q: The Cardinals are reportedly signing Jhonny Peralta to play shortstop. There's been a lot of speculation since the World Series that they would make a run at Tulo . . .
A: There was never . . . no, I mean, Bill (Geivett) and I are always listening to clubs. That's what we're responsible for. The Cardinals have a pretty good model in place right now.
Q: They were not interested or they did not make a pitch?
A: How could there not be interest in that type of player? But I think their model right now is their interest is only to the extent that they could make a deal based upon their parameters to make a deal, which weren't even close to anything that we would ever entertain to trade that type of player.
Q: So let's talk about the starting rotation. What are you looking to do there?
A: As we sit here today, we have four starters, knock on wood health, which are (Jhoulys) Chacin, (Jorge) De La Rosa, (Tyler) Chatwood and (Juan) Nicasio. We still would love to add more depth to that.
Q: You still see Nicasio as a starter?
A: We do. He hadn't pitched for two years. Got physically tired the second half of the year, especially his knee that he had surgery on. Didn't get a chance to train much last winter because of the knee surgery. He throws a lot of innings for us. No doubt he has to get better, but going out on the market, we're understanding the value of what he brings to our club.
Some of these are hope things, but (Christian) Friedrich is having a great winter. Two years ago, we were really encouraged about him being a part of our rotation for last year, and then he had an injury-riddled season. We're really pleased by his progress physically right now.
Q: His back is OK?
A: You know, he's totally redone his delivery, which is what we helped him with. But until he gets into the live competition with a hitter in front of him and the adrenaline flowing, if he can maintain what he's doing within the course of the game, he's going to be OK.
And we still haven't given up on (Drew) Pomeranz, although I know he showed really well out of the 'pen when we put him in there. I think we'll keep an open mind on that.
Q: What's your diagnosis there?
A: Well, one, he's got to get over the hump at the major league level. He's got to show some more toughness and competitiveness and some better secondary pitches. He started to flash that out of the 'pen when we used him for that last three weeks of the season. It was pretty special stuff in that role. Whether he translates that into the starting rotation . . .
I think it's another example of a kid getting rushed, never really getting the time to fully develop at the minor league level and making sure that he had stuff to go to at the big league level when things didn't go right. That's where we want to make sure with (Eddie) Butler and (Jonathan) Gray. We know we have two big leaguers here. We just want to make sure that they get enough minor league innings to be able to react appropriately when things don't go right at the big league level, which is inevitable.
Q: How many is that?
A: I think they'll determine that. Butler is obviously closer, not necessarily ability-wise, but because he's had a full year pitching in the minor leagues. If Eddie can pick up where he left off at Double-A last year [six starts, 27.2 innings pitched, 13 hits, two earned runs, six walks, 25 strikeouts, 0.65 ERA], he should come pretty quickly, but we'll have to see if he picks up where he left off last year. A lot of that will be dependent upon the amount of work we challenged him to do this winter and what he does with it.
Q: And where does Gray start?
A: Probably in Tulsa, too. He dominated the Cal League. [5 starts for Modesto, 24 innings pitched, 10 hits, two earned runs, six walks, 36 strikeouts, 0.75 ERA] If we didn't shut him down, they probably would have won the Cal League there. He was unhittable. No reason to send him back to the Cal League. So he'll be in Tulsa, too, to start the year.
Q: In retrospect, what's your self-evaluation of the Ubaldo deal?
A: I think under the conditions we were in, knowing all the players that were involved, I don't think Ubaldo would have pitched any better here under the circumstances, so I think we did the best that we could. Doing an autopsy on it, I think we know a little bit more about what we got that didn't work, but I think we were being offered very similar players from every other club that was involved in the process as you look at those names unfold now throughout their careers.
But I don't think it would have changed the fact that Ubaldo had to be moved from our situation simply because of where it had gotten to. I feel bad that it had gotten to that point. I'm not sure why, to this day, that it did. But that's a choice he made.
Q: Alex White, what happened there, before he got hurt last year?
A: I think one of the things that we're really beginning to bear down and understand is that a quality major league starter has tremendous balance, rhythm and timing in their delivery. I think in Alex's case, he never really had that. He did a lot of things on effort and competitiveness, but it was very difficult for him to duplicate his delivery. I think he would have ended up being a bullpen guy for us, probably a halfway-decent one, too, depending upon how he adapted to the role. But I think in that case as a kid that came with a lot of accolades, that was rushed to the big leagues, that never really figured out his delivery and how to pitch, I think he got overwhelmed at the big league level and then, predictably with that kind of delivery, he blew out.
Q: I know you admired his competitiveness when you first got to know him. As much as the game has turned to statistical analytics, how much do intangibles like his matter?
A: It's called the human analytics. I think human analytics are just as important as statistical analytics. Hard to measure it because there's no statistical formula for that, but really understanding what's inside a guy is actually more important than what comes out of a guy because that's the only way you know if you've got a winning player on your hands.
Like Michael Cuddyer's case. He's a perfect example of a guy that gets every little bit out of whatever ability he has and does it solely related to winning that game that night. It's problematic in the whole industry right now, trying to find those kind of guys because it starts at a very early age with the entitlement factor. So when kids get put into the game based upon what the game owes them rather than the understanding of how appreciative they are of the opportunity, it creates an uphill battle right away. So I think it's really important in our development system that we address a lot of the issues that we are now addressing as it relates to creating that tougher player that understands how to play for his team rather than play for himself.
Q: And how do you do that?
A: It's a grind every single night.
Q: Would you agree with my characterization that your team is, overall, certain exceptions notwithstanding, soft? Mentally soft?
A: I would agree with you that our team could be a lot tougher.
Q: So how do you go about doing that?
A: Trying to create as much as you can within the mix of players you bring in as many guys as you possibly can who emulate that, who show up every single day with that being their mindset. That's part of the reason for bringing (LaTroy) Hawkins back here.
Q: Do you not think that your stars have to, at least one of them, have to reflect that?
A: I think these are better questions for Walt (Weiss) and Bill rather than me, but I saw, personally, tremendous growth from Tulo in that area last year. I thought he started taking on that persona a little bit more. But there's no doubt our best players have to be the best players in every way, shape or form, both in their production and how they make other players better.
Q: Let me ask you about Dexter Fowler. What's his status?
A: Well, I think Dexter right now has got a big year in front of him. Whether that's with us or whether that's with somebody else at this point in time is too hard to say. I think it's fair to say we are more willing to listen to calls about Dexter than we might have been in the past. He has a lot to prove this year within the industry. He's got to show up and he's got to do that.
Q: What are the considerations in your mind as to whether he will be here?
A: Like everything else we look at with our players, is there value out there that makes us a better team in the aggregate? So the same process that would go with any player would go with Dexter.
Q: You moved CarGo to left field in part because you didn't want the stress and space of center field affecting his offense. If Dexter were gone, would you be comfortable moving CarGo back or would you go look for another center fielder?
A: Center fielders are really hard to find. I don't think we'd find anybody that's got better than CarGo's skill set anywhere. Everything comes with risks, so I think you have to measure what you're getting back against that risk that you just mentioned before you actually did anything. As far as CarGo's skill set, he can play any position in the outfield, and he's had trouble staying healthy in left, too.
Q: Has anything about Dexter disappointed you?
A: Dexter's a great kid and he knows that we all feel that way about him. But I think he's got to get tougher. No doubt. He's got to show up and play with an edge every day, not just when he thinks he has to. It's got to be that edge that he brings every day. He's got to be a passionate competitor in the game. He has to love the game. He's got to compete because he loves the game and he loves his teammates and he wants to win. It can't be for anything the game provides. It's got to be for those reasons.
Q: You've had three disappointing seasons in a row. What would you like to say to fans that are not hurling things at you?
A: I don't think anybody in this organization is more disappointed in the way we've performed than me. I'm as big a competitor as anybody. But I think there are reasons why the years happened the way that they did. I think windows open and close. It took us really a long time in '03, '04, '05 and '06 to create a window for '07, '08, '09 and '10, with '08 being a bad year in there, but the other three being good years. And we're working real hard to create that window again right now and hopefully have it stay open a little bit longer than the last one. There are windows in market sizes across all sports — specifically baseball more than anything, but I think hockey is a little bit similar — that open and close. I think we could have been a lot better last year if Tulo didn't go down for that long a stretch of time, but I don't think we still would have been good enough to win.
I think we sit here today with a team that has the chance to win more games than we lose, but I think we've still got a ways to go before we can say we're going to win a World Series. A lot of things would have to go right for us, in our development of certain players and the maturation and improvement of players that we currently have at the big league level.
Q: Any sense of how active you'll be over the next several months?
A: Well, we've tried to be active. We've been aggressive on a ton of different fronts. It's really hard to make trades and, in this market, it's really hard to sign free agents. So we're going to continue to be aggressive and we'll try to build the team in aggregate, not just necessarily add individual stars. We're trying to add the right kind of players into the mix.
15 Comments	| tags: Alex White, Brian McCann, Carlos Gonzalez, Carlos Ruiz, Christian Friedrich, Dan O'Dowd, Dexter Fowler, Dick Monfort, Drew Pomeranz, Eddie Butler, Jhoulys Chacin, Jonathan Gray, Jorge De La Rosa, Juan Nicasio, LaTroy Hawkins, Michael Cuddyer, Troy Tulowitzki, Tyler Chatwood, Ubaldo Jimenez, Wilin Rosario	| posted in Rockies/MLB
Dick Monfort rejected Dan O'Dowd's proposal to fire Dan O'Dowd
In the midst of the most disappointing season in Rockies history, general manager Dan O'Dowd offered owner Dick Monfort the solution many fans desire: Fire the GM.
"I sat with Dick and said, 'Hey, listen, it would make it easier on you, just throw me under the bus here. In some ways, I'll be better off for it, too,'" O'Dowd told me after the club announced its latest organizational shakeup this week.
"But he won't do that and I can't leave him because no one knows more about this place than I do. You bring another GM here and it will take him years just to get up to speed on the issues we have here, how different it is. I don't have all the answers, but the only way you find answers is you've got to try different things. You can't think traditionally."
This is the crux of the difference in perception inside and outside the organization. Many fans believe playing at altitude is a minor or negligible issue, just another variable like the short porch at Yankee Stadium or the wind at Wrigley Field. Even mentioning it is just an excuse for poor performance, they believe.
Within the organization, it is considered the central challenge of operating the ball club. O'Dowd calls it the Rockies' "Goliath." The reason they don't talk about it more publicly is it's already next to impossible to get free agent pitchers to come to Colorado. Emphasizing the difficulty of succeeding here as a pitcher will only make that situation worse.
But the challenge of pitching at altitude has never been clearer than this year, when O'Dowd acquired four starters from other teams — Jeremy Guthrie, Guillermo Moscoso, Josh Outman and Tyler Chatwood — and not one of them proved able to survive at Coors Field.
We have nearly 20 years worth of major league data now, and the numbers are revealing.
Try this exercise: Imagine an average major league ballclub. Over a 20-year span, how many starting pitchers on this team would put up at least three seasons of 100 or more innings pitched with an earned-run average below 4.75? Pretty low bar, right? There should be plenty.
Over the past 20 years, the average National League club has had eight such pitchers. The average club in the NL West, the Rockies' division, has had 10.
In their entire history, the Rocks have had two: Aaron Cook and Ubaldo Jimenez.
"We worked as hard as anybody trying to find pitchers," said Bob Gebhard, the Rocks' general manager from 1993-99. "Our first pick in the expansion draft was David Nied, who did a nice job for us but unfortunately he got hurt. So you do the best you can in trying to add pitchers but it was extremely difficult to convince free agent pitchers to come to Denver and pitch."
"I'll put it this way," said Clint Hurdle, the Rockies' longest-serving manager, from 2002 to 2009. "This is the most challenging venue to coach, manage, perform at in major league baseball. 5280 (feet above sea level) 81 times a year, there's nothing like it anywhere else. There are dramatic changes you've got to make to things."
Hence the latest attempt to think outside the box in seeking a solution to the high-altitude riddle. Six weeks ago, O'Dowd implemented a four-man starting rotation with pitch limits on those starters, an attempt to address the Rockies' 20-year history of injury and/or rapid deterioration among their pitchers. This week it was installing a front office executive — Bill Geivett, O'Dowd's right-hand man — in the clubhouse, in part because the first experiment got such a lukewarm response there.
"I understand how some people are going to look at this," O'Dowd said. "But you tell me how you look at anything traditionally in this place. What may work anywhere else is just not going to work here. If anybody knows that, I do. So I've got two choices. Hell, I could resign and move on. I'll get another job. But I've got an owner that embraces change. He loves to look and try to do things differently. He's not a traditional thinker."
Many fans point to anecdotal evidence that altitude really isn't such a big deal. C.J. Wilson comes in and throws eight innings of five-hit ball for the Angels. Cole Hamels throws eight innings of six-hit ball for the Phillies. Everybody's pitching in the same conditions, right? Why can't Rockies starters do that?
Of course, some of them have. That's the problem relying on anecdotal evidence. You notice what you want to notice and ignore what you want to ignore.
Few remember that Mike Hampton was terrific in his first half-season in Colorado, going 9-2 with a 2.98 ERA through his first 13 starts in 2001. He was never the same pitcher after that. Ubaldo Jimenez was 15-1 with a 2.20 ERA through 18 starts in 2010. He's not been the same since.
"It's a lot different coming here and starting one time per season or two times per season or even three times per season, which is the max someone will have, than starting 16, 17, or 18 times per season," O'Dowd said.
Fans don't tend to notice when opposing pitchers blow up. In fact, hard as it may be to believe given the current staff's woes, the Rocks have a better ERA at Coors Field than visiting teams since 2006.
The Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner, has a career ERA of 2.89. His ERA at Coors Field is 5.91. Greg Maddux had a Coors Field ERA of 5.19. Curt Schilling's was 5.51.
The Rocks have had one year in which they were able to deploy a consistent, traditional five-man rotation all season: 2009, the last time they went to the playoffs. Jimenez and Jason Marquis each started 33 times; Jorge De La Rosa, 32; Jason Hammel, 30; Cook, 27. With the exception of Hammel, each has suffered a major injury or a massive deterioration in performance since then.
"The purpose of limiting the pitch counts is that through the studies I've done with our trainers, Steadman-Hawkins and all of our medical people, we believe that injuries happen with load," O'Dowd said. "When you pile on load and you are throwing pitches at the point of fatigue, that's when the muscle tears and the tendons begin to get stretched, and that's what causes injuries.
"This was a lost year. I wasn't trying to develop a model to save this season. I'm trying to develop a model that has a chance to work here long after I'm gone. Because the environmental parts of this aren't going to change."
But experimenting with baseball orthodoxy requires an experimental mindset that baseball players, coaches and managers don't often have. Playing every day for six months, baseball is a game of routine, of doing the same thing over and over and over again.
"My conclusion is we have to do it differently," O'Dowd said. "We can't do it traditionally the same way. That doesn't mean we don't get back to that at some point in time, but right now where we're at, with the inexperience we have, we are going to have to pitch differently. We are going to have to have a different concept and it's going to have to be an ever-changing one.
"This is a ballpark about adaptability. I did not anticipate the ballpark was going to play the way it did this year because it hadn't for the last four years. Why it is? Hell, I don't know. There are other things that come up in this ballpark that I'll never be able to truly understand but we're going to have to be able to adapt to it a hell of a lot quicker than we did this year without fighting so many battles to be able to try something different and unique.
"We have to have a thought process of adaptability. We cannot think traditionally if we're ever going to have any kind of sustained success here. If we do nothing, every ten years we'll win twice, guarantee you. Every ten years, everything will fall into place and we'll win twice. I'd like to have something that stands for a little more than that."
They call the NFL a copycat league but no sport worships conformity more than baseball. In the early 1970s, most teams used four-man starting rotations. When the conversion to five-man rotations began, every single team fell rapidly in line. So when O'Dowd began tinkering with accepted norms, beginning with the four-man rotation and pitch limits, he found resistance not only among the chattering class, but also in his own clubhouse. That's why Geivett is now taking up residence there — to help sell the experimental approaches the Rocks expect to try.
O'Dowd recognized that he needed a diplomat in this role. He also recognized that diplomacy is not his forte.
"The bottom line is we have to come up with a different model," he said. "The altitude's not going to change. Do you realize that even if we dome this place, we could not create enough barometric pressure to come close to normalizing the environment indoors? You couldn't pump enough air in here to make that happen. You could bring it down some, but we're at 5,183 feet above sea level. The next closest club is the Diamondbacks at 1,040 feet. Do you see how well we play every spring (in Arizona)?"
Strange but true: The elevations of other NL stadiums are minuscule compared to Coors Field, but the Rocks persistently play better at the stadiums that are relatively higher and worse at those comparatively lower. While most of the focus is on their pitching, their hitters consistently struggle with the transition from altitude to sea level at the end of each home stand, adjusting each time to the greater break of the pitches they face.
"We were certainly aware of the splits in the averages," Gebhard said of the Rockies' early days. "The great hitters, the Larry Walkers and the Andres Galarragas, at times would have as much as a 100-point spread between home and away.
"Dante Bichette, way back when, had his own little pitching machine. It was a curve ball machine that he would take with him on the road trip and get into a batting tunnel at the stadium and have it throw nothing but curve balls.
"That was a very true issue because playing at Coors Field, you'd see a curve ball and it would be a spinner and it might be good one time and not so good the next time. And all of a sudden the next day you're playing in Chicago or you're playing in Atlanta and that same curve ball is a quality pitch. We struggled with that. I can't say that we came up with a sound solution but we were well aware of that and hitters were frustrated because they would go on the road and the first couple days we didn't hit very good."
Many outsiders, clearly, don't buy any of it. In some cases, this is because they haven't studied it. Nobody in the game thinks it is an insignificant factor. They just don't have any idea what to do about it. Most of them are glad to play here only occasionally.
"We've only got to be here three days and we're getting out of town," Hurdle said with a laugh when he visited Coors last month with his current team, the Pirates. "We don't have to worry about it."
If he can find the right candidate, O'Dowd plans to create another new position in the organization when the season is over: director of pitching operations. He wants someone to supervise the way the Rocks develop pitchers throughout their system rather than having a different pitching coach doing his own thing at every level.
He knows that all of this will be seen as an excuse or worse by many who don't walk in his shoes.
"Hey, listen: At 52, turning 53, I realize I'm on the back end of my career. I'm just at a point in time where I want to do what I think is right and I'm not all that concerned what people say about me.
"I know I'm throwing myself under the bus from a perception standpoint. I know what I'm doing. But I also think it's the right thing to do. So what do you do? You talk the talk or you walk the walk. Whatever everybody's going to say, they're going to say. The only thing that matters is if we find something here that works better than what's working right now, and has ever worked.
"A market our size, and our payroll, you win more than you lose every 2.7 years. The goal of this thing for me is not winning defined that way. The goal for me is to find something that has a chance to have sustainable success so the peaks aren't so high and the valleys aren't so low. That has nothing to do with our personnel model. That has everything to do with the Goliath we face every single day."
Leave a comment	| tags: Aaron Cook, Bob Gebhard, Clayton Kershaw, Clint Hurdle, Curt Schilling, Dan O'Dowd, David Nied, Dick Monfort, Greg Maddux, Mike Hampton, Ubaldo Jimenez	| posted in pitching at Coors Field, Rockies/MLB
How Ubaldo's suspension turned into a joke
Ubaldo Jimenez was reportedly hit with a fine — amount undisclosed — in addition to his five-game suspension for throwing at Troy Tulowitzki in the final week of spring training. The fine, it turns out, will be his only punishment.
The five-game suspension will have no effect on Jimenez or the Indians.
Had the suspension taken effect at the start of the regular season, as intended, Jimenez would have missed the Indians' first five games, costing him a start. But players can suspend a suspension by filing an appeal, and Jimenez did just that, never intending to follow through with the appeal.
Still, the maneuver served its purpose. It allowed him to take his regular turn, second in the Indians' rotation, on Saturday, when he pitched 5 2/3 innings of perfect baseball against Toronto, lost his no-hitter, shutout and lead on one pitch in the seventh and exited without a decision. The Indians ultimately lost in 12 innings.
He dropped his appeal immediately after the game, meaning he will begin serving his suspension on Sunday, when the Tribe's No. 3 starter, Derek Lowe, pitches. Because the Indians have an off-day Thursday, Lowe will be able to pitch out of order on his regular rest Friday, and Jimenez will be eligible to pitch Saturday, having sat out the required five games.
So the Cleveland rotation for the first ten games of the season: Justin Masterson, Jimenez, Lowe, Josh Tomlin, Jeanmar Gomez, Masterson, Lowe, Jimenez, Tomlin, Gomez.
Ubaldo never misses a start; he just switches places in the rotation with Lowe. That meaningless flip-flop is the suspension's sole effect.
Rockies general manager Dan O'Dowd declined comment Saturday, saying the club was moving on.
By suspending Jimenez, the league office made it clear it believed he hit Tulowitzki intentionally in a Cactus League game last Sunday after the Rockies shortstop made comments critical of his former teammate earlier in the spring. And yet, other than whatever weight comes out of his wallet, neither he nor the Indians will be penalized for it.
Ubaldo's manipulation of baseball's disciplinary process makes the league office look stupid, and not for the first time during the Bud Selig regime.
Baseball has at least two ways to fix its process:
1. Adjudicate appeals immediately — say, within 24 or 48 hours — by use of video conferencing. Had this been done in Ubaldo's case, his appeal would have been heard and presumably denied before the season began, meaning his suspension would have been served during the season's first five games, as intended.
2. If the intent is to suspend a starting pitcher for one start, make the suspension eight games instead of five. That way, whenever it's served, the pitcher's team has to skip him in the rotation one time.
Ubaldo manipulated the system because the system let him. If the league office is paying attention, it should make sure it doesn't happen again.
Leave a comment	| tags: Bud Selig, Troy Tulowitzki, Ubaldo Jimenez	| posted in Rockies/MLB
O'Dowd: Rockies got rid of guys who didn't 'get it'
Coming off last season's deeply disappointing 73-89 record and fourth-place finish, the Rockies turned their roster upside down this winter.
It didn't feel like an overhaul because the moves came piecemeal, stretched out over the offseason. But the purpose wasn't piecemeal. The purpose was to change a culture in the clubhouse that Rockies brass believed had been undermined by self-interest since the team's last playoff appearance in 2009.
Four of the eight everyday starters have changed. A new pitching rotation will be culled from nearly a dozen candidates. But there's a common theme to the changes.
"We've got some great guys and I think they have a chance to be tremendous leaders," general manager Dan O'Dowd told us on the Dave Logan Show the other day. "I don't think it's on any one person. But I think the group of them overall needs to step up and take accountability for our clubhouse.
"We got rid of a lot of players we just feel like weren't going to get that. Not all of them we got rid of for that reason, but a lot of players we got rid of for that reason. We moved them on to other places that hopefully will help them in their career and give them a fresh start, but (we) just didn't feel like they were ever going to get that part of it."
Five of the nine players in the starting lineup for last season's April 1 opener will not be wearing Rockies uniforms for this season's opener: starting pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez, catcher Chris Iannetta, second baseman Jose Lopez, third baseman Ty Wigginton and right fielder Seth Smith.
Ian Stewart, for years the team's third baseman of the future, is gone. So is closer Huston Street.
"I think we took a step back at the end of the year and realized, OK, where are we at and where are we trying to get to and do the players we currently have, are they going to get us there?" O'Dowd said.
"Quite honestly, I just feel like we needed to address our culture more than anything. We certainly need to address our talent, but I think talent becomes secondary if your culture is not where it needs to be. I think we had too many players, not naming anybody, that were more worried about collecting service time than actually worried about winning and playing the game the right way.
"So our focus going into the winter was to create flexibility and then to try to add the type of individuals that No. 1, we think are good players, but No. 2, they get it, as it relates to the underlying philosophy that you've got to be a little bit other-focused within your clubhouse day-in and day-out to be able to maximize whatever talent you do have. And we had a tough time with that last year."
In place of Iannetta behind the plate is veteran Ramon Hernandez, 35. In place of Lopez, who was released shortly after being acquired last season, is veteran Marco Scutaro, 36. In place of the failed combination of Stewart and Wigginton at third is veteran Casey Blake, with young Nolan Arenado now in the role of third baseman of the future. In place of Smith is veteran Michael Cuddyer, 32.
The common denominator, as you might have noticed, is "veteran." These are experienced players in their 30s. Rockies brass hopes they will do the little things that help teams win, even if they don't show up in the box score.
"I think it's kind of who you are as a person," O'Dowd said. "In Cuddyer's case, I don't think it's about Michael. I think Michael is a good player, but I also think Michael really wants to win and he understands the best way to win is not only him being a good player, but him being the kind of teammate that gets the most out of everybody else there by holding to a level, a standard, on how we should play the game and how we should be accountable to one another in all aspects of being a team — on the plane, on the bus, in the hotel, in the clubhouse and on the field.
"And taking ownership of one another to be able to do that. We've worked real hard to bring in players that can help us do that, but you heal from the inside out. We had a miserable year last year on our record, but I don't think it was a good year in how we went about doing what we did, either."
In Blake, 38, the Rocks hope they have a bridge to the 20-year-old Arenado, who had a sensational Arizona Fall League, but would be attempting a gargantuan jump from Class A to the major leagues if he were to win the third base job out of spring training.
"We just want to get an average Casey Blake year," O'Dowd said. "We did not guarantee Casey's contract. We didn't do that, one, from a health standpoint, and No. 2, with Nolan, he's put us in an interesting position. I think talent-wise, he probably could handle the jump. I think the question is maturity-wise if he can handle the jump. I think that's what the concern is. We're going to take a good long look at that, but we're not going to push Nolan if the maturity level is not there because I don't feel that's fair to him. He's going to be playing catchup for a long time if we do that to him.
"There weren't many third basemen on the market. We had our eye on Casey all along because we think he's a pro's pro. He's probably a 100-game to 110-game guy, max. At some point in time, Nolan could even factor into that picture. But we look at the versatility that (Blake) brings between the two corner positions. We think he's a professional hitter and he's just another guy that gets it as it relates to his responsibility with creating the kind of culture a championship team should be all about every day."
As he rebuilds the starting rotation in the wake of trading Jimenez last season, O'Dowd assembled a passel of arms to provide competition when pitchers and catchers report to Scottsdale next month. Half the spots on the team's 40-man roster are occupied by pitchers.
Among the candidates for the starting rotation are Jhoulys Chacin, Jason Hammel, Drew Pomeranz, Juan Nicasio, Alex White, Esmil Rogers and offseason acquisitions Tyler Chatwood, Guillermo Moscoso and Josh Outman. Jorge De La Rosa is expected back from last year's Tommy John surgery by late May or early June.
"When you look at putting the rotation together, I think we're going to look at it a little differently this year," O'Dowd said.
"Some of those starters could very easily end up being additions to our bullpen and either starting for us at some point in time during the course of the season when we think it's necessary to give people rest, picking up the dead innings and bringing them along that way, or some of them may even gravitate towards the back end of the bullpen. So of all those guys, eight of them could end up on our staff in some way, shape or form."
With young stars Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez to build around, veterans Todd Helton and Jason Giambi providing continuity and Pomeranz, the jewel of the Jimenez trade, penciled in to replace Ubaldo as the staff leader, the Rocks have a decent foundation. But they have replaced many of the other pieces.
A year ago, the club over-promised and under-delivered. Having subtracted a number of young players trying to make names for themselves and replaced them with veterans who have long since finished that process, the club hopes to do the opposite this year.
"The underlying principle of every team is being able to get out the most of the entire team with everybody having an accountability factor in the process of doing that, and not just showing up every day and worrying about your particular space and your particular responsibility, which they do need to do, but also worrying about being part of the process with the team," O'Dowd said.
"We had that in '07, we had that in '09. I think winning created that within our culture. I think we have it a little backwards. I think our culture probably needs to create more of that."
Leave a comment	| tags: Casey Blake, Chris Iannetta, Dan O'Dowd, Huston Street, Ian Stewart, Jose Lopez, Marco Scutaro, Michael Cuddyer, Ramon Hernandez, Seth Smith, Ty Wigginton, Ubaldo Jimenez	| posted in Rockies/MLB


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Living History with Ambassador Shin Kak-soo
A Look at Korea-Japan Relations
Ambassador Shin reflects on the complexities of Korea's relations with its neighbor Japan. He provides an overview of how entrenched partisan politics can prevent the successful resolution of crises between these two key U.S. allies.
Minister Song Min-soon
Negotiating the September 19 Joint Statement
This Living History interview features Song Min-soon, the former South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the National Security Advisor to President Roh Moo-hyun (2006- 2008). He was director general for North American affairs and South Korean chief delegate during the Six-Party Talks in 2005. He played a key role in the multilateral denuclearization agreement with North Korea, involving the United States, Japan, South Korea, China, and Russia, achieved in September 2005.
Ambassador Kathleen Stephens: Part II
Ambassador Kathleen Stephens: Part I
Witnessing South Korea's Post-War Economic and Democratic Growth Firsthand
Ambassador Chung Chong Wook
Navigating Dangerous Waters: The 1994 North Korean Nuclear Crisis
This Living History interview features Ambassador Chung Chong Wook. Ambassador Chung served as the Republic of Korea's ambassador to China from 1996 to 1998 and as a senior secretary to President Kim Young-sam for national security and foreign policy from 1993 to 1994. While serving in government, he witnessed and was involved in a series of dramatic and rapid developments in inter-Korean relations and U.S. policy toward North Korea.
Ambassador Joseph Yun
Efforts to Maintain a Channel of Diplomatic Engagement with North Korea
This Living History interview features Ambassador Joseph Yun who served as the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Korea and Japan at the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs from October 2016 to March 2018. Prior to that position, he was the United States Ambassador to Malaysia from 2013 to 2016. From 2005 to 2008, Ambassador Yun also served as the Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul where he oversaw domestic, regional and bilateral policy coordination between the United States and South Korea.
Ambassador Chun Yung-woo
Multilateral Engagement to Resolve the North Korean Nuclear Issue
This Living History interview features Ambassador Chun Yung-woo. Ambassador Chun was National Security Advisor to ROK President Lee Myung-bak from 2010 to 2013 and was Second Vice Minister at the ROK Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade from 2009 to 2010. Prior to that he served as ROK ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2008 to 2009 and head of the ROK delegation to the Six Party Talks from 2006 to 2008. In this interview, Chun reflects particularly upon his experience as Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs and head of the South Korean delegation to the Six Party Talks, a multilateral negotiation to denuclearize North Korea that resulted in two sets of agreements in 2005 and 2007.
Ambassador Christopher Hill
Negotiating the Six Party Talks and Dealing with North Korea's Nuclear Program
In 2003, the Six Party Talks were launched to seek a peaceful resolution to the challenges posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The Six Party Talks were designed to be a multilateral mechanism for negotiations with all the relevant stakeholders in the region. The participating states included China, South Korea, North Korea, the United States, Japan, and Russia.
Sonja Biserko
The Process of Documenting Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea
The Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was established by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2013. The commission was tasked with investigating North Korea's systematic, widespread, and grave human rights abuses.
Former ROK Foreign Minister Han Sung-Joo
U.S.-ROK Allied Coordination in Negotiating 1994 AGREED FRAMEWORK
The 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework was signed between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on October 21, 1994.


MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqis on Sunday laid the cornerstone in rebuilding Mosul's Al Nuri Mosque and leaning minaret, national emblems destroyed last year in the ferocious battle against the Daesh group.
The famed 12th century mosque and minaret, dubbed Al Hadba or "the hunchback," hosted Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi's only public appearance as Daesh chief, when he declared a self-styled "caliphate" after the extremists swept into Mosul in 2014.
The structures were ravaged three years later in the final, most brutal stages of the months-long fight to rid Iraq's second city of Daesh.
Abdullatif Al Humaym, the head of Sunni Muslim endowments in Iraq, set down the stone in a simple ceremony.
It bore a black Arabic inscription: "This cornerstone for the rebuilding and restoration of Al Hadba minaret and the Great Al Nuri Mosque was laid on December 16, 2018".
More than a year after Daesh lost control of Mosul, the iconic mosque still lies in ruins. The stone gate leading up to its courtyard and the greenish dome now covered in graffiti are virtually the only parts still erect.
Abu Bakr Kenaan, head of Sunni Muslim endowments in Nineveh province, told AFP remnants of the minaret would be preserved, while other parts of the mosque would be built afresh, along with a museum about its history and adjacent homes.
The first year will focus on documenting and clearing the site, while the next four years will see the physical restoration, the UN's heritage agency UNESCO has said.
The mosque's destruction "was a moment of horror and despair", said UNESCO Iraq representative Louise Haxthausen.
"Today as we lay the foundation stone of the Nuri mosque, we are starting a journey of physical reconstruction," she told those gathered.
The mosque takes its name from Nureddin Al Zinki, who ordered it built in 1172 after unifying Syria and parts of northern Iraq.


WASHINGTON – Today U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) introduced the bipartisan Promoting Transparent Standards for Corporate Insiders Act. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) prohibits the purchase or sale of securities based on non-public information. Right now, the SEC allows executives to create a trading plan that ensures trades are done without taking advantage of inside information. However, as two high-profile cases illustrate, some dishonest players may be abusing loopholes in the system. This bill requires the SEC to study this issue, report their findings to Congress, and write additional rules addressing the ability of people to take advantage of the system.
The bill has also been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.). It will be the part of the discussion at Thursday's Senate Banking Committee hearing on capital formation and corporate governance.
"This bipartisan legislation will help ensure that corporate insiders are following the same rules as everyone else. By studying and modifying SEC Rule 10b5-1, the SEC can make changes that will ensure this rule can't be used by individuals to shield themselves from liability when they do trade on insider information. I urge action on the bill without delay," said Senator Van Hollen.
"Nebraskans who are investing to save for retirement or send their kids to college should receive a fair shake. Our bipartisan legislation will increase transparency in corporate trading to help weed out bad actors who take advantage of the current system. This is a common-sense solution that will level the playing field for hardworking American families and businesses on Main Streets," said Senator Fischer.
A fact sheet on the bill is available here and the text of the bill can be found here.