Disarmament Diplomacy: CWC Report - The CWC After Its First Review Conference: Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
The CWC After Its First Review Conference: Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
From April 28 to May 9, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) - composed of the 151 states parties to the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Technical Secretariat (TS) set up by Article VIII of that Convention - held the first Review Conference of the CWC. The Conference, held at OPCW headquarters in The Hague, marked the culmination of a process commencing in May 2001, when the Sixth Session of the Conference of States Parties (CSP) to the OPCW tasked the Executive Council (EC) of the Organisation to begin preparations for the gathering.1 To this end, at its 26th session in September 2001, the EC established an open-ended Working Group for the preparation of the Review Conference (WGRC).
The review of the operation of the CWC is mandated in the Convention's eighth article, dealing with 'The Organisation'. Article VIII, paragraph 22 reads: "The Conference shall no later than one year after the expiry of the fifth and the tenth year after entry into force of this Convention, and at such other times within that time as may be decided upon, convene in special sessions to undertake reviews of the operation of this Convention. Such reviews shall take into account any relevant scientific and technological developments. At intervals of five years thereafter, unless otherwise decided upon, further sessions of the Conference shall be convened with the same objective."
In addition, Part IX (paragraph 26) of the Verification Annex contains a requirement that: "At the first special session of the Conference convened pursuant to Article VIII, Paragraph 22, the provisions of this part of the Verification Annex shall be re-examined in the light of a comprehensive review of the overall verification regime for the chemical industry (Article VI, Parts VII to IX of this Annex) on the basis of the experience gained. The Conference shall make recommendations so as to improve the effectiveness of the verification regime."
The remainder of the paper will be organised in three parts, the first of which will cover the preparatory phase leading up to the Review Conference. Here, activities by both the OPCW and its states parties as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) will be presented. The second part will describe and assess the Review Conference itself. This will by and large follow the thematic division into sub-sections as developed by the Director General (DG), Rogelio Pfirter, in his note to the Review Conference.2 The final part of the paper will summarise the results and conduct of the First CWC Review Conference.
The WGRC held thirty meetings between November 2001 and March 2003.3 The Working Group initially concentrated on formal and procedural issues, such as the opening date and duration of the Review Conference, the level of attendance at the Conference (should ministers or their designees attend?), and questions surrounding the attendance of NGOs.
One of the NGO submissions - the study undertaken by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) - dealt specifically with one of the main tasks bestowed upon the Review Conference by the text of the CWC: the review of the impact of developments in chemical science and technology on the implementation of the Convention. The report is based on an IUPAC meeting from June 30 to July 3, 2002. During the workshop, "recent technical developments and...the state of the art in several areas of organic synthesis, industrial chemical processing, and analytical chemistry methodologies" were discussed by participants, and five "key scientific and technological areas that should be taken into account at the First Review Conference"10 were identified. These are: technical challenges to the Convention, analytical techniques for routine and challenge inspections as well as investigations of alleged use of CW, technical capability of the TS, education and outreach, and issues related to CW-destruction.
Likewise, a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) was held in September 2002 in Bratislava in the run-up to the Review Conference with the aim to "critically review the new scientific and technological developments of relevance" to the CWC. The workshop was co-hosted by the Department for the Control of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in the Slovak Ministry of Economy, and the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford.11 The ARW addressed scientific and technological issues for the First Review Conference, both in a general sense and as they relate to the effectiveness of the Convention's verification regime, considered scientific and technological challenges to the CWC, and discussed "how the effectiveness of the verification regime and the implementation of the general purpose criterion could be improved"12 in order to maximise the security benefits that the Review Conference might yield for states.
It should also be mentioned that the Pugwash Study Group on the Implementation of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions devoted three of its workshops to the CWC Review Conference.13 The third of these workshops took place immediately before the Conference itself, on April 26 and 27. It addressed the implementation of the CWC hitherto and identified matters to be tackled henceforth, such as industry and trade issues, states not yet party to the CWC, and the problem of law enforcement.
One hundred and ten of the 151 states parties to the OPCW participated in the First CWC Review Conference. In addition, two signatory states, two non-states parties, five international organisations and bodies, 22 NGOs, and six industry associations were approved by the Conference as participants. During the first two and a half days of the Conference, 52 states parties spoke during the General Debate, three of which delivered statements on behalf of groups of states.17 In addition, a message from the Secretary General of the United Nations was read to the delegates.
The Conference got off to a somewhat bumpy start on the opening day when one state party, Iran, utilized its right of reply in the General Debate after the US had accused it - together with three non-states parties to the CWC, Libya, Syria, and North Korea - of stockpiling and "actively ... pursuing chemical weapons."18 The Iranian delegate categorically rejected the US accusations,19 arguing that it was Washington, not Tehran, which bore responsibility in recent years for withdrawing from, weakening or refusing to embrace multilateral agreements. Likewise, the Iranian statement continued, it was the US national legislation which ran contrary to the Convention. A previous Iranian CW capability, the riposte concluded, had been developed in response to Western indifference to Iraqi CW use against Iran in the 1980s; all relevant material and facilities, including CW production sites, had been declared to the OPCW and destroyed under its verification.
The Review Document30 inter alia reaffirms the obligation of the CW possessors to destroy their arsenals, while all other states parties are called upon to support these efforts and provide assistance where possible. Concerning the verification of CW destruction activities, the Conference merely "noted" that possessor states can examine possibilities for bilateral verification agreements - a wording sought by the US, according to which the Conference "encouraged" CW possessors to do so, did not meet with the consensus agreement of the Conference.
The non-proliferation objectives of the CWC are to be achieved through a system of declaration and verification measures related to the peaceful applications of chemistry, mostly in chemical industries, of states parties.
In the Review Document, the Conference confirmed the essential role of national legislation for the proper functioning of the Convention. It "called upon states parties that have not already done so, to inform the OPCW by the next regular session of the Conference of the status" of their national implementation measures. With respect to Article VI declarations, the Conference stressed that annual declarations by states parties had to be accurate, complete, and submitted on time. Furthermore the Conference - following an explicit reference to the work undertaken by the Convention's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) - confirmed the "need to ensure an adequate inspection frequency and intensity" for each category of Article VI facilities. This should allow the redirection of industry inspection towards the group of OCPF that pose the greatest risk to the objects and purposes of the Convention.
The Review Document, having reiterated parts of the DG's report referred to above, in true diplomatic fashion neither emphasised that challenge inspections could be undertaken without prior consultations, nor stipulated that challenge inspections should always be preceded by a consultation process (which would have been a rather awkward interpretation of the CWC's text). Rather, the Document says that "without prejudice to the right of any state party to request a challenge inspection, states parties should, whenever possible, first make every effort to clarify and resolve, through exchange of information and consultation among themselves" any compliance concern.
The Review Document, again, reaffirmed the basic ICA provisions and states parties' commitment to them. It went on to recall that all ICA programmes "should be improved through evaluations to optimise resource utilisation and effectiveness". The Conference also "concluded that...budgetary allocations for international cooperation should be based on the states parties' needs, and how the programme addresses these needs". However, language contained in the WGRC chairman's consolidated text50, stressing the "need that any assistance provided does not serve any action in contravention of Article I", obviously went too far for some delegations and was not included.
Given the hardened fronts in this debate, the Review Document is confined to a reiteration of text contained in the CWC, urging the EC to "continue its facilitation efforts to reach early agreement on the issue of the full implementation of Article XI".
The OPCW is made up of its Technical Secretariat and its states parties. These come together as the Conference of States Parties and a subset thereof, the Executive Council, usually referred to jointly as the Policy Making Organs (PMO) of the Organisation. In the course of the OPCW's short history, much has been achieved by each these bodies individually as well as through their interplay. At the same time, the OPCW has experienced a number of severe difficulties, notably the financial crisis of 2001 and the ousting of the first Director General, José Bustani (see endnote 2) in April 2002. The latter of these two episodes had a particularly detrimental effect, detracting time, energy and attention away from early preparations for the Review Conference.
In sum, there were a number of issues related to the OPCW's functioning which could have been subjected to a critical review by the Conference. Yet, remarkably, the only critical comment by a state party in reference to the relationship between states parties and the TS came from the Russian Federation, which confessed to be "solidly in favour of maintaining the independence of the Technical Secretariat's work", and continued to "urge other countries to refrain from attempting to influence the Technical Secretariat with a view to...receiving unilateral advantages"53 - a clear reference, above all, to the US-led removal of the OPCW's first DG, bitterly opposed by Moscow at the time.
The Director General's Note to the Review Conference picks up some of these issues, pointing out that six years after the CWC's entry into force, there are unresolved issues "where the Convention's legal framework still needs to be completed".54 Their resolution, as I have argued elsewhere, remains elusive in part due to a "culture of deferral"55 which has co-evolved with the EC; a reluctance to grasp thorny and potentially divisive issues in a timely and effective fashion.
Finally, the Director General draws attention in his Note to the OPCW's relations with civic society and acknowledges that the Organisation "should further enhance its relationship" with representatives of civic society, including NGOs.
The Review Document - not surprisingly - does not refer to any of the above-mentioned crises. Likewise, mention of the EC's inability to reach decisions on issues languishing on its agenda since 1997, including those that the Conference is required to take in order to allow the Convention's proper functioning, is couched in very moderate language. The same applies for the "interaction between the SAB and delegations" which "should continue and be further enhanced". Finally, the positive remarks of the DG on the interaction with civic society in general, and NGOs in particular, found their way into both the Political Declaration of the Conference and its Review Document - although the mentioning of civic society in the Review Document appears in paragraph 108(g) under the heading of "Agenda Item 7(c)(viii) Economic and technological development", which seems to strangely limit the area where civic society is assumed to be able to make a useful contribution to the CWC's implementation.
As has been pointed out, the review of relevant scientific and technological (S&T) developments by the Review Conference is not only explicitly mandated by the CWC, it also received widespread attention in the preparatory phase of the Conference, both by organs of the OPCW, such as the SAB, and by NGOs. With the opening of the Conference, however, the S&T issues went almost completely underground, as they were fed into a number of components of the review of the CWC's operation. However, S&T issues - more specifically the Report of the SAB as submitted to the Conference by the Director General - resurfaced in the Review Document both in the sections on general verification provisions and on activities not prohibited under the CWC.
One S&T issue, which received considerable attention in the run-up to the meeting, was almost completely suppressed during the Conference: the question of chemical incapacitants and so-called "non-lethal chemical weapons", in which some CWC states parties recently have shown an increasing interest. Although two states parties - New Zealand and Switzerland - made explicit reference to "non-lethal" weapons during the General Debate, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), whose statement was focusing on incapacitants, was not allowed to address the plenary. As a result, the only opportunity to discuss these matters publicly arose with the Open Forum on the Chemical Weapons Convention, hosted by the TS and supported by a number of NGOs. The Open Forum included a panel discussion on "The Chemical Weapons Ban and the Use of Incapacitants in Warfare and Law Enforcement".
It comes as no surprise, then, that informal discussions among delegations showed that the time was not ripe for the inclusion of any language explicitly referring to incapacitants or "non-lethal weapons" in the text of the Review Document. However, the Document did contain language in relation to the definitions in Article II of the Convention, pointing out that these were found by the Conference to adequately cover developments in science and technology. In addition, the Conference tasked the Council to consider developments in relation to new chemicals that may be relevant to the CWC.
After two weeks of meetings, the First Review Conference of the CWC was able to agree on two documents: the Political Declaration and the Review Document. Given the current climate surrounding international arms control, this in and of itself can only be judged a major accomplishment - an outcome made all the more remarkable in light of the "naming of names" by the US delegation and the Iranian reply at the beginning of the meeting, which threatened to poison the atmosphere and could easily have undermined participants' willingness to compromise. That this threat did not materialise is in no small part due to the excellent preparatory work undertaken by the chair of the WGRC and his counterpart in the Technical Secretariat.
Two crucial questions especially in relation to the more substantive, 134-paragraph Review Document are: 1) to what extent did states parties step back from the day-to-day operation of the CWC regime and undertake a self-critical evaluation of the operation of the Convention; and 2) how forward-looking a document is it? Only a positive answer to both of these questions would justify us in describing the outcome of the Conference as positive in substantive terms.
With respect to states parties having critically evaluated their own individual and collective performance in implementing the CWC, there was a clear trend towards papering over past shortcomings. This ranged from the presentation by the Russian Federation of its recent destruction of 1 percent of Category 1 CW stocks - without acknowledging that this achievement came three years late - to much more subtle manoeuvres to get bits and pieces of text removed from the draft Review Document, which would have made it clear that some countries had not lived up to their obligations. A second, related phenomenon was a tendency by some to divert attention from their own records on compliance by focusing on the need for the OPCW to maintain an unchanged, rigid approach to verification and inspections - opposing, for example, the re-focusing of industry declarations, or any relaxation of the verification of CW destruction activities. A third issue in relation to the evaluation of past performance relates to the types of subjects being discussed and the willingness, or lack thereof, of states parties to review and shift policy. Here, the similarity between topics raised and positions held during the most recent regular session of the CSP last October and the Review Conference is revealing, suggesting that a large number of delegations were stuck in 'business-as-usual' mode, not inclined to take the step back necessary to look at the CWC's operation in more generic terms.
More curious were the debates surrounding the first paragraphs of both the Political Declaration and the Review Document, reflecting but also differing from the first paragraph of the CWC's Preamble. Interestingly enough, the Preamble's mention of "effective progress towards general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, including the prohibition and elimination of all types of weapons of mass destruction" did not command the consensus of the Conference and was thus omitted from both the Review Document and Political Declaration. Since chemical and biological weapons are already prohibited, some nuclear weapon states must presumably have felt "threatened" by a potential spill-over into the nuclear non-proliferation regime from having this wording accepted. Reportedly, attempts by New Zealand to have the language on "general and complete disarmament" de-coupled from the reference to WMD did not help the resolution of the matter.
Fortunately, matters look more positive when it comes to the forward-looking character of the Review Document, even if only at second glance. Unlike, for example, the Principles and Objectives agreed upon at the 1995 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference, or the plan of action agreed at the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the CWC Document contains no neat, clearly-compiled set of goals and yardsticks. But then, the unhappy fate of the NPT documents to date are well known; such clear direction is evidently no guarantor of success or progress. What the Review Document does contain, however, are a number of steps to be undertaken by either the Conference of States Parties at its next regular session, the Executive Council, the Technical Secretariat, or two or more of the OPCW's organs working together. Of the 134 paragraphs, more than 50 spell out tasks to improve the future implementation of the Convention, assigning them to at least one of the OPCW's organs, states parties in general or specific groups of states parties.
Admittedly, a few of these task assignments carry the qualifier "voluntary", and many do not have a delivery date attached to them. Still, it is an impressive list that acknowledges the gaps in implementing the CWC, points the way in many areas for improving performance, and represents the minimum standard against which future implementation will have to be judged. Now it is up to the OPCW and its states parties to follow-up effectively and without undue delay or prevarication.
In sum, while the First CWC Review Conference was dominated to a considerable degree by the pursuit of national self-interest, this did not lead to the effectiveness of the Convention being undermined - a fear expressed by New Zealand during the General Debate. As the preceding discussion of critical issues should have made clear, this is not to say that all is well. Rather - as suggested by a number of states, perhaps most forcefully South Africa - we are faced here with the more general phenomenon that the fundamental premises and principles of multilateralism in the disarmament and non-proliferation field are currently under threat. It is, however, by no means just the policies of the Bush administration which are causing difficulties in this regard, as some would have us believe. There are, in fact, clear suggestions that some states are using this tactic of blaming the White House for all the world's arms control woes as a convenient cover to disguise their own limited interest in pursuing a truly multilateral approach to the problems facing the CWC today and in the next few years. Still, if compared with other disarmament and non-proliferation regimes, the CWC is faring well. In this larger context, the answer to the question raised in the title is easy and straightforward: the glass is definitely half-full.
1. See the Report of the Sixth Session of the CSP, OPCW document C-VI/6, The Hague, May 19, 2001.
2. See Working Group for the Preparation of the First Review Conference: Consolidated Chairman's Text. Agenda Item 7 of the Provisional Agenda of the First Review Conference, OPCW document RC-1/CRP.1, April 17, 2003. Rogelio Pfirter, previously Argentina's Ambassador to the OPCW, became Director General in July 2002, following the removal of José Bustani of Brazil at a Special Session of the Conference of States Parties in The Hague in April that year. For background to, and coverage of, this turbulent period, see the 'News Review' section of Disarmament Diplomacy No. 64, May/June 2002, pp. 28-33. For analysis of the aftermath of the drama, see Fiona Tregonning, 'CWC Report: Emerging From A Trial By Fire? A Report and Analysis of the Seventh Session of the Conference of States Parties', in Disarmament Diplomacy, No.67, October/November 2002, pp. 10-17.
3. See Report of the Working Group for the Preparation of the First Chemical Weapons Convention Review Conference, OPCW document WGRC-1/5, The Hague, March 19, 2003.
4. See OPCW documents WGRC-1/5 and WGRC-1/5/Add.1 of March 19 and April 28, 2003, respectively.
5. See Working Group for the Preparation of the First Review Conference: Chairman's Text. Draft Political Declaration of the First Review Conference, OPCW document RC-1/CRP.2, April 15, 2003. On the consolidated text, see endnote 2.
6. See Background Paper on the Conduct of Inspections Under the Chemical Weapons Convention and Related Issues, OPCW document RC-1/S/1, April 17, 2003; Background Paper on International Cooperation Programmes, OPCW document RC-1/S/2, April 22, 2003; Implementation Support, OPCW document RC-1/S/3, April 13, 2003; Background Paper on Assistance and Protection Programmes, OPCW document RC-1/S/4, April 24, 2003; Background Paper on Universal Adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention, OPCW document RC-1/S/5, April 25, 2003; Background Paper. Consolidated Unclassified Verification Implementation Report (April 1997 - 31 December 2002), OPCW document RC-1/S/6, April 25, 2003; Background Paper on the Implementation of the Confidentiality Regime, OPCW document RC-1/S/7, April 25, 2003.
7. See Note by the Director General to the First Review Conference, OPCW document RC-1/DG.1, April 17, 2003, and Note by the Director General. Report of the Scientific Advisory Board on Developments in Science and Technology, OPCW document RC-1/DG.2, April 23, 2003.
8. The seven NGOs were: the Harvard-Sussex Program on CBW Armament & Arms Limitation, the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC), the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), and the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA).
9. See Report of the Working Group for the Preparation of the First Chemical Weapons Convention Review Conference, OPCW document WGRC-1/5, March 19, 2003, plus the Addendum to this document, WGRC-1/5/Add.1, April 28, 2003.
10. See IUPAC: Impact of Scientific Devlopments on the Chemical Weapons Convention. Report by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, available on the IUPAC website at http://www.iupac.org/publications/pac/2002/pdf/7412x2323.pdf, also published in Pure and Applied Chemistry, Vol.74, No.12, 2002, pp.2323-2352.
11. For a summary of the workshop see Graham S. Pearson, Maximizing the Security Benefits from the First Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention, First CWC Review Conference Paper No.2, Bradford: Department of Peace Studies, December 2002.
13. Pugwash meetings are closed to the public. However, a report of the first two of the three meetings was published in the Pugwash newsletter and are available at http://www.pugwash.org/reports/rc/rc12.htm and http://www.pugwash.org/reports/cbw/cbw17.htm.
14. The issue (No.4, 2002) is available at http://www.unidir.ch/bdd/fiche-periodique.php?ref_periodique=1020-7287-2002-4-en.
15. See Michael Moodie and Isabelle Williams: The CWC Review Conference: Issues and Opportunities, Special Report 6, Washington, D.C.: CBACI, 2003, available on the CBACI website at http://www.cbaci.org.
17. These states were: Greece, speaking on behalf of the European Union and acceeding and associated countries, and of Iceland and Norway; Malaysia, speaking on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement and China; and Nigeria, speaking on behalf of the African Group.
18. See US Delegation to the OPCW: United States of America, National Statement to the First Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention by Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Stephen G. Rademacher, The Hague, April 28, 2003, p.3.
19. See Islamic Republic of Iran: Reply to United States, available on the OPCW website at http://www.opcw.org/html/global/docs_frameset.html.
20. The latter process is difficult to trace, as the deliberations of the Committee of the Whole were conducted behind closed doors and were not accessible to NGO representatives.
21. On May 7, 2003 Timor Leste (East Timor) deposited its instruments of accession and will thus become the 152nd CWC state party on June 6; see OPCW, Timor Leste Joins the Chemical Weapons Convention, Press Release No.10/2003, The Hague.
22. See, for example, Statement by Ambassador Priscilla Jana, Permanent Representative of the Republic of South Africa at the First Special Session of the Conference of the States Parties to Review the Operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, held in The Hague 28 April to 9 May 2003, available at http://www.opcw.org/html/global/docs_frameset.html.
23. See, for example, the Note by the Director General, OPCW document RC-1/DG.1, paragraph 3.4, p.5, and statements by Australia, Canada, The EU, Republic of Korea and others, pointing towards this link.
24. Of these five states, three have acknowledged CW possession - India, Russian Federation and the US - while a fourth - the Republic of Korea (South Korea) - still prefers to be referred to in official OPCW documents as "a state party". The fifth CW possessor is Albania, which has recently discovered some 15 tons of "CW agents" on its territory. This material, however, seems far from usable as it is filled in rusty barrels, posing more of a threat to the environment and people handling them than to any theoretical opponent. Thus, there seems to be a good case for treating these agents not as CW, but instead as highly toxic chemical waste.
25. See Statement by the Russian Federation at the first session of the Conference to review the functioning of the Chemical Weapons Convention, no date given, mimeo.
26. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, First Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Statement by Dr Denis MacShane MP, Minister of State for Europe, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, The Hague, April 29, 2003.
27. See Statement by Ambassador Noor Farida Ariffin, Permanent Representative of Malaysia to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on Behalf of the States Parties of the Non-Aligned Movement to the Chemical Weapons Convention and China, The Hague, April 30, 2003, available at http://www.opcw.org/html/global/docs_frameset.html.
28. See Note by the Director General, OPCW document RC-1/DG.1, p.7.
29. See Statement of the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the OPCW, Embassador Affonso de Alencastro Massot, The Hague, April 29, 2003, mimeo.
30. The final version of the 'Review Document as approved by the First Special Session of the Conference of the States Parties to Review the Operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention' was made available by the OPCW on May 23 at http://www.opcw.org/html/global/wgrc/2k3/rcl_revodoc.html.
31. On the Seventh CSP in general, see Fiona Tregonning, 'CWC Report: Emerging From A Trial By Fire? A Report and Analysis of the Seventh Session of the Conference of States Parties', in Disarmament Diplomacy, No.67, October/November 2002.
33. See The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, National Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, OPCW document RC-1/NAT.3, April 15, 2003, p.3.
34. See Note by the Director General, OPCW document RC-1/DG.1, p.10f.
35. Note by the Director General, OPCW document RC-1/DG.1, p.12.
36. Statement to the First Special Session of the Conference of States parties to Review the Operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention by Mr. Mustafa Kamal Kazi, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the OPCW, The Hague, April 30, 2003.
37. Toxic chemicals and their precursors considered to pose a danger to the Convention's purposes are listed in the Annex on Chemicals, which divides such substances into three 'schedules'. The categories are used to structure declarations and to guide verification and inspection activities. Schedule 1 chemicals pose the highest risk to the CWC; many have been developed, produced, stockpiled, or used as chemical weapons in the past and they have little or no peaceful uses. Schedule 2 chemicals pose a significant risk to the convention either because they can be used themselves as chemical weapons or as a consequence of their role as precursors to schedule 1 or 2 chemicals. Schedule 2 chemicals are not produced commercially on a large-scale. Lastly, schedule 3 chemicals may be produced commercially in large quantities but still pose a risk to the Convention because of their role as precursors to either schedule 1 or schedule 2 chemicals.
38. Statement by Ambassador Shyamala B. Coswik, Permanent Representative of India to the OPCW & Leader of the Indian Delegation to the First Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention, The Hague, April 29, 2003, p.3. The term "voluntarily" is somewhat confusing in this statement as states parties' industry declarations are mandatory under Article VI of the Convention.
39. US Delegation to the OPCW: United States of America, National Statement to the First Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention by Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Stephen G. Rademacher, The Hague, April 28, 2003, p.4.
40. See Note by the Director General, OPCW document RC-1/DG.1, p.15f.
41. Statement by the Head of the Delegation of Greece, Ambassador George J. Kaklikis, on behalf of the European Union, The Hague, April 28, 2003, p.2.
42. Statement by Ambassador Noor Farida Ariffin, Permanent Representative of Malaysia to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons On Behalf of the States Parties of the Non-Aligned Movement to the Chemical Weapons Convention and China, The Hague, April 30, 2003, p.5.
43. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, First Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Statement by Dr Denis MacShane MP, Minister of State for Europe, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, The Hague, April 29, 2003. The EU working paper, The Hellenic Republic on Behalf of the European Union. Challenge Inspections: Views of the European Union, is available as OPCW document RC-1/NAT.21, May 1, 2003.
44. Note by the Director General, OPCW document RC-1/DG.1, p.17.
45. For details of the increases in the 2003 OPCW budget for international cooperatoon activities, see Seventh Session of the Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention Concludes, OPCW Press Release Number 65, The Hague, October 15, 2002. Additional background information is contained in Technical Secretariat, Background Paper on International Cooperation Programmes, OPCW document RC-1/S/2, April 22, 2003.
46. See the Indian statement during the General Debate, quoted above.
47. See the South African statement during the General Debate, quoted above.
48. Statement at the First Review Conference of the States Parties of the Chemical Weapons Convention by H.E. Ambassador Yong-kyoo Kim, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea, The Hague, April 28, 2003. p.6.
49. See the UK statement during the General Debate, quoted above, p.3.
50. See WGRC, Consolidated Chairman's Text, OPCW document RC-1/CRP.1, p.22.
51. The Australia Group (AG) consists of 32 states, plus the European Commission, with advanced chemical and biological industrial capacity: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States. All AG members are states party to both the CWC and Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). They meet to discuss ways to strengthen and coordinate export control policies designed to prevent the transfer and proliferation of dual-use chemical and biological items and materials. For further details, see the AG website, http://www.australiagroup.net.
52. See the respective statements made during the General Debate.
53. Statement by the Russian Federation at the first session of the Conference to review the functioning of the Chemical Weapons Convention, no date given, mimeo.
54. Note by the Director General, OPCW document RC-1/DG.1, p.19.
55. See Alexander Kelle, The first CWC Review Conference: taking stock and paving the way ahead, in Disarmament Forum, No.4, 2002, pp. 3-9.
56. Note by the Director General, OPCW document RC-1/DG.1, p.20.
57. See Statement to the First Special Session of the Conference of States parties to Review the Operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention by Mr. Mustafa Kamal Kazi, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the OPCW, The Hague, April 30, 2003. This statement needs to be seen in the context of positions taken by the SAB on the verification regime for OCPFs, and the Pakistani rejection of the redirection of this regime.
Dr. Alexander Kelle is Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK. For documentation from the First CWC Review Conference, including the full text of the Review Document and the Political Declaration, see the website of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy at http://www.acronym.org.uk/cwc/index.htm.
© 2003 The Acronym Institute.


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AskCyber Home » News » News » Trump Bans Payments on 8 Chinese Apps
Trump Bans Payments on 8 Chinese Apps
WeChat Pay, Alipay banned along with other mobile payment apps
Outgoing US President Donald Trump banned transactions on eight Chinese apps. Trump signed an executive order today again ratcheting up pressure on China.
"The United States must take aggressive action against those who develop or control Chinese connected software applications to protect our national security," Trump's executive order said. "At this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by these Chinese connected software applications" says the order.
The executive order cited security concerns. Data shared with Beijing or stored in mainland China could allow tracking of American citizens including government officials and federal employees.
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"By accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information."
The order goes into effect in 45 days.
This is the third round of executive orders targeting Chinese apps. In August 2019, Trump signed an executive order banning Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat. TikTok sued the Trump administration to fight the ban. Trump wanted to force a sale of the apps. TikTok partnered with American technology company Oracle to avoid a shutdown. However, the ban was blocked by a Federal judge with a preliminary injunction.
Chinese Apps Banned for US Citizens
CamScanner
QQ Wallet
Tencent QQ
VMate
WPS Office and their subsidiaries
Alipay is a payment platform owned by Ant Group. WeChat Pay is owned by Tencent.
Last month, India approved WeChat Pay for use as a mobile payment app. A roll out to a test group of two-million Indian citizens was approved after a beta trial.
Trump's latest executive order may have little real effect on US citizens, if any. Alipay requires users to have a mainland China bank account and phone number. WeChat Pay also requires a mainland China based bank to use the payment platform.
"The United States has assessed that a number of Chinese connected software applications automatically capture vast swaths of information from millions of users in the United States, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information," the executive order read.
Filed Under: News Tagged With: China, WeChat

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Refuse Dialysis How Long 2020
January 7, 2019 by Keith
Does Dialysis Cure Kidney Failure What Creatinine Levels Need Dialysis 2013-03-15 11:52. Serum creatinine is an important indicator to be used by both nephrologists and kidney disease patients to see how well the. To patients undergoing hemodialysis for end-stage renal disease, George Kontos, Jr., M.D., uses a minimally invasive treatment for the long-term management. "These procedures do have some complications,
During dialysis, the patient should not walk long, not use staircase immediately after.
. It got so bad that she refused to eat – and she eventually died of severe.
Feb 24, 2014.
Without dialysis to clear toxins in their body, they are unlikely to survive long. But there are others who are forced to forgo dialysis because they.
Now "she goes to a [dialysis] center for three hours.
"I had a few people walk up to me and try to give me money," he said.
環團聯合聲明 – 拒絕參與破壞郊野公園 Green groups refuse to participate in the destruction of Country Parks
Bachelor of Science in Health Administration with a Long Term Care Certificate. The Bachelor of Science in Health Administration (BSHA) Program is designed to integrate a framework of general education courses with a health care curriculum that prepares the graduate with the foundational knowledge needed to enter today's challenging health industry.
Jul 31, 2017.
This means that private health providers may not refuse dialysis.
. Author Contributions: This article is the result of a long-term collaboration.
We understand this is a challenging time for you and your family. To enhance quality of care and life, Genesis strongly supports your right to make decisions about your care, including whether to accept or refuse life prolonging measures and treatments.
Divorce and Children with Special Needs. By Lili A. Vasileff. There are few challenges more difficult than going through divorce and having a child with special needs.
Now "she goes to a [dialysis] center for three hours.
people walk up to me and try to give me money," he said. "I refuse t.
onto a dialysis programme should be made on the basis of.
give or refuse consent for dialysis.*.
expressly consider acceptance onto long-term dialysis,
Life Expectancy For Patients with End Stage Kidney Failure Without Dialysis 2013-02-19 10:34. Kidney failure is divided into 5 stages and end stage is the 5th stage with most advanced renal damages.
With waits as long as 10 years, depending on region and blood type, some patients do not survive long enough on dialysis to receive a transplant.
"many transplant institutions refuse live kidney do.
The majority of U.S. dialysis patients receive hemodialysis, in which the patient's blood.
. But attempts to postpone as long as technology will allow the death.
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No matter whether people with stage 5 kidney disease have begun dialysis or not, life expectancy is always their big concern. How long can people with stage 5 kidney disease live with or without dialysis? Stage 5 kidney disease life expecta
A kidney transplant can free you from a long-term dependence on a dialysis.
. If your body does reject the new kidney, you can resume dialysis.
Dr Sebi has stated that fasting will heal every part of you that you need to be healed. Fasting cleanses the arteries and eyes; it enhances the nerves, the cognitive state and continence or temperament.
She refused offers of psychological.
Upon admission she refused enteral feeding and any medical therapy.
. tients who survive on dialysis for long periods.
The effect of artificially sweetened soft drinks/colas on kidney and cardiovascular function: Are diet sodas as harmless as they appear?
Granite Island causeway needs 'big cash injection' Victor icon THE Granite Island causeway needs a huge cash injection to fix the heritage-listed landmark, locals say, following the closure of.
Organ donation is when a person allows an organ of theirs to be removed, legally, either by consent while the donor is alive or after death with the assent of the next of kin. Donation may be for research or, more commonly, healthy transplantable organs and tissues may be donated to be transplanted into another person. Common transplantations include kidneys, heart, liver, pancreas.
Dialysis Centers Gainesville Fl Browse the WebMD Questions and Answers A-Z library for insights and advice for better health. Capital City Surgical Center of Florida. 2807 Capital Medical. FL 32308. (850) 297-0435Dialysis Training Center. . Gainesville, FL 32610. (352) 265-0111. According to our research of Virginia and other state lists there were 11 registered sex offenders living in Gainesville,
Which Drugs Are Dialyzed Out During Dialysis Feb 1, 2016. The pharmacokinetics of a drug may be altered in patients with renal impairment who require dialysis. Some drugs are contraindicated. Administration: Antizol (fomepizole) solidifies at temperatures less than 25°C (77°F).If the Antizol (fomepizole) solution has become solid in the vial, the solution should be liquefied by running the vial under warm water
know empirically about treatment refusal and stopping dialysis? How have the courts dealt with.
Neu and Kjellstrand reported that stopping long-term dialysis.
[Rev. 6/2/2018 5:23:11 PM–2017] CHAPTER 449 – MEDICAL FACILITIES AND OTHER RELATED ENTITIES. GENERAL PROVISIONS. NRS 449.001 Definitions. NRS 449.0015 "Agency to provide nursing in the home" defined. NRS 449.0021 "Agency to provide personal care services in the home" defined. NRS 449.0025 "Board" defined.
A leachate is any liquid that, in the course of passing through matter, extracts soluble or suspended solids, or any other component of the material through which it has passed. Leachate is a widely used term in the environmental sciences where it has the specific meaning of a liquid that has dissolved or entrained environmentally harmful substances that may then enter the environment.
I do not want dialysis: how long can I expect to live, and how would I feel?
Department of Nephrology Peritoneal Dialysis Protocol & Procedures Beaumont Hospital January 2009 1 DEPARTMENT OF RENAL NURSING PROTOCOLS AND PROCEDURES
Doctors give unbiased, helpful information on indications, contra-indications, benefits, and complications: Dr. Gupta on blood transfusion during dialysis: Combination of clinical examination ( listen to complaints, examining the patients etc) , blood works , and imaging study ( like cxr) are used to check transfusion reaction.
Apr 13, 2012.
Young adults may deny their illness, refuse external assistance, and.
behavior is increased and problem-solving and long-term planning are.
Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the weekly enrollment snapshot through the December 15 midnight Eastern Time deadline for the 2019 Open Enrollment Period, and the preliminary data show enrollment remained steady.
Dialysis Prairie Du Chien: Find a Nephrologist in Prairie Du Chien, WI. Nephrologist reviews, phone number, address and map. Find the best Nephrologist in Prairie Du Chien, WI Get reviews, hours, directions, coupons and more for Gundersen Prairie du Chien Clinic at 610 E Taylo...
Fresenius 2008h Dialysis Machine Manual: Spectra Por 4 Dialysis Membrane The float-a-lyzer G2 features biotech grade cellulose ester (CE) membrane. The low protein-binding, ultrapure membrane (no heavy metals and sulfides) is available in nine precise mwco"s from 100 to 1, 000, 000 Da...
Osmotic Gradient In Dialysis: Type Of Dialysis Machine 24.03.2012 · Do pull tabs from aluminum cans have special redemption value for time on dialysis machines? Your source for information on dialysis technician training, dialysis technician certification, dialysi...
Dialysis Center In Boone Nc: Daily paper. Local, state, and wire news and commentary. Photo galleries, business and obituaries. Fresenius Medical Care Watauga County in Boone, North Carolina. Dialysis Centers in Boone, North Carolina (28607). Find a Dialysis Center in North Caro...
Zosyn Dosing In Dialysis Patients: Table 1: Recommended Dosing of Zosyn in Patients with Normal Renal Function and Renal-Impairment (As total grams piperacillin/tazobactam) Renal Function. Dialysis Tech School In Nyc If you are looking for a career that is challenging and helps people...
Dialysis On Cruises At Sea: Bermuda's Main Hospital is King Edward VII Memorial. Taxpayer-financed with both employers and employees paying for significant monthly healthcare insurance What Is Dialysate In Dialysis Bicarbonate is an ingredient in "dialysate" – a fluid mixture t...
Refuse Dialysis How Long 2020 4.5 out of 5 based on 95 ratings.
Corrected Calcium In Dialysis Patients
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Panel to tackle how law schools might adapt to changing regulatory legal landscape
The American Bar Association's fourth virtual Redesigning Legal Speaker Series on Tuesday, December 7, will explore opportunities being created for law school education by the growing trend of regulatory innovation in the legal profession.
"Redesigning Legal: The Role of Legal Education, Clinics and Legal Labs" will take place online from 1 to 2 p.m. on December 7.
Utah and Arizona have already enacted sweeping changes to how legal services can be delivered and who can provide them. Nationally, no fewer than 10 other states are in different stages of exploring, recommending or implementing regulatory change that would generally allow nonlawyers to provide some legal services. The emerging landscape is certain to impact the legal profession in significant ways as well as present new challenges for J.D. education while possibly spawning other law-related educational programs.
Panelists will focus on how law schools are responding and adapting to the prospect of fewer barriers to innovation that offer increased employment opportunities for their students, more roles for people other than lawyers in the delivery of legal services, the creation of tiered legal service providers and collaboration across professional fields to provide more and new kinds of legal services.
The conversation will be moderated by Jordan Furlong, a principal at Law21. Panelists include:
• Stacy Butler, director of the Innovation for Justice Program, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. She has two decades of experience in community advocacy and expanding the reach of civil legal services for under-served populations.
• Anna Carpenter, professor of law and director of Clinical Programs, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. She founded and directs the Justice Lab, a legal clinic where students help client organizations solve complex problems and advocate for systemic change.
• April Dawson, associate dean of Technology and Innovation, North Carolina Central University School of Law. She teaches in the areas of constitutional law, Supreme Court practice, administrative law, voting rights and law and technology.
• Michele Pistone, professor of law and director of the Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. She founded the law school's in-house clinical program, which she directed for nine years.
Registration is free for "Redesigning Legal: The Role of Legal Education, Clinics and Legal Labs" but required in advance and can be found at https://iaals.du.edu/events.
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Two men who are accused of converting criminal property into bitcoins have had their case delayed.
Douglas man Sam Atkin and David Jenkinson, who's currently remanded at the Isle of Man Prison, appeared at Douglas Courthouse last week.
The two 26-year-old's are accused of converting £4,450 and £10,624 respectively between February 2014 and May this year.
Committal proceedings have now been adjourned to a special hearing on October 12th where the defendant's advocates will argue there's no case to answer.
Both men are also awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to drugs charges including possessing cannabis and possession with intent to supply.


The representatives of the world's 'great and good' have just met, again, to discuss carbon emissions at the Cancun climate control summit where they pontificated, made solemn sounding statements, debated and tried to outwit each other, not to mention the rest of us, with various versions of an ecological 'three card trick', where each imperialist power appears to promise to cut their carbon emissions without doing so while trying to get everyone else, especially the poorer and developing countries, to do it for real.
For good measure they even allow the representatives of the poorer nations in to 'their' meeting to show how concerned they are for the people of the whole world. This publicity stunt of pretending that they regard these 'poorer' nations as equals means that they also have to listen to the representatives of the poor castigate them publicly for all the horrors that imperialism brings to all corners of the world in its unending search for maximum profits whatever harm that does to people, exploited nations or the environment. But with the tame media owned by imperialism such things are reported, if at all, in such a way that the leaders of the poor who stand up to imperialism and denounce its activities that are threatening the very planet we exist upon, are portrayed as ungrateful wretches, ignorant bullies and/or power-hungry lunatics.
The 16th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held at Cancun had, before it even started, been written off in much of the press as unlikely to come up with any positive agreement. This 'pessimism', we were told by the press, was because of the appalling failure to agree much at all at the previous year's summit in Copenhagen where the only thing that emerged was a non-binding 'accord'. That meeting also saw Gordon Brown, along with all the other imperialist representatives and most of their lackey press, accusing Presidents Chavez of Venezuela, Correa of Ecuador and Morales of Bolivia, of "holding the world to ransom" because they wanted the imperialists to lower their own emissions instead of 'buying' poorer nation's low carbon output. They also called for realistic funding to be made available for poor and developing countries to develop alternatives so that they could build their infrastructure without increasing carbon outputs. Lastly they pointed out that only socialism could save the world and that capitalism was the road to extinction.
As Chavez said at that summit "The political conservatism and selfishness of the largest consumers, of the richest countries shows high insensitivity and lack of solidarity with the poor, the hungry, and the most vulnerable to disease, to natural disasters. Mr. President, a new and single agreement is essential, applicable to absolutely unequal parties, according to the magnitude of their contributions and economic, financial and technological capabilities and based on unconditional respect for the principles contained in the Convention.
These sentiments had been supported by a large section of the summit and so the intransigence of the imperialist countries protecting their profits above all meant that no agreement was reached and, of course, the western media laid the blame for that at the door of the above nations along with Zimbabwe, Brazil, China and others.
This year saw a different venue but the underlying problem still exists, the rich countries still only want to consider saving the planet if it doesn't interfere with their profits; and more, if it also guarantees that third world countries cannot rise to become competitors for markets or even just independent of imperialist interference in their affairs. At this summit the only movement that was made to reach the much-lauded agreement was made by the poorer countries and this 'agreement' that was cheered in the summit and feted by the imperialist press as a great and unexpected step forward on the road to 'saving the planet' is an agreement that is no more binding or progressive than the 'accord' reached at Copenhagen.
a) The poor and developing countries did not get a new commitment period for the existing climate change agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, which imperialism wants to tear up and throw away.
b) The so-called 'gigaton gap' (the gap between existing pledges and the carbon reductions needed according to leading climate scientists) is big and this 'agreement' doesn't go anywhere near reducing it.
c) The 'fund' to help poorer countries that has been talked about has no basis in fact ie. Who will provide it? Where will it go? On what basis will it, if it is ever raised, be given out? Without these things any talk of 'a fund' is meaningless.
The real issues are left yet again to next year in South Africa when they are just as likely to be ignored or brushed over again.


YORK – Rep. Seth Grove (R-York) will host outreach hours with a member of Sen. Pat Toomey's (R-PA) staff in July. The outreach event will be held on Wednesday, July 22, from 1-4:30 p.m. at Grove's office, located at 1954 Carlisle Road in York.
To make an appointment, call Grove's office at (717) 767-3947.


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The Art of Game Design
By Jesse Schell
Use the Deck
Buy the Deck
Get The Free Booster Pack
What's New in The Art of Game Design
With an updated design and full-color illustrations, the tenth-anniversary edition of The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses also includes a new section on Presence, with real-world examples for designing and developing games for virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR). It also examines best practices from other popular games. This edition covers some revisions on designing and developing experiences for specific populations.
The Deck of Lenses
A useful companion tool, the Deck of Lenses are all the "lenses" of wisdom and practical questions Jesse describes in the book. Use the Deck for inspiration when developing an experience, playtesting, brainstorming, and anything in between.
The Digital Deck of Lenses
Short on desk space? The digital version of the Deck of Lenses has you covered. Get access to all the lenses through the app, with all the same thought-provoking questions on your device. The digital deck is great for designers and developers on the go. Also, with the app, no booster pack is necessary to access the new cards.
Complete the Deck: Get the Booster Pack
Do you already have the Deck of Lenses? Complete the Deck by getting the free Booster Pack. The Pack contains three new lenses created from the new content in The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses.
For Residents of the United States:
1. Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) to Schell Games, using the following address.
Schell Games, 220 West Station Square Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15219
2. Schell Games will add the Booster Pack into your self-addressed stamped envelope
3. You will receive the Booster Pack. Add them to the rest of the Deck and enjoy!
For International Residents:
Please contact us to see how we can get the Booster Pack to you.


"Captivating, compelling & inspiring." A one-man tour-de-force mixing humor and the passion we all share to live an epic life and to matter.
Michael, in his physically unconscious — but mentally/spiritually hyper-conscious — moment of death, reaches out to his two sons to empower them to live big, purposeful lives.
"The Trouble Is…" weaves soliloquy with story-telling in a passionate fabric of life's highest highs and lowest lows, but always guided by and imbued with our shared human determination to live big, to matter and to make our mark with our lives.
Chris is an acclaimed Motivational Speaker, UCLA Leadership Instructor and Actor.


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          Looking for a new office in Pittsburgh?

          Affordable offices and coworking spaces in a convenient and community-friendly location are now available at the former Johnston elementary school.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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You are here: Home / NewsCenter / State Police: Missing Afghan Soldiers Found At Canadian Border
State Police: Missing Afghan Soldiers Found At Canadian Border
BOURNE – The Afghan soldiers who went missing from a session at Joint Base Cape Cod Saturday night have been found at the Canadian border.
A secretary in the office of State Police Spokesman David Procopio said she had been authorized to confirm to media that the three men have been found at the Canadian border.
Neither Massachusetts National Guard officials nor the US Command Control that was in charge of the session at the base were able to confirm that the men had been found.
For most of the past several days, Massachusetts National Guard officials were reported to be in search of the soldiers who went missing during a two-week course of training exercises at Joint Base Cape Cod.
The men were last seen at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis.
The soldiers have been identified as Major Jan Mohammad Arash, Captain Mohammad Nasir Askarzada, and Captain Noorullah Aminyar.
The men are reported to be senior military officers from Afghanistan who were participating in a top level training exercise this week at the base. The men were not restricted to Joint Base Cape Cod and were allowed to come and go as they pleased, according to one source.
The military training exercise was an event for military leaders from six countries who were to be at the base on Cape Cod for two weeks.
The base's new mission is linked with Homeland Security and this high level training is part of that mission. It is organized by US Central Command.
One Cape Cod police source said all local police departments have received a "be on the lookout" or bolo notice about the men and the announcement has been made at all police roll calls when new shifts go on duty.
Another source said that base officials were instructed not to let the officers from other countries "out of their sight," but it is unclear whether the men were accompanied by National Guard soldiers while at the mall.
Barnstable Police Sergeant Sean Sweeney said calls are coming in from the public to the police station, including a call this morning about a suspicious-looking man with a backpack.
Filed Under: NewsCenter, Top Story Tagged With: Bourne, police


You are here: Home / Iowa Authors / Browse the Iowa Center for the Book Author List / Cmelik Margaret E.
Ants Are Stupid (100 Tips For Battling Office Ennui), Published by Margaret Cmelik, Ames, IA, 2008.
Speak Up, Don't Slouch, 100 Tips For Snagging Your Dreams, Margaret E. Cmelik and photographer/illustrator Emily Filos. Published by Margaret E. Cmelik, Ames, IA, 2009.
Why the Hell are You Eating so Much? (100 Truly Original Tips for Eating Less) by Margaret E. Cmelik, Ames, IA, 2009.


Choose from a selection of 4 holiday rentals in Friedenweiler. Use the search form to the left to filter the results and pick your choice of self catering accommodation in Friedenweiler.
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Filter the holiday homes in Friedenweiler by a specific area using the area list above.


Shortbread dough is suitable for desserts and savory cakes and is prepared from a minimum of products. Lifehacker will teach you to do it in several ways. Bonus – interesting supplements.
This is an intermediate option between sand and puff pastry. It is crumbly but durable, therefore it is suitable as a base for large pies and quiches.
In the recipe, the word "cold" can be added in front of each ingredient and item, and this should not be neglected. The water should be icy, the oil – hard as a stone. Bowls, knives and even the board on which you will work with the dough, nice to hold in the freezer. It is better to move the cutting table away from the battery or open the window.
The secret of shortcrust pastry in butter. It is thanks to him that the pastry is crumbly.
All these efforts for the sake of the oil is not melted. Because otherwise you get a completely different product.
Cut cold butter into small cubes and put in the freezer for 15 minutes. At this time, sift the flour with salt, pour it on the table or board. Put the cubes of butter on top, generously sprinkle them with flour and a knife or two chop the dough.
It is important to touch the oil with your hands as little as possible: body heat will quickly melt it, the consistency will not be the one you need.
When the butter and dough come together and turn into small grains, gradually add water, kneading the mass into a plastic lump. Put it in the freezer for 15 minutes. Then roll out the dough, put the stuffing, for example, and send it to the oven.
Technical progress does not stand still, why not use it in cooking. You will need the same ingredients and a food processor with blades-blades. It is not necessary to chop the butter into small cubes: the device will cope. Throw in the bowl butter, flour and whisk. The main thing – do not overdo it, in the end should get all the same grains.
Gradually add ice water until the dough begins to collect in a bowl. Further instructions are the same as in the classic recipe.
Shortbread dough can be stored in the freezer for several weeks.
Put 50–100 g of sugar in the dough for the sweet cake.
Replace 30 g of flour with a similar amount of cocoa – you get chocolate dough.
Add up to half a glass of finely chopped nuts.
Flavor the mixture with citrus zest or vanilla.
This recipe will produce a more plastic dough, which is convenient to roll. Baking it less crumbles. By the way, in culinary disputes, some confectioners refuse to call chopped dough sand. They believe that only with the help of such a recipe can you get a classic basis for tarts and baskets.
Oil should not be cold, but cooled. What makes one state different from another is impossible to explain. Simply remove the food from the freezer one hour before cooking.
1 egg (or 2 yolks).
It is better to mix the components with a cooking spatula or spoon, and connect your hands only at the last stage, when you need to put the dough into a bowl. Pound butter with sugar, add flour, then egg.
If there is a food processor, delegate all these duties to him.
You can cool the dough, and then cut it. You can first give it the desired shape, and then send it in the freezer. It is important that it should get cold in the oven.
This dough is less capricious in work than its fellows without cottage cheese, and less nutritious, since the dairy product replaces half the butter.
Cottage cheese rub through a sieve, rub the cold oil on a grater. Mix both ingredients with a fork, add flour, soda and salt. Quickly knead the dough until smooth, put in a bag and put in the fridge for an hour.
If the cake is in the menu, then roll out the dough to the size of the form, pierce it several times with a fork, so that it does not swell up, cover it with parchment paper and fill it with a load. As a weighting agent can act special heat-resistant balls or beans, peas. This design is baked for about 15 minutes at a temperature of 180 ° C. Then remove the load, put the pie filling and bring to readiness.
The filling is better to choose, adjusted for the sugar content of the dough. Unsweetened minced suitable for quiches with pouring, meat pies and vegetables. Dough with added sugar will be the basis for fruit and berry tarts.
Baskets are also baked, only the cooking time must be reduced in proportion to the size of the cakes. Cookies and other small items are enough to bring in the oven to a light blush, otherwise they will be too hard.


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Jeff Survives Terrible Crash On April 24 2015
Assassination Attempt Fails
I have decided to go 'public' with this data because there are some trolls and shills who are suggesting the crash that should have ended my program was somehow a 'fake' or very much 'exaggerated'. I don't lose sleep over these kinds of 'people' and their attempts to defame, demean and smear me and my work. However, there are some good people who believe the often insidious trash that has been posted about me by MK Ultra mind controlled assets and other forms of lowlife filth.
I put this together to illustrate and document what was done to me with the intent of removing me from this troubled planet. This is not the first time there have been efforts to kill me but it was certainly the most violent. It should have worked…but it didn't. More about that later.
This first photo shows the two lane highway heading toward my home driveway which is up ahead and just out of sight. As most know, my program is on the air at 7 pm Pacific, Monday through Friday. This recreated scene shows me driving home in my vehicle at 6:25 in the evening. I am on the air in 35 minutes and am wide-awake thinking about the program that night and many other things having to do with work. I did not 'fall asleep' at the wheel and drift off the road. I was FULLY alert. Until something shut off my brain and instantly knocked me out at the wheel. Yes, 'they' have emf and laser beam weapons that are highly accurate and are used at distance to do exactly that. These weapons have been around since the 1980s.
So, I am driving home on a road I have driven for many years doing about 65. Remember, I am on the air in about a half hour. Traffic was light at that moment and I have no recall of following anyone ahead of me or of any oncoming traffic. What you see in this first picture is the last thing I remember seeing for the next 4 and 1/2 hours…which was spent in a deep coma as a result of critical head injuries and massive brain hemorrhaging and trauma. This was no automobile 'accident.'
To the right of the road is about a 6 foot deep drainage and irrigation ditch which you can see in the photo below taken at the exact spot my car went off the road and down into the ditch. At this point, I was no longer conscious. My brain had already been shut off. A note about my vehicle. This was a 1997 Toyota Landcruiser…one of the strongest, most rugged SUVs ever. It had full-time all wheel drive and a steel chassis that was second to none.
So, with an unconscious driver, the Landcruiser drifted off the road and went down into the ditch…at about 60 mph. This recreation will give the general idea of what happened next. The SUV hit the mud and water and pushed it forward into a mound of earth and the forward speed of the car caused it to immediately cartwheel forwards, end over end. Although I was not aware, both air bags deployed the moment the car hit the bottom of the ditch. These photos show what transpired according to eyewitnesses behind me and a couple of people out walking and by the damages to the car.
The Landcruiser, still moving over 50 mph, begins to cartwheel up and out of the ditch.
Both airbags had deployed but I was already unconscious and being thrown around like a rag doll.
The Toyota than went completely airborne as it vaulted forward and back out toward the highway. The force of the impact at the bottom of the ditch had destroyed the front axle and ripped the 4WD left front wheel off.
It then smashed down on its roof on the side of the road, blowing out the front windshield and rear glass and totaling the car. At some point in this sequence, and the rollovers ahead, my head hit the driver's door window several times behind my left ear so hard it broke the glass. Remember the car was still moving at about 40 mph at this point, and after coming down and hitting the road it began to roll over and over…two complete rolls. I am only showing one rollover in this photo recreation. This photo is my actual vehicle…using pictures taken later at the salvage yard.
I found a picture of the bottom side of a Landcruiser to better depict the rollovers on the highway.
It finally came to rest in the highway, destroyed. This is a photo of my actual car. During the cartwheel and rollovers, my head kept hitting the driver's door window. The glass on both front doors was finally knocked out completely during the rollovers. I had been unconscious from whatever was used to knock me out to cause the crash but now I was in a coma with severe brain injuries, a broken left wrist and a number of other issues.
In the months that followed, one day there was a knock at my door. It was a woman whom I had never seen before. She happened to live across from where the crash happened and was about the first on the scene. She told me the story of what had happened, what she did to try to help me...and returned something to me that was thrown out of the car as it rolled over and over on the highway. She described some strange things that went on after the fire department, and rescue EMTs and ambulance arrived...odd circumstances that I may write about at some time. I have no recall of any those events and was taken to the nearest hospital and then transferred to the big regional hospital for emergency surgery…all the while in a coma. This is not melodrama, the woman's last name was…'Angel'.
I was in a coma and completely unconscious when the medics transported me to the Ashland
City Hospital which, after an apparent quick exam, ordered me taken to the very large regional hospital
ICU about 25 miles away.
I have no recollection but I was given a CAT scan immedaitely
And then put in their ICU unit similar to this one.
About 11pm Friday, April 24
I am still 100% unconscious about 4 and 1/2 hours after the crash, Friday evening, April 24. For some reason my eyes suddenly
blinked open and I was instantly awake. Rather than seeing the roadway in front of me, I was looking up at a white ceiling
and hearing electronic sounds and beeps. Those who have been in hospitals will know these sounds.
Seeing the white ceiling above me, I spoke my first words to anyone who could hear me,
'WHERE AM I?'
A nurse immediately stepped over to me and put her hand on me and said,
"Please don't move. You've been in a terrible car crash. You are in ICU in Rogue Regional Medical Center.
You are bleeding very badly and we are just about to take you into emergency surgery to try to stop it."
I checked to see if my arms and legs were still there and where this 'bleeding' was coming from.
I then said, "Bleeding? From WHERE?"
She said, "In your brain and they are on the way with the gurney to rush into surgery right now."
If I had remained in that coma for another 30 seconds, I would have been rolled into surgery…and into the history books.
At least that is how I view it. You'll see ahead...
This is where it gets strange. As I said, when my eyes popped open, I was fully awake and so my conscious mind began to try to process what she had just said about bleeding in my brain but before I (me) could say anything further, my voice, on its own, said very loudly to her, "NO SURGERY!"
The nurse was shocked and took a couple of steps back. She said, and I remember like this was yesterday,
"What?? You're bleeding profusely and the neurosurgeons and staff are all scrubbed and waiting in the
operating room. If we don't get you in there right now, you may not make it."
Again, someone spoke with my voice. It wasn't me, I was just listening. My voice said,
"I am in full control of my faculties and I do NOT authorize surgery under ANY circumstances. Do you understand?"
This photo approximates the situation. I was laying in ICU, in critical condition, bleeding plenty enough to already be dead and my voice was refusing surgery. I didn't know how this was happening but it was. Something told me not to interfere.
As I recall, the nurse didn't seem to know what to say.
There were two CAT scan images in a light box on the wall behind her. At this point, I (me) said,
"Is that me on the wall?" She said, "Yes."
I said, "Is all of that 'white' inside my head blood?"
She was very frustrated and said, "Yes! NOW do you understand??"
Whoever it was, borrowed my voice again and said, "NO SURGERY!"
The nurse, one of several in the ICU, then left and I assume went to call off the surgery. The nurses with the gurney left...and I laid there in ICU the rest of the night. I remember, they were very kind and professional but didn't understand how anyone would snap out of a coma and dare to refuse surgery in such condition.
This is one of the CAT scans showing the massive hemorrhaging going on deep in my brain.
Apparently, a bleed the size of a quarter can be fatal. Those of you with medical
training will understand.
The next morning, Saturday, April 25, I told the hospital staff I was checking out and going home. They told
me I should stay in the hospital for another 10 days to two weeks. Nope, I was leaving.I signed all their forms and they called a taxi...and I went home. It was very late Saturday afternoon, about 24 hours after the crash, when the cab dropped me off at the front of the house. I then realized that I was locked out with no keys...they were still with my car, wherever that was. All I wanted to do was go to bed but I was locked out, alone, bleeding in my brain and had a broken left wrist. Getting into the house is another whole story. Maybe another time.
I had to go collect my belongings from my vehicle at the towing company yard and I was able to get a ride into town. Seeing my car was not a good experience. The tremendous force of the crash was clear and left me with a feeling of loss and sadness.
The entire frame of the 1997 Toyota Landcruiser was severely deformed. The windshield, front sides and the rear glass were blown out and the driver's side door is crushed from the TOP front downward from the vehicle going end over end and then rolling over.
The driver's side window is where my head struck the glass repeatedly during the disaster. It is believed my head hit the glass so hard several times - behind and above my left ear - that it broke the glass which was then completely knocked out by the crash.
Massive damage to frame and front end. Wheel is gone.
Front wheel was completely torn off this very rugged car
Vertical force of the impact result in the car wheeling forward massively damaging the frame.
Right rear hit after the roll and hit something solid and apparently ejected the forward moving car from the ditch back out onto the road.
Engine pushed back into firewall displacing the dashboard and pushed off to the left from its inline position.
Air bag and seat belt saved a life here. The dash was pushed in by the engine.
Less than 48 hours after the crash, still bleeding and my cranium full of blood, thanking and saying goodbye
to a great car that gave its life to help save mine.
Back In Hospital In Critical Condition
I did the radio program on Monday April 27, Tuesday April 28 And Wednesday April 29. I have no recall of doing them or putting news up on rense.com. I vaguely remember crawling from the bed to the desk - too dizzy to walk - to do the programs and then go back to bed. I was not getting any better. I was getting worse. I had a fever and was semi-conscious much of the time. I did not want to do ANYTHING by Thursday except lay in bed and wait…for whatever. The medics came and carried me out of the house and took me straight back to the hospital.
I was diagnosed with critical cerebral-spinal meningitis and continued bleeding in my brain. The doctor said they did not know which kind of meningitis I had - bacterial or viral. Both can kill quickly. So, they did a spinal tap and overnighted it to Johns Hopkins to see what they could grow from it...bacteria or viruses.
Four days, 24 hrs, constant 24 hour IV pumping of antibiotics, antivirals,
anti-inflammatories, anti-nausea medications. Morphine every two hours
Trying to walk, dragging 24/7 IV pump along
Heading off to another CAT scan to monitor brain bleeding
Late at the end of the fourth day of getting bag after bag of IV anti-virals and antibiotics, and morphine around the clock, because it wasn't known which kind of meningitis I had (viral or bacterial), and they were giving me everything they could to try to save my life, a new doctor came into my room.
It was an Asian woman and for the first time in four days, someone had come in without wearing a full gown, hat and face mask.
I asked "What happened? You aren't wearing a gown and face mask?"
She said, "We got the results back from Johns Hopkins." I was slightly relieved because now they would know what to treat.
I then asked, "What did they find out." She said, "Nothing…nothing grew.'
This was a shock. I then to her "If no bacteria or viruses grew, what does THAT mean?"
She looked down at me at the foot of my hospital bed and said, "That means you have the OTHER kind."
I was almost speechless and asked her "What is the OTHER KIND?"
She said, "It is called aseptic meningitis."
I replied, "What does THAT mean?".
She kindly explained that the bleeding in my brain from the crash had gone all the way down my spinal column. She added that there is one place in the body that you don't EVER want to see blood…and that it is in the spinal column.
Reason? The white cells,, NK cells, B and T cells and other aggressive defenders in the blood will attack the nerves in your spine and will destroy them all...and you die. That was why I was in such pain and misery…my own blood was destroying the nerves in my entire spinal column.
I then asked her, "So, Doctor, what can you do…how do we treat that?"
She said, "There is no treatment, nothing we can do. I am very sorry."
So, on Monday, May 4, I was told there was nothing that could be done to save me.
Just like the 'presence' that spoke with my voice and told the ICU nurse "No Surgery!" on April 24th, that same kind of presence told me to go home...that I had a LOT of work still to be done.
And that is exactly what I did…cerebral hemorrhages, deadly aseptic meningitis and all. And I have been working ever since.
What saved my life those several times (and others I may write about someday)? God, divine intervention, miracles, ET, fierce willpower, or a relentless work ethic to serve to the best of my ability? That is one thing I cannot answer for certain. I do know, as grueling and tough as things have been, I never once thought I was going to die. I know I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing…and that is the course I will keep. And when I can get away from the desk and microphone and out on the tractor to mow the grass, move some dirt, plant some trees or talk to the deer and geese, I especially appreciate how blessed I am
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Afridiziak Theatre news got a chance to speak with Nicola Hughes who is playing Dotty in the new production of the Olivier Award-winning musical Caroline or Change at the Chichester Fesitval Theatre this month.
Without giving away too many secrets Nicola revealed more about this new version of the play Caroline or Change. Set in 1963, Lake Charles, Louisiana, the musical tells the story of Caroline an African American maid earning thirty dollars a week working for the Jewish Gellman family. She is 39, a single parent and the mother of four children.
Dotty who is Caroline's best friend, is also a maid and she is the epitome of change. Dotty goes to college and funds her studies with the maid position; this job is only the beginning for her life's plan. She is working to change her life. Unlike Caroline, Dotty has no kids and no ties so she is free in many ways and is directing her own path to where she wants to go in life, whereas Caroline is a divorcee, has kids and is finding it hard to make ends meet.
Caroline, Or Change production has a fantastic cast, music and the amazing Sharon D Clarke who is a brilliant Caroline; this play is going to be very exciting for us and for the audience.
At that time in the US the Civil Rights movement is happening and more opportunities are becoming available for African-Americans, men and women. Although there is a lot of social change at this time in Caroline's daily life not a lot has changed, there are still bills to pay and mouths to feed and not enough to go around in her own life. Caroline is just trying to get through the day.
The family that she works for have an eight-year-old son, Noah, who loves Caroline and always visits her in the basement as she works, washing and ironing. But when he begins leaving loose change in his laundry for Caroline to find her life starts changing and from this point there are further consequences, and decisions to be made in Caroline's life.
Nicola first got involved in acting and performing from a young age. She went to ballet school from 11 and boarded there, her intention was to join the Dance Theatre of Harlem, in New York and progress her career as a dancer. On reaching her final year she went to London with a close friend and they randomly decided to enter some open auditions. They tried out for Cats and also for a new Gerswhin musical called Crazy For You, a new production from Broadway. To her surprise Nicola was called back for the new musical and then got the part and her career took a new turn, instead of going to Harlem she went to London and started her career in the West End. It wasn't the conventional route but it worked. Nowadays Nicola aims to balance work and family as a busy wife and mother of three children. Her children are a key motivation in the decisions she makes when accepting new roles and making sure that the jobs are fulfilling in all ways where she can continue to grow and learn as an actress but still maintain normality in her children's lives.
I asked Nicola who she would love to work with in the future and Sir Nicholas Hytner, English theatre director, film director, and film producer, was the first name that sprang to mind. She would also love to work at the National Theatre and cannot wait for us all to see this new production of Caroline or Change. "It's great to be performing in this after working on projects like Porgy and Bess.
This production has a fantastic cast, music and the amazing Sharon D Clarke who is a brilliant Caroline; this play is going to be very exciting for us and for the audience".


text:
> Miguel-Angel Guerra
Miguel-Angel Guerra
Miguel Angel Guerra, 8th April 1979. Copyright Jutta Fausel, 2020, supplied by Chris Witty. Used with Permission.
Miguel-Angel Guerra, Historic Minardi Day, Imola, Italy, 5th May 2018. Copyright, Vincenzo Zaccaria, 2018. Used with permission.
F2 starts:
Long time touring car driver. Guerra, was, for some years in charge of the Top Race V6 series, a touring car series in Argentina. He left this role in 2014 and for now, still works in motorsport administration, although he is again involved in touring car organisation. Now retired from a very successful racing career, which saw him win multiple Formula 2 and Formula 4 titles in Argentina between 1974 and 1977. However when he moved to Europe in 1978 for a joint crack at Formula 2 and Formula 3, his career faltered. After initially returning to Argentina to race in single-seaters again, he competed in touring cars in 1987, and then stayed in that category for 15 years, winning the TC2000 title in 1989.
Biography last updated 7 Feb 2018
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