text:
Where does April Fools' Day come from and why do we celebrate it?
Olivia WaringSunday 1 Apr 2018 10:42 am
Why does everything go a little bit insane on April 1? (Picture: Getty)
April Fool's Day is a topsy-turvy day of pranks galore, where being cruel is permitted and encouraged for a short, wonderful period.
The first day of April is all about making your friends and family look like mugs, but why has the tradition been around for so long in this country?
Where does the festival of foolery come from? And how does it vary around Britain?
Well, around the UK, the 'fool' is known by various different names, including a noodle, gob, gobby or noddy.
Goeffrey Chaucer and John Aubrey are both responsible for making April Fool's Day a thing in England (Pictures: Wiki Commons)
But the day is not strictly British as it happens in many European countries, as well as Iran, America and India.
Also known as All Fool's Day, the celebration has its possible origins in a story by Canterbury Tales author Geoffrey Chaucer.
The Nun's Priest's Tale, one of the humorous stories from his famous work composed in the 1390s, is about a foolish cockerel and a fox.
Importantly, it's set 'syn March bigan thritty dayes and two'. Readers took this to mean it's set 32 days after the start of March, ie April 1.
However, modern scholars have argued he actually meant May 2, 1381, since they reckon a copying error changed his original words 'syn March was gon thritty days and two'.
There are no obvious literary traces of April Fool's Day for the following 300 years, but in 1686, John Aubrey referred to the celebration as 'Fooles holy day', the first official British reference.
Noah sent the dove out of the Ark on April 1 (Picture: Getty)
Thirteen years later, on April 1, 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to 'see the Lions washed', which was perhaps the first large-scale April Fool in British history.
There is also a somewhat obscure theory that April Fools go all the way back to the Bible, specifically Genesis.
The fact that Noah released the dove from the Ark before the flood was over on April 1 is thought by some to be a bit of a foolish misstep on his part. Theorists believe this led to the echoing of his 'ineffectual' message-sending down the ages.
This does chime in with the Scottish strand of April Fool's Day (traditionally called Hunt the Gowk day), which involves the sending of a fake SOS message in an envelope.
In Scotland they also celebrate Taily Day on April 2 (Picture: Getty)
The pranker asks the prankee to deliver an envelope requesting help, but instead the message inside reads: 'Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile.'
The recipient, upon reading it, will explain they can only help by contacting another person, and sends the victim to this next person with an identical message, producing the same result.
But also in Scotland they celebrate Taily Day on April 1, which involves trying to put 'kick me' signs on people's backs, plus plenty of posterior-based jokes.
Around the world, traditions just as specific as this happen on April 1, with France calling the day 'April Fish' after their custom of trying to secretly attach a paper fish to someone's back.
MORE: All the groan-worthy pranks and stunts from brands this April Fools' Day
MORE: The best April Fools' Day pranks for parents
Man who lives as a Victorian gentleman meets woman of his dreams
Nando's ditches mango and lime flavour and replaces it with passionfruit and mango
Families ripped apart by coronavirus as 'Britain refuses to accept spouses'
Passenger's hips smashed after putting her feet on dashboard in car
Price of beer and wine could be about to go up to pay for nurses and cops
Brits returning from China will be quarantined 'at military base' for two weeks
Remainer wants people to draw swastikas on new 50p Brexit coins


text:
Healey were motorcycles produced from 1971 to 1976, in Redditch, Worcestershire.
1971 -1972 After Ariel stopped producing the Square Four (also known as the Squariel), the Healey Brothers were left hunting for spares. Following that, they made them themselves and eventually went into business to supply others. That then led to the building of a complete machine by adapting an Egli spine frame and using pivoted rear suspension instead of the Ariel link system. The frame also carried the engine oil, there was a front tie-bar to support the engine and Metal Profile forks were fitted. By using wire wheels with Italian hubs and alloy rims, the result combined the old Squariel looks in a modern frame.
1973 By now, they were fitting disc front brakes.
1974 Alternators were used.
1976 The brothers were now using cast-alloy wheels and a rear disc-brake. There were also styling changes. However, because of the limited market and the expense of production, no more were made beyond the end of the year.
The British Motorcycle Directory - Over 1,100 Marques from 1888 - by Roy Bacon and Ken Hallworth. Pub: The Crowood Press 2004 ISBN 1 86126 674 X
[1] Ian Chadwick's motorcycle web site
Retrieved from "https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/index.php?title=Healey&oldid=258858"

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Development Team (DT)
GRIP Development Team is a team consisting of international experts who serve as an advisory board for the work and long-term plans of the research programme. The Development Team is in charge of designing and monitoring a programme of activities, creating a structure for GRIP detailing the roles and contributions of its teams in different parts of the world, and developing a resourcing plan to support the agreed agenda and structure.
The Development Team also guides scientific and outreach activities, works towards establishing an international network of GRIP researchers, ensures ISC participation in GRIP activities, monitors developments in relevant studies and research and their implications for GRIP, reaches out to and seeks the involvement of relevant international organisations, and contributes to fundraising for its activities. The Development Team is operative from the first half of 2021.
Askildsen, Jan Erik
GRIP Development Team
Denis, Mathieu
International Science Council
Fuh, Divine
Hickel, Jason
University of Barcelona
Power, Maddy
Reis, Elisa
Rieker, Martina
The American University of Cairo
Sieder, Rachel
CIESAS
Sundar, Nandini


text:
TheArmchairExplorer - New Jersey
New Jersey - The Garden State
The first European settlers in what is now New Jersey were from Holland and Sweden. The Dutch built forts all through the area but their settlements were mostly around the Hudson River. The Swedes settled around the Delaware River, Fort Cristina (in what is now Wilmington, Delaware) being their center of business and government. The Dutch military arrived in 1655 and asserted their claim to New Sweden, incorporating that territory into New Netherland.
Then the British took over from the Dutch in 1664. Charles II gave the land between New England and Maryland to the Duke of York (who later became King James II), who gave the land between the Delaware River and the Hudson River to two of his staunchest supporters: Lord Berkeley of Stratton and Sir George Carteret. They named the property the Province of New Jersey.
For the next ten years, most settlers in the area came from New England, and they concentrated on the areas around New York and the Hudson River. In 1673, the Quakers of England bought Berkeley's half of New Jersey and began sending Quaker settlers to the Delaware River valley. That led to New Jersey being governed as two "provinces": East and West Jersey, up until 1702.
In 1702, Edward Hyde was appointed the royal governor of New Jersey and the two "provinces" were re-united under his control. However, Hyde was corrupt and ineffective as governor (he had a thing for speculating on land and taking bribes), so he was removed in 1708. For the next 30 years, the government of New Jersey was run by the governors of New York. Then King George II appointed Judge Lewis Morris to be the governor of New Jersey in 1738.
However that government was run, however the citizens of New Jersey were treated, the New Jersey legislature declared its independence from Great Britain two days before the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. That New Jersey State Constitution gave the vote to everyone who had a certain level of wealth, including single women and African-Americans (married women were considered property and were not allowed to own anything separate from their husbands).
Several major battles of the Revolutionary War were fought in New Jersey, and the revolutionary army spent two winters in quarters at Morristown. During the summer of 1783, the Continental Congress spent four months in meetings at Princeton University, making Princeton the de facto capital of the United States for those four months. It was while they were meeting at Princeton that they learned the Treaty of Paris had been signed and the war was over.
New Jersey became the third state to ratify the United States Constitution on December 18, 1787. A major impetus for that was to stop New York and Pennsylvania from charging tariffs on goods imported from Europe and keeping the money for themselves. New Jersey was the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights on November 20, 1789.
New slavery was abolished in New Jersey in 1804 and existing slavery was slowly phased out. By the end of the Civil War, only about a dozen African-Americans were in the position of being "apprenticed freedmen." Both times Abraham Lincoln ran for President, he did not win in New Jersey.
The Statue of Liberty and Jersey City
The New Jersey State House in Trenton
Fast Facts about New Jersey
Capital: Trenton
Largest City: Newark
Admitted to the Union: December 18, 1787 : 3rd
Area: 8,729 square miles : 47th
Highest Point: High Point : 1,803'
Lowest Point: Atlantic Ocean : 0'
2010 New Jersey Population Demographics
Population by Ethnicity
Non Hispanic or Latino
Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
Photo of the Statue of Liberty courtesy of Wikipedia userid Laslovarga, CCA-by-SA 3.0 License
Photo of the George Washington Bridge courtesy of the National Park Service
Photo of the New Jersey State House courtesy of Marion Touvel
Other photos courtesy of Byways.org and the US Fish & Wildlife Service
Map courtesy of Cartesia MapArt US Terrain


Michele Neylon, CEO of, Blacknight, announces his election as Chair of the Registrar Stakeholder Group of ICANN (International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the first European to ever hold the position.
The Registrar Stakeholder Group (RrSG) is one of several Stakeholder Groups within the ICANN community and is the representative body of domain name Registrars worldwide. It is a diverse and active group that works to ensure the interests of Registrars and their customers are effectively advanced.
The chair, in consultation with the executive committee and members, organises the work of the Stakeholder Group and conducts RrSG meetings. The chair often confers with others in the ICANN community on Registrar-related policy and business issues, and is the primary point of contact between the RrSG and ICANN staff. Neylon has previously served as the Secretary to the RrSG and is the only European member of the executive committee.
Neylon was first elected to the RSG on October 16th 2012. He has long been a trusted member and advisor to the Internet governance community and is in excellent standing within the ICANN community. Neylon's election as Chair of the RSG came as no surprise and was agreed upon unanimously by its members.
"Congratulations to Michele Neylon on his election as Chair of the RrSG...with all of his years of participation in Internet governance and ICANN, I can think of no one more qualified for this post and look forward to his successful leadership of the group during this critical time, " said Matt Serlin, outgoing Chair of the RrS.
Since the formation of ICANN, the Registrar Stakeholder Group has been the voice and advocacy organisation for Registrars and their customers and has played a very active role in policy development and other ICANN processes.


text:
Why more states are giving juvenile offenders a second chance
John Colin Marston
This piece originally appeared on the Christian Science Monitor.
hen Marshan Allen was a teen in Chicago, he says he faced a tough choice: Go to class or help his older brother. The issue: His brother was selling drugs, as were many people on the South Side of Chicago in the 1990s.
"I was surrounded by cocaine.... My mom, my uncle, the neighborhood," he says. "My older brother James began selling drugs, and I was doing chores for him to make extra money."
One day in March 1992 he stole a van. Two of his brother's friends drove it during a bungled drug deal in which they killed two teenagers. Mr. Allen stayed in the van during the killing, according to court documents, but he was still convicted on two counts of first-degree murder. That's because of a legal theory of accountability that said an accomplice could be sentenced to the same crime as the chief perpetrator.
About these ads
The judge sentenced Allen to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was 15. At the time, with crime rates surging, lawmakers in both parties argued that juveniles who committed "adult crime" deserve "adult time."
"I was crying like a baby," Allen says. "I should be held accountable for my crime, but I didn't think that specific sentence was fair."
Ultimately, neither did the United States Supreme Court. In 2012, the court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that the mandatory sentencing of juveniles to life without the possibility of parole was unconstitutional. The youngest offenders have "diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform," and to require those mandatory sentences without considering features of youth constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, Justice Elena Kagan wrote.
This ruling was followed by a 2016 decision that applied Miller retroactively to all prisoners given mandatory sentences of life without parole as juveniles. Thousands of inmates were suddenly up for resentencing, and juvenile justice experts say it helped begin a nationwide reform of juvenile sentencing in state legislatures and courts.
"In so many ways, states are rolling back the mistakes of the 1980s and 1990s [and realizing] that when young people make mistakes, they are still capable of rehabilitation," says Joshua Rovner, senior advocacy associate at The Sentencing Project in Washington. "Young people in general are entitled to fairness and opportunities to reform."
Before 2012, only a handful of states did not use guidelines for mandatory life sentences without parole. Today not only are the mandatory sentences gone, 21 states and the District of Columbia prohibit judges from sentencing any juveniles to life without parole – most recently in Washington State, whose Supreme Court found that the sentence violated the state's constitution in October.
The shift comes at a time of movement away from incarceration in the juvenile justice system toward second chances, as more is learned about how young minds develop until age 25. In the process, some states are moving toward newer forms of accountability, such as offering more opportunities for mediation between a victim and a perpetrator.
"We've made incarceration such a normal thing in this country that sending a young person away for any period of time, especially kids of color, wasn't considered an unusual thing," says Marc Schindler, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute in Washington. "[W]hat we've seen recently is a swing in juvenile courts from a punitive approach to more treatment."
One of the first states to heavily invest in "community-based alternatives" was Missouri. About 30 years ago, the state started replacing youth prisons with a continuum of care, from treatment centers to secure residential facilities in Missouri's state parks. Since 2013, it has reported a steadily declining rate of commitments and recommitments; overall, Missouri has one of the lowest youth recidivism rates in the country.
There's also a push nationwide for young adults to have more access to therapeutic social services. Connecticut, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia are all pioneering forms of treatment for those between the ages of 18 and 24 in adult prisons.
While broad changes are shifting the juvenile justice system toward rehabilitation, and Congress may be looking at the first real criminal justice reform in a generation with the First Step Act, many states that once gave mandatory life sentences to youth are now using de facto life sentences of 40 to 60 years. The courts have yet to take up the constitutionality of those sentences.
"There are people who think that the criminal justice system can solve problems that it isn't able to. That you can just lock people up, but that doesn't work," said Mr. Rovner.
In Illinois, Allen spent 24 years, eight months, and two days behind bars before the Supreme Court ruling enabled him to earn his release. Before his release in 2017, he got his GED certificate, a paralegal certificate, a business management certificate – even an associate degree. "It wasn't always easy to do something positive in a very negative environment. There's a lot of misery there from the guards and the prisoners," says Allen. Now, he works as a project manager for the Restore Justice Foundation in Chicago, where he is lobbying to pass a bill to restore parole opportunities for children facing sentences longer than 10 years. "It was a great feeling to come home and be out of that place and know I was able to start my life over again – to start anew."


text:
<?php
namespace BuKoli\Exception;

/**
 * @author      Zeki Unal <zekiunal@gmail.com>
 * @description
 *
 * @package     BuKoli\Exception
 * @name        InvalidArgumentException
 * @version     0.1
 * @created     2015/10/31 23:56
 */
class InvalidArgumentException extends \Exception
{

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


In this paper, the behaviour of Ghana's imports during the period 1970-2002 is studied using disaggregated expenditure components of total national income. We use the newly developed bounds testing approach to cointegration and estimated an error correction model to separate the short- and long-run elements of the import demand relationship. The study shows inelastic import demand for all the expenditure components and relative price. In the long-run, investment and exports are the major determinant of movements in imports in Ghana. In the short run household and government consumption expenditures is the major determinant of import demand. Import demand is not very sensitive to price changes.
Abbott, A.J. and Seddighi, H.R., (1996). "Aggregate imports and expenditure components in the UK: an empirical analysis", Applied Economics, Vol. 28, pp. 1119-25. Agbola F.W. and M.Y. Damoense (2005), "Time-series estimation of import demand functions for pulses in India" Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 32 No. 2, 2005, pp. 146-157. Emerald Group Publishing Limited Bank of Ghana, Bank of Ghana Statistical Bulletin, various issues Carone, G. (1996). "Modeling the US demand for imports through cointegration and error correction", Journal of Policy Modeling, Vol. 18, pp. 1-48. Giovannetti, G. (1989). "Aggregate imports and expenditure components in Italy: an econometric analysis", Applied Economics, Vol. 21, pp. 957-71. Goldstein, M. and Khan, M., (1985). "Income and Price Effects in Foreign Trade". In Handbook of International Economics, Vol. 2 (Jones, R. and Kenen, P. Ed.). Amsterdam and New York, North-Holland, Elsevier, pp1041-1105. Ho, W.S. (2004). "Estimating Macao's Import Demand Functions", Monetary Authority of Macao. Hong, P. (1999). "Import Elasticities Revisited", DESA Discussion Paper Series, ST/ESA/1999/DP.10, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The United Nations. Johansen (1988). "Statistical Analysis of Cointegrating Vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamic and Control, Vol.12, pp 231-54. Johansen and Juselius, (1990). "Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference on Cointegration with Applications the Demand for Money, "Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Vo1 52, No.2, 169-210. Johansen, et al, (1991). "Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Cointegration Vector Autoregressive Models", Econometrica, Vol. 59, 1551-1580. Magee, S.P. (1975). "Prices, income and foreign trade: a survey of recent economic studies", in Kenen, P.B. (Ed.), International Trade and Finance: Frontiers for Research, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Min, B.S., Mohammed, H.A. and Tang, T.C., (2002). "An analysis of South Korea's import demand", Journal of Asia Pacific Affairs, Vol. 4, pp. 1-17. Mohammed, H.A. and Tang, T.C., (2000). "Aggregate imports and expenditure components in Malaysia: a cointegration and error correction analysis", ASEAN Economic Bulletin, Vol. 17, pp. 257-69. Mohammed, H.A. and J. Othman (2001). "Aggregate Import Demand and Expenditure Components in five ASEAN Countries: An Empirical Study," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Vol. 35, 37-60. Narayan, P.K. (2004), "Reformulating critical values for the bounds F-statictics approach to cointegration: an application to the tourism demand model for Fiji", Department of Economics Discussion Papers N0.02/04, Monash University, Melbourne. Narayan, P.K. and Narayan, S., (2005). "An empirical analysis of Fiji's import demand function", Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 32 No. 2, 2005, pp. 158-168. Emerald Group Publishing Limited Pesaran, M.H., Shin, Yong Cheol and Smith, R., (2001). "Bound Testing Approaches to the Analysis of Level Relationships". Journal of Applied Econometrics, 16, 289-326. Phillips, P.C.B. and Perron, P., (1988). "Testing for a Unit Root in Time Series Regression," Biometrika, 75, 335–346. Senhadji, A. (1998). "Time-series estimation of structural import demand equations: a cross-country analysis", IMF Staff Papers, Vol. 45 No. 2, pp. 236-68. Sinha, D. (1997), "Determinants of import demand in Thailand", International Economic Journal, Vol. 11, pp. 73-83. Tambi N. E. (1998), "Trade liberalization effects on commodity imports in Cameroon", Journal of Economic Studies, Volume 25 Number 3 1998 pp. 193-202 Tang, T.C. (2003). "An empirical analysis of China's aggregate import demand function", China Economic Review, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 142-63.


No, you were talking about 256-bit scalars, or some such. That doesn't even make sense, not least because Itanium only had 64-bit.
SSE is 128-bit, so even if you were suggesting Intel didn't add 128-bit scalar support for the sake of market segmentation, I still say it's nonsense.
OK I might have been a little unclear on that one, sorry. What I was referring to there was the address bus width since addressing large amounts of RAM is what the big enterprise users where after.
So you really don't agree that Intel dragged their feet with 64-bit x86 due to them wanting to push the enterprises to IA64? That's the story I've heard over and over (which of course does not make it true).
Exactly this. A vector scales linearly in power consumption and space wasted on the die. Double the width, double the cost (and performance).
Meanwhile, a multiply for example scales roughly quadratically. So a 64-bit multiply is 4 times more complex than a 32-bit multiply. 128-bit multiply is 16 times more complex, etc. And if you ever only use it for small numbers that's a lot of wasted power for no reason.
For vectors, obviously 32-bit is twice as fast as 64-bit, because you can simply fit twice as much data in a single instruction.
I often like your posts, like that one; when you're calm & friendly.
Because nobody needs 256-bit addressing and only a few more need to compute with 256-bit scalars.
And, just maybe because register and ALU width ain't free. Worse, if you look at how ALU operations are implemented, you're increasing the critical path length by at least log2(n) for n-bit wordlength. So, a wider chip will not only be hotter and bigger (and thus more expensive), but also slower.
Compare that with vector arithmetic, and element-wise operations on a k-element vector only occupy k times as much as the same logic and datapath for operating on a single one of those elements.
Seriously, WTF? Quit yer trollin'.
The bottom line is it wouldn't really matter "what" caused the improvement, just that there is an improvement.
But again it's interesting that the only one putting up real-world results is getting attacked.
Attacked? All I did was point out that the picture is more complex than you seemed to realize.
Go back and read my first reply - I just asked a question - one that, if you'd really tried to answer it, should've lead you to my point.
Is your ego really so fragile that you're threatened by such a question? Would you prefer I said nothing, only to miss a chance to learn something? I'd happily leave you alone, if that's what you want.
Again, a question: what is this really showing us? Is it showing how fast the CPU can write data to cache (or RAM), or is it showing how fast it can write one word at a time?
I wonder what you'd get by just using the most-optimized memset(). I guess probably little or no difference between 32-bit and 64-bit modes.
I don't know if it matters, but this has an extra argument - '1'.
Last edited by coder; 02-04-2019, 08:38 PM.
and more to the point, if you already have designed your CPU to be able to manipulate a 256-bit value then why not also expand the ALUs to the same?
The only reason imho that Intel not did that when they introduced the SIMD instructions was due to politics (aka they wanted people to move to Itanium).


text:
La chiesa dei Santi Cosma e Damiano a Secondigliano è una chiesa di Napoli, sita nel quartiere di Secondigliano in piazza Luigi di Nocera, nome dell'ex sindaco dell'allora comune autonomo, nel 1926 annesso alla città di Napoli.

Storia
La costruzione della chiesa fu decisa nel 1695, dagli abitanti del quartiere di Secondigliano a seguito dei frequenti eventi sismici di fine XVII secolo. I terremoti resero inagibile la struttura precedente molto più antica (VIII secolo), che dovette essere interamente ricostruita.
La riedificazione fu resa possibile grazie ad una sottoscrizione cui parteciparono la Confraternita del Santissimo Sacramento e tutto il popolo. I lavori incominciarono nel 1703 e terminarono l'anno successivo.

Descrizione
La facciata mostra un timpano di forma triangolare, spezzato: posto sopra al portale d'accesso, segna l'ingresso alla struttura.

Il portale è caratterizzato da tre lesene per ogni lato con capitelli ionici. La chiesa ha un'unica navata e si conclude con un coro rettangolare e l'altare maggiore, costituito da preziosi marmi; vi sono quattro cappelle su ciascun lato; mentre, il coro è preceduto da due cappelle, e forma un transetto coperto, nell'impostazione centrale, dalla bella cupola.
La navata centrale è caratterizzata dalla volta costolonata, mentre, il battistero è collocato sulla destra della navata stessa. Sul davanti si trova un bel campanile che si svolge su quattro livelli, costituito da un basamento in bugnato (lavori del 1721).

Nella chiesa sono custodite diverse opere d'arte di grande valore, come: la pala d'altare di Giacomo Farelli sui santi titolari, le due tele laterali del coro attribuite a Giuseppe Marullo, gli affreschi della volta di Giuseppe Simonelli (ridipinti nella seconda metà dell'Ottocento da Alfonso Simonetti), una Deposizione su tela di Nicola Vaccaro (collocata nella sacrestia) e un pregevole crocifisso ligneo di Nicola Fumo (datato 1692).

Notevoli sono anche le due acquasantiere del XVIII secolo poste all'ingresso, nelle quali sono stati scolpiti a rilievo i volti dei santi patroni della chiesa.

Ai rimaneggiamenti, condotti tra il 1863 e il 1867, risalgono: il pulpito che poggia su due colonnine ioniche di marmo, il maestoso organo sopra l'ingresso, il restauro degli stucchi e degli affreschi della volta e il rivestimento delle cappelle con zoccolature in marmo.

Sono annessi alla chiesa due oratori: quello della Confraternita del Santissimo Sacramento e quello della Confraternita dell'Assunta. Entrambi sono dotati di un altare maggiore in marmi policromi e di varie opere pittoriche.

Note

Voci correlate
Napoli
Chiese di Napoli

Cosma e Damiano ai Banchi Nuovi Chiesa dei Santi
Napoli

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
What We Are Reading Today: GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History
What We Are Reading Today: GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History /node/1719191/books
https://arab.news/m8axy
Author: Diane Coyle
Why did the size of the US economy increase by 3 percent in one day in mid-2013—or Ghana's balloon by 60 percent overnight in 2010? Why did the UK financial industry show its fastest expansion ever at the end of 2008—just as the world's financial system went into meltdown? And why was Greece's chief statistician charged with treason in 2013 for apparently doing nothing more than trying to accurately report the size of his country's economy? The answers to all these questions lie in the way we define and measure national economies around the world: Gross Domestic Product. This entertaining and informative book tells the story of GDP, making sense of a statistic that appears constantly in the news, business, and politics, and that seems to rule our lives—but that hardly anyone actually understands.
Diane Coyle traces the history of this artificial, abstract, complex, but exceedingly important statistic from its 18th- and 19th-century precursors through its invention in the 1940s and its postwar golden age, and then through the Great Crash up to today.
The reader learns why this standard measure of the size of a country's economy was invented.
Topics: What We Are Reading Today
What We Are Reading Today: Two Cheers for Higher Education by Steven Brint
What We Are Reading Today: Introduction to Social Neuroscience
What We Are Reading Today: Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory by Gregory S. Kavka /node/1792236/books
What We Are Reading Today: Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory by Gregory S. Kavka
In recent years serious attempts have been made to systematize and develop the moral and political themes of great philosophers of the past.
Kant, Locke, Marx, and the classical utilitarians all have their current defenders and arc taken seriously as expositors of sound moral and political views.
It is the aim of this book to introduce Hobbes into this select group by presenting a plausible moral and political theory inspired by Leviathan.
Using the techniques of analytic philosophy and elementary game theory, the author develops a Hobbesian argument that justifies the liberal State and reconciles the rights and interests of rational individuals with their obligations.
Hobbes's case against anarchy, based on his notorious claim that life outside the political State would be a "war of all against all," is analyzed in detail, while his endorsement of the absolutist State is traced to certain false hypotheses about political sociology.
With these eliminated, Hobbes's principles support a liberal redistributive (or "satisfactory") State and a limited right of revolution.
Turning to normative issues, the book explains Hobbes's account of morality based on enlightened self-interest and shows how the Hobbesian version of social contract theory justifies the political obligations of citizens of satisfactory States.
Topics: Book Review Gregory S. Kavka
What We Are Reading Today: Epic and Empire by David Quint
What We Are Reading Today: What Is a Bird?


s::can's robust spectrometer probes can measure optical spectra from 190 to 720 nm submersed directly in liquid media.
Can measure multiple water quality parameters continuously (on-line) and directly in the water without the need for complex and maintenance intensive sample pre-treatment.
s::can optical sensors come precalibrated, providing reliable and accurate measurement of dissolved oxygen, TS, TSS and MLSS with temperature compensation.
Powerful s::can software and compact terminals with extensive connection capability.
Fully modular s::can monitoring stations combine powerful s::can instruments in a compact and versatile system.
Electrochemical sensors from s::can - obtain high precision real time readings in the most adverse conditions.


Appointments can be booked online: follow the 'Online Services' page on the 'Quick Links' section to the right.
You can book an appointments every morning and afternoon: please telephone for an appointment or come to the surgery. Generally these are 08:20 to 10:40 and 15:00 to 17:30, though these may vary according to other commitments, minor surgery lists etc.
Nurse appointments are by appointment only.
The doctor and nurse are available to talk to by telephone. Please call the surgery to request a telephone consultation.
Surgery appointments are usually of 10 minutes duration. If you feel that your problem needs to be discussed at greater length, then please request a longer appointment.
Consultations are provided by appointment. However, in the event of a routine appointment not being available, patients requiring urgent medical care will always be seen at the end of normal surgery.
Dr Kelham holds telephone consultations after normal surgery. These are available for all patients who do not necessarily need to see the Doctor face to face. If you do require this service, please give brief details of the problem to our Receptionist; you will then be given a time that the Doctor will contact you after morning surgery.


Cryptocurrency operates in a much different way than traditional money. One of the aspects that stands in great contrast to fiat money is how cryptos are produced. On the whole, new crypto coins are generated through mining, wherein miners solve difficult mathematical equations to place a record of a transaction as well as gain new coins.
As time goes by, a specific issue with mining becomes more and more prominent. It even calls into question the future of cryptocurrency in general or at least one of its core principles.
It's become abundantly clear that there's a lot of money to be made with cryptos. One needs only look at, for instance, Bitcoin's historical value to see this. Even with its volatility, it has been able to turn a hefty profit with a relatively minor investment.
Well, that was, at least, the case some years ago. Things aren't so simple anymore. While it was once comparably easy to pay dividends with crypto mining, the state of this market has grown highly inhospitable to newcomers.
In short — because of mining pools.
Mining pools are collaborative mining operations that employ an enormous amount of computational power. And they can get crazy good at it. At one point, Bitmain's pools controlled 41% percent of Bitcoin's hashrate (though Bitmain has come to hard times recently).
These pools came about largely as an adaptation to proof-of-work. The idea of solving complex problems to change a blockchain works well for keeping it safe in trustless interactions. However, they take a lot of energy to solve, so it naturally follows that the one with the most computational power gets the lion's share of coin mining.
Pools took that logic and ran with it, creating the cutthroat climate we see today. Essentially, it's now exceedingly hard for an aspiring mining business to get its foot in the door, and practically impossible for the average Joe to do so.
The ills hardly stop there, unfortunately. The mining system has led to what could be considered its main problem to date.
With entities like Bitmain holding the monopoly on mining, an argument can be made that this kind of environment has encouraged centralization, a notion many cryptos were meant to oppose. This has raised concerns about potential abuses of power.
Should a single pool control the majority of a blockchain's hashrate, it in a way becomes its de facto ruler. This could result in what is commonly referred to as a 51% attack. Though it cannot exactly do whatever it pleases, the attacker can play the system in a few ways.
For one, it becomes possible for this pool to control what data goes into the blockchain. This enables it to effectively freeze the blockchain, or deny any addition that doesn't suit them for whatever reason.
Secondly, this group could rewrite the ledger's history, thus being able to double spend. In simple terms, double spending is the act of using a coin to buy something, and then rewriting the ledger to make it as though you had never spent it in the first place.
It's important to note, however, that a full-on takeover would be costly, and while large scale cases are few and far between (it has never happened to Bitcoin), it's becoming more commonplace on smaller blockchains.
If unchecked, this kind of rule over a crypto platform could potentially pose a real threat down the line.
It's heartening, then, to hear that solutions to this problem do exist. The BetterHash protocol is definitely a step in the direction of redistributing hash power more equally. Additionally, the Proof-of-Stake concept could take the pressure off of crypto competitors, though it's still debatable if it would perform better than proof-of-work.
And if everything else fails, individuals can take it upon themselves to disperse from the currently most dominant pool, like what happened with Ghash a few years ago.
Centralization may prove to be the biggest hurdle for crypto mining yet. While proof-of-work remains a sensible solution to many other problems, it also opens the door to power imbalances. Certain measures can and will alleviate the issue, but it's vital to apply them before it's too late.


Left in charge of La Jolla's venerable California Hotel by the weekend absence of his charmless boss--who's fired the chief of hotel security on his way out the door--assistant general manager Am Caulfield juggles an improbable bunch of ninnies and knaves. Conventioning contractor Tim Kelly has capped his evening on the town by jumping from his seventh-floor window (but did he jump?). Overendowed Las Vegas entertainer Kris Carr reports the theft of four gargantuan brassieres. Executive chef Marcel Charvet, who's finally found out what the staff mean when they say he's been serving road kill, vindictively prepares the real thing, opossum Meurtre de la Route, for an eminent food critic. And in addition to the everyday crises posed by the Whining Weintraubs and Mr. Harmon, the compulsive adulterator of liquor in the guest-room honor bars, estranged husband Carlton Smoltz has killed his wife and her lawyer-lover in 605 and then gone underground as one of 175 eponymous participants in the Bob Johnson Society--all of which makes more trouble for the actors trying to entertain the remaining Bob Johnsons by staging a Murder Mayhem Weekend. This waggish take on Grand Hotel reveals a new side--corny, but winsome--of the usually downbeat Russell (The Forest Prime Evil, 1992). Am seems poised for a series, though you've got to wonder what else could go wrong at the California.


These handmade Sterling Silver Floral Circle Earring Studs include 3mm Tourmaline cabochon gemstones. They are each approximately 3/8" in diameter. They are light in weight and perfect to wear everyday.
The earrings are cast, then polished to get a beautiful finish, and the stones are each hand set in a bezel setting.


text:
(video) Thousands of Afrin's displaced people demonstrate at the headquarters of the Russian Forces north of Aleppo, denouncing the Turkish practices along with their loyal factions in Afrin
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored a mass demonstration carried out by thousands of Afrin city's displaced people and its countryside at the international road linking Aleppo and the Turkish border in the northern countryside of Aleppo, where there is a headquarters of the Russian Forces in Kasht'aar village, where the demonstration is considered the third of its kind since the Turkish Forces and the Syrian factions loyal to them controlled Afrin, also this demonstration came after the Turkish Forces built a separation wall separating Afrin from the north of Aleppo, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented through video a large-scale demolition and bulldozing of homes and properties of civilians in Jalbal village, and the construction of the separation wall by the Turkish Army in the villages of Mrimin, Kimar, and Jalbal, where the demonstration was organized near the wall about 7 km away of it, and the demonstrators also raised pictures of their children who were killed during military operations by the Turkish Forces in area Afrin.
The Syrian Observatory also learned that the displaced people formed a delegation to discuss with the Russian Forces' leadership in the area, where the delegation had a meeting in the headquarters for about a whole hour, in which both parties discussed the demands of the displaced people and their situation in the area, the delegation also presented a petition on behalf of the people to the Russian leadership included several requests, such as: "intervening to immediately stop the construction of the separation wall, terminating the Russian – Turkish agreements regarding Afrin and the Syrian north, ending the Turkish occupation of Afrin, sending a fact-checking commission to Afrin, removing the political and diplomatic cover in order to bring leaders to international courts because of their crimes against civilians," and the Russian side confirmed that it will transfer the message of the people to the Russian leadership in Hmeimim and reply within days.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published on the 19th of April 2019 that one day after another, the Turkish goals within the Syrian territory become clear through their forces on the ground accompanied by the Syrian factions loyal to them , especially in Afrin area, which they control over a year ago, where the Turkish procedures are accelerating in order to erase the identity of the area, where -besides the daily violations against the remaining residents of Afrin in their areas of theft, royalties, arrests, and heavy security tightening; the Turkish Forces in the past few days have been building new military headquarters, and building isolation walls in several villages of Afrin, in particular, those in contact with the areas that the regime forces and the Russian Forces are deployed in at the northern countryside of Aleppo, where the Syrian Observatory documented by video the demolition and bulldozing of large number of houses, such as in Jalbal village, where the Turkish Forces have been doing that in the village, they also uprooted hundreds of olive trees as happened in Kimar village 8 km southeast of Afrin.
The villages in which part of the wall is built are the villages of Kimar, an archeological village, located 8 km southeast of Afrin city center, Jalil village 8 km east of Afrin city center, and Mrimin village 7 km northeast of Afrin city center, where the work was suspended after Kurdish forces targeted the machines in the past few days, also the heavy rains that have fallen in the area during the past two days and have prevented them from continuing the construction of the wall, the height of the wall is 3 meters and it will play in the first stage the security belt mission, and would later separate Afrin area from its Syrian surrounding once it has been completed, which is currently being built under the eyes of the Russian Forces, who are now playing the role of protector of Turkish plans north and northwest of Aleppo area, and also in front of the regime forces who cannot say or do anything, at a time when the Kurdish Forces there are under great pressure from Russia in implementation for the Putin – Erdogan agreements.
In addition to the construction of the wall; the Turkish intelligence and its allied Syrian factions have removed the Syrian communications towers from Afrin area and installed Turkish telecom towers instead, where all communication lines have become now under the Turkish surveillance, and the communication with the Syrian interior became more difficult, and the Syrian Observatory published on the 10th of April 2019 that the Turkish Forces and factions of "Olive Branch" which are supported by them; continue to do whatever they please in Afrin city and its countryside after more than a year of controlling it, carrying out various forms of violations on a daily basis against Afrin people and their livelihoods, property, and land, where the Syrian Observatory monitored a new form of the continuous violations, where the Turkish forces brought digging and demolition machines a few days ago to Shirowa Township in the countryside of Afrin city, specifically, Jalbal village, which belongs to the Township, where they began more than 5 days the operations of dredging, destroying, and demolition of houses of villagers from which they were displaced after the Turks and their loyal factions controlled it March 2018, and sources in the area informed the Syrian Observatory that a large number of houses were demolished and destroyed in addition to the school of the village, the village's hall, and other facilities and buildings there, but until now the intention and Turkish goal behind this demolition was not known, also the Syrian Observatory learned that the Turkish Forces built a separation wall in Jalbal village as well, and the Syrian Observatory published on the 4th of April 2019 that the people of Afrin city and its countryside who preferred to stay in their homes and lands; continue to pay the price of refusing to be displaced away from their area, where barely a day passes without violations by the Turkey-backed factions of "Olive Branch" Operation against the people Afrin and its countryside, such as seizing property, arbitrary arrests, kidnapping, theft and torture, and the Syrian Observatory monitored more of these practices, where the Syrian Observatory learned that members from al-Sultan Murad faction expelled a Kurdish family from their house near Marata roundabout in Afrin city, on the pretext of "not having ownership documents," while members of the same faction seized another house and a commercial shop owned by a person, under the pretext of "the property's ownership is registered in the name of his father who resides in Aleppo," and in Qermetlaq village in the countryside of Afrin city the Syrian Observatory's sources reported that; al-Sultan Suleiman Shah Faction imposed a royalty on some residents of the village, some is which reached $500 USED per person, without providing any arguments or reasons for that, while gunmen kidnapped the director of a Music Institute and Performing Arts in Jandairis area, and he was taken to an unknown destination, and in Maabatli area; the Syrian Observatory learned that members from al-Montasir Billah faction arrested a man and a woman from Habbo village, and they took them to an unknown destination, but no information about the reasons for the arrest until now.
The Syrian Observatory published yesterday that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that factions of the Operation "Olive Branch" arrested again the member of the Kurdish-Syrian National Council in Afrin city today afternoon, Wednesday the 3rd of April 2019, where he was taken to unknown destination without information so far about the reasons for arresting him, it is noteworthy that the member of the Council was arrested previously in Afrin before being released on bail, and the Syrian Observatory published hours ago, that the Turkish Forces who control Afrin area and lead the "Olive Branch" Operation Forces; are still arresting leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Afrin, Hussain Ibish, who is the president of the Kurdish National Council in Afrin, amid popular dissatisfaction with the process the arrests and hundreds of previous kidnappings and detentions carried out by the Turkish authorities; against citizens residents of Afrin on charges of belonging to the Kurdish forces, communicating with them, and belonging to cells working for them, and the reliable sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that the Turkish Forces are dodging and lying by claiming to be "ridding Afrin area of YPG while arresting people who oppose these units," and the Syrian Observatory also monitored the arrest of a director of one of the music conservatory in the southwestern countryside of Afrin, on the pretext of belonging to the Kurdish Units, after arresting his father earlier and arresting him several times by the factions controlling Afrin area, while the factions controlling Afrin expelled a family from Afrin city under the pretext of not owning property papers that proves their ownership of the estate, also a man and a woman from a village in the countryside of Maabatli were arrested by factions controlling the area, while an Islamic faction imposed amounts of money reached about $500 USD on citizens from Qarmatl village, but no information about the reasons of the imposed royalty, and as the arrests continue, it rose to about 2680, the number of arrested citizens including more than 1085 people who are still in detention, while the rest were released after most of them paid ransom imposed by members of the "Olive Branch" Operation, sometimes it reached more than 10 million Syrian pounds, where the Syrian Observatory monitored more than once that the factions send audio or video clips to families of the abducted people, and impose money without bargaining, along with threats of liquidating their relatives if the desired amount of money was not paid, also the factions who were given authority by Turkey in the area -after international silence that has given power to Turkey in Afrin- carried out arrests against both genders, men and women, after these factions turned the kidnappings and ransom on charges the most prominent of which are "belonging to the Kurdish Forces and communicating and working for them", where kidnapping for a ransom has become a popular trade adopted by most factions, in an attempt to collect the largest possible amount of money, and to clamp down on the remaining population in the region, and the SOHR monitored that the factions have transferred abductees to detention and custody centers made up of civilian homes that were seized and turned by them into headquarters for the pro-Turkey factions, which share influence and property in Afrin, and from time to time carry out looting and confiscation of property and funds.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published on the 29th of March 2019 that Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that the so-called military police in Afrin city, which is controlled by the Turkey-supported factions of "Olive Branch", arrested 9 teachers including a school principal in al-Ashrafyyeh neighborhood in the city from two adjacent schools, where they were taken to an unknown destination until now, and no information about the reasons of the arrest so far, and the Syrian Observatory published on the 20th of March 2019 that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned from a number of reliable sources, that factions operating within the operation "Olive Branch" arrested a number of men and young men in Kafr Safra area and other areas of Afrin countryside, on charge of "celebrating Nowruz festival and setting fires in its anniversary", and the arrests come on the eve of Nowruz which is celebrated worldwide by the Kurds every year on the 21st of March, where the Kurds tend set fires in the villages and over the hills celebrating a historic symbolic anniversary of them, while the Syrian Observatory published about 48 hours ago, that has received a copy of a circulation issued by the local councils in the area, reporting that there will not be a holiday on the 20th of March 2019, or on any other day, there will never be a holiday in Nowruz, and all of the official institutions will continue their work on the 21st of the same month, and the citizens will not be allowed in Nowruz to protest, setting fire to tires, celebrate or take pleasure, after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had documented that fighters of the factions operating within Operation "Olive Branch" have destroyed the statue of the Kurdish symbol "Kaveh the Blacksmith", whose statue was placed in one of the squares of Afrin city, which is coincided with approaching the festivals of Nowruz which is held every year on the 21st of March.
Afrin witnessed massacres and killing operations claimed the lives of 389 civilians including 55 children and 36 women of civilian citizens of the Kurds, Arabs, and Armenians, tens of them were killed in a mine explosion and under torture by "Olive Branch" factions, also the majority of them were killed by the Turkish aerial and artillery shelling and bombardment, and in several executions against citizens in Afrin area since the 20th of January 2018, until the same date of 2019, including about 89 civilians including 6 children and 3 women, were killed since after the Turkish Forces took control of Afrin on the 19th of March 2018, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also monitored the injury of hundreds and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of others, where the violations and inhuman practices remained the share of the remaining residents of Afrin area, who refused to leave their homes and farms for the Turkish Forces and factions that stole, devoured, looted, and seized the property of civilians and private and public property in the entire area of Afrin.
And the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has also monitored more than 158 assassinations, attacks and targeting operations that targeted "Olive Branch" in Afrin area, since the Kurdish forces lost Afrin area at the end of the second third of March 2018, where it rose to 698, the number of members of the Turkish forces and the rebel and Islamic factions including 85 Turkish soldiers, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented the death of at least 1586 fighters of YPG and Self-Defense Forces, who have been killed since the start of Operation "Olive Branch" in January 2018, also at least 91 of the popular members of the regime forces have been killed in the Turkish bombardment since they entered on the 20th of February 2018, while the Turkish forces have carried out about 144 assassinations and targeting against the forces controlling Afrin, while leading sources of the YPG denied that their forces or cells had relation or responsibility for many of the assassinations and acts of torture; some of which appeared on videos and attributed to the Kurdish Forces, and the sources accused other cells belong to other parties of carrying out these assassinations and attributing them to the Kurdish Forces for their own agenda, the main aim of which is to escalating their violations against the civilians, where the resentment has been increasing among the civilians day after day, with the unfair and unjust procedures, and the silence of the Turkish Forces -who are leading the "Olive Branch" operation- and not responding to their complaints.
Forms of violations varied from seizing olive crops, to seizing thousands of olive oil barrels, collecting royalties and taxes, seizing and looting houses, seizing and selling farms, establishing military headquarters and camps in property of citizens, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned from reliable sources that groups operating in "Olive Branch" Operation after controlling Afrin spoke to the Turkish authorities, demanding them to expel the residents of Afrin city and its countryside completely, and to confiscate their property, livelihoods, farms, homes and their contents in full, which was rejected by the Turkish authorities, the sources confirmed that they wanted the same goal but they opposed the method, telling those who wanted this decision that it will bring the international community against them, and push the whole world to intervene in favor of the Kurds inhabitants of the area, and issued their orders to wait, and that the day will come when residents of the area will ask to get out of it, and they will pay to get out of their houses and farms and leave them, which is what happened slowly, as hundreds of families who remained in Afrin have fled as a result of the escalation of violations against them of kidnapping, beatings, assaults, looting, theft, and assaulting women and girls.
Which aroused anger of residents of Afrin and the people who were displaced of it who were prevented by Turkey from returning to their villages and towns, amid a Shameful silence by the world which did not show any action to what Turkey is doing in Afrin area of daily violations against the residents and the civilians.
Intersected sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that a military commander in Rahman Corps (who was displaced from eastern Ghouta) had an agreement with the local council in Afrin city, based on taking an area of a mountainous land located in the area between Basutah and Afrin city by the military commander, based on considering it as a "no-man's-land" and it is not owned by anyone, and then granting 400 meters to the displaced people of the Eastern Ghouta in exchange of $100. Reliable sources confirmed that the agreement had been reached between both parties, but no displaced person has been handover anything yet.
The royalties imposed on the civilian and the people who move in Afrin area on the main and sub-roads, where varying sums of money are paid to checkpoints of "Olive Branch" Forces, who stop the small, large, public and private vehicles, and sometimes it goes beyond royalty and turn to looting, not to mention the arbitrary control of "Olive Branch" operation factions of the economic resources in Afrin- came against the backdrop of the seizure of most of the olive plantations in Afrin by the factions of operation "Olive branch", and leasing it dealers and workers to work in them and receive money in advance as a price for the lease of these seized plantations, which are more than 75% of the area of olive farms in Afrin, after the factions shared control of olive farms.
Where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored a complete seizure of Afrin city by the Turkish forces and "Olive Branch" operation factions, where these factions split their areas of control and write phrases on everything being seized to prove their ownership of it, and to prevent the rest of the factions from seizing the same real estate or machine, also they burned olive plantations and property, while violations exceeded the seizure and dividing of property to carrying out daily raids of houses under the pretext of searching for weapons and sleeper cells and other pretexts, they also looted the property of houses of jewelry, money, electronic appliances, even mobile phones and furniture, while the theft moved from private property to public property, where groups of factions working in Afrin area stole electric copper cables in front of the people as well as hospitals and service institutions, while these robberies created internal clashes between rebel and Islamic factions operating in "Olive Branch" operation, which killed and injured tens of members in frequent rounds of bloody fighting, while the Turkish authorities did not engage in any kind of deterrence or pressure, but attempted to resolve disputes that may get completely out of control.
Also, factions in "Olive Branch" operation formed mock courts that request identity papers relating to property ownership in Afrin area in the northwestern sector of Aleppo province, and the sources confirmed that the process of ordering the papers is accompanied by information provided by intersected sources; about the start of preparations by the Corps' court to return properties inhabited by fighters to their owners, and the sources confirmed that the houses are being seized until proofing the ownership of the house by a paper from the Land Registry in Aleppo that proves the ownership of the house to the plaintiff, even if there were charges of affiliation to the Kurdish forces or Kurdish political parties, where the ownership of the home is returned its owners, but those who cannot prove that, their property are seized and sold at an auction, also the individual arms and personal belongings areas sold in the same way at special auctions, which has aroused widespread dissatisfaction among residents of Afrin who the regime did not grant them access to Aleppo city as displaced people, amid fears that many displaced and remaining families cannot prove their ownership, where the people considered this as a new chapter in the process of restricting to displace the remaining civilians.
Also the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring new chapters in the series of the continuous violations practiced by the "Olive Branch" Operation Factions; against the remaining residents of Afrin city and its countryside in the northwest sector of Aleppo province, where the Syrian Observatory learned that members from a brigade working in Afrin area broke into a house near al-Nirouz roundabout in Afrin city, and arrested a Kurdish man with his son and daughter accused them of being "cells of YPG", where they were taken to an unknown destination, and in the same context, members from al-Hamza brigade seized agricultural land owned by a citizen of Afrin, under the pretext of "he resides in Germany and supports YPG", where the brother of the landowner, his agent, was expelled and the land that includes hundreds of trees of olives was seized.
The Syrian Observatory published yesterday, Monday, that factions of the "Olive Branch" Operation supported by Turkey continue their violations in Afrin city and its countryside against its remaining people, to steal their lands, arrest, and restrict them. And in a new chapter in the series of violations: "al-Sultan Shah" Brigade -which is part of the "Olive Branch" factions- legalized its thefts of the livelihood of Afrin people through series of resolutions issued and circulated regarding the harvesting of olives in Shih Township in the countryside of Afrin, and these decisions stipulate the imposition of royalties in different proportions on the olive harvest, where residents owners of the agricultural lands in the area were forced to pay 10% of their produce, but in the case of absence of the agricultural landowners in the area their agents act on behalf of them; and higher percentages were determined as follows:
15% of the crop is paid if the agents are first class relatives to the landowners (father, mother, brother, sister).
If the agents are from the area but not related to the landowners, the royalty will be 25% of the total crop production.
35% of the total crop production is paid if the agents are from "supporters" of YPG according to the circulation of the Sultan Shah faction.
A video by the Syrian Observatory shows a demonstration carried out by Afrin's displaced people in front of the headquarters of the Russian Forces north of Aleppo, protesting the continued violations by the Turkish Forces and their loyal factions in Afrin
Https://www.facebook.com/326766683114/posts/10157683715578115/
A video by the Syrian Observatory shows a demonstration carried out by Afrin's displaced people in front of the headquarters of the Russian Forces north of Aleppo
More than 10 were killed and injured in the continuous shelling by the regime forces within the Russian – Turkish truce areas


text:
HomeHome selected
Local NewsLocal News selected
Set as your local news?
Marlborough has been saved as your Local News location
Our Local News pages have been designed to work with JavaScript. For the full Local News experience please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Increase your radius to see more recent local stories.
Posted at 16:42 18 Jul
Parking fines up across the West
Drivers parking illegally have netted Bristol City Council £4.8m over the past 12 months.
Penalty notice charges are issued for parking without a valid ticket, obstructing entrances to schools and using residents' parking without a permit.
Wiltshire Council took more than £866k in parking fines, with 30,000 tickets issued by parking attendants.
The figure is up £100k on 2017, when 24,000 tickets were issued totalling more than £705k.
Cash from fines is used by Wiltshire Council to fund public transport and concessionary fares.
Posted at 8:15 18 Jul
Extinction Rebellion logo removed from monument
An Extinction Rebellion logo painted on an ancient monument in Wiltshire has been removed.
A specialist conservation contractor was brought in to get rid off the graffiti on the West Kennet Long Barrow near Avebury yesterday.
The Swindon group of Extinction Rebellion has described it as "mindless vandalism".
Severe congestion: A346 Wiltshire northbound
BBC News Travel
A346 Wiltshire northbound severe congestion, at Long Harry.
A346 Wiltshire - It's heavy on A346 Sailsbury Hill into town in Marlborough at the Long Harry junction.
To report traffic and travel incidents dial 0330 123 0184 at any time
Severe accident: A346 Wiltshire northbound
A346 Wiltshire northbound severe accident, at Long Harry.
A346 Wiltshire - An accident on A346 Sailsbury Hill into town in Marlborough at the Long Harry junction.
Public help with arrest made on drug activity in community play area
Wiltshire Police
A 17-year-old boy was arrested in a play area following public reports on suspicious activity.
Wiltshire Police attended the play area just before children were due to leave school and conducted a search.
A young boy was found to be in possession of a large quantity of cannabis and several hundred pounds in cash.
He was taken to Melksham custody on suspicion of possession with intent to supply class B drugs.
A further search was conducted at his home address in Melksham where more suspected class A and B drugs were found.
PC Lee Pelling said in situations like this the police force rely on the public to act as their "eyes and ears" in the community.
The 17-year-old boy has been released under investigation while inquiries continue.
Hundreds of fingerprints waiting to be analysed
BBC News Online
Crime victims are being "let down" because of a backlog of 830 fingerprint cases waiting to be analysed.
Reward offered for return of sacred silverware
Bob Dale
BBC Live reporter
A £10,000 reward is being offered for the return of silverware stolen from the University of Sussex, in Brighton.
The objects, which include two chalices by the sculptor Hans Coper, were taken from the University's sacristy, and are worth £100,000.
The objects were taken after locked doors and containers were forced open at the sacristy in Falmer, sometime between 13:50 and 14:20 GMT on 7 December.
Detectives believe the thief may have connections with Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Wiltshire.
A CCTV image of a man they would like to speak to has been released.
Sussex Police
Detectives would like to speak to this man about the theft
Severe accident: A346 Wiltshire both ways
A346 Wiltshire both ways severe accident, between A338 and Blenheim Road.
A346 Wiltshire - A346 Salisbury Road closed and it's slow in both directions between the A338 junction in Burbage and the Blenheim Road junction in Marlborough, because of an accident involving a lorry.
Mini model reveals sound of Stonehenge
The model gives an insight "into what our ancestors would have heard", an academic says.
Ambulance service gives up 111 contract
South Western Ambulance Service says its system was not resilient enough at times of heavy use.
Posted at 13:17 6 Jul
Man found with 'slash injuries' to head and leg
Police urge people to report suspicious sightings around Gladstone Street, Swindon.
Hundreds march over schools closing early
A number schools have moved to a shorter working week because of funding shortages.
Stonehenge: Unesco condemns tunnel plan
The body's World Heritage Committee is urging the government to prevent the upgrade in its current form.
Warning from council leader over adpotion
Local Democracy Reporting Service
National adoption databases must continue to be maintained, despite increasing numbers of regional services joining forces to find parents to adopt.
That is the warning coming from Wiltshire Council leader Jane Scott at her last cabinet meeting before stepping down as leader.
She spoke about the need to keep a national database of parents and children to make sure that families can continue to be matched across the country.
Adoption services in Wiltshire joined forces with five other local authorities as part of Adoption West in March.
She said: "It worries me that there is a focus on regional work but a national database might be cut. We can't just stick to our regions, we need to work nationally as well."
Wiltshire Council adoption services were rated requires improvement during an Ofsted inspection of children's services in 2015.
Cabinet heard that since then the time it takes to find a home for a child has been slashed and adoption for children with disabilities improved.
Figures released up until March this year show that the average time between a child entering care services and being adopted is now 397days, compared to a national average of 486.
Cabinet member for Children's Services Laura Mayes said: "We say if a child's best option is adoption, no matter how complex it is, that's what we will do. We perhaps have children that take two years but we don't care because that is what is right for them. Our performance continues to improve."
Bus project to provide shelter for homeless
Swindon bus project provides shelter for homeless
Gerry Watkins buys up old buses to convert them into night shelters for people without a bed of their own.
Posted at 8:43 4 Jul
Rail lines blocked between Reading and Westbury after signalling fault
View more on twitter
New build roof tiles 'held on with duct tape'
More than 400 different faults have been identified at the house, which is only two years old.
Paramedic lied about resuscitating toddler
A disciplinary panel is told she lied to enhance her job prospects and "to increase her status".
Council 'hit by cyber attacks post-Novichok'
Olga Ivshina
BBC Russian Service
IT systems at Wiltshire Council were hit by cyber attacks just after the first Novichok poisonings.
New Wiltshire Council leader to be decided
The Conservatives will decide who they want to take over as the next leader of Wiltshire Council today.
Baroness Jane Scott, the West Country's longest-serving council leader, is retiring from the job to spend more time in her role in the House of Lords.
Conservative councillors will vote on her successor today, but the winner will still need to be approved in a vote by all parties next week.
Zebra crossing
Four zebra foals have been born in the last month, with two more on the way, keepers at Longleat Safari Park say.
"This is definitely one of the best years ever here for the sheer number of foals being born," said Head of Section Ryan Hockley.
"The four youngsters are all doing well and we're expecting the other two to arrive any day now."
Posted at 19:30 28 Jun
Skripal poisoning: Third man 'commanded attack'
Diplomatic and defence editor, Newsnight
A Newsnight-Bellingcat investigation maps the movements of a man thought to have directed the attack.
Call for cull of Longleat woods wild boar
A local farmer is concerned numbers of the animals will grow if left unchecked.
May: Russia must stop 'destabilising'
May: Russia must stop 'destabilising' activities
Ahead of one-one-one talks with Vladimir Putin, Mrs May speaks about the Salisbury poisoning.
Devon has highest number of SW child road casualties
Devon has the highest number of child road casualties in the greater South West - and it's on the rise according to new figures.
The charity Brake said it wanted to see more young people out walking without their lives being put at risk.
In 2017, 194 children were killed or injured on roads in the Devon County Council area - the highest level for more than five years, and up three on the year before.
However, the region - including Bristol, Cornwall, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire saw an overall decrease in such incidents: 1,094 in 2017, down from 1,224 the year before.
The issue is being highlighted on Wednesday with a series of supervised walks at schools and nurseries in the county, to help children learn key safety messages.
Children killed or injured on roads in South West in 2017:
Bath and North East Somerset - 22
Bournemouth - 37
Bristol - 70
Cornwall - 116
Devon County Council area - 194
Dorset - 89
Gloucestershire - 104
Isles of Scilly - 0
North Somerset - 48
Plymouth - 64
Poole - 24
Somerset - 118
South Gloucestershire - 39
Swindon - 45
Torbay - 23
Wiltshire - 101
Giant fighter plane to be installed on hill top
A massive model of a Word War II fighter plane is being placed on the crest of a hill near Salisbury, to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
The Hawker Typhoon is four times the size of the original, boasts a wing span of 19m and is similar in size to a 60-seater passenger jet.
Nicknamed the 'Tiffy' of the South it has been built as part of a project involving the defence company QinetiQ and local schools and businesses.
The single-engine fighter plane will be "perched on the crest of the hill" in Broad Chalke as part of the Chalke Valley History Festival.
Weather warning for thunderstorms updated - and avoids Glastonbury
The Met Office has updated its weather warning for thunderstorms across the West.
It now mostly avoids Somerset - which could be good to avoid a soaked ground at Glastonbury ahead of the festival - and Bath, Bristol and most of Gloucestershire. But the warning encompasses most of Wiltshire.
It is active from now until 10am on Tuesday.
How hot is it where you are?
Compare the temperature in your area to other locations in the UK and around the world.
So what is the summer solstice?
BBC Weather's Stav Danaos looks at the science behind the phenomenon
The summer solstice is the longest day of the year. This year in the Northern Hemisphere it falls on Friday 21st June.
While it is the day that has the most sunlight, Britain's weather typically does not become hotter until later in the summer.
Around the time of the summer solstice areas of Norway, Finland, Greenland, Alaska and other polar regions experience 'midnight sun'.
In the Arctic Circle the sun does not set at all. This is down to a latitude 23 degrees from the pole, matching the angle of Earth's tilt.
While June 21 is the summer solstice in Britain, for Australia and countries in the southern hemisphere this date marks the winter solstice.
The solstice falls between June 20 and June 22 and during a leap year it always falls on June 20.
Thousands at Stonehenge summer solstice
Summer Solstice at Stonehenge
Thousands of people greeted the sunrise at Stonehenge on summer solstice.
Thousands welcome solstice at Stonehenge
Thousands greeted dawn at Stonehenge, as people across the UK welcomed the longest day of the year.
South Western railway strike continues
It's day four of a strike by South Western Railway (SWR) staff over the role of train guards.
SWR is running a reduced service across the network.
The operator which runs services in London and Berkshire, Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, the Isle of Wight and Somerset, said the action was "unnecessary" and it was "cynical" of the union to target events such as Royal Ascot.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said staff had been left with no choice but to strike, and accused SWR of failing to guarantee guard roles.
The walkout is due to continue on Saturday.
Stonehenge and Amesbury braced for Solstice crowds
Wiltshire's preparing for this year's Summer Solstice celebrations.
Thousands of people are expected at both Stonehenge and Avebury to watch the sunrise on the longest day.
Stonehenge will close early this afternoon at 3pm and re-open at 7pm to allow people free access to the stones, until 8am tomorrow morning.
People are being advised to plan their journeys and delays are expected on the A303.
Swindon sign ex-MK Dons defender Baudry
Swindon Town sign ex-Bournemouth, Orient and Doncaster defender Mathieu Baudry following his release by MK Dons.
Wife discovers husband was WWII spy
Husband discovered to be WWII spy three years after he died
Audrey Phillips from Trowbridge found out about her husband's wartime activities in his paperwork following his death.
Parish tax bills rise to 'save services'
Rob England
BBC analysis found 45 parishes more than doubled their levy on the Band D council tax for 2019-20.
Drink spiking 'doubled in three years'
The number of reports of drinks being spiked in the west of England has more than doubled in the past three years.
Police in the region said there were 104 incidents reported in 2018 compared to 49 in 2015.
The figures from Avon and Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire Police were revealed by a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
The majority were recorded in the Avon and Somerset area, where 85 incidents were reported last year - up from 41.
Police appeal after taxi driver stabbed
A taxi driver was stabbed in what police are calling an unprovoked and "violent attack".
Wiltshire Police are looking for witnesses following the incident, which took place on 15 June in Dawlish Road in Swindon.
At around 5.30am the taxi driver picked up two men and one woman from a nightclub. As they approached Dawlish Road the passengers became abusive towards the driver.
Following an argument in the car, one of the men stabbed the driver before all three ran away towards Radstock Avenue.
The taxi driver suffered minor injuries and was released from hospital the same day.
Police officer Adrian Bray said: "This was an unprovoked attack on someone who was simply doing his job."
He added: "It could have been very different due to the violent nature of the attack."
Officers are continuing their investigations into the incident and have said they believe they know who the suspects are.
Wiltshire Police are looking for any witnesses who were in the Dawlish Road area of Swindon or who may have further information to contact them immediately on 101 quoting crime reference number 54190057409.
New students get drink spike test cards
The university and students' union are taking action after hearing the problem is worsening.
Taxi driver stabbed in fare argument
The victim suffered slash wounds in the unprovoked attack by one of his three passengers.
Orphaned baby wallaby reared in rucksack
Orphaned baby wallaby hand-reared in rucksack
The four-month-old joey has to be fed every four hours and carried everywhere in a substitute pouch.
Missing eagle owl found after 13 months
Bella was found water-logged, with missing feathers, sitting on a fence post five miles from home.
'Locked-in' son stuck in hospital
Family's struggle to get brain-damaged son home
Kale Turner, left with locked-in syndrome after emergency brain surgery, needs home adaptations.
Wanted: Have you see this man?
Attack on PC was 'darkest moment in life'
PC Mat Baker was "fighting for his life" when he was assaulted by a man he was trying to restrain.
NHS Tracker: Check key targets in your area
Use our tracker to check whether your local services are meeting waiting-time targets for cancer, routine operations, A&E and mental health treatment.
Sentence hike for 'Uncle Peter' rapist
Wiltshire's police and crime commissioner had raised concerns over Peter Daniels' nine-year term.
Swindon sign Portsmouth midfielder May
Midfielder Adam May joins League Two club Swindon Town on a season-long loan from Portsmouth.
Lioness photographed up 20-metre tree
Longleat Safari Park
A lion at Longleat Safari Park has been photographed in the branches of a 20-metre-tall tree.
Staff said the eight-year-old animal, named Kiana, had always been a "keen climber" but they had never before seen her so far from the ground.
She climbed the giant sycamore in her enclosure within the park, which is close to Warminster in Wiltshire and Frome in Somerset, and was photographed by keeper Caleb Hall.
Mr Hall said: "Many of our lionesses do go up trees here at Longleat, but there are a few particular individuals who seem to do it just for fun and Kiana is definitely one of those."
He said the behaviour was also seen in the wild by lions seeking "shade or a cooling breeze away from the heat of the ground or to avoid insects or animals threatening the lions".
'Our life savings are spent on care that should be free'
Noel Phillips
Victoria Derbyshire programme
Vulnerable patients are missing out on NHS funding for care they are legally entitled to, it's claimed.
All local news locations


>Receive 25% off entire order from Tiger Butter Co.
Tiger Butter is a nut free, seed free, and dairy free treat in a jar that is empowered by nutrition. Tiger nuts are not a nut at all, they are a root vegetable containing loads of fiber.
The owner and founder, Kristen, made this superfood spread when she was going through digestive issues, which created intolerances to nuts, seeds, and plenty of other foods. Kristen didn't want to feel restricted anymore so she branched out and created her own "nut" butter.
Visit https://tigerbutterco.com for more information and enter your promo code to receive your discount.