text:
Economics and financial decision-making
In order to achieve ambitious national climate goals, the use of economic instruments such as crop and climate insurance, taxes, feed-in tariffs for renewable energy and other financial incentives are important enablers. The CTCN is collaborating with relevant stakeholders to support local entrepreneurs, small- and medium enterprises and larger businesses, as well as governmental decision-makers, in identifying these economic instruments. Furthermore the CTCN provides technical assistance for strengthening countries' capacity to access international financing for climate technology opportunities. Below you will find related publications, partners, CTCN technical assistance, technologies and other information for exploring this topic further.
The establishment of an Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Plan to protect Iives, properties and the environment
Communication and awareness
Community based
Identification of technical practices for climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in Indonesia
Updating of Georgia's technology needs assessment (TNA) through development of technology road maps for prioritized technologies
Cross-sectoral
Endogenous technologies
Georgia is exposed to hydrometeorological hazards and natural disasters. Frequent natural disasters include landslides, floods, flash-flooding, mudflows, droughts, avalanches, heavy winds and storms. In recent years, the number of natural disasters has increased nearly three times and, in many cases, have been considered as catastrophic, causing fatalities and leading to significant economic losses.
Feasibility study and technological solutions for the upgrade into an integrated solid waste management system
Jordan is one of four most water scarce countries in the world. This scarcity impacts every aspect of life within the country and is its greatest challenge to economic growth and development. Climate change is acting as a threat multiplier aggravating existing water vulnerability and availability due to decreased precipitation and higher rates of evaporation, as a result of increased temperature. It is also anticipated to increase the intensity of droughts in the country and the occurrence of flood events.
Technical guidance and support to conduct a technology needs assessment and a technology action plan for Paraguay
Paraguay is a landlocked developing country with a highly dependent economy on the primary sector, which makes it highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as temperature increase, pattern change in rainfall, and intensity and frequency increase of extreme weather events.
Ocean Energy Technical Pre-Feasibility Study
Developing circular economy roadmaps for abating GHG emissions from the waste sector
Developing a national framework for deploying and scaling up e-mobility
Infrastructure and Urban planning
Globally, the number of motorized vehicles is estimated to reach between 2 and 3 billion vehicles by 2050 with a significant number located in developing countries like Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's motor vehicle fleet has been growing at a fast rate especially after the year 1990. The Zimbabwe Climate Change Response Strategy further identified that the nation's transport sector consumes over 1 billion liters of diesel and over 730 million liters of petrol annually. Part of the energy emissions come from the use of petroleum products in the transport sector.
The Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) and Technology Action Plans (TAPs) for the Kyrgyz Republic
Early warning and Environmental assessment
The Kyrgyz Republic is a land locked and lower-middle-income country of 6,3 million population endowed with natural resources including minerals, glaciers, arable land, forestry and pastures. The country is the third most vulnerable to climate change impacts in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, due to its dependency on and sensitivity of agricultural systems.
Updating of Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) and Technology Action Plan (TAP) for the implementation of NDC
Cote D'Ivoire plans to conduct its Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) with a Technology Action Plan (TAP), in view of the implementation of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). Technology transfer will have impact toward reducing vulnerability of the population hence increased resilience to climate change and well as steering the country towards a low carbon development path.
CTCN Support
To develop a TNA to identify and prioritize technology transfer and diffusion for climate change mitigation and adaptation in key sectors in Cote D'Ivoire.
Organisation (269)
Eastern Africa (152)
South-Eastern Asia (140)
Southern Asia (119)
Western Africa (96)
Western Asia (88)
Northern Africa (77)
Middle Africa (66)
Melanesia (41)
Polynesia (33)
Australia and New Zealand (32)
Micronesia (31)
Republic of Korea (27)
Bolivia (100)
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (10)
Bosnia and Herzegovina (60)
Brunei Darussalam (103)
Burundi (107)
Comoros (107)
Congo, The Democratic Republic of the (57)
Côte d'Ivoire (70)
Curaçao (12)
Djibouti (109)
Eswatini (77)
Ethiopia (113)
French Guiana (23)
Guyana (109)
Heard Island and McDonald Islands (4)
Korea, Democratic People's Republic of (59)
Macao (14)
Madagascar (108)
Malawi (110)
Marshall Islands (26)
Mauritius (111)
Montserrat (12)
Mozambique (108)
Nauru (29)
Niue (27)
Palau (26)
Saint Barthélemy (10)
Saint Martin (French part) (12)
São Tomé and Príncipe (49)
Seychelles (108)
Sint Maarten (Dutch part) (12)
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (4)
South Sudan (104)
Suriname (108)
Tanzania (116)
Timor-Leste (103)
Turks and Caicos Islands (12)
Virgin Islands, British (10)
Virgin Islands, U.S. (10)
Zambia (113)
Zimbabwe (113)
Mitigation (278)
Adaptation (190)
Energy efficiency (197)
Infrastructure and Urban planning (141)
Cross-sectoral (113)
Waste management (93)
Early warning and Environmental assessment (89)
Agriculture and forestry (85)
Coastal zones (64)
Human health (49)
Carbon fixation and abatement (41)
Marine and Fisheries (23)
Economics and financial decision-making (655)
Governance and planning (362)
Capacity building and training (259)
Communication and awareness (244)
Community based (185)
Disaster risk reduction (124)
Ecosystems and biodiversity (75)
Endogenous technologies (29)


text:
Hillsdale, Michigan, United States
When you come to Hillsdale, you also become part of something bigger. For more than 170 years, Hillsdale has promoted "the diffusion of sound learning" as the best way to preserve the blessings of civil and religious liberty. Learn more about the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful at Hillsdale College.
Private Institution Type
M.A. Politics
Hillsdale College was founded as Michigan Central College in Spring Arbor, Michigan, in 1844. Nine years later it moved to Hillsdale and assumed its current name.
Hillsdale College is an independent institution of higher learning founded in 1844 by men and women "grateful to God for the inestimable blessings" resulting from civil and religious liberty and "believing that the diffusion of learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings."
Founded in 1844, Hillsdale College is an independent, coeducational, residential, liberal arts college with a student body of about 1,400. Its four-year curriculum leads to the bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degree, and it is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
The human resources department serves the College by helping first with the recruitment, hiring, and on-boarding of staff. Furthermore, it lends support and assistance to the Hillsdale College faculty and staff. Devoted to the mission and well-being of the College, it strives to deliver exceptional service to the College and its employees.
Your professors and classes will challenge you to think about the good life. Co-curricular activities give you the opportunity to pursue good living by building friendships, exercising leadership, and practicing excellence in all areas of life outside the classroom.
Whether you're interested in arts, sports, or an array of other activities, the wide range of clubs, organizations, and extracurricular activities at Hillsdale offers you an outlet to explore many different interests and build friendships.
In addition to these course-related objectives, the library supports faculty research and professional development and attempts to provide suitable materials for leisure reading of both faculty and students.
In 1993, millions of Americans made the acquaintance of Harry and Louise. The brainchild of the U.S. insurance industry, the fictional TV couple could be seen sitting at their kitchen table worrying about the bureaucracy and cost that would accompany the Clinton Administration's healthcare plan, known as the Health Security Act.
The lessons taught in Hillsdale classrooms—through critical thought, healthy discourse, and pursuing truth—come to life all over our vibrant campus in student clubs and activities.
Located northwest of the Roche Sports Complex, the 76,000-square-foot Margot V. Biermann Athletic Center contains four acrylic tennis courts and a six-lane, 200-meter NCAA regulation track. The track features a Mondo surface—the same used in the 2012 London Olympic Games—and also holds the distinction of being the widest 200-meter track in the world.
The building also contains one long jump and one triple jump runway and pit, one permanent and one portable pole vault station, locker rooms, coaches' offices, a mezzanine, and a training room.
Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
Get More Information About United States

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Where and how I can find a good sales manager for my outsourcing company?
I am an owner of a small outsourcing company from Ukraine, it consists of 9 developers, 1 QA and me as a business owner and a project manager. Our specialization lies in the most new Microsoft technologies like WPF, Silverlight, RIA Services, WCF, ASP.NET 3.5, WWF etc. We have successfully delivered several medium size applications and it is proven that we can deliver a good software on a reasonable costs, our average rate is $15 per hour.
I am looking for a person that can take on his shoulders all problems with the search for new clients. In my turn I can handle all technical problems and build a team for each project. Currently all our clients I have found at oDesk.com or Guru.com.


text:
Järnsta är en ort i Grangärde socken i Ludvika kommun, belägen väster om Bysjön, 25 km nordväst om Ludvika och inom den utdragna byn Västansjö. Fram till 2015 utgjorde området en separat småort för att sedan 2015 ingå i tätorten Norrbo och Västansjö.

Namnet kommer av att här funnits en utskeppningshamn för järn från Västansjö hytta.

Se även
Norrbo och Västansjö

Noter

Orter i Ludvika kommun
Tidigare småorter i Sverige

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Curly-Joe DeRita (Filadélfia, 12 de julho de 1909 - Woodland Hills, 3 de julho de 1993), nascido Joseph Wardell,  foi um ator e comediante americano, conhecido por haver participado da série Os Três Patetas/Os Três Estarolas, grupo do qual foi o último sobrevivente.

Início da carreira

Nascido como Joseph Wardell, na Filadélfia, em 12 de julho de 1909. Era filho da dançarina Florenz DeRita e do técnico de palco, Frank Wardell. Ele era o mais jovem de seus 5 irmãos. Sua origem no meio artístico o fez estrear no show business ainda criança, com a idade de sete anos, junto aos pais na versão teatral de "Peck's Bad Boy" baseado na obra de George Wilbur Peck.

Tomando o nome de solteira de sua mãe, DeRita, o ator se juntou ao circuito burlesco durante a década de 1920, ganhando fama como um comediante. Joe continuou atuando no burlesco até 1942, quando chegou á Califórnia para estrelar no teatro Music Box, em Hollywood. Sua atuação foi tão boa que a MGM lhe ofereceu um contrato. Sua estreia cinematográfica, no entanto, deu-se apenas em 1944, no filme "The Doughgirls" ao lado de Ann Sheridan, para a Warner Bros. Durante este período de sua carreira, Joe atuou em outros filmes como The Sailor Takes a Wife (MGM, 1945) e People Are Funny (Paramount, 1946). Na época da Segunda Guerra Mundial, DeRita atuou junto à USO realizando diversas viagens pelo mundo junto a estrelas de Hollywood, como Bing Crosby e Randolph Scott.

Depois de regressar à América, Joe atou no Hollywood Casino em Los Angeles e fez participações em dois programas de rádio com Crosby: Philco Hall of Fame e Cavalcade of America.

Os Três Patetas (1959-1970)

Apesar de sua carreira artística, o nome de Joe DeRita estava longe de ser conhecido. Apenas após a sua participação de 12 anos com Os Três Patetas que ele finalmente conseguiu se tornar uma celebridade.

The Three Stooges (Os Três Patetas, no Brasil; Os Três Estarolas, em Portugal), era um famoso grupo de comédia formado por Curly Howard, Larry Fine e Moe Howard. O trio estrelou vários curtas-metragens na Columbia Pictures, durante os anos 30, 40 e 50. Curly sofreu um AVC em 1946, o que o forçou a se aposentar, falecendo alguns anos depois, em 1952. Seu irmão Shemp Howard, que seria um dos Três Patetas originais, antes de deixar o grupo em 1932 para seguir carreira solo, voltou apenas para substituí-lo temporariamente.

Nessa época, Joe DeRita, também já estrelava em curtas da Columbia (The Good Bad Egg, Wedlock Deadlock, Slappily Married e Jitter Bughouse). O diretor-produtor dos Três Patetas, Jules White, tentou recrutar Joe DeRita para o grupo, porque queria "outro Curly". No entanto, DeRita se recusou a abandonar seu ato ou imitar outro comediante e com isso, White, eventualmente desistiu de DeRita (o contrato de curta duração de DeRita não foi renovado após quatro filmes, sendo que o último foi Jitter Bughouse). DeRita retornou ao burlesco e gravou um LP em 1950 chamado Burlesque Uncensored.

Shemp faleceu inesperadamente de um ataque cardíaco em 1955 e foi substituído por Joe Besser. A Columbia acabou por encerrar a divisão que produzia os curtas-metragens no final de 1957 e Besser deixou o grupo, para cuidar de sua esposa doente. Moe e Larry, os dois Patetas restantes, consideraram seriamente a aposentadoria. Em seguida, a subsidiária de TV da Columbia, Screen Gems, sindicou os curtas dos Três Patetas para a televisão, o que permitiu que eles recomeçassem suas carreiras.

Moe e Larry agora tinham muitas ofertas de emprego, mas precisavam de um "terceiro Pateta". Larry tinha visto DeRita em um noivado, no palco de Las Vegas e disse a Moe que ele seria perfeito para o papel. Moe e Larry convidaram DeRita para participar do grupo e desta vez, ele aceitou prontamente.

Quando se apresentou pela primeira vez com eles, em 1959 (pouco depois de aparecer em um papel dramático em The Bravados), DeRita usava seu cabelo, em um estilo semelhante ao do ex-Pateta, Shemp. Ele fazia isso durante as suas primeiras apresentações ao vivo. No entanto, com a popularidade do grupo restaurada graças a televisão, que exibia os curtas estrelados por Curly, Moe sugeriu que Joe raspasse sua cabeça, afim de lembar o seu aclamado irmão mais novo. No início, DeRita rejeitou isso, mas depois aceitou. Devido à sua semelhança física com Curly e Joe Besser e para evitar confusão com seus antecessores, DeRita foi rebatizado de Curly-Joe. Até esta data, ele era conhecido apenas por "Joe".

A equipe embarcou em uma nova série de seis filmes de longa-metragem, começando por Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959), que marcou a estréia de Curly-Joe como terceiro Pateta. Destinados especialmente para as crianças, esses filmes raramente atingiam o mesmo sucesso que seus clássicos curtas e muitas vezes, aproveitavam rotinas e canções dos mesmos.

As idades avançadas de Moe e Larry - Moe tinha 62 anos e Larry tinha 57, na época do primeiro filme de Curly Joe - além da pressão da PTA (Associação de Pais e Mestres) e de outros defensores das crianças, resultaram no enfraquecimento da marca registrada do trio que seria a comédia física. Curly-Joe, apesar de possuir uma aparência que era vagamente uma reminiscência do aclamado "Curly", além de sua caracterização mais suave, era muito inferior ao original, que era um homem-criança, maníaco e surreal. Apesar disso, muitos o consideram como o melhor Pateta que apareceu, depois de Curly e Shemp.

Na visão do diretor Norman Maurer: "Ele era o melhor substituto que Curly já teve. Joe era bom em improvisar como Curly em vários aspectos, com a graça do ballet, apesar de seu peso. Poderia atuar - não tão engraçado como Curly - mas chegava perto e era difícil de acreditar que um cara tão grande poderia fazê-lo." No estúdio, no entanto, houve momentos em que Curly-Joe tinha seus dias ruins. "De vez em quando, Joe era temperamental, mas era uma coisa passageira.", Maurer lembra. "Na maioria dos casos, Joe era um bom rapaz e fez um ótimo trabalho."

Durante a década de 1960, Curly-Joe permaneceu como um membro da equipe, participando da série de desenhos animados The New Three Stooges (com apresentações ao vivo) e um piloto para uma série de televisão que acabou sendo cancelada, chamada Kook's Tour. No entanto, durante a produção de Kook's Tour, Larry sofreu um AVC em 1970, posteriormente se aposentando e falecendo em 1975. Com a saída de Larry, o antigo ator de apoio dos Três Patetas, Emil Sitka, foi nomeado como "o terceiro Pateta", mas nunca conseguiu estrelar um filme com o grupo. Antes da morte de Moe, também em 1975, os Três Patetas (já com Sitka substituindo o falecido Larry) planejaram filmar um filme chamado The Jet Set (mais tarde produzido com os membros sobreviventes dos Ritz Brothers e lançado como Blazing Stewardesses).

Na década de 70, atendendo uma sugestão de Moe (que já estava doente), Curly-Joe tentou formar um "novo" Três Patetas. Ele recrutou dois comediantes veteranos de Vaudeville - Mousie Garner e Frank Mitchell - para substituir Moe e Larry para apresentações no teatro. Mas, não conseguiram o mesmo sucesso de antes. Além disso, Curly-Joe DeRita foi eventualmente forçado, por questões de saúde, a se aposentar, terminando definitivamente o grupo. Mitchell, décadas antes, teria trabalhado com Ted Healy, (o antigo líder do grupo) em uma tentativa desesperada do último, para substituir os Patetas originais, depois que eles o abandonaram. Mitchell também tinha substituído Shemp como o "terceiro Pateta" em uma peça da Broadway em 1929. Garner também teria trabalhado com Healy como um de seus "Patetas substitutos" décadas anteriores e foi brevemente considerado como substituto de Joe Besser, em 1958.

Depois dos Três Patetas

Até a década de 1980, o trio mantinha uma grande popularidade com maratonas de exibição de seus filmes na televisão estadunidense, fãs clubes, além da venda de produtos com sua marca. Quando a carreira artística de Joe DeRita terminou, ele mudou-se com a esposa Jean, para o sul da Califórnia, onde continuava recebendo cartas de fãs de todas as partes do mundo.

Em 30 de agosto de 1983, Os Três Patetas ganharam uma estrela na Calçada da Fama, em Hollywood. Na ocasião, Joe Besser foi o único membro do grupo a aparecer na cerimônia. Joe DeRita estava doente e não pode comparecer com Emil Sitka falando por ele. Algum tempo depois, Besser faleceu em 1988, fazendo com que DeRita se tornasse o último "Pateta" a morrer.

No ano 2000, a ABC exibiu um filme feito para a televisão sobre os Três Patetas, com o ator Peter Callan, que tinha uma semelhança estranha com DeRita, interpretando-o.

Morte

Em 3 de julho de 1993, DeRita faleceu de pneumonia, nove dias antes de seu aniversário de 84 anos, no Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital em Woodland Hills, Califórnia. DeRita foi enterrado em uma sepultura no Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery em North Hollywood, Califórnia. Sua lápide diz "O Último Pateta" (embora Emil Sitka tenha falecido em 1998, sua posição como "Pateta oficial", ainda é discutível, já que nunca apareceu em nenhum filme, atuando como tal).

Vida pessoal

DeRita casou-se com uma corista chamada Bonnie Brooks em 1935. Depois de sua morte em 1965, Joe se casou com Jean Sullivan. Os filhos de Sullivan de um relacionamento anterior, Earl e Robert Benjamin, controlam os direitos de licenciamento de muitas celebridades falecidas, juntamente com Os Três Patetas, através da C3 Entertainment.

Embora DeRita gostasse de trabalhar com Moe e Larry e ganhasse a vida fazendo isso, ele não era um fã do humor dos Três Patetas. Ele disse uma vez ao entrevistador o seguinte:

Mesmo durante seus anos como um Pateta, Joe lembrou que dificilmente estava com Moe e Larry fora do estúdio. "Nós nunca fomos sociáveis, a menos que fosse para uma promoção de um filme, uma estréia ou uma reunião de negócios. Moe conhecia juízes, médicos, pessoas ricas. Teve seu círculo de amigos, assim como Larry também tinha os seus..". Apesar de sua indiferença com a comédia da equipe, DeRita não tinha nada além de respeito e apreciação pelos Patetas.

Joe passava a maior parte de seu tempo lendo ou assistindo televisão, mas o seu passatempo favorito era ouvir música clássica. Quanto aos gostos e desgostos, Joe considerava George Raft, Buster Crabbe e Johnny Weissmuller como os três piores atores de Hollywood. Seu filme favorito com os Três Patetas era The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (Columbia, 1963)

DeRita era o único membro dos Patetas que não era judeu.

Filmografia

Ligações externas

 Curly Joe at Three Stooges online (em inglês)
 Curly-Joe at Stooge World] (em inglês)
 Biography at the Ofiicial Website (em inglês)
 Ficha na NNDB (em inglês)

Humoristas dos Estados Unidos
Naturais de Filadélfia (Pensilvânia)
Mortes por pneumonia
Membros de Three Stooges


This extended expedition encompasses the wildlife paradise of South Georgia, the remote Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), as well as the extraordinary beauty of the Antarctic Peninsula. Depart from Puerto Madryn, Argentina, a growing Peninsula Valdes town with whale watching and penguin viewing. This trip saves one flight to Ushuaia and adds two days of education and experience onboard en route to the Falkland Islands. You'll experience a great diversity of environments and landscapes, which will provide unprecedented wildlife viewing opportunities.
Experience Puerto Madryn before embarkation.
Arriving at the ship in the afternoon, you will be greeted by our Expedition Team and ship's officers at a safety and orientation briefing followed by the Captain's welcome dinner. Then, watch the city lights fade in the fresh night air as we sail seaward.
Among the wildlife spotting opportunities as we sail south are the albatrosses, prions, and petrels that frequently follow the ship. Our Expedition Team will be out on deck as well, looking for the whales and dolphins that may also be seen in the area. Our experts will begin the presentations with informative and entertaining talks on the wildlife, history, and geology of The Falkland Islands and Southern Ocean. Helpful briefings on environmental regulations and expedition safety will also be held in the comfortable lounge.
Chosen for its sheltered harbor and access to abundant fresh water and peat for fuel, Stanley is easy to discover on foot as most shops and services are centered on the port. The museum, the post-office featuring first day covers, plenty of shops with locally made wool items and Stanley's lively pubs will all be available. It is possible to experience the wildlife of the Falklands from the town including sea lions and Peale's and Commerson's dolphins in the harbor or bird life in nearby Gypsy Cove.
There will be plenty of wildlife spotting as we make our way east across the Antarctic Convergence and officially enter Antarctic waters. Shipboard presentations will continue featuring the exciting history and abundant wildlife of South Georgia.
Its unique position inside the Antarctic Convergence yet outside the limit of the yearly sea ice makes this 3,755 square kilometer island home to tens of millions of breeding penguins, seals and seabirds. Magnificent mountain scenery, glaciers galore, a rugged coastline punctuated with castellate and tabular icebergs, a rich historical tapestry, and an astounding array of wildlife are all available to us as we travel down South Georgia's leeward coast. Landing sites feature huge elephant seals, aggressive fur seals, macaroni penguins, albatross, petrels, skuas, and gulls. King penguins from fuzzy little chicks to fattened adults can be seen in the hundreds of thousands. We will visit historic Grytviken whaling station, home of the whaling museum, Norwegian seaman's church, the active British Antarctic Survey station plus the tiny graveyard where the great Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton is buried.
Our Expedition Leader and Captain will create a flexible itinerary based on weather, ice, and opportunity. The route will stress the most scenic bays and channels of the Peninsula with stops at penguin rookeries, seal wallows, bird colonies and whale feeding areas as well as sites of historic and scientific interest. The trip may include picturesque Neko Harbor, sheltered Paradise Harbor, the Humpback Whale favored Wilhelmina Bay, the the wildlife-filled Errera Channel, the majestic Neumayer Channel, or the striking Antarctic Sound with its tabular icebergs. We may stop at an active scientific base such as Poland's Arctowksi or Argentina's Esperanza as well as an historic base such as U.K.'s Port Lockroy or the Nordenskjöld expedition remains at Hope Bay. Adelie, Chinstrap and Gentoo Penguins abound, and Weddell, Crabeater and Elephant Seals are often found hauled out to rest along with predatory Leopard Seals and the irritable Antarctic Fur Seal. Minke and Humpback Whales are frequent visitors in the late season and Orca sightings are also common.
We will continue our lecture series and wildlife spotting as we sail back to Ushuaia and reflect on beautiful Antarctica and its fragile future.
Two (2) pre-voyage hotel nights included in Puerto Madryn!


Thinking it's too late to have that fabulous flower or vegetable garden it's not. You still have time to plant, and we have just what you need to do so. Many of our plants are what we call prime (meaning that they already have fruits and vegetables galore on them.) So get your ground going and shovels ready, and we will supply you with all the rest of your garden needs.


text:
June 29, 2021 July 1, 2021 by Toni Reavis
SEND A RUNNER
Atop my current nightstand stack sits Send A Runner, A Navajo Honors The Long Walk (University of New Mexico Press, 2021). The 184-pager movingly follows 59-year-old Navajo Edison Eskeets on his 2018 15-day, 330-mile run to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the return of the Navajo people to their ancestral lands in Arizona following The Long Walk, a forced march that uprooted the tribe from its homelands in 1864 and interred them for four years in a military-controlled reservation in south-central New Mexico.
One-third of the Navajo people perished during The Long Walk and subsequent internment. Yet two-thirds of the Dine (meaning "the people" in their native tongue) survived the brutality and returned to their homelands in 1868, in accordance with the Treaty of Bosque Redondo.
Beautifully penned by Jim Kristofic, a Pittsburgh native who grew up on the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona, Send A Runner accompanies Edison Eskeets from Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona to Santa Fe, New Mexico while interweaving the tragic history that led up to the Long Walk a century and a half ago.
During the run, videographer Joe Lunny asked Kristofic why Edison was undertaking such a punishing run. Jim explained it this way: "the run is a kind of prayer that you can't make with words. So you make the prayer with your body because the prayer goes beyond what words can say."
Anyone who's ever run with devotion has likely experienced the transcendence a repetitive exercise like running can elicit. It is essentially brain chemistry and doesn't happen every time out, certainly, but when it does come over you, there's a sense of being completely in tune with all that surrounds you, a feeling that whispers, "You can do this forever and all will be right with the world."
In his 2004 memoir, Father Joe, The Man Who Saved My Soul, author Tony Hendra reminded us that it was the Benedictine order that first professed ad opus est orare', to work is to pray.
"Any kind of work done well, with gratitude and enjoyment for others first and yourself second, binds us together and therefore to God."
In that spirit, Edison Eskeets, a former All-American runner, coach, artist, and educator, makes the case in Send A Runner: 'ad currere est orare', to run is to pray, as he strides, jogs, humps, and hustles through cathedrals of cottonwoods and along transepts of concrete.
This epiphanic quality, I believe, lies at the heart of why humans become so fiercely bound to running. First utilized for survival, running today is how many people in advanced societies decompress while communing with a land they no longer seem to be a part of, to engage with it, its spinning inflected, oh, so gently, by our footfalls.
Yes, we run for exercise and
we run to compete.
We run on the trails
as well as Main Street.
We run to remember even
as we run to forget.
Run to recover and
at times with regret.
We run when we can
then again when we must.
Run to be alive
till time turns us to dust.
Edison Eskeets in 2018
Sometimes we run in anger in search of solace, and when life becomes too much, we run to hold it all at bay until the flow begins to transport us beyond the prosaic and toward the profound.
Throughout Send A Runner, Edison Eskeets underscores the power of running to manifest these truths while transporting himself not just to a place but to a spirit.
In honoring the survivors of The Long Walk, Edison Eskeets ran freely where his ancestors were forced to march against their will, as for centuries the Eurocentric worldview reduced indigenous peoples throughout the world to a status somewhere just below fully human, reminding us that history is indeed written by the victors.
Today, the New York Times reports, Native American tribes are experiencing a cascading peril, this one environmental, exacerbating policies — first imposed by white settlers and later the U.S. government — that forced them onto marginal lands that are becoming uninhabitable.
In academia, Critical Race Theory is reevaluating how the social construction of race – there is only the human race – and institutionalized racism perpetuate a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tiers. Yet to its critics, CRT represents revisionist writing of American history that teaches children to hate their country rather than enlightening them to its development and growth.
But history isn't stagnant; it's there to instruct. It's only when we choose not to learn from it that we risk having to relive it. Thus, there are lessons to be learned from both The Long Walk of 1864 and Edison Eskeets' long commemorative run in 2018. Have we grown sufficiently to fully take in and assimilate those lessons? We can only pray that we have, or yet may still, even as we acknowledge how infrequently prayers are answered.
Posted in Book ReviewTagged Critcal Race Theory, Edison Eskeets, Jim Kristofic, Send A Runner, The Man Who Saved My Soul, Tony Hendra
Previous 800 ALWAYS DELIVERS THE DRAMA
Next SHA'CARRI
3 thoughts on "SEND A RUNNER"
Mike Lundgren says:
Toni, thanks for sharing and so moving of a review and so moving about Edison. I see myself in him, and hope we all do.
Thanks, Mike. Pretty good role model based on the book. Keep reading and running.
thanks Toni, always enjoy all you share with us.


text:
Q: hspec failing to import (private) code dependency despite CPP override Let's say I have a src file like so:
{-# LANGUAGE CPP #-}
module Alphabet (
#ifdef TEST
  alphabet
#endif
) where
  alphabet :: [Char]
  alphabet = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

a .cabal file like so:
name:                Alphabet
version:             0.1.0.0
library
  build-depends:       base >=4.8 && <4.9, containers >=0.5 && <0.6, split >=0.2 && <0.3
  hs-source-dirs:      src
  Exposed-modules:     Alphabet
  default-language:    Haskell2010
test-suite alphabet-test
  ghc-options:         -Wall -Werror
  cpp-options:         -DTEST
  default-extensions:  OverloadedStrings
  type:                exitcode-stdio-1.0
  main-is:             Spec.hs
  hs-source-dirs:      tests
  build-depends:       Alphabet, base >= 4.8 && < 4.9, containers >= 0.5 && <0.6, split >= 0.2 && < 0.3, hspec, QuickCheck
  default-language:    Haskell2010

A master test file like so:
 {-# OPTIONS_GHC -F -pgmF hspec-discover #-}

and a test file like:
module AphabetSpec (spec) where

  import Test.Hspec
  import Alphabet (alphabet)

  spec :: Spec
  spec = do
    describe "Alphabet.alphabet" $ do
      it "returns the alphabet" $ do
        alphabet `shouldBe` "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"

now running `cabal test`:
cabal test
Preprocessing library Alphabet-0.1.0.0...
In-place registering Alphabet-0.1.0.0...
Preprocessing test suite 'alphabet-test' for Alphabet-0.1.0.0...
[1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( tests/AlphabetSpec.hs, dist/build/alphabet-test/alphabet-test-tmp/AlphabetSpec.o )

tests/AlphabetSpec.hs:4:27:
Module 'Alphabet' does not export 'alphabet'

Why is my CPP not working as expected? How can I fix it?

A:
Why is my CPP not working as expected?

Two-step building. Since your tests depend on the library, it gets build first. The library doesn't have any CPP options set, therefore alphabet doesn't get exported.
When the tests get built, your library is already compiled, and alphabet doesn't get exported. It's a separation of concerns.

How can I fix it?

There are several tricks to work with "hidden" (e.g. non-exported) functions. For one, you can put them all into a .Internal module. That way, users that want to use the hidden bits can do so rather easily, but the casual user doesn't have too many tools at hand.
Another way to handle this is to drop the dependency in the test and instead add the src directory to the tests:
 hs-source-dirs:      tests, src

However, this also means that you have to rebuild the whole library for tests, but it will enable using CPP.
A third option is to not test alphabet, but instead the observable behaviour of exported functions that depend on it. So instead of testing alphabet, you would test filterAlpha:
filterAlpha :: String -> String
filterAlpha = filter (`elem` alphabet)

You have to test filterAlpha anyway. If there are many functions that use alphabet, it is likely that you will have some test that will notice a regression if you accidentally change it.

A: The problem was a simply syntax error. #ifdef is wrong, #ifndef is right

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


ONE® HIGHSIDE POLARIZED SPORT :: Catch the classic, sporty half-frame that's a great fit for an average to wide face, the ONE® by Optic Nerve Highside Polarized Sport sunglasses. You'll love these lightweight, polarized lenses that block out 100% of the harmful UV rays and filter 99.9% of reflective glare to ensure you're always seeing what's headed your way. Plus, you can count on these Highside sunglasses to stand the test of time thanks to their superior durability and impact resistance.


text:
Diecezja Melo – diecezja rzymskokatolicka w Urugwaju. Siedziba mieści się w Melo w departamencie Cerro Largo. Obejmuje swoim  obszarem departamenty: Cerro Largo i Treinta y Tres.

Historia
Po raz pierwszy Diecezja Melo została erygowana 14 kwietnia 1897 poprzez wyłączenie w Diecezji Montevideo. W latach 1931-1955 istniała pod nazwą diecezja Florida-Melo. 15 listopada 1955 roku  wyniku podzielenia terytorium ówczesnej diecezji Florida-Melo zostały erygowane dwie diecezje: Diecezja Melo i Diecezja Florida. Diecezja Melo jest sufraganią archidiecezji Montevideo.

Przekształcenia terytorialne:
 25 czerwca 1960: wydzielenie diecezji Minas.

Biskupi Melo
 José Maria Cavallero (20 grudnia 1955 - 9 lipca 1960)
 Orestes Santiago Nuti Sanguinetti (9 lipca 1960 - 2 stycznia 1962)
 Roberto Reinaldo Cáceres González (2 stycznia 1962 - 23 kwietnia 1996)
 Nicolás Cotugno (13 czerwca 1996 - 4 grudnia 1998)
 Luis del Castillo Estrada (21 grudnia 1999 - 13 czerwca 2009)
 Heriberto Bodeant (13 czerwca 2009 - 19 marca 2021)
 Pablo Jourdán (od 2021)

Linki zewnętrzne
 Diocese of Melo (en), www.catholic-hierarchy.org [dostęp 2012-07-12]
 Diocese of Melo (en), www.gcatholic.org [dostęp 2012-07-12]

Diecezje rzymskokatolickie w Urugwaju
Melo


Zazen Water System neutralises alkalinity, reduces flouride, tastes delicious, hydrates, nourishes and cleanses. Emulates Mother Nature's water cycle.
Designed by Zazen Australia for local water conditions in conjunction with the world's leading water scientists.
Please enquire directly, if interested in the Glass Bottom Tank.
Note: Due to the bulky nature of this product, it is best to contact us before purchase to determine shipping costs.


The Stourton Park and Ride, as envisioned in CGI images. Pic: Leeds City Council.
It will provide space for 1,200 cars and a terminus building next to the he M621 junction seven roundabout by Hunslet Cemetery.
The park and ride will provide space for 1,200 cars. Pic: Leeds City Council.
The Stourton Park and Ride - which is likely to cost around £30m, with £27m from West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) - aims to reduce the number of car journeys into Leeds city centre by providing alternative bus travel to deal with a lack of parking spaces in the central area and address its air quality problems.
Councillors on the City Plans Panel granted the proposals in principle in January, and the latest approval on Monday follows "some due process being updated", said a spokesman for Leeds City Council, the applicants.
It comes after two other park and ride facilities were built at Elland Road and Temple Green, which are at capacity and attracting more use than predicted respectively, according to planning documents.
However, it can raised concerns among residents of Belle Isle, Middleton and Hunslet campaign under the banner of Stop the Park and Ride in Stourton (SPARS).
Members feared its placement next to the cemetery had "no regard to the families and friends of those buried there," they argued in a deputation to applicants council, and said that it will increase traffic, claimed no alternative sites were investigated and would "create mayhem on our bus routes" during building work.
In a formal response signed off by director of city development Martin Farrington in February, the council said it did "recognise and empathise with the concerns raised" and wanted to "work collaboratively".
Frequent bus services are planned between the facility and the city centre, with six buses operating every hour, providing a service every 10 minutes.
WYCA research shows that services will have a journey time of 13 minutes, documents state.
A designated bus lane will be created through the site and on the surrounding A61, which planning reports say will also benefit the existing 110, 444 and 446 services.


text:
mdb_editor
==========

Mangos Database Editor

This program will allow for the creation and editing of quests in mangos and possibly cmangos.

The goal is to make it easier for everyone to contribute to the content in the game.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: how to fetch SMART attributes in SSD? I have a SAS SSD and I want to know few things like "Perc_Lifetime_Remain", etc. In the exisiting SATA SSD drive, we are fetching these info by using smartctl tool ("smartctl -A diskname"). But the same command when executed in my new SAS SSD, doesn't give any info of these attributes.
Can anyone let me know, how does smartctl command works?, Will it work only with SATA drives and not with SAS drives? Does the output varies according to the different vendors disks like STEC,MICRON,HITACHI,TOSHIBA?
How to get these attributes in SAS SSD?

A: Try the current development version of smartmontools.  If your disk is still not supported, there is a procedure described somewhere on their site for collecting the SMART parameters of your drive and sending them to the developers.  If you send them these parameters they might add support for your disk at some point.  Beware that playing with these parameters yourself can result in permanent damage to your disk.


text:
Best of our wild blogs: 28 Jun 11
27 Jul (Wed): Discussion on "The Seacil Artificial Reef" hosted by the Nature Society (Singapore) from wild shores of singapore
29 Jun (Wed): "Singapore's sea anemone diversity" by Dr Daphne Fautin from wild shores of singapore
Hot on a Snail Trail
from Pulau Hantu and Blog Log: 26 June, 2011
12 and 13 Jul (Tue and Wed): FREE screening of "The Cove"
Job Opportunity: Research Assistant (1 Position)
from Raffles Museum News
Unique carnivores of Borneo
Muguntan Vanar The Star 27 Jun 11;
KOTA KINABALU: Twenty-four carnivore species are unique to the Borneo island, international conservation experts gathered here confirmed.
They have also got a better understanding of the carnivores found in the world's third biggest island and have taken moves to classify some of these carnivores as "critically endangered" species.
This came about at the three-day brainstorming session of the first Borneo Carnivore Symposium that ended here on Saturday.
Almost 200 delegates from 15 countries presented and discussed the diverse range of carnivore species on the island, which included cats such as the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi), civets such as the Malay civet (Viverra tangalunga), known locally as tangalunga, Sunda stink badger (Mydaus javanensis), also referred to as the Malay badger or teledu, and the playful otters.
The findings at the symposium will determine priorities for Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, the countries sharing Borneo island, to take steps to preserve the carnivores, many of which are rare and some thought to be extinct only until a few years ago.
"Coming together of scientists, conservationists and government agencies is the first step towards efforts to ensure the survival of all our carnivores," said Sabah Wildlife Department director Dr Laurentius Ambu.
"One of our goals was to establish a knowledge base for the priority areas and threats faced by these unique carnivore species," said Dr Laurentius, the organising chairman of the symposium.
He said like other species of wildlife, the carnivores need adequate and different types of forests to support the wildlife and plant life diversity.
"If developed for other uses, such as cultivation of oil palm, it has to be with proper landscape planning to ensure the species' survival," Dr Laurentius added.
According to Dr William Duckworth, director of the Small Carnivore Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission (IUCN/SSC), the symposium will be used to upgrade some of the carnivores on the IUCN/SSC red list of threatened species.
He added that one of the species to be upgraded is the Borneo ferret badger (Melogale everetti) that is found in Sabah's Crocker Range highlands.
"We really do not know much about the Borneo ferret badger, even about its habitat.
"All confirmed records only come from the high elevation areas of Sabah's Crocker Range and the Kinabalu National Parks," he said.
Other carnivore species, including the elusive Borneo bay cat (Catopumabadia) were recorded in Kuching and the Baram region of Sarawak, while the recently rediscovered hairy-nosed otter (Lutra sumatrana) and otter civet (Cynogale bennettii) would also be listed.
labels global, global-biodiversity
The Istana is not just a green park
Lim Jing Jing Today Online 28 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE - It was once a nutmeg plantation. Today, it is the Istana, the official residence of the President of Singapore.
At 43 hectares, about the size of 53 football fields, it is home to more than 10,000 trees, which in turn house a variety of wildlife.
The trees were here more than a century ago, long before any of the dense concrete jungle of shopping malls were built along Singapore's Orchard Road.
The yellow flame trees lining the path leading to the Istana quietly greeted countless state visitors which included foreign dignitaries, statesmen and royalties.
Today, other than functioning as the green lungs of urban Singapore, the trees of Istana have become a science lab for the National Parks Board's (NParks) study of wildlife in Singapore.
"One good reason why we do it in the Istana is because it's serene and well-protected, so we can do our work quietly," NParks chief executive officer Poon Hong Yuen said.
"Key figures, like Mr Lee Kuan Yew, have (also) been very encouraging of NParks doing new things in the Istana because these are the things he also enjoys very much."
As a result, NParks introduced a pair of oriental pied hornbills in 2008 to the gardens to understand their nesting and feeding habits. Today, the Istana gardens is home to eight of these birds.
The NParks says there are about 150 varieties of trees in the gardens of Istana.
Over 70 of them are featured in the new book, Trees of the Istana, which was launched yesterday by President S R Nathan.
The book took three years to write and was first mooted by President Nathan.
The release of the book this year coincides with the United Nations' International Year of Forests.
Leaf through book on Istana's trees
New tome showcases 70 tree species found at President's residence
Royston Sim Straits Times 28 Jun 11;
THE oldest tree on the Istana grounds is a 150-year-old tembusu standing near the Sri Temasek bungalow, where Cabinet ministers have their meetings. And the one with the widest girth is a kapok tree near the main gate, which measures 7m around its trunk.
These are two of the 70 tree species detailed in a book called Trees Of The Istana, launched yesterday by the National Parks Board (NParks).
Besides showcasing the greenery and wildlife at the official residence of the President of Singapore, the hardcover book also covers the planting and landscaping activities of the 41ha grounds from past to present.
The idea for the book came from President S R Nathan in 2008; it is the third in a series of books on the Istana, after Gardens Of The Istana and Birds Seen At The Istana.
NParks' director of conservation Wong Tuan Wah, who co-authored the book, said: 'There are many beautiful and majestic trees here, and not many Singaporeans know about them. We hope they can find out more through this book.'
The other authors are Istana curator Koh Soon Kiong, Dr Duncan Sutherland and Ms Aileen T. Lau, founder of Suntree Media, which publishes the book.
The Istana grounds, formerly a failing nutmeg plantation owned by merchant Charles R. Prinsep until it was acquired in 1867, are tended to by 13 full-time staff, aided by contractors.
In a nod to history, NParks staff have planted eight nutmeg trees on the grounds; one has produced fruit with twin seeds instead of a single seed.
NParks chief executive Poon Hong Yuen said the agency uses the Istana as a 'laboratory', a place to plant new trees, introduce wildlife and see whether they can adapt to the environment.
Trees Of The Istana costs $48 and hits major bookstores and the Singapore Botanic Gardens' Garden Shop today; the Istana will also stock the book on open-house days.
GREENING THE ISTANA
13 full-time National Parks Board staff tending to the Istana grounds
20 species of fruit trees, including banana, chiku, jackfruit and durian
150 species of trees in all in the Istana grounds
400 fruit trees
10,000 trees in total
labels heritage-trees, singapore, singapore-biodiversity, urban-biodiversity
Singapore: $400m for research to make life in city better
Cheryl Ong Straits Times 28 Jun 11;
SCIENTISTS or commercial companies with good ideas on efficient energy use, making buildings more eco-friendly, or safeguarding Singapore's food supply can now tap into a fund for research into these areas.
A $400 million kitty has been set aside for this.
Announcing this yesterday, Minister of State for National Development, Brigadier-General (NS) Tan Chuan-Jin, said: 'Which other city-states would feel the pressures of urbanisation more keenly than us? I think Singapore has to blaze this trail to find our own innovative solutions.'
He was speaking at the inaugural Urban Sustainability R&D Congress at the Biopolis.
Three-quarters of the fund - $300 million - will be for research into energy-related issues.
This 'Energy Resilience for Sustainable Growth' fund, to come from the $1 billion earmarked by the National Research Foundation (NRF) last year, will pay for studies into affordable alternatives to fossil fuels or those that find ways to use fuels more efficiently.
Of the remaining $100 million, half will come from the NRF for studies into protecting Singapore's food supply and raising the nation's food output. Applications for this have been received and are being evaluated, said a spokesman.
The remaining $50 million will come from the Ministry of National Development (MND) Research Fund for the Built Environment.
This money will pay for research into areas such as constructing buildings that use less electricity, improving transport systems, and protecting the environment.
A spokesman for MND said it is drafting the call for proposals.
At the congress yesterday, BG Tan also handed out the inaugural Minister for National Development's R&D Awards to three statutory boards that showed creativity in incorporating urban sustainability in their projects.
The Housing Board's Treelodge @ Punggol and the Building & Construction Authority's Zero Energy Building were given Distinguished Awards, while the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority's Vertical Farming project in Sembawang won a merit prize.
Research companies and institutes hailed the availability of these funds for research.
Dr Raj Thampuran, the executive director of the Science & Engineering Research Council of A*Star, said: 'Research allows us to be fast adopters, quick followers, innovators and enables to us gain the knowledge to shape solutions to our needs.'
Hitachi Asia's Research and Development Centre general manager Nobutoshi Sagawa said the money will stimulate positive growth in the sector, while Ms Lily Toh, managing director of local green-tech firm Winrigo, said the money is a godsend for small outfits like hers.
'It's quite difficult to get funding for research because many grants look at a company's turnover, favouring big companies over small- and medium-sized ones like ours, so I support this new funding as it will help SMEs and benefit the community and consumers,' she said.
The congress, which brought together people from the public sector, industry and researchers to discuss issues facing cities like Singapore, ends today.
Government to commit S$400m on urban sustainability R&D
Vimita Mohandas Channel NewsAsia 27 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE: The government will commit S$400 million to spearhead research and development (R&D) in urban sustainability.
This was announced at the first ever Urban Sustainability Research and Development Congress on Monday morning.
The congress will see some 800 participants from government agencies, research institutes and the private sector discuss R&D responses to urban sustainability challenges.
The congress will bring together 12 government agencies, which will discuss R&D priorities in five key areas including Sustainable Urban Living, and Urban Ecology and Food.
Opening the congress, Minister of State for National Development and Manpower, Tan Chuan-Jin, said one of the key challenges facing Singapore is creating sustainable urban living given our space constraints.
"Every year, we have many young Singaporeans coming out into the workhouse, setting up families and we need to house them. And we need to find a creative way to organize ourselves from an infrastructural perspective. But I think it's not just the building space, it's really about the living space - how do you integrate everything together."
Participants will also collaborate on projects in "living labs" such as Punggol Eco-Town, CleanTech Park, Jurong Lake District and Marina Bay.
Each living lab will present different opportunities. Punggol is a residential test-bed, Clean Tech Park is an industrial testbed while Marina Bay and Jurong Lake District will present opportunities for test-bedding in a mixed use setting.
Brig-Gen (NS) Tan added that S$300 million will go towards driving Energy Resilience for Sustainable Growth.
The aim is to develop cost-competitive energy solutions for deployment within 20 years so that Singapore can improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and increase its energy options.
To address urban sustainability challenges, the Ministry of National Development (MND) will do a S$50 million top up to its research fund, while the National Research Foundation (NRF) will earmark S$50 million to develop food supply resilience and sustainability.
The NRF has set aside this sum under its Competitive Research Programme Call on "Meeting Future Food Demands for Singapore." Proposals are currently under evaluation. This will complement MND's S$10 million Food Fund to enhance food supply resilience.
Brig-Gen (NS) Tan also presented the Minister for National Development R&D awards to recognise and support technological innovations.
The Housing and Development Board's Treelodge@Punggol and BCA's Zero Energy Building received the Distinguished Award while the Vertical Farming prject by the Agri-Food and Vetrinary Authority won the Merit Award.
- CNA/fa
S$400m boost for urban sustainability
Vimita Mohandas Today Online 28 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE - In the search for urban sustainability here, energy resilience looks set to be the key focus.
Of the S$400 million the Government has committed to spearhead research and development for a sustainable Singapore, three-quarters of the amount will go towards energy solutions that can be deployed within 20 years.
The announcement yesterday at the inaugural Urban Sustainability R&D Congress highlighted five priority areas of sustainable urban living, urban mobility, green building, urban ecology and food.
Already, projects could soon be underway to meet Singapore's future food demands, with proposals now under evaluation by the National Research Foundation under a S$50-million programme set aside for this.
Another S$50 million will come from the National Development Ministry, which is doubling its research fund to cover other aspects of urban sustainability for the nearer term.
But long-term cost competitive energy solutions that can improve efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and increase energy options will get the most resources.
And yesterday's R&D congress kicks off a new platform for government, research institutes and the private sector to discuss which R&D responses can best overcome Singapore's urban sustainability challenges.
Some 800 participants, including from 12 government agencies, participated yesterday.
Opening the congress, Minister of State (National Development) Tan Chuan-Jin said space constraint was another key challenge.
"Every year, we have many young Singaporeans going into the workforce, setting up families. We need to house them and we need to find a creative way to organise ourselves from an infrastructural perspective," he told reporters.
"But it's not just the building space, it's really about the living space - how do you integrate everything together."
The set-up of the congress will allow for collaboration on some specific projects, such as Punggol Eco-Town, CleanTech Park, Jurong Lake District and Marina Bay.
These "living labs" present different opportunities: Punggol is a residential test-bed, CleanTech Park is an industrial test-bed, while Marina Bay and Jurong Lake District are mixed-use settings.
And as these sites undergo development, the Government wants companies and researchers to focus on applying cutting-edge technologies that can come onstream in the near term.
"The next chapter of the Singapore Story must be about us confronting these challenges with the same human ingenuity as we did before," said Brigadier-General (NS) Tan.
"Because there are few city states in the world that will feel the pressures of urbanisation more keenly than us, Singapore cannot rely on ready solutions from others and must lead the way to find innovative solutions."
To recognise and support such efforts, he presented the Minister for National Development R&D awards yesterday for three technological innovations.
The Housing and Development Board's Treelodge@Punggol and the Building and Construction Authority's Zero Energy Building received the Distinguished Award, while the Vertical Farming project by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority won the Merit Award.
Looking to live smaller, closer
Esther Ng Today Online 28 Jun 11;
Big, sprawling cities such as Tokyo and Mexico City will be a thing of the past, some experts said yesterday at the inaugural Urban Sustainability R&D Congress here.
Living smaller and closer are the keys to sustainability, they said, because shrinking the distance between people and their destinations would reduce energy use, carbon emission and waste.
But what population density before a city becomes unliveable? For instance, Singapore's density is now 95 people per hectare, while Hong Kong's is 400.
"It's possible to increase that density but that's a political question," said Curtin University of Technology's Professor of Sustainability Peter Newman.
"It boils down to whether people want that density to increase or not."
While higher population density is usually seen as a threat, he said this need not always be so: "Density enables us to multiply sustainability and take advantage of better waste management, better transport links and local services."
Santa Fe Institute's Distinguished Professor Geoffrey West added that spreading out a city makes its population more "car-attendant", while spending more than two hours commuting is "intolerable".
He referred to the "Marchetti Wall" - the growing realisation that people do not like to spend more than one hour each day travelling to work.
"That's why we're not going to see any more Tokyos or Mexico City," said Prof Newman.
While Singapore has made progress in urban sustainability, the experts felt that the Republic needs to think beyond its shores.
"The urban transformation, the policies are just so Singapore-centric - there ought to be five to 10 per cent value-added to it." said Prof West.
"Singapore needs to take a leadership in big thinking, in influencing business, in culture and science and with that, it can be a truly great city like Venice, London or New York." ESTHER NG
$400m boost for R&D in urban sustainability
Awards were also given out to three MND statutory boards
Mindy Tan Business Times 28 Jun 11;
THE government will commit $400 million to spearhead research and development in urban sustainability, said the Ministry of National Development (MND) at yesterday's inaugural Urban Sustainability Research and Development Congress.
Of this, $300 million will be set aside for the first National Innovation Challenge, on building 'Energy Resilience for Sustainable Growth'.
The aim is to drive energy resilience and specifically develop cost-competitive energy solutions for deployment within 20 years, thus allowing Singapore to improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and increase energy options.
In addition, MND will be topping up the MND Research Fund with an additional $50 million, bringing their total commitment to- date to $100 million.
The fund will support research that covers other aspects of urban sustainability beyond energy.
Finally, the National Research Foundation will set aside $50 million under its Competitive Research Programme Call on 'Meeting Future Food Demands for Singapore'.
Proposals are currently under evaluation, and are expected to contribute to the sustainability of Singapore's future food supply. This will complement MND's current $10 million Food Fund to enhance food supply resilience.
Guest of Honour, Brigadier-General (NS) Tan Chuan-Jin, Minister of State for National Development and Manpower, said: 'Like many other cities in the world, we will need to grapple with fresh challenges, from climate change, competition for resources, and opportunities from mega cities, changing demographics, and growing demands on urban services . . . I think Singapore has to blaze this trail to find our own innovative solutions.'
Mr Tan also presented the Minister for National Development's R&D Awards to three MND statutory boards to recognise and support technological innovations.
The Building and Construction Authority's Zero Energy Building (ZEB) and the Housing & Development Board's Treelodge@ Punggol were the Distinguished Award winners.
The Vertical Farming project by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority won the Merit Award.
ZEB, a test-bed for clean energy technologies, is the first building in South-east Asia to be fully retrofitted with green building technologies. It achieved zero net consumption in its first year.
The biennial Urban Sustainability R&D Congress brings together government agencies, research institutes, and private sector companies to discuss R&D in national urban sustainability issues and collaborate on projects in 'living labs', such as Punggol Eco-town, CleanTech Park, Jurong Lake District, and Marina Bay. The two-day event, which hosted 800 participants, ends today.
labels green-buildings, singapore, urban-development
Malaysia: Can't count on bounty of the sea
New Straits Times 28 Jun 11;
THE national love for fish is demonstrated daily by the kind of crowds we produce at wet markets and in the evenings, at the overflowing seafood outlets.
It is time, however, to consider some hard facts: 1.43 million tonnes of fish catches last year, not including squids, prawns and oysters, are not enough to feed a population of 28.5 million.
Among the first few to raise the alarm are the World Wide Fund for Nature and Malaysian Nature Society. In an exercise completed in May last year, they listed 17 species on the watch-out list, those facing depletion, including our beloved grouper (kerapu) and pomfret (bawal).
The New Straits Times did a survey of retail outlets to see if Malaysians are heeding such pleas for restraint.
No luck there.
At the Pasir Penambang market in Kuala Selangor -- where Kuala Lumpur buyers snap up fresh seafood -- buyers and sellers shared their love for grouper and pomfret. But the supply of senangin, white pomfret, and mackerel (tenggiri) there has been on the low side.
Understandably, researchers, sellers, enforcement people and fishing boat owners are alarmed by dwindling catches.
Forty years ago, Kuala Selangor traditional fisherman Chan Chong Ying, 61, used to catch 20kg of fish worth RM3,000 from a day out at sea.
"It is difficult to land 2kg of fish now," said Chan, who with some exaggeration, announced his retirement. "My boat is now at the jetty -- permanently."
The owner of Joo Lian Fisheries, Lim Ah Lam, 69, recalls the time his business was at its peak when he had boxes stacked up until the entrance.
"These days, we are down to two boxes in a day."
On the ground, coastal fishermen are pointing fingers at deep-sea fishermen, including foreign crews, monopolising the area of catch until the exclusive economic zone -- 200 nautical miles from the shore.
Daud Husin, 47, a coastal fisherman, said deep-sea vessels, equipped with trawl nets, have destroyed their fishing gear and damaged the seabed.
The real "villains" in the piece are the Vietnamese vessels and crew.
These are boats owned by local operators who retain the original Vietnamese crews. The authorities recently probed their activities.
Kota Kinabalu Fishermen's Association general manager, Hassim Kassim, said these Vietnamese vessels did not unload and declare their catches at the jetties.
There have also been recent reports of fishing groups going on strike in Kuantan, Hutan Melintang and the coastal parts of Sarawak.
These were sparked by the reduction of their super diesel subsidies.
Previously, the price of super diesel was set at RM1.25 per litre for vessels from all zones but it has since risen to RM1.80.
The Department of Fisheries said deep-sea vessels were making a pile from selling subsidised diesel to "third parties".
The subsequent crackdown on them brought about strikes by fishermen, resulting in a pattern of reduced catches.
Away from the din at the jetties, industry scientists and researchers are equally troubled.
Associate Professor Dr Kusairi Mohd Noh, senior fellow at Institute of Agricultural and Food Policy Studies at Universiti Putra Malaysia, is arguing for a more efficient stock-management policy.
"In a blink, fishing spots can be wiped out."
Overfishing, illegal trade activities, trawling, rising costs and habitat disruption are blamed for the depletion in fish stock.
To avert a crisis, the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry has issued more permits to import fish from Thailand.
Thailand is the second biggest exporter of fish to Malaysia after China, the source of frozen fillets, mackerel, sardines, shrimps, prawns, cuttlefish and squids.
Imports are one alternative to depletion, but what about the future?
Director-general of fisheries Datuk Ahamad Sabki Mahmood said there was a need to invest in conservation, which must be in proportion with the public consumption and harvest rate.
With this, the Department of Fisheries is seeking RM25 million to deploy 50 artificial reefs.
labels global, marine, overfishing, reefs
A case for shark conservation through ecotourism
Conservation dollars and sense
University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science EurekAlert 27 Jun 11;
MIAMI – Shark populations over the last 50 years have decreased dramatically. From habitat degradation to overfishing and finning, human activities have affected their populations and made certain species all but disappear.
A new article in Current Issues in Tourism by Austin J. Gallagher and Dr. Neil Hammerschlag of the R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program at the University of Miami study the impact of these apex predators on coastal economies and the importance of including conservation efforts in long term management plans.
The team collected data from a total of 376 shark ecotour operations across 83 locations and 8 geographic regions. Oceania, The Greater Caribbean and North America ranked at the top for highest proportion of different locations offering shark tour services, and the Bahamas alone contained over 70% of all shark ecotourism in the Greater Caribbean and generated over $78 million in revenue in 2007. The Maldives saw similar numbers, and in 2010 banned shark fishing due to shark-based ecotourism contributing and estimated >30% towards their GDP.
"We know that for many countries, sharks are an important piece of the economy -- in this study we wanted to examine their value as a recreational resource in a new and refreshing way by taking a global perspective," said Gallagher.
"It makes total economic sense for us to protect these resources, whether you are in charge of a coral atoll somewhere in Indonesia or working off the coast of New England—if the sharks can remain, the divers will follow and livelihoods can flourish."
According to the study, a single reef shark could be valued at $73 a day alive, as opposed to the one-time value of a set of shark fins used for shark fin soup at $50. Over the course of that same shark's life, it could be worth more than $200,000 using a conservative 15-year life cycle. The study also documented trends by species, and found that reef sharks and whale sharks are among the most well-represented in the ecotourism industry.
"Our study clearly shows that, economically speaking, sharks are worth more alive than dead; however, sharks are also ecologically important, helping maintain the balance and health of our oceans," says Hammerschlag.
Sharks reproduce very slowly, so even modest amounts of fishing can negatively impact local populations. But with appropriate conservation policies, sharks can begin their recovery, a road that could be both enjoyable and profitable through ecotourism.
"After the 1975 release of the movie JAWS, the general public felt that 'the only good shark was a dead shark,' however in the thirty years that have followed, this mentality has changed. A growing number of people are turning their fear into fascination and want to continue to see sharks in the wild," said Hammerschlag.
labels eco-tourism, global, marine, sharks-fins
Gene machines may help save endangered Tasmanian devil
Julie Steenhuysen Reuters Yahoo News 28 Jun 11;
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists are using high-tech gene sequencing machines in a desperate attempt to save the Tasmanian devil from an infectious cancer called devil facial tumor disease that is threatening to wipe out the species.
"The disease is like nothing we know in humans or in virtually any other animal. It acts like a virus but it actually is spread by a whole cancerous cell that arose in one individual several decades ago," Penn State University's Stephan Schuster, who is working on the project, said in a statement.
The cancer, first observed just 15 years ago, is quickly spreading among populations of the already endangered Tasmanian devil, the world's largest surviving carnivorous marsupial that lives on the Australian island state of Tasmania.
Devil facial tumor disease disfigures the victim and causes death from starvation or suffocation.
"It has 90 to 100 percent lethality in a few months. In many regions of Tasmania, it is completely lethal," said Schuster, who worked on the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Conservation experts have been isolating and breeding a population of healthy animals and plan to release them in the wild once the cancer runs its course.
To help select the best animals for the effort, a team led by Schuster and Webb Miller of Penn State and Vanessa Hayes of the Venter Institute in San Diego sequenced two Tasmanian devils, Cedric and Spirit, from the extreme northwest and southeast regions of Tasmania, respectively, to determine the genetic diversity of the animals.
GENETIC DIVERSITY
Then they compared the range of genetic diversity to that of humans, the most studied species on the planet.
"In the case of the Tasmanian devil, those two only have 20 percent of the genetic diversity that living humans have," Schuster said in a telephone interview.
The study is one of the first to use whole genome sequencing as a tool to conserve an endangered population, Schuster said.
Whole genome sequencing technology allows researchers to read all the little bits of code -- the A, C, T, G sequences -- that are the building blocks of DNA.
It took 10 years and $3 billion for the international Human Genome Project to get the first draft of the human genome a decade ago.
The scans now cost $10,000 to $20,000 each, but companies such as Illumina, Life Technologies Corp, Pacific Biosciences and Roche Holding are working hard to bring the cost down even more.
Schuster's scan of the two Tasmanian devils showed the population already had low genetic diversity, which likely made them vulnerable to the infectious cancer, which is spread by skin-to-skin contact.
"Transmission is through biting, fighting and mating," he said, and the disease has the potential of "burning through the entire population within a decade."
Using the genetic code from the two animals, the team devised a test that could look for specific genetic differences within the species to find the most genetically diverse animals for the breeding program.
"It costs $150 per animal, whereas the sequence of the complete genome is in the $10,000 range," Schuster said.
The team used a new gene sequencing platform from Roche Holding AG, which helped pay for the research.
Schuster said the findings show that whole genome sequencing can be a useful tool in conservation. He said future studies are planned in cattle and other domestic animals.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
labels diseases, global, global-biodiversity
Climate change hots up in 2010, the year of extreme weather
Last year was the joint-warmest on record and also the wettest over land, with sea ice levels dropping and drought on the rise
John Vidal guardian.co.uk 27 Jun 11;
The year 2010 may have been the most extreme in terms of weather since the explosion of Indonesia's Mount Tambora in 1816, when much of the world experienced reduced daylight and no summer, says one of the world's most prominent meteorologists.
A combination of abnormal climatic phenomena resulted in the year being the hottest, wettest, and in many cases also the driest and coldest in recorded history, says Jeff Masters, co-founder of climate tracking website Weather Underground.
According to Masters 2011 is already on track to be exceptional, with a deepening drought in Texas – where 65% of the state is now in "exceptional drought" conditions – and one of the warmest springs experienced in 100 years taking place across much of Europe. It is also the most extreme tornado year recorded in the US, with Arctic sea ice already at its lowest ever for the time of year.
US and UK government scientists declared in January that 2010 had tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record – the 34th consecutive year with temperatures above the 20th-century average – but, says Masters, new data on other climatic phenomena suggest that extremes were widespread.
Scientists recorded the second-worst year for coral bleaching (caused by raised sea temperatures), the lowest-ever volume of Arctic Sea ice, highly unusual monsoons in China and a series of abnormal storms across the US and elsewhere. Some of the phenomena have been linked to a strong El Niño/La Niña episode, which follows unexplained temperature changes in the Pacific Ocean near the equator. Global tropical cyclone activity, however, was the lowest on record.
According to Masters, 19 countries – covering nearly 20% of the global land area – experienced their hottest recorded years in 2010. "Hot years tend to generate more wet and dry extremes than cold years. This occurs [because] there is more energy available to fuel the evaporation that drives heavy rains and snows, and to make droughts hotter and drier in places storms are avoiding," he says.
"Many of the flood disasters in 2010-11 were undoubtedly heavily influenced by the strong El Niño and La Niña events that occurred, [but] the ever-increasing amounts of heat-trapping gases humans are emitting into the air puts tremendous pressure on the climate system to shift to a new, radically different, warmer state, and the extreme weather of 2010-11 suggests that the transition is already well underway.
"I don't believe that years like 2010 and 2011 will become the 'new normal' in the coming decade. [But] a warmer planet has more energy to power stronger storms, hotter heat waves, more intense droughts, heavier flooding rains, and record glacier melt that will drive accelerating sea-level rise. I expect that by 20-30 years from now, extreme weather years like we witnessed in 2010 will become the new normal," he says.
Climate abnormalities in 1816 caused average global temperatures to decrease by about 0.4-0.7 °C, resulting in major food shortages across the northern hemisphere. It is believed that this was largely caused by a succession of major volcanic eruptions capped off by the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815 – the largest known eruption in over 1,300 years.
2010: a year of extremes
Temperatures in Earth's lower atmosphere tied with the warmest year on record. Unofficially, 19 nations set all-time extreme heat records in 2010.
The atmospheric circulation in the Arctic took on its most extreme configuration in 145 years of record-keeping. Canada had its warmest and driest winter on record, but the US its coldest winter in 25 years. A series of remarkable snowstorms pounded the eastern US with the "Snowmageddon" blizzard dumping more than two feet of snow on Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Arctic Sea ice volume in 2010 was the lowest on record, with 60% missing in September 2010 compared to the average from 1979-2010.
Coral reefs took their second-worst beating on record in 2010, thanks to record or near-record high summer water temperatures over much of the planet's tropical oceans.
Last year set a new record for the wettest term in Earth's recorded history over land areas. The difference in precipitation from the average in 2010 was about 13% higher than that of the previous record wettest year, 1956. The record wetness over land was counterbalanced by relatively dry conditions over the oceans.
The Amazon rainforest experienced its second 100-year drought in five years with the largest northern tributary of the Amazon river – the Rio Negro – dropping to 13 feet (four metres) below its usual dry-season level. This was its lowest level since record-keeping began in 1902.
Cyclones and hurricanes
Each year, the globe has about 92 cyclones – called hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, typhoons in the western Pacific and tropical cyclones in the southern hemisphere. In 2010, we had just 68.
An abnormal summer monsoon helped lead to precipitation 30-80% below normal in northern China and Mongolia, and 30-100% above average across a wide swath of central China. Western China saw summer precipitation of more than double the average.
Heatwaves
A scorching heatwave struck Moscow in late June 2010 and steadily increased in intensity through July, as the jet-stream remained "stuck" in an unusual loop that kept cool air and rain-bearing low-pressure systems far north of the country.
labels climate-change, extreme-nature, global


text:
Royal Commission paper assesses bias
by Rebecca Pike08 Nov 2018
A research paper into conflicts of interest has been published on the Royal Commission into financial services' website.
The Royal Commission asked Professor Sunita Sah to respond to a number of questions about how conflicts can influence advisers, the effects of disclosure of a conflict on both advisers and advisees, and what other policy measures there are.
Brokers facing conflict of interest was a topic which caused concern for Commissioner Kenneth Hayne during the proceedings, particularly in terms of whether vertical integration was creating a bias.
Sah points to various studies throughout her report, including one which revealed financial advisers were likely to give advice that benefited their own self-interests rather than the interests of their clients.
"Many other studies" also showed conflicted advisers gave "significantly" more advice than unconflicted advisers.
Looking at how financial advisers can be influenced by conflicts of interest, Sah's first statement said often the conflicted adviser is unaware of the influence.
How and why advisers offer biased advice is put down to many contextual factors, including industry norms, displacing responsibility and moral disengagement.
Going into detail, Sah said advisers are more likely to provide biased advice if they give advice to multiple recipients, because this increases the psychological distance between them and the clients.
Also, advisers may justify their actions if they see others doing the same, or they blame the harm caused on the client for making that decision.
While most brokers argue they are doing the right thing by their customers, despite of any perceived conflicts of interest, Sah said there are psychological factors and misbeliefs.
She said succumbing to a conflict of interest was not necessarily corruption, because "in reality, many conflicts of interest that influence advisers occur on a subconscious and unintentional level".
She added, "Financial advisers' conflicts of interest are not merely problems for the intentionally corrupt… but also for well-meaning professionals who succumb to unintentional bias."
The report also looked further at how advisers can rationalise their bias. Sah said, "It is relatively easy for advisers to, for example, persuade themselves that the products that they receive commissions for really are the best and the clients they recommend investments for really will benefit from those investments."
Discussing what effect disclosing the conflict of interest would have, Sah said there are both advantages and disadvantages.
While it would give clients the opportunity to consider the advice knowing the conflict and would possible decrease the level of bias, Sah said it can put increased pressure on them to comply with the advice.
Solutions to overcoming conflicts of interest were suggested in the paper. These included various ways to present the disclosure of a conflict, the offer of a 'cooling-down period' so the client can change their mind and policy responses.
Policy responses considered in the report included sanctions or penalties, structural changes and changes to organisational rules, where goal setting and corporate culture play a role in encouraging bias.
FBAA backs brokers in submission
Heads of CBA's demerged businesses announced
MFAA defends trail commissions amid Productivity Commission's critique


C4talinA . 01BIGSWEETMELON. LadyRiky. aCANDYDOLLxx.
feelingtitsSAMANTASEX10ArtyHotSierrahFox .AnnaRussoPassionKissUnonamejustplayLJasydiamond .ArianaBunnyJoinToMeSweetDancerAliceDreamyMelina .FeliciaHoneyDreamyMelinaSexPrinceOfLoveX3LOVERSGAY .MaryYoungDollFomikataNaugtyGirlAnaDiamond .bigchockdick18Sunny8GirlStephanHardingAnaTeen .SparkleDimpleJustKittenSexPrinceOfLoveXDonchiaa .NaugtyGirlHornyJoyBBxMarielleSwanGingerAndLolla .SparkleDimplekarladirty2uUNUCHASEXYBOYY01BIGSWEETMELON .BOYTATTOMUSCLEECalefyDazhenaKINKYALLORAAnaTeen .AnnaRussoAliseBustyFeliciaHoneyFomikata .
aSASHAGREYxxxSAMANTASEX10kevmiXamazingbreastX .BonnieWaltersHotDickandSexSparkleDimpleAnetteTurnerX .alejaprettyAnnaBelleX21feelingtitsSEXDREAM24 .ArielleHoeLadyRikyArielleHoeaCANDYDOLLxx .XamazingbreastXkarladirty2uTheTexanTarzanglamurso .SierrahFoxCalefyDazhenaMaryYoungDollAfroDarkSlender .AnnaBelleX21wildanaHotDickandSexSierrahFox .MirandalaoskevmiaCANDYDOLLxxBonnieWalters .SweetBoySexxxPassionKissUPassionKissUfeelingtits .CalefyDazhenaAnaTeenStellaLuvSAMANTASEX10 .SweetDancerAliceSEXDREAM24DakotaAndOliverSparkleDimple .


The Cake Swan Soap Bubbles are a must at weddings. The swan at the top of the cap is what makes the bottle elegant and polished. Use them during the ceremony to add something magical and romantic.
Each pack contains 24 bubble.


commissos fresh foods flyer march 24 to 30 .
commissos fresh foods flyer june 9 to 15 .
commissos fresh foods flyer jun 21 to 27 .
welcome to commissos fresh foods .
commissos fresh foods weekly flyer weekly specials may 26 jun .
commissos fresh foods flyer june 30 to july 6 .
commissos fresh foods flyer april 13 to 19 .
commissos fresh foods flyer september 1 to 7 .
commissos fresh foods flyer march 31 to april 6 canada .
commissos fresh foods flyer january 26 to february 1 .
commissos fresh foods flyer july 29 to august 4 .
commissos fresh foods flyer january 12 to 18 .
commissos fresh foods flyer january 13 to 19 .
commissos fresh foods flyer july 14 to 20 .
commissos fresh foods flyer august 25 to 31 .
commissos fresh foods flyer april 20 to 26 .
commissos fresh foods flyer july 25 to july 31 .
commissos fresh foods flyer may 18 to 24 canada .
commissos flyer march 25 to 31 .
commissos fresh foods flyer september 9 to 15 .
commissos fresh foods flyer november 24 to 30 .
commissos fresh foods flyer october 20 to 26 .
commissos fresh foods flyer june 1 to 7 .
commissos fresh foods flyer december 2 to 8 .
commissos fresh foods flyer february 24 to march 2 .
commissos fresh foods flyer mar 8 to 14 .
commissos fresh foods flyer march 9 to 15 .
commissos fresh foods weekly flyer online flyers online .
commissos fresh foods flyer october 21 to 27 .
commissos fresh foods flyer may 6 to 12 .
commissos fresh foods flyer june 24 to 30 .


text:
Samsung's mobile biz to benefit from anti-China sentiment in India: analysts
Samsung Electronics Co. is expected to increase its presence in the Indian smartphone market on growing anti-China sentiment in the South Asian nation, analysts here said Saturday.
Sinophobia is growing in India with a public boycott of Chinese-made goods following the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers in last month's border clash between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
Analysts said Samsung, South Korea's top electronics firm, is likely to benefit from anti-China sentiment in India, especially in the smartphone market where Chinese players have dominated.
"Shipments of consumer goods that are against public sentiment will face difficulties," said Lee Chang-min, an analyst at KB Securities. "As Chinese smartphone makers are expected to suffer sales decline in India, Samsung is expected to take advantage of it."
According to market tracker Counterpoint Research, four of the top five smartphone brands in the Indian smartphone market were from China in the first quarter of the year, with Samsung being the only non-Chinese company.
Xiaomi led the way with 30 percent, followed by its Chinese compatriot Vivo with 17 percent. Realme and Oppo were ranked fourth and fifth in the Indian smartphone market with a share of 14 percent and 12 percent, respectively.
Samsung came in third on the list with a 16 percent market share, Counterpoint Research data showed.
Analysts said the upbeat performance in India could push up Samsung's overall mobile business.
India is the world's second-largest smartphone market after China. Samsung also runs the world's largest mobile manufacturing factory in Noida, northern India.
"For Samsung, India is a market that the company cannot give up," said Roh Kyoung-tak, an analyst at Eugene Investment & Securities. "Samsung's long-term business strategy must have a plan for the Indian market."
Samsung's mobile business has been losing its steam in India in recent years, as Chinese makers expanded their sales with price-competitive phones.
Samsung's market share gap with Xiaomi was only 3 percentage points in the second quarter of 2019, Counterpoint Research data showed, but the difference grew to 14 percentage points as of this first quarter.
To create sales momentum amid anti-China sentiment, Samsung recently introduced two new smartphone marketing plans in India.
The Galaxy Assured scheme offers users a buyback option that gives maximum 70 percent of the value of premium smartphones. The Galaxy Forever program allows consumers to purchase Samsung's flagship Galaxy S20 smartphone at just 60 percent of its original price.
Samsung, the world's largest smartphone vendor, is hoping for a fast recovery of the global mobile market that has been struggling with the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Analysts said the second-quarter performance of Samsung's mobile business unit may not be worse than expected due to the economic reopening of major markets from end-May, though an earnings decline appears inevitable.
Samsung will release the Galaxy Note 20 phablet and the Galaxy Fold 2 foldable smartphone next month to drive its handset sales in the second half of the year. (Yonhap)


text:
<?php

namespace Uploadable\Fixture\Entity;

use Gedmo\Mapping\Annotation as Gedmo;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;

/**
 * @ORM\Entity
 * @Gedmo\Uploadable(pathMethod="getPath", filenameGenerator="SHA1")
 */
class FileWithSha1Name
{
    /**
     * @ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="IDENTITY")
     */
    private $id;

    /**
     * @ORM\Column(name="path", type="string", nullable=true)
     * @Gedmo\UploadableFilePath
     */
    private $filePath;

    public function getId()
    {
        return $this->id;
    }

    public function setFilePath($filePath)
    {
        $this->filePath = $filePath;
    }

    public function getFilePath()
    {
        return $this->filePath;
    }

    public function getPath()
    {
        return __DIR__.'/../../../../temp/uploadable';
    }
}


Little is known, about the four Su-30SM Flanker-derivative jets deployed to Lataki a, Syria.
In fact, whilst the rest of the Russian Air Force contingent (Su-34, Su-24 and Su-25 jets) has been under the spotlight since Russia launched its first raids against terrorist targets, the Su-30s have seldom been mentioned in the news updates by the Russian MoD.
Actually, the most interesting news dealing the Su-30s dates back to the beginning of the month when one Flanker violated the Turkish airspace and locked on a TuAF F-16 for more than 5 minutes.
More recently, footage emerged of a Su-30SM flying close to an MQ-9 Reaper drone.
At least there is a video now, published by RT, that provides some details about the Flanker operations in Syria.
The video, which includes some cockpit footage, shows the Su-30s taxiing, taking off and landing at al-Assad airport near Latakia.
Interestingly, the aircraft operate in air-to-air configuration only, confirming the reports that the aircraft mainly fly CAPs (Combat Air Patrols), providing some support to the strike packages going after the ground targets disclosed by UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) reconnaissance missions.