by Remington Steele), and 6-year-old Kenlyn Hot Shot (Pistol Pete X Baska Flamin, by Bask Flame), who's due to make his first endurance start in January.

In only the last two seasons of riding, Steve racked up numerous AERC Regional awards and CSHA (California State Horsemen's Association) awards with both Porsche and Sonata. Additionally, Steve finished Tevis in 2014 on a loaned Kenlyn Aisha (Inkouredible X Mahoganaska), owned by Linda.

To say Steve is a Kenlyn Arabians fan is an understatement. "Linda has been the best support all along, particularly loving the National Championship ride with her horses and her granddaughter! This has been and is a fun ride!"Steve Downs and Kenlyn Porsche, 2016 Virgin Outlaw, Steve Bradley photo

Linda currently stands two stallions at Kenlyn Arabians. Linda bred, raised, showed,and stood for breeding her now-27-year-old stallion, Awesome Knight (Bask Knight X Na Tabarrok, by Comar Regal). "He's beautiful, and he's bred well. My little daughter used to handle him all the time, taking him to the 4H and AHA shows. His temperament is wonderful."

Linda's 'up-and-comer' stallion, Kenlyn Psyclone (Psky FA X Destin Tu Be, by MCA Cardigan) is just 7. "He's out of one of my well bred endurance mares, and I've only done one thing with him. I took him to one show when he was just 4. A dressage trainer from my barn rode him, and he won the training level and first level and regional championship in his only show."

Normally, Linda would produce around 20 foals each year, but she's cut back the last


in Haycrest Zendina. She also had, as a mentor for conditioning, a British Olympic team rider.

It turned out that right before Tevis, Linda's mare died of colic during a drastic change in weather temperature. It also turned out that her mentor, Minette Rice-Edwards, went on to not only finish Tevis in 4th place aboard Bright Hope, but to also win the Haggin Cup.

"I was so devastated after that mare died. I'd always wanted to breed horses, and that mare was part of my plans. I asked my accountant, 'What am I going to do?' and he said, 'Well, we're going to get you a name. Pick a name for your breeding business.' My husband is Ken and I'm Linda, so the name became Kenlyn - Kenlyn Arabians.

"After teachingthat creates and sustains a breeding business for half a century, but when Linda sets her mind to something, count it done.

"I've been a focused horse person since I was born. My mom said I could whinny before I could walk," she laughs. "We didn't have horses, and they didn't care for horses at all. But when I was 11, they got me a horse, and boy, I was horse crazy ever since."

With Kenlyn Arabians set up, Linda plunged into the breeding, shrewdly acquiring the best mares she could, and breeding to the best stallions she could, and pursuing what she needed to do to get the word out about her homebred horses. "We did horse shows, endurance riding, NATRAC (North American Trail Ride Conference), everything. I really


tried to make sure I sold my horses to the best people I could who would do things with them."

Linda wasn't necessarily specifically breeding endurance horses; she was just focused on breeding good horses. But it's not surprising so many of those turned out to be good endurance horses. "I bred to the best Arabian stallions in the country: Khemosabi, *Bask++ sons, Barbary, a lot of the big famous names that were National Champions."

The first stallion that Linda purchased for her purebred Arabian program put her on the map as a breeder. She acquired Miraffles (Azrhand X Mira Roga, by Ibn Rogue) in the early 1980s. Linda recalls, "He was a US National Top 10 Halter Stallion, a Western Pleasure Champion.

"And he was probably the most correct, perfecthorse I've ever owned or seen. He was a Crabbet horse, and what he lent to my program was not only beauty, correctness, huge big feet and bones, but low, low heart rates. Almost all the horses that I've bred go back to him at some point in their pedigree. I still have a couple of granddaughters of his, considering he died 20 years ago or so."

Linda employed trainers who showed and won with her horses, and even though they beat the millionaires' horses, Linda just couldn't sell her horses to the people they sold to. "It was very frustrating," she says.

"At one point I realized I had to go back to my roots, which was riding all over the hills and just doing the endurance stuff. Trail


Parke as the Planning Commissioner representing the 3rd District.

Parke is a senior partner at the law firm of Allen & Kimbell, LLP, where he emphasizes litigation in real estate and trust matters, with significant experience in land-use.

Parke also served as the 3rd Dist. appointee to the Historical Landmarks Advisory Commission, from which he recently resigned.

A lifelong resident of Santa Barbara County (save two years in Alaska), Parke has an intimate knowledge of the county, including the backcountry, Hartmann's office reports.

He has a strong interest in agriculture as both sides of his family have history in farming and ranching.

“I believe agriculture has proven to be the most constant part of the county’s economy and most valuable component of our quality of life, with continuing importance in soil health andremoval of carbon from the atmosphere,” Parke said.

Parke has served on and chaired a number of local nonprofit boards including Channel Counties Legal Services Corporation and the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County. He currently is on the board of trustees for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.

Parke is a graduate of Santa Barbara High School and earned his Bachelor of Arts in economics and political science at UCSB and law degree from UCLA.

Parke’s familiarity with the Santa Barbara backcountry stems in part from his passion for endurance horseback riding.

His Icelandic horse, Remington, is in the American Endurance Ride Conference Hall of Fame with nearly 12,000 miles of competition, Hartmann's office said...

Monday, January 22, 2018

A big congratulations to 1990 BLM Mustang Robin Hood, owned by Philip Ottinger, DDS, and


ridden by Vicki Giles, DVM. He was named to AERC's Hall of Fame in 2010, but keeps on going! He racked up 765 endurance miles in 2017 and earned his 15,000 mile plaque which will be presented at the National Awards Banquet at convention.

The Monkeys Know Nothing and 15 Types of People You’ve Definitely Seen at an Endurance Ride – Endurance Day for 01-09-18

Jan 9, 2018

On this Endurance Episode, we meet Ronnie and Kit from the “The Monkey Knows Nothing” blog, we speak with Sarah Cuthbertson about the “15 Types of People You’ve Definitely Seen at an Endurance Ride” and Karen’s Training Tip is about Dollar Store hacks.

The 2018 AERC Convention will be held March 9 and 10, 2018 - Grand Sierra Resort – Reno, Nevada

Seminar schedule (subjectto change):

FRIDAY
Current Topics in Nutrition with Joe Pagan, PhD, of Kentucky Equine Research
Research Findings from the Virginia City 100 Mile Dehydration Study with Jerry Gillespie, DVM, AERC Research Committee Chair
Tevis Ultrasound GI Study (from 2017 ride) with Melissa Esser, DVM, MS, DACVIM, of Michigan State University
Trail Marking: Incorporating the Best from all Regions with Michelle Grald of GMHA

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Will Connell, Director of Sport at USEF (United States Equestrian Federation), has penned a response to AERC's Letter of Concern regarding the ongoing endurance horse crisis and abuse in the some Group VII countries, namely the UAE.

While Abu Dhabi's Boudthieb Initiative has taken the lead on horse welfare, statistics venues at Dubai and Al Wathba still produce routine drug violations and catastrophic injuries in endurance races, and it


at National and two in FEI Events.

Of course these are unacceptable, a sentiment shared by all parties, and we agree that fatalities damage the reputation of equestrian sport in general and endurance in particular. Whilst there are not yet statistics in the public domain that analyze the impact of the procedures put in place by the FEI and the UAE during 2017 the reports are that there has been a very positive change in attitude and far more effective communication and the sharing of information with the FEI. There has also been the introduction of training and education courses for officials, grooms, trainers and athletes in UAE. I know the FEI will be monitoring these changes and the impact they have. In March 2015 the FEI suspended thetwo-day 50-mile ride.

They also participated in several endurance rides, where they finished in the top 10. Along the way, Vogel and Fez won the highest number of points in the Colts Neck Trail Riders Club open hunter pace division, as well as riding in parades and doing meet-and-greets for equine organizations at the Monmouth County Library. This year, the duo hopes to compete in more 3-day 100 CTRs, as well as a 75-mile endurance ride and possibly the Moonlight in Vermont ride, a 50-miler held during a full moon...

Friday, January 12, 2018

Lexington, Ky. - The United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) is pleased to announce the winners of two prestigious awards in the discipline of endurance. Cheryl Van Deusen has been awarded the Maggy Price Endurance Excellence Award and


Eilish Connor has been awarded the Brunjes Junior/Young Rider Trophy.

The Maggy Price Endurance Excellence Award is presented to the top Senior rider. This award is sponsored by Gold Medal Farm and Larry and Valerie Kanavy, in memory of Maggy Price. Price was the 1992 FEI World Endurance Championship Silver medalist and was instrumental in the development of international endurance in the U.S. The Brunjes Junior/Young Rider Trophy is presented to the top Young Rider and is awarded in memory of Kathy Brunjes. Brunjes was a successful endurance athlete and an active supporter of the Junior/Young Rider program.

Currently ranked second in the FEI’s Open Riders World Endurance Ranking, Cheryl Van Deusen (New Smyrna Beach, Fla.) has demonstrated consistency and success in competition throughout her career, and 2017 was noexception. In March, Van Deusen won the CEI2* 120km with Hoover the Mover, her 13-year-old Arabian gelding, at the Fun in the Sun Endurance Ride. Hoover the Mover currently tops the list of over 6,000 horses on the FEI Open Horse World Endurance Ranking. She then secured a win in the CEI3* 160km at Spruce Woods Provincial Park in Manitoba, Canada, aboard Spotless Summer Magic, her 13-year-old half-Arabian mare and third ranking horse on the 2017 FEI Open Horse World Endurance Ranking list. Another significant success came at the Lone Star Express Ride in Decatur, Texas, where Van Deusen and Precious Beaunita, her 16-year-old Arabian mare, claimed second place in the CEI3* 160km. Precious Beaunita is ranked fifth on the 2017 FEI Open Horse World Endurance Ranking list.


Van Deusen ranked sixth in 2013 and second in 2015 in the FEI’s Open Riders World Endurance Ranking.

Eilish Connor (Spring, Texas) has proven to be a strong competitor throughout her time in the Young Rider division, handling the ups and downs of endurance competition with poise. In her last year as a Young Rider, Connor made the Distance Depot/U.S. Endurance Team for the FEI World Endurance Championship for Young Riders and Juniors in Italy. In her 2017 season, Connor won four CEIYJ2* 120km events aboard Darolyn Butler’s DJB Jolly Roger, a 15-year-old Arabian gelding, Butler’s Mattingley Wizard, an 11-year-old Arabian gelding, and Lisa Green’s LR Amana Tabi, a 17-year-old Arabian mare. Connor ended the season ranked in the top 50 on the FEI Young Riders World Endurance Ranking.

Theby a car on November 8, 2017. The family would like to thank all medical personnel who cared for Clark and for the support of family and friends throughout this time. He was born May 20, 1939 to Gene and Nola Palfreyman.

Clark learned to work on his family farm and even though the track coach said he was the fastest kid in school, he didn’t play high school sports because he had to go home and milk the cows. He was an usher in the thespian club and graduated a Red Devil from Springville High School. He attended one year at Brigham Young University where, in his own words, he “majored in fun.” He must have excelled as he was great at having fun his whole life. After


buying his red convertible MGA, he re-won the heart of his high school sweetheart from a rival suitor with a Corvette and married Catherine Aldeen Cazier on October 13, 1959 in Mapleton, Utah. They were later sealed in the Manti Temple.

Clark was self-employed most of his life. He started his career as a general contractor and built over 100 homes in Springville and surrounding areas. He went on to become a real estate developer and was part owner with Monte Allman of United Exchange Realty. He built and owned Supreme Court Racquetball Club (Later changed to Feelin’ Great Racquet Club). He also sold Little Giant Ladders for a time and later in life owned and ran Clark’s Home Inspection Service. Above all he was a horse trader, areal wheeler dealer, who would buy, sell, and trade just about anything.

He loved the outdoors, especially his horses and loved to share by taking others for rides. He enjoyed riding around town, mountain pack trips, and most of all competitive endurance rides. He logged over 9,000 miles of competitive rides, including five finishes on the Tevis Cup; the Pony Express Trail from St. Joseph Missouri to Virginia City, Nevada; and the 1999 Pan American Games in Manitoba, Canada. He kept fit playing racquetball early in the morning with a large group of friends for most of his life and competed in many tournaments. He enjoyed the arts, collected many paintings and sculptures, and was friends with many local artists.

He was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ


of Latter-day Saints and served in many capacities including librarian, Sunday school teacher, Scout leader, and many other callings. He and Aldeen loved the people of Hope, Arkansas where they recently served a church mission. He mostly valued spending time with his family, including traveling, camping, hunting, going to sports games, having family dinner, and many other activities.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his sister Sherry. He is survived by his wife Aldeen; six children, Bentley (Bev), Andre’ (Boni), Travis (Karla), Regan, Caleb (Emilee), Chalan (Ryan), and daughter-in-law Mena; two brothers, Robert and Derk; three sisters Noleen, Gena, and Ann; 21 grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and extended family.

Funeral services will be held Tuesday, January 9, 2018 at 11:00 am in the LDS chapel at 245 S.600 E. in Springville. There will be a viewing held Monday evening from 6-8 pm at the same LDS chapel and also one hour prior to services.

Monday, January 08, 2018

'The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new’ - Socrates

It takes a very special person to suddenly lose almost everything you own, and still exude rays of sunshine, overflowing with gratitude and humor, leaving no room for any self-pity and sparing few thoughts for your own predicament.

Endurance rider Kristine Hartman is just such a person.

In the destructive wake of the Thomas Fire, which started December 4, 2017, near Ventura, and ultimately grew in to California's largest wildfire by size in recorded history (as of January 5, the


and by 9:34 the flames were there."

Thanks to fast thinking ranch managers, everybody got out, all the horses were saved, and despite 7000 of their 7500 acres burning, they saved all the old buildings on the place as well.

With drivers literally watching over their shoulders as the flames approached the ranch, the caravan of trailers headed to the Ventura Fairgrounds 15 miles away, located right on the beach.

By then, Ventura had lost all power and was completely dark, and the Fairgrounds had just one generator running one light. The scene there was organized chaos. Kristine put her two horses in stalls, and spent the next hour getting them settled and fed while battling wind and dust and the smell of smoke.

"It was around 11 PM, and I finallypaused and looked up towards the mountains and Ventura, and I saw the glow of fire. It was like - holy $@*#. I remember exclaiming the F word, and 'My hill's on fire.'

"And I took off running in my Mary Jane shoes for our condo."

Kristine is an ultra-runner, so running a mile and a half uphill didn't strike her as odd. Neither, at the time, did the fact that she was running toward a catastrophic, raging fire in gale force winds.

"I got to our street. It was so eerie because cars were driving down - and in the movies, you expect to hear the firemen saying 'Get out, fire!' and all that, but because it caught everybody so off guard there was nobody. No sirens, no firemen, nothing.


believe me how close the fire was.'" Kristine laughs about it now. "Those were my thoughts at that moment."

But now with her home burning and the fire raging just less than 2 miles from the Fairgrounds, her instinct was to get back to her horses. "So I was the crazy lady in the old VW. There were traffic jams everywhere, so I drove in the wrong lanes against traffic. I didn't care. I ran red lights, and went right back to my horses. It was all so surreal."

Kristine sat up all night in her truck, watching the fire burn the town just a few blocks away, and getting out to check on her horses, ready to take them for a swim in the Pacific Ocean if the flamesor sparks reached the Fairgrounds barns. She thinks she called Mike around 1:30 AM (3:30 AM in Texas), waking and shocking him with the news of the fire and destruction.

He made it home the next night, and they lived in their horse trailer at the Fairgrounds for the next few days. Friends in Auburn offered to keep their horses, so Mike hauled them up there to get out of the smoke.

And now the hillside above what was Ventura is charcoal, and the homes on the hillside - including theirs - are nothing but rubble. "It is just so sad," Kristine laments. "The devastation is absolutely incredible. But the community of Ventura has been very, very strong. Patagonia as a company - ohmigod. I'm like a walking billboard for


Chances program at the Blackburn Correctional Complex. ‘Blackburn’ is a mutually beneficial program for retired racehorses and the inmates who are responsible for their care. The Thoroughbreds learn how to adapt to life off the track and are prepared for second careers, while the inmates gain new skill sets through hands-on work with the horses and classes in horse care. The inmates also experience the invaluable psychological benefits (that we all know about) of simply being around horses...

Wednesday, January 03, 2018

AERC President M Paul Latiolais has written a letter on behalf of the AERC board and members to Will Connell, USEF director of sport programs, regarding the continued abuse of horses in some Group VII competitions. You are invited to read and send your own letters to Mr.Connell at the address on the letter below.

I am writing on behalf of the American Endurance Ride Conference (AERC) members and Board of Directors to request that the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) register to the Federation Equestrian Internationale our disappointment, outrage and protest at the continued abuse of horses owned by certain stables in Group VII nations.

Social media around the world has circulated details of more than eight equine fatalities at the Dubai and Al Wathba venues sustained in just the first five weeks this season, each due to Catastrophic Injury. A dozen similar deaths occurred at these same two venues the previous seasons.

These catastrophic injuries and obvious lack of concern of the violating parties is now a very serious liability not only for the sport of


for best graduate student submission to the Social-Personality section of the Canadian Psychological Association annual conference in 2007.

Anne Lorraine Wagner

Ph.D Candidate, Psychology, Université Paul Verlaine – MetzFrance

Anne Lorraine Wagner is a Ph.D student in social psychology at the Université Paul Verlaine – Metz in France. She is pursuing investigations of acculturation and discrimination processes in the work setting. With Tisserant, she recently published a government report on presence of stereotyping in school textbooks in France.

Shaha EL-Geledi

Shaha El-Geledi obtained her B.A. in psychology from McGill University. She is presently doing her Ph.D. in social psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She is pursuing her graduate studies on intergroup relations between immigrants and host communities in multicultural societies. She is interested in studying the stability of host communityacculturation orientations towards valued and devalued immigrants. Currently, she is conducting studies exploring the impact of priming weak and strong symbolic threats on the acculturation orientations of different host communities in settings which vary in their immigrant-integration policies (eg., Ontario, Québec and France).

Richard Y. Bourhis

Educated in the French and English school system in Montreal, Richard Y. Bourhis obtained a B.Sc. in Psychology at McGill University and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the University of Bristol, England. He taught Social Psychology at McMaster University in Ontario and at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) where he is full Professor in the Psychology Department since 1988. Bourhis published extensively in English and French on topics such as cross-cultural communication, discrimination and intergroup relations, immigration and acculturation, bilingualism and


language planning. From 1996 to 2006, he was elected Director at UQAM of the Concordia-UQAM Chair in ethnic studies. Richard Bourhis was named director of the Centre d'études Ethniques des Université Montréalaises (CEETUM) at the Université de Montréal in June 2006.THE UNITED KINGDOM NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE: A MODEL FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN HEALTH SYSTEM?

THE UNITED KINGDOM NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE: A MODEL FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN HEALTH SYSTEM?

Andrew Barlow |
Feb 09, 2016

Andrew Barlow looks at the UK's NHS - an internationally lauded and nationally loved single-payer universal health care system - and how the many issues its faces are relevant to the recent NHI White Paper and its proposals to implement a similar system here in South Africa.

In December 2015, the Government released the long awaited National Health Insurance (NHI) White paper. The paper represents the blueprint for implementing single-payer health care in South Africa: an entirely government-funded system in which all South African citizens have free access to health care services at the point of service. The paper


way it is directed and managed. Due to the socialist-leaning Labour majority in the Welsh Assembly and outright socialist Scottish National Party’s dominance in Holyrood, standards such as waiting times to procedures and to be seen in casualty are markedly different in these countries compared to those in England and Northern Ireland – largely due to their unwillingness to use any private sub-contractors or initiatives.

On a smaller scale, neighbouring hospitals are regularly recorded has having widely different performances due to different leadership and governance standards within their respective managing Hospital Trusts. The most extreme example of this was the scandal surrounding the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust in 2009. Long plagued by financial difficulties and mired by mismanagement and maladministration, hundreds of patients were reportedly left “lying in theircompilations, commentary, online resources etc in order to assist the legal fraternity in their day-to-day practice of law. Our resources are also of great assistance to the general citizens by way of making the latest in State Laws available to them.

About the Editor

Mr Narayan Das Agrawal, G.C.S. (retd.)Ex-Collector and District Magistrate of South Goa

Late Smt. Rajkumari Agrawal

Mr Agrawal joined the State Service in 1986. He started from the cadre of Mamlatdar and retired from the post of the Collector & DM of South Goa. During his illustrious career he held important portfolios such as the Director of Social Services, Director of Education, Director of Printing and Stationary, Project Director Rural Development, etc.

He excelled wherever he was posted, and is one of the most awarded of the State's officers.


Not only does he have the credit of reviving various departments where he worked, he also has the unique distinction of being 4 times recipient of awards from the hands of President of India. He was adjudged as the best Civil Service Officer of the Goa State for the year 2009 and was nominated for the Prime Minister’s Award for “Excellence in Public Administration” for the year 2010-11. Another of his achievements is the ISO certification of the Goa Printing Press during his tenure.

Besides being a tireless administrator, Mr Agrawal is also the author of numerous publications: Goa Mundkar Act (1997), Goa Land Revenue Code (2000) and Delegated Laws of Goa (2014). These publications are much sought after and remain points of reference in courts, lawyer's offices, govtdrum. The rotary seal has a stationary part with ports for receiving the water and a rotational part mounted on the drive shaft. The water is directed inwardly through the rotary seal to a channel extending on the axis of the drive shaft. The water is conveyed through the drive shaft to a manifold connected by fittings to the spray nozzles associated with the cutter bits. The spray is directed from behind the cutter bits onto the area where the bit strikes the mine face.
A critical aspect in supplying water through a cutter drum to the external surface behind the cutter bits is the effectiveness of the rotary seal to prevent leakage of water into the gearcase and bearings. This problem is more readily solved with a longwall


from damage due to the accumulation of dirt in the water passageways and plugging of the sprays by pipe scale. In addition, the rotary seal must accommodate water leakage at the point where water passes from the stationary component of the seal to the rotating component of the seal.
Preferably, the rotary seal is installed on the drum section as a sealed unit to permit the conversion of a conventional continuous miner to one that supplies water to nozzles associated with each cutter bit on the cutter drum. The seal must be mounted so that it can be accessed without disabling operation of the mining machine for an extended period of time. The seal must be readily accessible for repair and replacement when required.
A number of systems have beenthe cutter drum and is discharged from nozzles into the kerf where cutting of material from the mine face takes place. The cutter drum is rotated by a shaft within a nonrotatable sleeve. A sealing ring is positioned between the rotatable shaft and the nonrotatable sleeve. The sealing ring includes openings that register with ports for water to pass through passages from the sleeve to a cutter wheel where the passages terminate at nozzles located in advance of the bit holders on the surface of the cutter drum. A sealing ring is positioned between the rotatable shaft and nonrotatable sleeve and bears against a valve ring which includes an arcuate passageway that supplies water to the nozzles from the passages and the nonrotatable sleeve in a predetermined arc


loading before the addition of hydraulic forces and dowels maintain positive drive to all components.
The cartridge configuration of the Cannings seal ensures that the rotating and stationary components remain in correct axial and radial relationships during transit and fitting. A dirt-exclusion labyrinth seal keeps the seal clean in operation as a cartridge assembly. The seal, as a cartridge assembly, is a self-contained unit easily mounted, maintained and removed from the machine.
In operation of the cartridge seal, water is introduced to an axial port through the outer diameter of the unit and is channeled between the two seal face pairings to a further port in the component that rotates with the drive shaft. Secondary low pressure lip seals prevent incidental leakage of water crossing the seal faces, directing leakagestrigoides) suffering neurological symptoms were shown to have the parasite. They were the first avian hosts discovered for the organism.

The Hawaiʻi Dept. of Health states that it is the fresh water opihi that can carry the parasite, as well as other aquatic organisms such as prawns, frogs, and water monitor lizards.  House pets may interact with A. cantonensis carrying animals yet not well studied.  Cats are known to carry and spread feline lungworm in rat and snail interactions.

Pathogenesis of human angiostrongylosis
The presence of parasitic worms burrowed in the neural tissue of the human central nervous system (CNS) causes obvious complications. All of the following result in damage to the CNS:

 Direct mechanical damage to neural tissue from the worms' motion
 Toxic byproducts such as nitrogenous waste


Gaudi, Gaudi Everywhere! by:Beatriz Lopez

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Each major city boasts a unique cultural icon that defines and shapes its image

. Think of New York City and the Empire State Building comes immediately to mind. Picture Paris and the elegant curves of the Eiffel Tower springs into view. Sydney has its Opera House and London, the clock face of Big Ben. When it comes to Barcelona what other building but the Sagrada Familia encapsulates the spirit of this modern, laidback city so precisely?

Barcelona is imprinted with the genius, spirit and architecture of its most famous son - Antoni Gaudi. His most well known work is the ongoing construction of the Sagrada, but if you look closely enough his mark is everywhere in Barcelona, on flowery pavement tiles and ghostlike balconies, inphantasm parks and the curves of window sills. Almost all of Gaudi's work is found in Barcelona, shaping the city with the creativity and energy of his buildings.

La Sagrada Familia

La Sagrada Familia, or the Cathedral of the Holy Family, is different from any other cathedral you've seen before. Eighteen thin spires punctuate the air, the four tallest ones from 90 to 112 metres high. The number has a religious significance - it represents the twelve apostles, the four evangelists St. Matthew, St. John, St. Mark, and St. Luke, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. From afar the stone walls of La Sagrada resembles nothing so much as a giant sandcastle, a child's playtoy bedecked with glittering shards of beach-washed glass and shells.

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Gaudi himself worked the main faade, which


is dedicated to the theme of the Nativity. The faade shows biblical scenes and is peopled with life sized sculptures of birds, animals and children. The work on this incredible cathedral continues, a hundred years after its inception. Gaudi foresaw that his greatest work would not be completed in his lifetime, likening it to the erection of medieval cathedrals which took generations to complete. "My client is in no rush" he once famously said. La Sagrada is currently tipped to be completed in 2026, the year which also marks the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death.

The interior of the Sagrada is unlike any cathedral, whether Romanesque, Gothic or medieval. White branches of organic trees festooned with flowers reach up into the soaring ceiling and vivid stained glass windows lendradiance and colour to the walls. Gaudi's work, as always, is informed by nature and the space and grace of the Sagrada is a world away from the dark, hushed insides of other European cathedrals. Instead, the Sagrada seems to celebrate the glory of natural shapes and light.

The cathedral is open from 9am to 8pm, April to September, and 9am to 6pm from October to March. On public holidays the cathedral closes at 2pm. Admission fees cost 11 and guided tours are 15. Audio guides are available, along with a variety of books and souvenirs from the bookshop. A trip up into one of the vertiginous towers of the Sagrada is worth it for the view of Barcelona's skyline, but prepared for the long queue and the additional


2 charge.

Casa Batllo

The House of Bones, as this structure is known, has creamy grey skull shaped balconies dotted across its faade. Formerly a private residence, the insides of Casa Batllo is covered in iridescent cerulean, navy and cobalt tiles. Gaudi drew inspiration from the sea for this house, swirling the bony spine of a whale, undulating waves of water, fish gills and the graduated blues of the ocean into a staircase, the ceiling, windows and atrium of Casa Batllo. The rooftop represents St George and the dragon, with its twisting, dragon-claw chimneys and undulating dragon back, scaled in shiny tiles of red, green and yellow.

Casa Batllo is open from 9am to 8pm on most days, and the entrance fee of 16.50 includes an audio guide, helpful to gainingan understanding of how Gaudi's genius leapt from natural inspiration to practical application.

Casa Mila

In the early 1900s, Gaudi was commissioned to build a private residence for a local businessman. Casa Mila, or La Pedrera, "The Quarry" as it is better known as, is a curvy, bone white building standing sentinel a few blocks away from Casa Batllo. Elaborate iron-wrought balconies weave across the faade, and its insides undulate through the top-floor flat and attic. The most popular part of the house is the rooftop, with its giant chimneys that look like medieval knights.

In the summer, from mid June to early July, La Pedrera is open on Friday and Saturday evenings for bookings to listen to live music and sip Catalan champagne. The roof is lit in an eerie,


out of this world fashion and the night sky of Barcelona from here is worth a visit. Normal visiting hours are from 10am to 8pm and admission costs 8.

Parque Guell

If the hustle and bustle of Barcelona's heaving streets gets a bit too much, pack a book and a snack, and set off to Park Guell, a UNESCO World Heritage site located on the outskirts of the city. Dotted with colourful mosaics and awash with stunning views, this is a fantasyland of a park.

At the entrance, Gaudi's mosaic trencadis lizard guards the twin staircases leading up to a big square. Mottled in blue and green tiles, he greets visitors with a jaunty yawn as he basks in the sun. The park was originally commissioned as a garden city bysuch as *duma ("thought"), *kupiti ("to buy"), *mĕčь ("sword"), *šelmъ ("helmet"), and *xъlmъ ("hill"). The Common Slavic words for beech, larch and yew were also borrowed from Germanic, which led Polish botanist Józef Rostafiński to place the Slavic homeland in the Pripet Marshes (where the plants were missing). Germanic languages were a mediator between Common Slavic and other languages; the Proto-Slavic word for emperor (*cĕsar'ь) was transmitted from Latin through a Germanic idiom, and the Common Slavic word for church (*crъky) came from Greek.

Common Slavic dialects before the fourth century AD cannot be detected; all daughter languages emerged from later variants. Tonal word stress (a ninth-century change) is present in all Slavic languages, and Proto-Slavic reflects the language probably spoken at the end of the first millennium.

Historiography

Jordanes, Procopius and other late


to refer to a people known as "Sclavus" before 580, Jonas of Bobbio included the earliest lengthy record of the nearby Slavs in his Life of Saint Columbanus (written between 639 and 643). Jonas referred to the Slavs as "Veneti", noting that they were also known as "Sclavi".

Western authors, including Fredegar and Boniface, preserved the term "Venethi". The Franks (in the Life of Saint Martinus, the Chronicle of Fredegar and Gregory of Tours), Lombards (Paul the Deacon) and Anglo-Saxons (Widsith) referred to Slavs in the Elbe-Saale region and Pomerania as "Wenden" or "Winden" (see Wends). The Franks and Bavarians of Styria and Carinthia called their Slavic neighbours "Windische".

The unknown author of the Chronicle of Fredegar used the word "Venedi" (and variants) to refer to a group ofcenter of Slavic Europe. Major event is the development of the Cyrillic script at the Preslav Literary School, declared official in Bulgaria in 893, as also was declared official the liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, also called Old Bulgarian.

Although there is some evidence of early Christianization of the East Slavs, Kievan Rus' remained largely pagan (or relapsed into paganism) before the baptism of Vladimir the Great in the 980s. The Christianization of Poland began with the Catholic baptism of Mieszko I in 966. Slavic paganism persisted into the 12th century in Pomerania, which began to be Christianized after the creation of the Duchy of Pomerania as part of the Holy Roman Empire in 1121; the process was mostly completed with the Wendish Crusade of 1147.
The final stronghold of


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When the students of Tennessee's Whitwell Middle School began studying the Holocaust as a way to learn about intolerance and diversity, nobody could have predicted the results. In 2001, the Paper Clip Project culminated in a unique memorial that changed the lives of those who created it, as well as touching Holocaust survivors and countless communities. Because Norwegians invented the paper clip and used it as a symbol of solidarity against the Nazis, students started collecting them to help visualize such vast numbers of victims. As word spread online and in the media, paper clips poured in from around the world, 11 million of which are enshrined in an authentic German railcar standing in the schoolyard. "Patiently told and lovingly made" (Variety), this inspiring, award-winning documentary showsGeneral Dynamics under Pentagon's gun again. Indictment of 4 executives is latest of company's contract troubles

General Dynamics is in trouble once again. In the past year, the company has been accused of padding its federally paid expense accounts and of purloining classified government budget documents. It may lose some lucrative Trident submarine business. And now, it has been indicted for fraud in a contract competition it lost anyway.

The latest controversy, centering on the recently canceled DIVAD (division air defense) antiaircraft gun, shows how complicated bookkeeping sleight of hand can be in the defense business. It involves small accounts that can be easily abused and turned into ``slush funds,'' according to Gordon Adams, a defense expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based public-policy research group.

Basically,


good relations with the Pentagon, in recent years it has come to symbolize many of the procurement problems that beset the Defense Department.

In the late 1970s, Adm. Hyman Rickover, then head of the Navy's submarine force, charged that General Dynamics was artificially inflating the costs of attack subs. The investigations and lawsuits sparked by this claim have yet to be resolved.

Ironically, last year the Navy concluded that General Dynamics had improperly given Admiral Rickover some $67,000 in gifts over the course of their relationship.

In the fall of 1983, P. Takis Veliotis, head of General Dynamics' marine division, was indicted for allegedly receiving kickbacks on ship contracts. Mr. Veliotis fled the US, claiming he was a bystander to a companywide sub fraud effort.

Last October, George Sawyer, General Dynamics vice-presidentrichness by starting the reproductive process with twice the number of chromosomes as their sexually reproducing cousins. These celibate species resulted from the hybridization of different sexual species, a process that instills the parthenogenetic lizards with a great amount of genetic diversity at the outset. And the researchers found that these species could maintain the diversity by never pairing their homologous chromosomes (as sexual species do by taking one set of chromosomes from each parent) but rather by combining their sister chromosomes instead. "Recombination between pairs of sister chromosomes maintains heterozygosity" throughout the chromosome, noted the authors of the study, which was led by Aracely Lutes, a postdoctoral researcher in Baumann's lab.

This discovery, which had until now been unconfirmed in the reptile world, means that "these lizards have


Hello. When i heard of the DLC coming out, i immediately thought of getting some members of the community and getting their first impression reviews all together in a nice blog post. Now that time has come. I have rounded up 6 reviews from me, AlexisYj, who's one of the organizers of CoNDOR tournaments, Bacing, who's known as the necroscientist, because of his knowledge of the game, Sponskapatrick, who won CoNDUIT 17 and then TicTacFoe and Necrorebel, who both raced in the Necrodancer World Cup and have been active members in the community for a while. And without further ado, let's get into the reviews

Saakas0206:

I am a giant fan of the base game and it's the reason I started the blog. When the DLC trailer first dropped, iitems seem designed to be more technical than the existing items, and even the new character Nocturna's special effects seem to be built with that in mind.

For the most part, z5 feels like a combination of the fast pace of z3 with the complicated battles of z4, which is great fun and quite challenging. The new weapons are quite interesting, though a couple of them seem a bit overpowered. Nocturna is much like in a way, but stronger for the most part. Overall, I don't think Nocturna is going to be a particularly unusual character, which might mean that she'll get more play than, say, Dove , Dorian, and Eli.

As far as the music goes, I enjoyed it for the most part. The z5 music is quite good,


Imminence

by Paul Zimet

directed by Paul Zimet

La MaMa ETC present the Talking Band

IMMINENCE follows three generations of a family in an exploration of time, and how it shapes our lives from the smallest human instant to the massive geotectonic cycles of the earth. Following the death of her mother, Simone takes her twenty year old daughter, on a cross-country car trip to visit her parents’ first home in Coney Island. The narrative shifts between the past and present, not only through the generations of Simone’s family, but also through the much longer scale of geological time. Fleeting moments of human interaction – an awkward wedding, a deathbed vigil, an unlikely romance between the family doctor and an eccentric friend - cross paths with the slow, relentless time of theCalendar

Amendment 69 Jessamine is dying- And her husband is dying with her.

Jessamine (“Miss J” as she’s fondly called) has been a fixture in our neighborhood for years. She and her husband have been married for 50 years and together almost that long. On most evenings, their porch is a neighborhood social hub. People come by to chat, catch up on neighborhood news and relax. Miss J, long retired, is often out on the porch during the day watching the world go by and keeping an eye on things. We regard her as the unofficial mayor of the neighborhood.

Her husband is a Vietnam veteran still working full-time as a local truck driver well past the age of retirement. They are not affluent. They own their home and half a


You have to keep that art, regardless of the horrible circumstances of its gifting.

I'd be curious to see how fast Santorum would run to the laser clinic. I'd bet the soles of his shoes would come off from the speed of his sprint.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Welcome to 2012, and to start it off on the right foot the stupid pope opened his bigoted mouth and said that gay marriage is a threat to humanity itself.

He told diplomats from nearly 180 countries that the education of children needed proper "settings" and that "pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman."

No one, not one person from the organization that is the catholic church (no, I won't capitalize it) has any righthard. It just seems like it comes natural to him. I know he’ll probably have some things to say that will get everybody ready to play. He did it at Bama. I expect no less from him. I’m excited to get the opportunity to play with him again.”

Hurts is coming off the best season of his career after transferring to Oklahoma from Alabama for his senior year. During his lone season with the Sooners, the mobile right-hander passed for 3,851 yards and 32 touchdowns while rushing for 1,298 yards and 20 scores. His time at Alabama was equally memorable. Hurts was named SEC Offensive Player of the Year in 2016 and helped lead the Crimson Tide to the national championship game in both the 2016 and 2017 seasons.


Wittrock, Raymond Wittrock, Zyril Wittrock and Louis Wittrock, record title owners, seek to quiet title to the E½NW¼, W½NE¼ in Section 14, Township 156, North of Range 97, West *357 of the Fifth Principal Meridian, being in Williams County, North Dakota, to which land Williams County took tax deed on March 1, 1940 for unpaid taxes for the year 1930 and which land was subsequently sold to the answering defendant, George Weisz, on contract dated November 19, 1943 and executed February 16, 1944, and followed by county deed dated June 9, 1947.
The plaintiffs commenced this action in September of 1952. The defendant George Weisz, was the lessee of the land from 1928 to 1940 leasing from the plaintiffs. John G. Weisz, son of the defendant, George Weisz, leasedthe land from the County for the years 1940, 1941 and 1942, during all of which time he lived with his father the defendant, George Weisz, and during which time they owned machinery together and worked together.
On May 24, 1939 the County Auditor of Williams County issued a notice of expiration of the period of redemption based on the sale held December 8, 1931 to the County of the 1930 taxes. The notice erroneously named "Louis B. Wittrock, (heirs)" as the record title owner instead of Augusta Wittrock, Raymond Wittrock, Zyril Wittrock and Louis Wittrock, who were in fact the record title owners. Service of this notice appears to have been made in accordance with Chapter 235 of the Session Laws of North Dakota for 1939 with this


exception, in the notice published in the official newspaper of Williams County the name of the record title owner was stated as being "Louis B. Wittrock (heirs)". Notices were also mailed by registered mail addressed to each of the plaintiffs giving the postoffice address of Ray, North Dakota, and each envelope contained a copy of the notice of the expiration of the period of redemption naming "Louis B. Wittrock (heirs)" as the record title owners. However, all of the mailed notices were returned to the County Auditor by the postoffice department marked "unclaimed" and "unknown" and were never received by any of the addressees. Tax deed dated March 1, 1940 was issued to the County of Williams.
The publication of the notice of the expiration of the period ofcertificate of the Register of Deeds also stated following the names of the record title owners set forth thereon "No address". However, the County Auditor took it upon himself to mail registered notices of the expiration of the period of redemption to them at Ray, North Dakota. The record does not disclose what, if any, investigation the County Auditor conducted to obtain those addresses. It is clear from the record that Ray, North Dakota was not the address of any of the record title owners at that time and all of the notices were returned to the County Auditor. The Auditor was not required by the statute to do this and efforts on his part to give further notice in a manner not prescribed by the statute in


A Tampa Bay Buccaneers player was arrested at LaGuardia Airport Monday morning after police discovered he was illegally carrying a handgun, authorities said.

Da'Quan Bowers, a defensive end for the Buccaneers, was arrested at a check-in counter after he was found with a loaded .40-caliber firearm in his carry-on bag, spokesmen for the Port Authority and the Queens District Attorney's office said. He was about to board a US Airways flight to Raleigh, N.C.

The former All-American player was charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

The Buccaneers' general manager, Mark Dominik, said in a statement Monday: "We are aware of the situation and are gathering information. We will withhold comment until we know all the facts.'

Bowers was arraigned in court Monday evening. His attorney declined to comment.

Bowers has playedin the second quarter. Top performing sectors included energy, information technology and healthcare. Financials were among the main laggards, posting a negative return; Italian banks in particular struggled amid political uncertainty in May. Elsewhere, auto stocks fell against a backdrop of intensifying trade concerns as US President Trump threatened tariffs on imported vehicles.

The quarter was marked by the return of political risk. There were concerns that Italy could need fresh elections following the inconclusive outcome of the March vote. Markets feared that this would turn into an effective referendum on Italy’s membership of the euro. However, a governing coalition was eventually formed between populist parties, the League and the Five Star Movement. Spain also saw a change of government, although this was largely greeted with calm by markets.


sentiment during the past three months, the Japanese equity market showed a positive total return of 1.1% for the quarter. Although further uncertainty was created by rising trade tensions, the Japanese yen lost ground against a generally stronger dollar.

The results season for the fiscal year which ended in March was completed in early May, with profit numbers broadly in-line with expectations after a period of successive upward revisions in the second half of 2017. Companies’ own expectations for the year to March 2019 appear to be rather conservative, partly as a result of the stronger yen rates prevailing at the time the forecasts were made, which potentially leaves room for upward revisions later in the year.

Much of the quarter was very quiet in terms of Japan-specific news, withinvestors focused instead on escalations in trade tension between the US & China and increased strains within the European Union. The most important aspect for Japan has been the increased potential for the US to apply tariffs to auto imports. Although Japanese makers already have consistently moved production facilities offshore, auto exports still represent a significant part of Japan’s trade balance. The complexity of auto supply chains creates further uncertainty for Japanese automakers who are already re-evaluating their global strategy in the light of the new-found propensity of the US to tear up pre-existing trade agreements.

Away from politics, forward-looking economic indicators had been pointing towards a recovery from the short-term GDP decline seen in the first quarter. Data on the real economy released at the end of June


index countries while Korea also fell sharply. This was despite positive developments with regards to peace on the Korean peninsula; an Inter-Korea Summit in April saw leaders from the South and North pledge to agree a formal end to the war between the two sides. US President Trump subsequently met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore in June. In Malaysia, the market declined after the unexpected election victory of Mahathir Mohamad’s Harapan alliance ended the ruling coalition’s 60 years in power. Taiwan also underperformed with IT sector names leading the market lower.

India, which had underperformed by a wide margin in Q1, and China finished in negative territory but held up better than the wider index. In China, the central bank cut the reserve ratio requirement forthe economy and amplified political uncertainty. Ahead of October’s presidential election, no centrist candidate saw a significant improvement in opinion poll ratings. Those markets exposed to ongoing global liquidity tightening also came under pressure, notably Turkey where currency weakness forced the central bank to implement an emergency rate hike in May. Early presidential elections, subsequently won by incumbent President Erdogan and a coalition led by his Law and Justice Party, added to uncertainty. Weak eurozone growth and uncertainty stemming from Italian politics were negative for a number of emerging European emerging markets, notably Hungary and Poland.

The emerging Asian markets of Thailand and South Korea were also firmly down and underperformed, negatively impacted by global trade uncertainty. China posted a negative return but outperformed. This was despite concerns over


Tag Archives: M23

A Selex EX Falco unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) crashed today. The aircraft crashed at the airport in Goma in Eastern DRC, where the aircraft are based. There does not appear to be any reporting yet on what might have caused the crash. Initial reporting by the wire services, variously citing DRC or UN officials, seems suggest there is some uncertainty about whether the aircraft was leaving for or returning from a mission.

Map of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The city of Goma in the highlighted zone has historically been a major point of contention in the region.

MONUSCO only received the drones at the end of 2013 and they were expected tofor good, there remains a significant number of rebel groups that threaten security in eastern DRC, such as the FDLR, which MONUSCO said it would focus on following the military defeat of M23 last year.

While the focus here at Codebook: Africa has been on developments in CAR, it is important to note that authorities from the Democratic Republic of Congo and representatives of the M23 rebel group signed a deal formally ending hostilities in Kenya on Thursday. A deal brokered by Uganda had stalled out, in no small part due to the issues of the final status of former rebels and reported Ugandan support for the group. Many M23 rebels, including its military chief Sultani Makenga, had fled into Uganda, and Uganda had said it had no intention


M23 representatives reiterated the end of the movement as an armed group. No amnesty for those believed to be responsible for war crimes was included. DRC President Joseph Kabila was said to have been hailed by other African leaders present at the ceremony for signing the DRC’s document. The US and UN also responded positively to the deal.

As always it remains to be seen how this new agreement will play out. As previously noted here and elsewhere, M23 was only the latest iteration of Tutsi rebels in the region. There is nothing to say that grievances, real or imagined, of government inattention or outright hostility to the Tutsi minority in eastern DRC might not again provoke a return to open conflict. With the status of former M23 membersin Uganda remaining uncertain, there is the possibility that members of the group could return to set up a new armed movement.

In addition, M23 was only one of a myriad of armed groups in DRC, including a large number of localized and independent “Mai Mai” militias, said to act in self-defense against the other more formalized movements. The UN has already looked to launching offensives against some of these groups like it did against M23. The activities of the UN’s intervention brigade in DRC, formed this year, were said to have been instrumental in the rapid collapse of M23 at the beginning of last month. This past week, the brigade launched a new offensive against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu rebel group


damage or whether the aircraft were total losses.

Map released by AFRICOM in its 2013 posture statement showing the approximate areas and density of Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria in 2012. Maiduguri can be seen marked in the northeast corner of the country, partially obscured by a graphic indicating “31+ attacks,” the high attack density marked on the map.

Borno state has been one of the primary hot-spots in Nigeria’s campaign against Boko Haram militants. In may a state of emergency was declared in Borno, and twenty-four hour curfew has been put in place following today’s attacks. The attack on the airbase is in many ways unsurprising. In May, the following the increase in violence in places like Borno, the Nigerian military began launching airstrikes against Boko Haram camps. Thiswas said by observers at the time to represent a significant escalation in the government response. As recently as the end of last month, Nigeria had again launched air strikes against Boko Haram. Striking back at this capability would no doubt have been a key priority for the militant group. Boko Haram, along with a splinter group called Ansaru, were designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the United States in November.

Also, it was reported today that a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, would be heading to the Democratic Republic of Congo this week to begin operations. The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) will receive five drones of an unspecified type. United Nations peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous has described the


Rwanda.

The issue of protecting civilians especially important with regards to DRC, as UN forces had been criticized for their lack of intervention on behalf of civilians threatened by fighting related to the M23 group at the end of last year and earlier this year. The UN responded by stepping up patrols and ultimately activated an “intervention brigade” to carry out mobile operations. This force was said to be in no small way responsible for the decision by the M23 leadership to surrender or flee the country at the beginning of November. The deal that was to end the fighting between the government and M23 remains delayed indefinitely, though DRC President Joseph Kabila has flown to Uganda today in hopes of reviving the negotiations. The status and fate ofthat had planned to be signed today between DRC authorities and M23 rebels has apparently been postponed indefinitely.

Map of the Democratic Republic of Congo showing the approximate zone of conflict. The city of Goma has historically been a major point of contention and one can see the tri-border region with Uganda and Rwanda.

Uganda, which has been mediating between the two groups since last December, said that while the DRC delegation was in Entebbe to sign the agreement, they had requested to read the final text of the agreement before entering the conference room for the signing. The ceremony was suspended indefinitely after the DRC contingent spent over four hours going over the text. Ugandan officials said the they conferred in private so it was unclear what specific issues


Oryem added that M23 chief Sultani Makenga, who fled to Uganda, was not a prisoner and that his status would only be resolved in an agreement between the DRC and the rebel group. Rwanda, also accused of having support M23 in DRC, has been notably silent on the events.

On 5 November 2013, M23 President Bertrand Bisimwa released a statement that requested rebel commanders prepare fighters for “disarmament, demobilization and social reintegration.” This announcement comes as Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende told members of the press that military operations effectively ended overnight, following the capture of rebel positions in the tri-border region between DRC, Uganda, and Rwanda. The rebel held areas in Tshanzu and Runyoni had been the only ones still in M23 control as DRC Armed Forces (FARDC)and UN elements had continued a major offensive against the group. African leaders meeting in South Africa to discuss the security situation in the Great Lakes region had also called for an end to the fighting.

Map of the Democratic Republic of Congo showing the approximate zone of conflict. The city of Goma has historically been a major point of contention and one can see the tri-border region with Uganda and Rwanda.

The future of the region, however, remains uncertain. For one, Bisimwa has already stated that he intends to continue to pursue his group’s goals through political means. This highlights that while M23 may be militarily defeated, its leadership does not view the matter as settled. The sources of conflict between ethnic Tutsi in DRC’s Kivu region and the


central government remain unresolved, as does the issue of alleged involvement of Uganda and Rwanda in supporting ethnic Tutsi aspirations in the region.

M23 itself had spawned from rebels who had previously fought the central government over similar grievances before coming to an agreement in 2009 and being integrated into the FARDC. It is also not the first time DRC authorities have tried this, having attempted to integrate National Committee for the Defense of the People (CNDP) rebels into the FARDC as part of a peace plan in 2006, which also failed to produce a lasting peace. Unless the government has a way to address the significant differences in opinion, there is nothing to suggest that a similar outcome is not in the offing. This is especially so seeinga way forward in the Great Lakes Region.

UN-backed talks between the DRC government and M23 rebels, being held in Uganda, were said to have stalled in October. The major point of disagreement was reported to be the desire by M23 negotiators to secure an amnesty for their members. The DRC government is likely wary of issuing such an amnesty given M23’s history, having spawned from demobilized rebels who were integrated into the DRC security forces in 2009 as part of a previous peace agreement.

United Nations peacekeeping forces have also been active in attempting to protect civilians from the conflict. Concerned by the persistence of the conflict in the country’s east earlier this year, the United Nations approved the activation of a reaction brigade in DRC in response to


mental health in the sub-sample who completed follow up but infants of women who received the POW intervention had significantly better gross motor skills at 1 year than infants of women who received standard care. There were no other significant improvements in any other aspect of development in infants in the POW arm of the trial.

Gross motor skills include the assessment of general musculature, physical skills and coordination, and thus gross motor skills delay is often used as an indicator of developmental delay. The infants of women who received the POW support demonstrated gross motor skills in line with that expected of their age group using scaled reference scores. In contrast, their peers who did not receive the intervention demonstrated gross motor skill performance significantly below the normA teenage girl accused of leading Temple officers on a chase with her boyfriend and his 18-month-old son in her car was jailed Monday on marijuana possession warrants and was facing evading arrest and child endangerment charges, as well.

Alexandra Armour, 17, was held Monday in the Bell County Jail in lieu of bonds totaling $4,500 with the additional charges pending.

The chase started at around 4 p.m. Sunday after a Temple officer attempted to pull an Audi A4 over for a traffic violation in the area of East Houston Avenue and North 14th Street.

The driver refused to stop, drove northeast to the interstate, and sped north to Troy where Texas Department of Public Safety and Troy police officers joined the pursuit, authorities said Monday.

Temple officers discontinued the chase, but


then received information the Audi was headed back toward the city.

The Audi crashed at Lower Troy Road and East Young Avenue and the driver ran toward the Blue Bonnet Mobile Home Park at 901 East Young Avenue with officers in pursuit.

She was eventually arrested.

Her boyfriend and his son remained in the vehicle.

Officers identified and then released him.

He told officers that his girlfriend fled because she had outstanding warrants.

Authorities Monday identified the arresting officer as Mario Bmytrus.

On Sunday they initially and incorrectly reported that he was in the fleeing vehicle.the outpost, the RFA garrison was down 25% of its strength, plus most of the Polly'''s provisions.

On Nov. 9 Michael Francklin, the former lieutenant-governor, got word of the invasion from residents around the Minas Basin; he passed these reports to Halifax where planning got underway to relieve the fort. Meanwhile, Eddy presented an ultimatum that Goreham surrender the fort on Nov. 10; Goreham replied with a demand that Eddy surrender instead. His bluff having failed, Eddy began planning for battle.

Although the RFA was down to a strength of 172 all ranks, plus some armed civilians, it's unlikely that Eddy was able to persuade more than about 80 of his men to actually participate in any of the following attacks, so numbers were very much on Goreham's side. The


Story highlights Authorities need to track down the source of the virus, an expert says

A woman remains in a critical condition after contracting the virus

Chinese authorities say it hasn't been found in humans before

They say it doesn't appear to be highly contagious among humans

Two people in China have died and another remains critical after falling ill with a strain of bird flu not detected before in humans, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

Both of those who died, men aged 27 and 87, lived in Shanghai, while a 35-year-old woman in Chuzhou city in nearby Anhui province is in the hospital, the Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission said Sunday, according to Xinhua.

The victims all had initial symptoms of fever and coughing that then developed into severepneumonia and difficulty in breathing, Xinhua reported.

A team of experts assigned by the health commission established that the three cases were human infections of H7N9 avian influenza, which has not been found in humans previously, the news agency reported.

Investigators haven't yet figured out how the three people contracted the virus, according to the commission. It ruled out the theory that they had infected one another.

JUST WATCHED 2012: Bird flu research published Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 2012: Bird flu research published 04:05

JUST WATCHED 2011: Bird flu tests as terror threat? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 2011: Bird flu tests as terror threat? 05:28

"It's really important to understand where this virus is coming from," said Malik Peiris, a professor at Hong Kong University's School of Public Health.

He


said the H7N9 strain of avian flu, already known to exist in wild birds, had probably been transmitted to poultry, from where it infected the humans.

None of the 88 people who had close contact with the victims have shown symptoms of the flu, the commission said, suggesting the virus isn't highly contagious among humans.

According to Xinhua, the 87-year-old man fell ill on February 19 and died on March 4; the 27-year-old man became unwell on February 27 and died on March 10; and the female victim got sick on March 9.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Preservation on Friday separated the H7N9 bird flu virus from samples from the victims, Xinhua reported.

Finding the source

Since the transmission of these types of virus from animals to humans is usuallysaid other strains from the H7 family had caused previous outbreaks in poultry in countries including the Netherlands, Britain, Canada, the United States and Mexico. Human infection was documented in all of those cases except the Mexican one.

The outbreak of the H7N7 strain in the Netherlands in 2003 infected 89 people, one of whom died, according to Peiris.

The better known H5N1 avian flu virus has infected more than 600 people since 2003, of which 371 have died, according to the WHO.

In February, China reported two new human cases of H5N1 in the southern province of Guizhou, both of whom were in a critical condition, the WHO said.


Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. The new drive is a 32-gigabyte drive that is current as of the programs and articles posted by mid-October of 2014. The new drive (available for a tax-deductble contribution of $65.00 or more) contains FTR #815. The last program recorded before Mr. Emory’s illness was FTR #748.

Introduction: In his second stint as Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe is rebooting the right-wing political agenda he pursued during his first term in the last decade.

The grandson of prominent Japanese war criminal Nobosuke Kishi, Abe is implementing revisionist politics designed to obfuscate Japan’s actions during World War II. (Kishi–Abe’s grandfather–implemented Japan’s declaration of war against the U.S. during the Second World War.)

In pastinclusion of nationalist views of World War II-era history.

This month, a government-appointed committee suggested a change that would bring politics more directly into education: putting mayors in charge of their local school districts, a move that opponents say would increase political interference in textbook screening. And just days ago, an advisory committee to the Education Ministry suggested hardening the proposed new standards by requiring that textbooks that do not nurture patriotism be rejected. . . .

Shinzo Abe’s past year as prime minister has concentrated chiefly on reviving Japan’s long-ailing economy. Yet in Mr. Abe’s mind, the country’s newfound economic prowess is a means to an end: to build a more powerful, assertive Japan, complete with a full-fledged military, as well as pride in its World War II-era past.

That


Japan at the closest point.

Pyongyang, which regularly fires short-range rockets into the sea separating the Koreas from Japan, has improved its ballistic missile capabilities and conducted three nuclear weapons tests, its most recent in February 2013.

In April, North Korea said that in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula, Japan would be “consumed in nuclear flames”.

Part of Japan’s motivation for upgrading its capabilities is a nagging suspicion that the United States, with some 28,000 troops in South Korea as well as 38,000 in Japan, might hesitate to attack the North in a crisis, Japanese experts said.

U.S. forces might hold off in some situations, such as if South Korea wanted to prevent an escalation, said Narushige Michishita, a national security adviser to the Japanese government from 2004–2006.

“We mightintelligence and consider, as necessary, the use of forces providing additional strike power”.

SHROUDED IN EUPHEMISM

The informal discussions on offensive capabilities cover all options, from Japan continuing to rely completely on Washington to getting the full panoply of weaponry itself.

Japan would like to reach a conclusion in about five years, and then start acquiring hardware, one Japanese official said.

Tokyo had wanted the discussions included in the review of the Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation Guidelines that are expected to cover areas such as logistical support and cybersecurity. Those talks, which formally kicked off last October, are the first in 17 years.

…

3. The NHK television network is being brought under the thumb of Abe’s administration, compromising the integrity of Japan’s largest and (arguably) most prestigious news outlet.

First, there was the abrupt resignation


government says right,” he said when asked whether NHK would present Japan’s position on territorial and other disputes. He explained that it was “only natural” for the network to follow the Japanese government position.

He also said it should refrain from criticizing the secrecy law as well as Mr. Abe’s visit in December to a Tokyo war shrine, which angered China and South Korea.

The comments seemed to run counter to the stated mission of the broadcaster, which is funded by fees collected from everyone who owns a television set, to report the news “without distortion or partisanship.”

While it is nominally independent, the broadcaster’s 12-member governing board is appointed by Parliament, which also approves its budget. The board, which includes four Abe appointees, chooses the president of the network.

The bluntnessof the questioning in Parliament reflected the deep suspicion shared by many in the opposition that Mr. Abe’s governing Liberal Democratic Party is stocking the governing board with people ready to stifle criticism of his conservative government’s agenda, including playing down Japan’s wartime atrocities. . . .

. . . .The latest accusations of political interference have also become a headache for the Abe government, which has already seen its high approval ratings slide after passage in December of the secrecy law. Many Japanese journalists saw the law as a way of intimidating would-be government whistle-blowers from speaking with reporters, further hampering the independence of Japanese news media already criticized for being overly cozy with authority.

“This is gross political interference,” said Yasushi Kawasaki, a former NHK political reporter who


teaches journalism at Sugiyama Jogakuen University near Nagoya. “The Abe government has stocked NHK’s board of governors with friendly faces in order to neuter its coverage.”

The top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, has denied that the appointments were politically motivated, but said the prime minister chose people whom he knows and trusts. . . .

4a. Controversial comments are straining relations with the United States. Assertions by Abe allies include assertions that U.S. war crimes tribunals after the conflict were intended to obfuscate American war crimes and the remarkable claim that U.S. troops used slave prostitutes similar to the Japanese “comfort women.”

A series of defiantly nationalistic comments, including remarks critical of the United States, by close political associates of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has led analysts tocomments from Abe allies came this month, when an ultraconservative novelist, Naoki Hyakuta, who was appointed by the prime minister himself to the governing board of public broadcaster NHK, said in a speech that the Tokyo war tribunal after World War II was a means to cover up the “genocide” of American air raids on Tokyo and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States Embassy called the comments “preposterous.”

. . . . Mr. Hyakuta’s comments came days after the new president of NHK, who was chosen last month by a governing board including Abe appointees, raised eyebrows in Washington by saying that Japan should not be singled out for forcing women to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during the war, saying the United States military


National Security News Service investigation reveals. These activities repeatedly violated U.S. laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.

The diversion of U.S. classified technology began during the Reagan administration after it allowed a $10 billion reactor sale to China. Japan protested that sensitive technology was being sold to a potential nuclear adversary. The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers. Highly sensitive technology on plutonium separation from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and Hanford nuclearweapons complex, as well as tens of billions of dollars worth of breeder reactor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safeguards against proliferation. Japanese scientist and technicians were given access to both Hanford and Savannah River as part of the transfer process.

While Japan has refrained from deploying nuclear weapons and remains under an umbrella of U.S. nuclear protection, NSNS has learned that the country has used its electrical utility companies as a cover to allow the country to amass enough nuclear weapons materials to build a nuclear arsenal larger than China, India and Pakistan combined. . . .

. . . That secret effort was hidden in a nuclear power program that by March 11, 2011– the day the earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi


Nuclear Plant – had amassed 70 metric tons of plutonium. Like its use of civilian nuclear power to hide a secret bomb program, Japan used peaceful space exploration as a cover for developing sophisticated nuclear weapons delivery systems.

Political leaders in Japan understood that the only way the Japanese people could be convinced to allow nuclear power into their lives was if a long line of governments and industry hid any military application. For that reason, a succession of Japanese governments colluded on a bomb program disguised as innocent energy and civil space programs. . . .

5c. Abe is turning back the Japanese historical and political clock. Japanese government officials are openly sanctioning anti-Korean racism and networking with organizations that promote that doctrine. Several members of Abe’s government networkthat dates back to 2009 shows Yamatani standing next to Yasuhiko Aramaki, who was arrested a year later for terrorizing a Korean elementary school in Kyoto, found guilty and then later arrested again in 2012 on charges of intimidation..

Another of the people photographed with Yamatani is Shigeo Masuki, a former Zaitokukai leader. Masuki was arrested at least three times after the photograph was shot, once for threatening an elementary school principal and later for insurance fraud. Yamatani initially denied that she knew of the Zaitokukai affiliation of the people in the pictures. This is slightly strange since she has reportedly been friends with Masuki and his wife for over a decade. When replying to questions from TBS radio about the recent scandal, she explained the Zaitokukai exactly in


groups and the cabinet members seem problematic, there are signs of hope…sort of.

Of course, it is a little worrisome that Sanae Takaichi, who was supposed to oversee the project, is the other female minister who was photographed with a neo-Nazi leader and is a fan of Hitler.

Maybe the Abe administration is sincere about dealing with hate crimes and just unlucky to have so many cabinet members being photographed and getting donations from the wrong people.

Sadly, Japan is in the middle of a huge racist boom. Anti-Korean books, magazines, and comic books are selling like wildfire. The anti-Korean diatribe Bokanron (The Impudent Korea Argument), a book released on December 5 last year, became the top selling book on Amazon within a week and sold 270,000 copies by the endunder Japanese imperial aggression during World War II, a conflict in which Japan was allied with Nazi Germany. . . .

7. Abe cabinet ministers Tomomi Inada and Sanae Takaichi wrote promotional blurbs for a book written by a Liberal Democratic Party politician that formally articulates the strategy endorsed by Taro Aso.

An official of the Liberal Democratic Party urges in a new book that his party try to regain power by adopting a new role model: Hitler.

The book, “Hitler Election Strategy: A Bible for Certain Victory in Modern Elections,” says the Nazi leader’s process for “unifying public opinion in a short period of time and snatching power” provides “very important teachings.”

The author, Yoshio Ogai, is a public relations official in the Tokyo chapter of the Liberal Democratic Party, Japan’s


high.

The conservative leader has also said he wants reforms to education that would foster patriotism in schoolchildren and urges a more sympathetic retelling of Japan’s wartime misdeeds.

His ruling LDP and its junior partner, Komeito, swept the ballot on Sunday with a two-thirds majority in the Lower House.

The coalition won a combined 326 of the 475 seats, crushing the main opposition force, the Democratic Party of Japan. The DPJ’s slightly improved tally of 73 did not include leader Banri Kaieda, who fell on his sword on Monday.

Abe is expected to reappoint a broadly similar Cabinet after he is formally named prime minister again by the Lower House on Dec. 24.

…

Relations began to thaw last month after more than two years of chill, which Beijing blamed on Abe’s provocative nationalism,receive a $200 million ransom in the next 72 hours.

The hawkish prime minister and his cabinet who have moved forward to remilitarize Japan under the guise of “collective self defense” are now in the difficult position of whether to negotiate with terrorists or to let two Japanese citizens be killed. Neither decision will have a happy outcome.

…

According to Japan’s FNN News, the family of Goto was contacted early last November and asked to pay the equivalent of ten million dollars in ransom money. Reportedly, the Japanese government linked the kidnappers to the men who beheaded American journalist James Foley. His death galvanized the American public and spurred President Obama to expand the war against ISIS.

Abe, speaking to reporters Tuesday, vowed to rescue the men saying, “Our top priority


two lives at the cost of losing face and his credibility as a hawk. The answer for the moment appears to be, no.

While on the surface Abe appears to be distressed about the situation, the acts of terrorism by ISIS towards Japan may give impetus to him and the ruling coalition to reinterpret the constitution to allow Japan to join its allies in overseas wars

Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, drafted by American officials during the occupation following World War II, renounces war as a sovereign right of the Japanese nation and forbids the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. Japan has maintained a “defense-only ” policy for decades. However, the Abe cabinet using the term “collective self-defense” issued a decision last127 million – “at around 100 million”.

…

Less than 2pc of the population is foreign, and that includes hundreds of thousands of long-term residents from China and Korea

Japan ministers go to Yasukuni a day after China talks
By Miwa Suzuki
April 23, 2015 6:46 AM

The day after Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sat down for his first substantial talks with China’s Xi Jinping, three of his cabinet ministers Thursday visited the war shrine Beijing sees as a symbol of Tokyo’s violent past.

Visits by the three women have the potential to muddy diplomatic waters that were starting to clear after their nationalist boss sat down with the Chinese president on the sidelines of a regional summit in Jakarta.

“I offered my sincere appreciation for the people who fought and sacrificed their precious lives


for the sake of the country,” National Public Safety Commission chief Eriko Yamatani told reporters after her pilgrimage.

“I pledged efforts for building a peaceful country,” said the minister, known for her strident nationalistic views.

She was followed over the next few hours by Haruko Arimura, state minister in charge of female empowerment and internal affairs minister Sanae Takaichi.

More than 100 Japanese lawmakers went to the shrine on Wednesday to coincide with its spring festival, even as officials were making final arrangements for the Xi-Abe meet.

Abe had asked his ministers not to visit before the talks happened, according to Jiji Press.

Xi and Abe held discussions in Jakarta for about 30 minutes, their first lengthy pow-wow since both men took the helm of nations that are bitterly at odds over historyalso visited the shrine during its autumn festival last year.

Abe, who has not visited since December 2013, sent a symbolic offering of a small tree on Tuesday, sparking anger from Beijing and Seoul.

A deranged man attacked a residence for people disabilities in Japan last week, stabbing 19 people to death. A number of questions are being asked about how this could happen and whether enough was being done to prevent the attack. These are understandably a lot of questions, especially given that the man previously worked for the facility and was committed to a mental hospital back in February after writing a letter to a politician calling for the euthanasia of disable people and pledging to kill hundreds and released without followup and police visited his home hours


before the attack when no one was home. So, yes, there are quite a few questions about how this happened:

The New York Times

Knife Attack in Japan Leaves Many Wondering if Police Did Enough

By JONATHAN SOBLE
JULY 27, 2016

TOKYO — A day after the worst mass killing in its postwar history, Japan was grappling on Wednesday with why law enforcement and mental health officials were unable to stop a troubled man they had been aware of for months.

Satoshi Uematsu, a 26-year-old former employee of a residence for people with disabilities, confessed to stabbing 19 people to death early Tuesday.

Although the authorities appear to have responded promptly to earlier instances of ominous behavior by Mr. Uematsu, legal specialists, advocates for disabled people and members of the news media are questioning whetherby order of officials in the city of Sagamihara, where he lived and where the residence for disabled people, Tsukui Yamayuri-en, is located.

In addition to writing the letter, he had told co-workers at the facility, home to about 150 people with mental and physical disabilities, that he thought severely handicapped people should be euthanized, the center’s management said.

Mr. Uematsu spent two weeks in the hospital before two doctors determined that his psychotic symptoms had abated and that it was safe to release him, the authorities said. He was released into the custody of his parents and was supposed to return to the hospital for outpatient treatment, but it appears there was little follow-up.

“There’s nothing in the law that specifies what the city is supposed to do after release,”


continued to smoke marijuana after his release.

Another person who knew Mr. Uematsu told the network that his personality had begun to change late in his college years. This person said that although he was usually friendly and outgoing, he began using synthetic marijuana-like drugs, covered his back in tattoos and showed bouts of aggressive behavior.

“He would say how taking care of disabled people was a waste of money for the country,” TBS quoted the friend as saying.

It is unclear whether Mr. Uematsu ever sought help. Japan has only recently begun to disregard longstanding taboos on discussing mental illness, and experts say the sort of mental health programs widely available to students at universities in the United States and elsewhere remain relatively rare.

After a knife-wielding man killed eight childrenunwelcome distraction for the new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, whose first period as Japan’s leader ended with his resignation after just a year, in 2007, partly due to a string of gaffes by members of his cabinet.

The 72-year-old, who doubles as deputy prime minister, said he would refuse end-of-life care. “I don’t need that kind of care,” he said in comments quoted by local media, adding that he had written a note instructing his family to deny him life-prolonging medical treatment.

To compound the insult, he referred to elderly patients who are no longer able to feed themselves as “tube people”. The health and welfare ministry, he added, was “well aware that it costs several tens of millions of yen” a month to treat a single patient in the


final stages of life.

Cost aside, caring for the elderly is a major challenge for Japan’s stretched social services. According to a report this week, the number of households receiving welfare, which include family members aged 65 or over, stood at more than 678,000, or about 40% of the total. The country is also tackling a rise in the number of people who die alone, most of whom are elderly. In 2010, 4.6 million elderly people lived alone, and the number who died at home soared 61% between 2003 and 2010, from 1,364 to 2,194, according to the bureau of social welfare and public health in Tokyo.

The government is planning to reduce welfare expenditure in its next budget, due to go into force this April, with details of thethe danger posed by North Korea’s missile launch, and the need for close regional ties.

“We will steadily strengthen ties with neighboring countries such as China and South Korea, and proceed with talks with Russia for a peace treaty,” Abe told an earlier news conference.

Japan and Russia never signed a formal treaty after World War Two because of a territorial dispute.

…

GOING FOR GROWTH

Abe, who is trying to rekindle growth as he ponders the possibility of staying in office after his term as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ends in 2018, said on Wednesday that his top priority was the economy.

On Tuesday, his outgoing cabinet approved 13.5 trillion yen ($133.58 billion) in fiscal steps to try to revive the economy.

Abe, who took office in December 2012, will


retain his righthand man, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, along with Finance Minister Taro Aso and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.

Economics Minister Nobuteru Ishihara will also be kept on, along with Health, Welfare and Labour Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko will become trade and industry minister.

Tamayo Marukawa, the environment minister in the previous cabinet, was appointed minister to oversee preparations for Tokyo’s 2020 Summer Olympic Games.

Abe also appointed a new LDP executive line-up.

The appointment of Toshihiro Nikai, 77, as LDP secretary general was seen as signaling Abe’s hopes for a third term.

…

“She also regularly visits Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine for war dead, which China and South Korea see as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism. Japan’s ties with China and South Korea have been frayed bySafety Commission, oversees Japan’s police forces. It makes her association with Zaitokukai and their criminally inclined members highly problematic. One picture that dates back to 2009 shows Yamatani standing next to Yasuhiko Aramaki, who was arrested a year later for terrorizing a Korean elementary school in Kyoto, found guilty and then later arrested again in 2012 on charges of intimidation..

Another of the people photographed with Yamatani is Shigeo Masuki, a former Zaitokukai leader. Masuki was arrested at least three times after the photograph was shot, once for threatening an elementary school principal and later for insurance fraud. Yamatani initially denied that she knew of the Zaitokukai affiliation of the people in the pictures. This is slightly strange since she has reportedly been friends with Masuki and his wife


was televised on a date that commemorated no anniversary or major tragedy, as most of his addresses do. Instead it pertained to the very Imperial System itself.

The Emperor, who is 82, discussed his health, his position as a symbol of the state under Japan’s modern constitution, the hardship of his duties, his love for the people of Japan—and made clear his desire to abdicate the throne in his lifetime in a way that would cause the least amount of turmoil.

He used the word, “the people” (kokumin) frequently, speaking to the nation in a fatherly, thoughtful tone and asking for understanding.

Some of it had been telegraphed before, preparing the public for what’s to come. There had been hints in the press dating back years, then last month Japanese publicpre-war attitudes and policies.

He began his remarks with the acknowledgement that 70 years had passed since the end of the war, and that he was now past 80.

The carefully woven speech was centered on his concerns for his own physical limitations and their repercussions. He reflected on the difficulty of living up to the standards of what is expected of the Symbolic Emperor (no longer considered divine, as his forebears were) and the responsibility to do what is best for his people as well as his family.

“I ascended to the throne approximately 28 years ago,” said Akihito, “and during these years, I have spent my days together with the people of Japan, sharing many of the joys as well as the sorrows that have happened in our country.


people will understand his wishes.

Akihito ended the speech by reiterating that he does not have powers to influence the constitution (which his Japanese listeners knew would be required were he to abdicate), but that he sincerely wishes for the people’s understanding.

He used the phrase “symbol of the state” six times. It was a pointed reference to the dark time in Japan’s history where the emperor was not a symbol but the divine ruler of Imperial Japan. Under the pre-war constitution Japan waged wars of conquest in China, Korea and Southeast Asia, eventually fighting, and losing, the Second World War as a country devastated by the ferocious firebombings of Tokyo and other cities, and the U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Prime Minister Abe wants to revive thatneo-Nazis (including the new defense minister) and led by the grandson of a WWII war criminal with a propensity for historical revisionism, is planning on declaring an emergency powers act in order to push through its desired remilitarization of Japan does sort of qualify as an emergency. A national and international emergency. So look out world, Japan has an emergency emergency and its your emergency too.


A visit or pilgrimage to the National Shrine of Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina or Pambansang Dambana at Parokya ni Santo Padre Pio in Santo Tomas, Batangas is incomplete whenever a group travel to the famed town.

National Shrine of Saint Padre Pio signage

The tour was arranged by Jotun ( Philippines)and United Architects of the Philippines ( UAP Makati chapter) as part of the cultural, heritage, environmental architectural tour of the town. This is my second time to visit this shrine.

History

The property sits on a 1.6-hectare agricultural land in Barangay San Pedro which is almost a kilometer away from Maharlika Highway, Santo Tomas, Batangas was donated the generous couple Mr. Ernesto and Adelaida Gonzaga to the Archdiocese of Lipa, where a new and larger church would be built. Dr.Isabel Malvar-Villegas donated a 200-square meter parcel of land that would be used as a right of way from the barangay road leading to the site.

Mary Mother of Mercy belfry

Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), on their semi-annual Plenary Assembly in 2015, unanimously approved the elevation of the Archdiocesan Shrine of St. Padre Pio into a national shrine.

welcome arch

We left Jotun Paint Plant at past 2:30 pm, in three vans. The group arrived past 3:00 pm at the National Shrine of Saint Padre Pio.

National Shrine of Saint Padre Pio

There were not so many pilgrims when the group arrived at the shrine and was escorted to a private parking area ( parking fees is Php 30).

Schedule of Mass and Healing Service

commercial stalls

Saint Padre Pio half size statues for


have a place of worship and prayer that is distinctly Filipiniana, eco-friendly and adapted to the tropical climate of the site surrounded by green environment.

Asplenium nidus / Pakpak lawin or Bird’s nest fern adorn trees

interiors

devotees

main altar

There were driftwood, bamboo panels and stones which are some of the materials used in the lectern, altar and seats. Ornamental potted plants like variegated dracena, bromeliads were used as live floral arrangements.

San Padre de Pio relic with love offering

Santo Niño with petition or love offering

San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila

life-size statues of religious saints

wooden benches

Divine Mercy Sanctuary for Pilgrims

There was an ongoing free religious concert at the Divine Mercy Sanctuary for Pilgrims.

main entrance

The 4th World Apostolic Congress on Mercy in the Philippines held on January 18, 2017 attended by thousands of participants andpilgrims from all over the country and other parts of the world was held at this chapel.

interior

Chapel of the Saints and Baptistry

Chapel of the Saints and Baptistry is located at the back of the main church. There are several improvements on the compound within the past few years. The relics were given by Ermelindo di Capua, OFMCap, the only surviving Italian Capuchin priest in 2013. Few years before he died.

chapel

The chapel is the place where baptism is held. One can also pray silently in this area.

different religious statues

religious statues

Saint Padre Pio painting and other religious statues

There were different kinds of religious statues within the chapel. Some were donated by devotees or parishes. Materials range from hard wood, soft wood, eskayola ( plaster of paris), fiber resin materials.

Relic of


the Holy Cross

relic

devotees

wooden processional urna

Santo Padre Pio Bukal ng Pag-Asa / Saint Padre Pio Fountain of Hope

handkerchiefs, rosaries, prayer beads, padlocks are tied at the fence made from wire mesh

votive candles, padlocak and bottle of holy water can be purchase at this store

red and white candles for sale

Holy Water Sanctuary

Holy Water Sanctuary is another place to visit, pilgrims can throw coins at the fountain area. Water is not potable.

pilgrims

chapel of saint padre pio chapel of lights

One can light candles in one of these mini chapels located within the ground.

station of cross

The stations of the cross are neatly landscaped with tropical ornamental plants and ferns.

Platycerium coronarium

The area had several pocket gardens with manicured lawns and mini man-made forest.

San Padre Pio rectory

vicinity map

There is a useful guide for those firstHealth Center. This research received assistance from the University of Minnesota's Biorepository and Laboratory Services program, which is supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, grant UL1TR002494. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. RSH is the Margaret Harvey Schering Land Grant Chair for Cancer Research and a Distinguished University McKnight Professor at the University of Minnesota, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

R.S.H. is a co-founder, consultant, and shareholder of ApoGen Biotechnologies Inc. The other authors have no competing interests to declare. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses,