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Costa Rica
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|A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page
San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 239
Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad PúblicaCertificates bear the name of U.S. agency
U.S. border agents providing
training for frontier police
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The security ministry has graduated 27 members of the Policía de Fronteras who completed a course taught by members of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The course began in September.
Topics included investigation of dubious documents, physical conditioning and border inspections.
The students were some who graduated from a basic course at the Escuela Nacional de Policía earlier this year.
The U.S. agency has been involved in such courses since 2010 under the regional security initiative.
The ministry continues to beef up its border security and officials have been embarrassed recently by disclosures that helicopters have been transporting drugs from this country to the north. Police managed to locate some of the secluded landing spots and make some arrests.
The drugs appear to have been brought into Costa Rica by fastboat and transported by air from the Limón area to staging locations in the northern part of the country where the crafts were refueled.
Another plan to fix bridge
will cost about $9 million
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The bridge over the Río Virilla will be rebuilt for 4.5 billion colons, about $9 million.
This is the troubled span on the General Cañas Autopista that has been the subject of multiple attempts at repair. At one point officials said they thought they would have to build a new bridge.
The 53-year-old span will be reinforced to handle 40 tons. The current limit is 24.5 tons. Some 90,000 drivers use the bridge each day. It is one of the main connections between San Jose's downtown and Juan Santamaría airport, Alajuela and points west.
The Japanese Agency for International Cooperation is providing technical advice on reinforcing the bridge.
The main problem with the current span is that it is too flexible and the concrete deck becomes broken by heavy traffic.
This is the so-called platina bridge because a metal plate over an expansion joint continually becomes loose. At first the situation was a joke because the bridge defied efforts to fix it. Then the Consejo Nacional de Vialidad set contractors to work over one holiday, and a motorist killed a highway employee. The problem lost its humorous aspects long ago.
Sala IV constitutional court
receives a new magistrate
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Nancy Hernández López has been named to the Sala IV of the Corte Suprema de Justicia by lawmakers. She received 44 votes Monday. She only needed 38. The term is for eight years.
The new magistrate worked for years in close association with Luis Paulino Mora Mora, the president of the court, who left the vacancy when he died. Ms. Hernández was supported by a legislative nominating committee.
Finance minister leaves post
for surgery until Jan 6
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Ministerio de Hacienda said Monday that the minster, Edgar Ayales, would soon undergo surgery.
A vice minister, José Luis Araya, will hold the job until the minister returns.
The exact nature of the medical problem was not disclosed. Nor did the ministry say where the procedure would take place.
Ayales is schedule to return Jan. 6.
He is the Chinchilla administration point man for tax reform and recently completed what was called the national dialogue in which public comment was sought on the financial crisis facing the country due to unbridled spending.
Ayales is expected to unveil a number of new taxes that the administration will submit to the legislature. Among these is a proposed value added tax.
Venezuela faces yet another
major electrical power outage
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Venezuela's second massive power outage of the year plunged much of the nation into darkness on Monday night, prompting renewed talk of sabotage from President Nicolas Maduro's government and cries of incompetence from its foes.
Power went off in Caracas and other cities around the country soon after 8 p.m. local time to the intense annoyance of residents and commuters.
"I feel so frustrated, angry and impotent," said sales adviser Aneudys Acosta, 29, trudging through the rain along a street in the capital after having to leave the disrupted underground transport system. "I live far away and here I am stuck under the rain. Something's going wrong that they're not sorting out. The government needs a Plan B. This is just not normal."
Monday's outage appeared similar to a massive Sept. 5 blackout that was one of the worst in the South American country's history.
Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver who narrowly won a presidential election this year after the death of his mentor and former leader Hugo Chávez, accused the opposition then of deliberately sabotaging the grid to discredit him.
His powerful ally and national assembly president, Diosdado Cabello, repeated the same accusation after Monday's blackout.
"I have no doubt that today's electricity sabotage is part of the right-wing's plan," Cabello said on Twitter.
In some wealthier parts of Caracas, where opposition to the socialist government is strongest, people began banging pots and pans out their windows in a traditional form of protest.
Some shouted, "Maduro, resign!"
Venezuela has been suffering periodic electricity cuts around the country for several years, although the capital has been spared the worst outages.
Critics say the power problems symbolize the failure of the government and its 15 years of socialist policies in resource-rich Venezuela.
The country has the world's largest crude oil reserves and is blessed with big rivers that feed hydroelectric facilities generating two-thirds of its power.
The blackouts, sometimes due to planned power rationing and at others to utility failures, have not affected the oil refineries, which are powered by separate generator plants.
Electricity Minister Jesse Chacón said the same major transmission line that went down in September and carries about 60 percent of national supply had again been affected.
He said power would return to Caracas within an hour. Parts of the capital were slowly regaining power during the evening, according to residents.
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|San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 239
|3,000 police officers begin annual
campaign against fireworks
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The security ministry is sending 3,000 police officers out to keep an eye on stores that might be selling illegal fireworks.
The basic rule in Costa Rica is if it explodes, it is illegal. Notwithstanding that, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve is a junior version of shock and awe with thousands of rockets lighting the sky.
The Fuerza Pública mainly is interested in keeping children safe. So Mario Zamora Cordero, the minister of Gobernación,
Policía y Seguridad Pública, said that even 20 mounted police officers will be among those checking on the possible fireworks, presumably at parks and open spaces.
|Juan José Andrade Morales,
the director general of the police force, called upon parents to
protect their children.
The police continue to find shipments of explosive fireworks coming into the country from Panamá and Nicaragua. However, there also are local manufacturers. There are stiff prison terms on the books for selling fireworks and for selling fireworks to minors, but there are seldom any arrests. The effort to eliminate fireworks is an annual campaign.
The police have been successful in reducing the number of youngsters injured during the holiday season.
They have worked with the Hospital del Niños, where most serious injured children go.
|Traffic officer and test monitor held in
driving license bribery
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial agents have detained a traffic officer and a driving test monitor on allegations that they accepted money to help would-be motorists pass the written test. Both were detained Monday afternoon in Paso Ancho.
The Judicial Investigating Oganization has a special unit for traffic offenses like these. The agency said that the traffic
|officer would solicit money from
persons who worried about their ability to pass the written test. The
officer is accused of then conspiring with the monitor of the written
test to provide help to the license candidate during the examination.
Both men are in their 50s.
The judicial agency said the going rate for a passing grade was between 100,000 and 150,000 colons, about $200 to $300.
|Holiday will begin in earnest this week
with free events
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
This is a big week for Christmas.
Wednesday is the Museo de los Niños illumination. The fiesta at the museum will start at 4:30 p.m. The museum said that it expected 12,000 to see the show, which is designed for children. The museum staff will turn on the lights that bathe the facade, and fireworks are planned. Area police are blocking off downtown streets so that pedestrians will have a safe and easy hike to the museum, the former national prison.
Motorists would be advised to find another route instead of traveling on avenidas 5, 7 and 9.
Thursday is the tree lighting at the Hospital de Niños in San José. The festival begins at 6 p.m. when dusk falls. The tall, live evergreen holds more than 25,000 bulbs.
Teatro Melico Salazar also will have its doors open for passers-by Thursday and Friday. This is the first year for a celebration at the theater north of Parque Central. The series of events is called Navidad en el Melico.
The theater will have Christmas programs each Thursday and Friday through Dec. 13. They start at 4 p.m. Planned are choruses, Christmas stories, distribution of the traditional tamales and movies. The event is free. The theater staff has decorated its facade for the occasions.
Friday also is when the Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz will turn on the holiday lighting all over town and in other communities. That event is at 6 p.m. at Parque Central.
And Saturday is the Festival de la Luz Nicoya Brilla that begins at noon with an evening parade. Nicoya also will be celebrating its 165th anniversary as a canton.
Teatro Melico Salazar photoThe classic facade of the theater has been decorated for the holiday season.
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|What we published this week:
|The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details
|A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page
|San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 239
|Trying to eliminate Latin vampire bats colonies disperses
them, study says
By the University of Michigan news service
Culling vampire bat colonies to stem the transmission of rabies in Latin America does little to slow the spread of the virus and could even have the reverse effect, according to University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues.
Vampire bats transmit rabies virus throughout Latin America, causing thousands of livestock deaths each year, as well as occasional human fatalities. Poison and even explosives have been used since the 1960s in attempts to control vampire bat populations, but those culling efforts have generally failed.
Last year, a team of university researchers and their University of Georgia colleagues reported the results of a long-term vampire bat field study in Perú. Now, the same team has combined the field findings with new computer models of rabies transmission and data from infection studies using captive vampire bats to show that culling has minimal effect on containing the virus, and can, in some cases, actually increase its spread by driving infected bats into neighboring colonies.
The findings suggest that geographic coordination of vampire bat control efforts in Latin America — taking into account the interconnectedness of seemingly isolated colonies — might reduce transmission to humans and domestic animals. The team's new paper, scheduled for online publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday, also establishes that rabies is usually not lethal among vampire bats.
"In the paper last year, we demonstrated that bat colony size wasn't a predictor of rabies prevalence, which indicated that culling hadn't reduced transmission," said university population ecologist and epidemiologist Pejman Rohani, senior author of the paper
Developing effective control strategies for vampire bat-transmitted rabies virus in Latin America requires an understanding of the mechanisms that have allowed the highly virulent pathogen to persist despite control efforts, said the paper. But understanding the persistence has proved elusive, despite recognition of the virus and its health risks since the early 1900s, it added.
To determine those persistence mechanisms, Rohani and colleagues created four mathematical models of rabies transmission, each representing an alternative hypothesis for the biology of rabies infection.
Then they tested the models against data from the University of Georgia-led field study of rabies exposures in wild vampire bat colonies across Perú. That study tracked rabies exposures in individually marked Desmodus rotundus vampire bats from 17 colonies in four regions of Peru between 2007 and 2010 and yielded the most complete dataset on rabies exposure patterns ever collected for any bat species, according to the authors of the paper.
Thousands of computer simulations were run, and the most successful models demonstrated that a single, isolated vampire bat colony cannot
University of Michigan/Daniel StreickerClose-up of a common vampire bat.
maintain the rabies virus over time. Frequent movement of infectious bats between colonies is needed to keep the rabies virus at levels consistent with the field observations.
The critical role of immigration between bat colonies predicted by their analysis indicates that current culling practices, often reactive to outbreaks in livestock or haphazardly implemented, are unlikely to eliminate vampire bat-transmitted rabies virus, the researchers said.
The bat study's other main finding is that the vast majority of rabies virus exposures among vampire bats are nonlethal and actually immunize the bitten bat, thus helping to prevent colony extinction and sustain the virus.
The probability of a vampire bat developing a lethal infection upon exposure to rabies is around 10 percent, much lower than the 50-to-90 percent mortality rate seen in previous experimental studies that involved inoculating vampire bats with rabies virus, according to the researchers.
In Latin America, coordinated efforts to eliminate human rabies transmitted by dogs began in 1983 and led to a roughly 90 percent reduction in human and canine rabies, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 2000, vampire bats have been the leading cause of human rabies there, especially in remote areas of the Amazon region in Perú, Ecuador and Brazil, according to the CDC.
Of more than 1,200 species of bats worldwide, only three are vampires, and all three live in Latin America, according to Bat Conservation International. Two of the species feed primarily on the blood of birds and one— the common vampire bat, D. rotundus — prefers mammals, especially livestock.
|What we published this week:
|The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details
|A.M. Costa Rica's
Fifth news page
|San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 239
Voice of America/Valdimir DinetsA well-camouflaged mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) shows stick-displaying behavior in India.
Crocs seen using sticks
to lure their feathery meals
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Egrets and other birds building nests near ponds that harbor crocodiles or alligators should be suspicious of sticks they see floating in the water. That twig or branch may be bait for a trap set by the reptiles. New research suggests Crocs and their cousins may have joined the few species that use tools to lure prey.
According to Valdimir Dinets, a zoologist known for his studies of crocodile and alligator behavior, two species of the large reptiles have been observed using twigs and sticks as bird lures.
"At least one of them uses this method predominantly during the nest-building season of its prey," he writes in a paper published in the journal Ethology Ecology & Evolution. "This is the first known case of a predator not just using objects as lures, but also taking into account the seasonality of prey behavior." It provides a surprising insight into previously unrecognized complexity of extinct reptile behavior, he said
According to the study, the use of objects as hunting lures is very rare among animals, only seen in captive capuchin monkeys, a few bird species and one insect.
Writing in the study, Dinets states that "it is common for some bird species to preferentially nest in trees growing in ponds with large numbers of crocodiles or alligators, apparently using the crocodilians as protection against tree-climbing nest predators such as snakes, monkeys and raccoons."
But, he says, the birds have to pay for the protection because their chicks can sometimes fall into the water where they are usually devoured by crocodilians.
"But the protection seems to be worth the cost," Dinets writes. "Almost any crocodile farm or alligator park with appropriate trees will sooner or later become the location of an egret rookery."
Dinets says he repeatedly saw crocodilians laying in shallow water with small sticks or twigs across their snouts around rookeries.
"The crocodiles remained perfectly still for hours, and if they did move to change position, they did it in such a way that the sticks remained balanced on their snouts," he writes.
Dinets says the predators get the sticks onto their snouts by submerging under them.
"Then it takes some balancing act to keep the sticks in place," he said in an email.
Observing alligators at two egret nesting sites for a year, Dinets said he saw stick displaying mostly during the bird's breeding season, between March and June and more frequently during nest building, from late March and April.
Dinets noted that the increase in the behavior could be explained by higher amounts of sticks in the water, either because of nest building or trees shedding. He thinks, however that that explanation seems unlikely.
"Virtually no freely floating sticks or twigs were seen by the observer at that time, and none are visible in photographs of rookery ponds made at that time," writes Dinets. "Any available sticks were probably quickly picked up by birds looking for nest material."
Also, he notes that the most common trees around the waters don't often shed branches.
Dinets says it's unknown what factors lead to the stick-displaying behavior at particular locations and at certain times of the year.
"The predators might be reacting to the presence of large numbers of wading birds flying low over water, to the sounds made by courting birds, or to some other environmental clue," he writes.
He also doesn't know if the behavior is a learned behavior or an evolved instinct.
While Dinets says crocodilians have historically been viewed as lethargic, stupid and boring, the new research adds to the complex behavior already known such as signaling, advanced parental care and highly coordinated group hunting tactics.
"These discoveries are interesting not just because they show how easy it is to underestimate the intelligence of even relatively familiar animals, but also because crocodilians are a sister taxon of dinosaurs and flying reptiles," he concluded.
Amazon's drone delivery plan
faces plenty of major obstacles
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Amazon.com, Inc., Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos made a splash Sunday with his radical plan to deliver goods to millions of its customers' doors by using a fleet of unmanned drones, but the bold vision is not likely to become a reality this decade.
By Bezos' own admission, the technology that would enable electric-powered octocopters to fly to pre-programmed addresses unaided by humans is still early in development, and the United States is not likely to establish rules for civilian unmanned aircraft systems until 2015 at the earliest.
On top of that, the idea faces privacy concerns and was derided by some as merely a publicity stunt.
"I know this looks like science fiction. It's not," Bezos told Charlie Rose on CBS News' "60 Minutes" show Sunday night, demonstrating video of a buzzing, toy-sized chopper delicately dropping a small package on a customer's patio.
The piece was aired on the eve of Cyber Monday, one of the busiest online shopping days of the year when it helps Amazon to be on the minds of customers.
Dubbed Prime Air by Amazon, the vehicles could be used to deliver packages up to five pounds (2.3 kg) in less than 30 minutes within a 10-mile (16-km) radius of Amazon's so-called fulfillment centers, said Bezos.
"This is still years away . . . . I don't want anyone to think this is just around the corner," said Bezos on "60 Minutes," acknowledging that the technology needs years of work, and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration won't likely have rules on unmanned vehicles until 2015 at the earliest.
But Bezos, renowned for his patience on long-term projects, said he was optimistic on making it a reality sooner rather than later.
"Could it be four, five years? I think so. It will work, and it will happen, and it's going to be a lot of fun," he added.
The idea of deliveries by unmanned vehicles is not completely new. Tech news site The Verge reported last month that Australian textbook rental firm Zookal plans to use drones to deliver books in that country next year, possibly expanding the service to the United States later.
But that company and Bezos are up against a raft of real-world challenges.
The U.K.-based Institution of Engineering and Technology immediately warned that the technology needs refinement.
"There are many challenges to overcome," said the institution's Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal, who is pushing for wider use of unmanned aircraft worldwide. "Top of the list is the need to mature the technologies and demonstrate to the regulators that unmanned aircraft can operate safely in our airspace."
U.S. authorities have recognized the commercial applications of drones, but appear to be in no hurry to set the rules. The FAA currently only allows the use of unmanned aircraft systems by public entities on a case-by-case basis.
"Over the next several years the FAA will establish regulations and standards for the safe integration of remote piloted UAS to meet increased demand," the FAA said in an e-mailed statement on Monday.
The FAA plans to begin tests on commercial unmanned aircraft systems by the end of this year and to propose a rule for small craft next year, which means no firm regulations will be set before 2015. So far, only a single commercial unmanned aircraft systems operator has been approved, in the Arctic.
Broader reaction to Bezos' plan was mixed.
Mark Udall, a Democrat and Colorado senator who is pushing legislation that would outlaw domestic surveillance by unmanned aircraft systems, raised concerns about privacy.
"Coloradans will accept this technology only if they are certain their privacy is protected and that Americans won't be victims of surveillance or privacy abuse by private unmanned aerial system operators," he said in a statement.
Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace industry expert and analyst at Teal Group, was more blunt.
"It's such an appallingly dumb idea that I presume they're talking about it as a form of clever satire," he said Monday.
Sizzled comet considered
just a cloud of space dust
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The last vestiges of Comet ISON are fading from view after a sizzling close encounter with the sun, scientists said Monday.
"Comet ISON is now just a cloud of dust," astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on SpaceWeather.com, a NASA-backed Web site.
"Experienced astrophotographers might be able to capture the comet's fading ghost in the pre-dawn sky of early December, but a naked-eye spectacle is out of the question," he wrote.
Scientists believe the comet broke apart as it passed through the sun's corona Thursday. At closest approach, the comet flew just 730,000 miles (1.2 million km) above the surface of the sun, a hair's breadth by astronomical measuring sticks.
The comet emerged from behind the sun a remnant of its former self, Phillips said.
For a couple of days, astronomers held out hope that a sliver of the comet's nucleus had survived and was brightening, but by Monday it was apparent ISON's brush with the sun was fatal.
"Comet ISON leaves behind an unprecedented legacy for astronomers, and the eternal gratitude of an enthralled global audience," astrophysicist Karl Battams, with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C., wrote in a blog post titled "In Memoriam."
The comet was discovered last year by two amateur astronomers using Russia's International Scientific Optical Network, or ISON.
Comets are believed to be frozen remains left over from the formation of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago.
The family of comets that ISON was from resides in the Oort Cloud, which is located about 10,000 times farther away from the sun than Earth, halfway to the next star.
Computer models show ISON left the outer edge of the solar system about 5.5 million years ago and began journeying toward the sun.
"Never one to follow convention, ISON lived a dynamic and unpredictable life, alternating between periods of quiet reflection and violent outburst," Battams wrote.
"Its toughened exterior belied a complex and delicate inner working that only now we are just beginning to understand," he added.
FM reflections being used
to track junk in earth orbit
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Scientists in Australia are planning on listening to local FM radio stations with a very sensitive radio telescope.
The researchers will be listening to the reflected radio waves that bounce off the tons of space junk that circles the planet in the hopes of helping to prevent possible catastrophic, multi-billion-dollar collisions in space.
So far, the researchers have been able to track FM radio waves that bounced off the International Space Station, some 400 or so kilometers from the Earth's surface, as it passed over western Australia.
"We have shown that we are able to detect approximately 10 pieces of space junk simultaneously. Over time this means we are in a position to monitor a significant fraction of the space junk that is in Earth orbits," said the research team leader Steven Tingay, of the Murchison Widefield Array at Curtin University and the Australian Research Council Center for All-sky Astrophysics.
The idea of using reflected FM radio signals with the Murchison Widefield Array to track space debris came from a previous study conducted by a graduate student from the Australian National University. Ben McKinley imaged the moon in 2012 by using reflected FM signals that bounced off of the orbiting satellite.
NASA says that there are over 500,000 pieces of space junk orbiting Earth. That junkyard of space debris circling Earth has been growing since the 1950s when the Space Age first began.
Space junk can range in size from very large items such as old rocket bodies and dead satellites to very tiny particles that can even include bits of paint that were on the surfaces of various spacecraft. There's even a screwdriver which slipped from an astronaut's hand during a spacewalk to do some repair work.
Some of that space debris, especially those that are in low-Earth orbit, fall back to the planet, and much of it burns up during re-entry.
But the dangers of collisions with space junk are quite real with hundreds of the satellites in serious jeopardy. Even a two-millimeter fleck of paint zooming at speeds of between seven to eight kilometers per second, can seriously harm or possibly kill space travelers or destroy a billion-dollar communications satellite.
While major collisions between large pieces of space debris are rare such incidents have happened. Back in Feb. 10, 2009, two large satellites, the Iridium 33 and the Kosmos 2251, collided at a speed of about 42,000 kilometers per hour. The collision spread about 1,000 pieces of debris capable of being tracked across the skies, where much of it remains.
To avoid harm from potentially dangerous space debris, the International Space Station conducts a number of collision avoidance maneuvers each year.
"An early warning system has the potential to protect the billions of dollars' worth of vital infrastructure orbiting the earth but also prevent collisions that will result in even more space debris being generated…" said Tingay.
This new space junk detection and tracking effort from Australia joins other programs like those run by space agencies such as NASA and Europeans.
New report says investments
can eliminate health gap
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Health disparities between rich and poor nations could be banished in a generation by investment in research, vaccines and drugs to combat diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, global health experts said Tuesday.
In a report setting out a plan for a grand convergence in health, the experts said world leaders needed to press for a concerted increase in research and development investment to develop new medicines, vaccines and health technologies.
"For the first time in human history, we are on the verge of being able to achieve a milestone for humanity: eliminating major health inequalities...so that every person on earth has an equal chance at a healthy and productive life," said Larry Summers, a former U.S. Treasury secretary who co-chaired a commission on global health.
The report also recommended taking bold preventative steps in public health, such as increasing taxes on tobacco and other substances that can be harmful, like alcohol and sugar.
Taking China as an example, it said a 50 percent tax on tobacco could prevent 20 million premature deaths and generate an extra $20 billion annually over the next 50 years.
Summers said effective drugs and vaccines now available "make reaching this milestone affordable" and urged world leaders to take on what he called "our generation's unique opportunity to invest in making this vision real."
The report, called "Global Health 2035: A World Converging within a Generation" was written by 25 leading international health experts and economists, chaired by Summers, of Harvard University, and published in The Lancet health journal.
It said spending should be prioritized in key areas, including aggressively scaling up new and existing medicines and policies for HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected tropical diseases and maternal and child health.
The report's authors said that if their recommendations were followed, roughly 10 million lives could be saved in low-income and middle-income countries in the year 2035 alone, progress that would bring enormous social and economic gains for the countries most affected.
To get to such a point, global investment in research and development needs to be at least doubled, the experts said, from around $3 billion a year now to $6 billion by 2020. Half of that increased investment would need to come from middle-income countries.
"The role of international assistance, while still vital, is going to increasingly emphasize scientific research, provide templates and models that can be emulated, and focus on development of techniques and dissemination of information," Summers said in a statement issued with the report.
He said while aid would remain critical it should become "less about financial support to individual countries and more about the provision of global public goods".
Richard Horton, The Lancet's editor and another of the report's authors, said the world should recognize that investing in health is also an investment in prosperity, social and financial protection, and national security.
"Investing in health means investing in a quality human beings value deeply, but which we do not capture well in our usual measures of development," he said.
Congressional reforms advance
as part of Mexican energy deal
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Mexican congressional committees on Monday gave the green light to an electoral reform demanded by the opposition, paving the way for lawmakers to push ahead with the energy sector overhaul at the center of President Enrique Peña Nieto's reform agenda.
The reform will allow federal lawmakers to serve consecutive terms, sets out rules for coalition governments and should strengthen congress at the expense of the president. It is the last major hurdle to approval of the energy reform.
The senate committees gave the reform general approval, and must now deal with various reservations to the bill before it passes to the floor of the upper chamber for a general vote. It would then move to the lower house for approval.
The progress on the electoral bill comes after Mexico's main leftist party pulled out of a political pact that Peña Nieto's ruling Partido Revolucionario Institutional, known as PRI, forged a year ago with opposition leaders to push through economic reforms.
To reverse almost a decade of declining crude output, Peña Nieto wants to open up the state-controlled oil sector to allow private investors to team up with oil monopoly Pemex and share in profits of exploration and production.
|Some of our other titles:
|A.M. Panama
|A.M. Colombia
|A.M. Guatemala
|A.M. Honduras
|A.M. Cuba
|A.M. Nicaragua
|A.M. Venezuela
|A.M. Central America
Dominican Republic
|A.M. Ecuador
|A.M. San Salvador
|A.M. Bolivia
|What we published this week:
|The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details
|A.M. Costa
sixth news page
|San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 239
tells Miami crowd
peace talks progress well
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, bound for Washington on an official visit, said Monday he remains cautiously optimistic about peace talks with Marxist rebels taking place in Cuba.
"I think the conditions are there" for a successful conclusion to the talks, Santos told an audience of academics, students and diplomats at the University of Miami. "Things are moving hopefully in the correct direction."
But he quoted a Colombian proverb as a cautionary note, saying, "The bread can very well burn right at the door of the oven."
Santos, a Harvard-educated journalist, spoke eloquently in English about his hopes for peace and economic growth in Colombia during a 30-minute speech at the invitation of University of Miami President Donna Shalala, who awarded him the school's President's Medal for service to society.
Santos, on his second official visit to the United States since taking office in 2010, hailed both the year-old peace talks as well as economic progress at home.
"It's a different scenario" when the president of Colombia visits the United States these days, he said, comparing conditions at home to a decade ago when a guerrilla insurgency was raging on the outskirts of the capital Bogota and Washington was pouring in military aid to back the government.
Since then the war had dramatically turned in the government's favor.
"We are now being respected internationally," Santos said, noting that his meeting with Barack Obama scheduled for today would not be focused on military aid but rather on education and technology, as well as regional security.
"Usually when the president came to the United States he would have gone to the Southern Command," he said referring to the U.S. regional military headquarters based in Miami. "Now he will come to the University of Miami. In a way this shows how things have changed."
While the United States and Colombia enjoy close ties, Santos said things could be better between Washington and the rest of Latin America, where left-wing governments led by Venezuela have shunned the United States.
Half a century after President John F. Kennedy started the Alliance for Progress to forge better ties between the United States and Latin America, Santos said he planned to ask Obama to launch something similar to help rebuild frayed relations with the region.
"Maybe it's time to launch another Alliance for Progress," he said, suggesting it be called an Alliance for Progress and Peace.
Santos, 62, is making his first foreign trip since he announced Nov. 20 that he plans to seek a second term in next May's presidential election. He will face opposition candidate Oscar Ivan Zuluaga in a campaign likely to focus on the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia peace process and the future of the country after five decades of rebellion.
Obama will raise U.S. concerns that Colombia needs to do more to settle labor issues and address human rights challenges, the official added.
Zuluaga, a one-time senator and provincial mayor, accuses Santos of offering the rebels too many concessions.
Meeting in Havana this week, government mediators are working through a five-point agenda with some three dozen rebel leaders, seeking to stop bloodshed that has killed more than 200,000 people since it began in 1964.
Earlier this month the two sides reached agreement on one of the toughest items on the agenda: rebel political participation. While details of the accord have not yet been revealed, the rebels are expected to be allowed to hold some sort of public office and possibly gain access to Congress.
Both sides are now working on resolving the third leg of the process: drug trafficking. Santos said he hoped the peace process would turn Colombia, once the world's largest producer of cocaine, into a "coca-free country."
|Costa Rican News
|Retire NOW in Costa Rica
|What we published this week:
|The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details
|From Page 7:
Awards given for top projects by business students
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Three businesses won awards at the Feria del Técnico en Administración de Empresas in Cartago.
The projects were done by business administration students at the Tecnológico de Costa Rica.
The top prize went to a proposal to develop a day care center that not only would mind children but also stimulate their intellectual development.
Second place was a company that offers products in biodegradable packaging that will disintegrate within 180 days of contact with air or water.
Third place went to a proposal to cultivate and sell ostra mushrooms in Heredia.
This was the seventh annual fair.
Many of the students are employed in Costa Rican businesses and have enrolled in a program that includes 12 courses, two each semester. The classes are held in many locations in the country, not just on the Cartago campus.


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The traditional start of the orienteering season saw Roxburgh Reivers join competitors from all over the UK in Edinburgh.
The weekend consisted of a night race, a Scottish and UK urban league, a Burns Night ceilidh and final flourish with a traditional race in Holyrood Park.
The Friday night sprint round the complex Kings Buildings produced no winners for the local club but proved enjoyable with a large number of runners and a large number of controls to find.
The more serious Saturday's urban race was based at The Meadows and took runners into The Exchange, Grassmarket, Royal Mile and George Square areas. Lindsey Knox took first place on W55 for maximum points and Pauline McAdam made it a double for Roxburgh Reivers by taking the runners up spot. Jedburgh Running Festival 10k winner Kirstin Maxwell had a great run for second place on the Woman's open class, and Douglas Henderson just missed the podium with fourth on M65.
Sunday's race, on the hilly terrain of Arthurs Seat, produced no Roxburgh winners but was a pleasant end to a busy few days.
A Tour de France theme was held over the weekend and Ian Maxwell and Lindsey Knox were category winners of the sprint stage on Saturday, both by one second rather than the fractions seen in the bike race.
The next local event is at Bowhill on February 20.

subset: commoncrawl


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BalconyTV Vienna Sponsored By//
Location// 25hours Hotel
KERY FAY performs the song "SECRETS" for BalconyTV.
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"I feel pure ecstasy of life. Instead of waiting for my luck, I live life and let my pulse push me forward." Following her feelings, Kery Fay plays with the many faces of pop music. She proves that she has no fear of change. It ́s the opposite. Since her last metamorphosis she charges her songs with powerful electronic beats or presents them as intimate emotional acoustic version. Always embosomed: her own pulse that swings in her tones, powerful and authentic. It seems like her music is echoing her innermost self.
This resonance becomes very obvious in KERY FAY ́s new single "Secrets" – her most personal song so far. KERY FAY ́s signature sound is especially recognizable because she co-produced the song and brought her own interpretation of electro pop. A catchy synth mix with instrumental elements and pulsing beats.
The singer-songwriter and keyboard player published her new
single "SECRETS" with A45 Music / Kontor New Media. She recorded the single at the "Quad Studios" in New York City, where Beyoncé, Coldplay, Sam Smith and many other artists worked before. The single "Secrets" reached #55 position of the German-Dance Charts during the first week and #10 position of the German-Dance-Video Charts. Kery Fay was one of the headliner's at the "Zurich Pride Festival 2016" and performed in front of 15.000 people.
Tune in again to BalconyTV //


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Book Tour and Activities on the Go!
Popular Packages
|Package Name
|Price Starts From
|Srinagar Leh Manali Umlingla Bike Expedition
|₹ 25000
|4.0 star
|View Details
|Ladakh Bike Trip : Manali Leh Srinagar
|₹ 35300
|5.0 star
|View Details
Leh Ladakh Bike Trip VideoDeparture Dates:27 May | 1, 11 June | 10, 25 August | 9, 24 septBooking Variants:-Self Drive (own bike & fuel): INR 25000-Double Rider(2 people sharing 1 bike): INR 39000, -Single Rider(1 person on 1 bike): INR 50000,-Seat in SUV/TT: INR 28000Gr...
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Leh Ladakh Bike Trip VideoPrice Variants:Variant 1: Self Drive (own bike & fuel): INR 35300/- per personVariant 2: Double Rider (2 people sharing 1 bike): INR 43300/- per personVariant 3: Single Rider (1 person on 1 bike): INR 52300/- per personGroup Size: 18 to 22 Part...
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Traveller Tales from Kargil
Vinay Trivedi
07 March 2017
Such an amazing bike ride, challenging but with thrill till the end. Make sure that you are prepared to prevent the cold, the rough wind, the altitude sickness etc because even the symptoms of sickness...
Sarla Iyer
02 August 2015
We started our tour by sightseeing of Manali. After the sight seeing, we rode our bikes on various high-altitude roads, including the Khardungla pass, the world's highest motorable road which is more t...
Ganak Chopra
25 November 2013
The travel to Ladakh was good. This thing seems a little expensive, but it is highly worthy. To start with it covers a lot of places and two major motorable roads, so the whole package is worth it. Thi...
Karthik Chopra
16 June 2014
Overland Journey to Ladakh was an amazing and an enticing trip to take for anyone. I had a really nice and a very good trip there. It is quite worthy, cheap, and inexpensive deal, which can be taken by...
Aadinath Somayaji
24 November 2013
The journey was good. The trip was overall a very nice experience.The trip was well organized and nicely planned. The weather and climatic conditions were super co operative. It was a perfect trip on t
Avani Kakkar
22 January 2014
I went with one of my traveller friend who was very eager to go to Northern parts for a long time. I have been to Leh before also but not in bike but in jeep. But with my friend, this bike trip was rea...
Kashyapi Iyer
18 July 2013
The trip was a memorable one. My friends and I took this trip, and all of us drive, so it was awesome as well as not so stressful time in the vacation. However, the trip was a little boring during a co...
Gopal Ahuja
16 October 2014
We had a really nice trip here. It was awesome. I wish to take more such trips. The trip is all about driving. If you are passionate about road travels and driving then this trip is for you. You will d...
Chaitan Mukhopadhyay
18 March 2015
I liked the trip very much. The place just was amazing. There are a lot of difficulties to face throughout the journey. But as I passed each location, the troubles were reduced and I had a great ride w...
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Game Village is a relatively new online bingo site that offers bingo players regular bingo and games with a twist. The site has a choice of four different bingo rooms – The Village Inn which has 75 ball bingo played over several versions with tickets prices starting at just 1p, the 90 Ball Room, the Speed Fair Play Bingo room which has shorter games for people in a hurry and the Power Bingo room where you can decide on the prize that you will receive for winning a game. The main currency on the site is GBP and all deposits and withdrawals will be made in this currency.
|Top Bingo Offers
Bingo Hall
$25 no deposit required
Bingo For Money
$25 no dep. plus 250% bonus
Game Village Has A Decent Payout Rate
As far as payout percentages go Game Village scores 95.5% which isn't the best around but it is certainly competitive. When you are signing up for an account and making deposits your credit or debit card information is encrypted to ensure that it is 100% safe. To make you feel more comfortable about the equitable the site is audited and regulated in order to stay in line with recent legislation relating to online gaming. The site has been fully licensed by the Maltese Gaming Authority and they ensure that Game Village are fully compliant with all their rules and regulations.
Check Out Bargain Bingo Games
Bargain Bingo is played in the Village Inn room and every third game from 8.00pm to midnight will set you back just 1p per ticket with a prize of a at least £50. This is a low biy in game with a guaranteed prize. You should try the bargain bingo gaming.
|Top Bingo Offers
Vics Bingo
500% or 300% bonus
Get In On Your Bargain Bingo Radio Requests
One unique feature of Game Village is that the site has its very own radio station which will play requests throughout the day. If you email in your request and you are playing Bingo Radio and your request is played between 10pm to 11pm in the Village Inn room you can win a prize of up to £10. To save yourself money play Chip Van Bingo from 8.00 to 9.00am or from 7.00pm to 8.00pm each day where the prizes on offer are £2 pots for the early games and £10 pots for the late games. Many of these games will also have frequent chat games running at the same time where you can win even more.27 Jun2012


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August 22, 2008
Franchisers spend $33,780 attacking Russell Pearce and his Employer Sanctions Law
"Mesa Deserves Better" and "Stop Illegal Hiring" Bankroll Campaign for Cheap Labor
MESA -When it comes to attacking Russell Pearce and his employer sanctions law, fast food franchise owners Jason Levecke and Mac Magruder have taken a three pronged approach: fund Pearce's opponent, subsidize a misleading personal attack campaign, and finance an initiative to weaken laws.
In all, the proponents of punishing Pearce and gut his employer sanctions law have directly spent $33,780. Here is their latest spending:
Magruder Family
$780 to Kevin Gibbons, Pearce's opponent
$10,000 to Mesa Deserves Better
$9,500 directly to Stop Illegal Hiring
Levecke Family
$4,000 to Mesa Deserves Better
$9,500 directly to Stop Illegal Hiring
"Now that the curtain has been pulled back, it's clear that these fast food franchisers are only looking to line their pockets. I think it's disturbing that they are spending so much money to attack me," said Rep. Pearce.
According to campaign finance reports, Magruder and Levecke's personal donations make up nearly half of the funds given to "Mesa Deserves Better," the controversial group targeting Pearce with misleading personal attacks. Affiliates of their "Stop Illegal Hiring" campaign donated the remaining funds, along with giving an additional $1,860 in donations to Kevin Gibbons.
Their ill-fated "Mesa Deserves Better" personal attack campaign on Russell Pearce and his family has been decried by hundreds of supporters, the East Valley Tribune, the Arizona Republic, and even Governor Janet Napolitano.
Russell Pearce is being challenged for the Arizona State Senate by immigration attorney Kevin Gibbons, who has outspent Pearce through donations from special interest groups. Democrats, and proponents of weakening the employer sanctions laws.
"The ultimate goal of this group is to roll back immigration policies and weaken Arizona's Employer sanctions laws by any means necessary," said Pearce. "Their proposed law eliminates required use of E-Verify and its 99.7% accuracy rate in favor of the Federal I-9 process, which is prone to more fraud. They want to gut the law and make sure I am not around to do anything about it."
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"We're not just Horsing around!"
Time: September 25, 2010 from 6pm to 10pm
Location: Rice Stadium
New? HINT: 713 348-6923
Event Type: cub scouts, boy scouts
Organized By: Rice athletics
Latest Activity: Sep 15, 2010
Special events and promotional group tickets are available for the Rice football game versus Baylor.
© 2019 Created by Russell Williams, D.D.S.. Powered by


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|» Products
|» ETABS Structural Software
ETABS Structural Software
ETABS v9.6:
Multiple Tower Buildings, Parking And Ramps Structures, Stepped Diaphragm Systems, Dynamic Analysis, Highrise Buildings, Semi-Rigid Or Rigid Diaphragms, Mezzanine Floors, Non-Linear And Linear Static Analysis And Outline Of Construction Systems Such As General And Non-Symmetrical Shaped Structure.Complete 3d Building Model, Concrete And Steel Frame Outline, Staggered Truss Construction Design, Concrete Shear Slab And Wall Outline, Design Optimization, Steel Joist Outline And Building Series Loading.Reaction Spectrum Investigation, non-Linear And linear Time Account Analysis, Base Isolator, Structural Pounding, Staged Construction, Static Pushover Analysis, Viscous Dampers and Earthquake Simulation.
Plus Version: No useful breaking point on model size. Object grounded modeling particularly created for plan and study of building frameworks. Utilize beam, wall, floor, column, brace and ramp objects to outline for lateral and gravity loads all in the similar model with mechanical meshing alternatives for two-way or one-way load transfer. Alternative to possess various Cartesian as well as barrel shaped coordinate systems. Introduction guide alternatives toward link top of pillar, base of shaft or other central point areas. Auto parallel load formation for seismic and wind loads utilizing IBC, ASCE, UBC, NBCC and different measures. Loading choices for joint, line (trapezoidal or uniform), temperature and surface region. Programmed plan of steel individuals, composite beam design, shear wall design, joist design and concrete frame design with no bounds on the sorts of connections such as shear, constant or/and moment discharges. Choice to outline for various materials in a similar model. For instance, a steel outline building with stuffed deck composite shaft floors and shear dividers can be planned in a similar model. Model analysis, time history dynamic study, static and response spectrum study as well as second request P-delta impacts all accessible with the Plus form. Client regulation on how mass is computed. Only pressure and compression frame components. Line limitation alternatives to link discordant meshes for exchange of moments and shear. Open GL view alternatives for walk-through.


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On December 4, 2010, SIUE Police Department responded to the parking lots on the 500 side of Cougar Village in response to a call that two subjects were attempting to make entry into vehicles by checking door handles for unsecured vehicles. One victim reported an electronic device that he had placed in the center console had been stolen from his unlocked vehicle. The two suspects were described by a witness as being black males, dressed all in black.
Crime reduction on campus requires the continued active support of the University community. The SIUE Police Department would like you to please take a moment to review the following tips to keep your vehicles from being burglarized:
- ALWAYS LOCK YOUR CAR, no matter where you park; at school, at work, and even at home. Pocket the key.
- NEVER LEAVE VALUABLES WITHIN SIGHT OF OTHERS. When you park your car, take your purse, cellular phone, compact discs, cameras and anything of value with you or put them in the trunk. If you have a detachable faceplate on your stereo, take it with you.
- Check your vehicle daily. Should your vehicle become vandalized, damaged, or stolen, you will be able to assist the police in determining when the crime occurred.
- Always make sure your windows are closed. Most professional thieves can unlock a car through a very small opening.
- Do not leave important papers or credit cards in your vehicle, not even in the glove compartment.<
- Try to park in well-lighted areas.
- If you have a car alarm, make sure to set it every time you leave your vehicle.
- Be alert for suspicious people or circumstances, such as:
- People in vehicles or bicycles who are riding around and around on parking lots;
- People on foot on the parking lots who appear to be aimlessly walking around the parking lot, looking into cars, or trying to open car doors on different vehicles;
- People who try to hide, duck down, or be inconspicuous when another person or vehicle approaches them;
- Someone who appears out of place - you get a gut feel that they don't belong there;
- Someone in an area that you know is closed, secure, or restricted;
- Someone working in an area where work is not usually done; or
- A stranger in an area where you normally see familiar faces
- Fog provides the perfect cover for a burglary to your vehicle. On these foggy evenings and mornings pay extra attention to what goes on around you. If you see something occurring in a parking lot that makes you feel uneasy, call the police and have them check it out.
- If you see something or someone that appears to be suspicious or out of place, call the police - immediately!
Although not all crimes can be avoided, look out for yourself and others. If you are a victim of a burglary/theft, if you witness a burglary/theft, or if you see something or someone suspicious, call the University Police immediately:
In an emergency, dial 911; non-emergency dial 650-3324
Keep your eyes open and, please, if you see it or hear it, report it IMMEDIATELY!


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I don't think I've posted the mixed media lady above already. Maybe I have!? Anyway, it's a piece from this summer in watercolour, coloured pencils and whatever else I had on my desk at the time. If anyone wants it, send me a note and it's yours! Don't be shy. It's still freebie month and I haven't had time to sort out the free art doll templates I promised. It's been such a crazy, busy work week for me and I have so many art pieces to make this weekend. The callus on my middle finger is actually hurting. Artists can have work related injuries! LOL.
What I'm working on
I'm still working on lots of game art and have some ugly goblins and orcs on the go. I love drawing the ugly stuff, especially this close to Halloween. Ok…. it's not that close, I know, but we're getting there and anyone who knows me well, knows it's my favourite holiday of the year. I so want to dress up this year but I don't really have anywhere to go! I'm past the Halloween party age so I'm basically limited to dressing up and handing out candy on the 31st. The thing is, I think my ugly female Darth Maul might terrify the younger kids who come to my door. I might have to rethink this.
I'm also working on some bookmarks to swap with art friends over on IllustratedATCs.com. I thought a set of book lovers loving books would be fun to make. I'll finish them up this weekend with some colourful watercolours and back them with a sturdy cardstock.
October Mash Up!
I love October for both Inktober and for Drawlloween! So much fun for artists. For Inktober, the idea is to draw one prompt each day in pen and ink. For Drawlloween, you also draw a (Halloween inspired) daily prompt but in any medium. It's pretty hard to finish one of these daily drawing months in full, let alone two, so I'm going for a mash-up. I might try combining the daily prompts in pen and ink. Works for me! Hope some of you will jump in and join us. It's unlikely I'll be able to complete this every day but it's fun to dive in when I can.
This month, I'm blogging along with Effy. Join us!


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Well, this is a hotter selfie than Kim Kardashian ever took, right? Or is that the poorest attempt at a joke you've heard today. If so, please forgive me. It's so hot in here I can't think straight.
Well, this is a hotter selfie than Kim Kardashian ever took, right? Or is that the poorest attempt at a joke you've heard today. If so, please forgive me. It's so hot in here I can't think straight.
If you're anything like me (actually acrophobic), this image makes your legs feel funny just looking at it. One can only imagine how crazy you would have to be to actually do it!
The guy in the photo wasn't showing enough teeth and so the shark decided to come along and help out. I'd like to know if this is the last selfie this guy ever took...
Isn't amazing how a pair of sunglasses can humanize a dog to the point where you actually start to imagine that it could even understand the concept of a photo?
If there was ever a place where you deserve to take a self-indulgent selfie, this is it, but we can't even see their face!
Hey, we're not saying that you shouldn't take a selfie from a racecar, just that you should have a very durable phone so we can pick it out of the wreckage.
For me, this particular image asks way more questions than it answers and so, it's perhaps best that we just don't say anything. Let's just leave it out there and take it all in out your own pace.
This is either camera trickery or this guy is dead now, right?
Another image which leaves some of us feeling a little weak at the knees. Sure, it's epic and all, but please, please, please, get down from there at once!
This is pretty damn amazing, isn't it? Once again, there are many of us who view this image and count our lucky stars that someone has the balls (among other qualities, of course) to go up there, coz it sure as hell ain't us!
Everybody knows that cats can't take selfies. But if they could... Don't you get the feeling like they would be so totally vain about it, while all the dogs were just cool carrying on being dogs?
Yeah, probably.
Probably the coolest selfie on this list....


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Travel fever and packing anguishSouth AfricaPosted by Marie Nov 12, 2009 23:57:17
Everything is packed and hopefully nothing is forgotten. In three hours my cellphone will give the joyful wake up signal... The plane for Amsterdam-Capetown leaves at 06.30. Can't sleep, keep on checking things in my mind.. time to try to get some more sleep. Soon the big adventure will begin.
- Comments(0)//vibes.vazduh.se/#post0


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Loaded Vintage Estate Sale in Greece!
estate sale•2 day sale •sale is over
Apr 18
9am to 4pm
Apr 19
9am to 4pm
Dates of the sale are Thursday and Friday only, from 9 am to 4 pm both days. Absolutely no early birds. Cash and credit accepted and preferred. Please respect all parking signs. Respect the neighbors and please don't park on their lawns, block any driveways or fire hydrants. Security on site. Not responsible for accidents, or lost or stolen items. All sales final. No Returns or Refunds.
Temporary numbers honored, but must be on site at opening.
Temporary numbers honored, but must be on site at opening.
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Find More Sales
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- Estate Sales Near Rochester, NY 14612
- Sales in the Rochester area
- Get Notified via email about upcoming sales.
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"Fast and Furious X! Matthew 24 Generation?"
Listen to this sermon
The Year of Rest: Advancing the Kingdom!
Fast and Furious X – Are you This or X-generation?
Daniel 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Rev 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand
Matt 24:6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows
Matt 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled 35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. 36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
The Fast and Furious Franchise has been setting new records in sales of tickets around the world in an unprecedented way! Why? People love the thrill of watching death defying stunts and sequences as they breakthrough limits of possibilities and it gets their adrenalin pumped up.
But people ain't see nothing yet! If you read the Book of Revelation literally(which is how it should be read unless it clearly stated the use of symbols or allegory), you will know that what is coming upon us will place the "Fast and Furious 7" a mere walk in the park!
The sky rolling away like a scroll, meteor showers from the sky, the sun turning black, Richter 10 earthquakes(probably), volcanoes erupting(both on ground and under the sea), Tsunamis, huge meteor like a big mountain falling into the sea, creatures in the sea dying and one half of the world's population wiped out!
If you are faint hearted or having a really comfortable time now, you do not want to read the book of revelation! But if you are going through persecution now, this book will be a great inspiration and encouragement to you. It will afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
My warning to you: Not just read it well, understand it perfectly and be prepared for what is to come! Why was this wonderful book given to us? To bless and prepare us so that we will be triumphant and persevere through perilous times. Press on towards the mark of your high calling and get ready for your reward that Jesus Christ the King will bring when he comes! Amen.
Pastor Chee Kang Seng
Share your thoughts...
Comments are closed.


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I had read that new nutrition charts were coming and that Mars was going to put them on most of their candy bars. But so far, this Snickers Dark is the only one I've seen with the new chart. This wrapper was bought in April of 2009. If you want to make a comment,
click here
For candy delivered right to your door, click the banner!
Back to the
Snickers Wrappers


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Innovative research takes place at MI through its four core Institute Research Centers and four highly-focused sponsored research centers.
The Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium (SBRC) is a non-profit consortium focused on the joint research and advancement of sustainable aviation biofuels and a key part of its research activity has initiated a large-scale research program on alternative fuels derived from halophytic (saltwater tolerant) plants.
Center of Excellence on Radio Frequency/5G Communications
The Center of Excellence on RF/5G Communications is focused on developing transceivers equipped with integrated circuits embedded with hundreds of antennas capable of high-speed data transfer at the bandwidth frequencies being opened up for 5G networks.


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Big dog show coming up? The Silky Terrier not so silky? Having problems with tangles, skin complaints, ticks or fleas? No matter - Pet Movers will come to your rescue!
We have a caring team of overseas trained professional groomers, our U.S.A. qualified groomer with over 10 years experience - and together they provide all grooming styles, from the most basic to the most demanding, in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere.
We not only attend to your pet's coat - we clip their nails, express their anal glands, clean their ears, check their eyes and skin, and report back any abnormalities discovered, so you may seek veterinary advice if necessary. In short, we pamper your pet as if it were our own - collecting a well-groomed and non-stressed animal is the best advertisement of all!
Pet Movers (S) Pte. Ltd.
59 Sungei Tengah Road, Blk J #01-16 & #02-16
"The Animal Lodge" Singapore 699014
Tel: (65) 6581 3688 Fax: (65) 6581 3735
email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Copyright© Pet Movers (S) Pte. Ltd. Singapore 2000


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When contemplating Micro Digger hire, novice house builders are often inexperienced with working this type of machine and for this reason might be uncertain of which Micro Digger is best for the task at hand. The best tip from those in the market is that size really matters. Dingo Hire Perth From $120 per day and provide Pick Up and delivery offered is best service for you.
Regardless of what the name would imply, the word 'Micro Digger employ' covers a vast assortment of models – which range in size from six tones in the end to just below a tone in the 'micro' end of the scale.
That's a massive difference and which digger you opt for will have a substantial bearing on what tasks you can do with the machine, how long it will take, the price etc.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of choosing an optimally sized Micro Digger for your job. Consider carefully the size of those foundations which need to be dug.
It goes without saying that it is possible to shift earth a lot quicker the larger the bucket in your digger is. But that additional speed and power come at the expense of maneuverability. It is futile leasing a five-tone machine if you intend to operate in a narrow place and discover that you cannot drive your digger into place due to obstacles.
On the other hand, you should be cautious to not employ a Micro Digger that's too 'micro' for the task at hand. For those who have space to accommodate a larger version, you will save yourself time and money by employing it and getting the job done as quickly as possible.


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Thirteen energy efficient properties will open to the public next month.
After two years, the Lewes Eco Open Houses trail is returning to showcase environmentally-friendly builds and renovations in the area, inspire visitors and to promote 'green' living.
It will take place across the weekends of October 15 and 16, 22 and 23.
Among the properties, seven of which are new to the trail, is the bed and breakfast Skyhouse, and the community cinema and restaurant the Depot, which is being built on the former depot site of Harveys Brewery, on Pinwell Road.
Entry to each property is free, although contributions are welcome.
Most sites, two of which are based in Plumpton, will be open on a drop-in basis from 1pm to 5pm, although some require pre-booking.
For more details, or to download the trail brochure, visit www.lewesecoopenhouses.org.uk
Don't miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.
Here are four ways you can be sure you'll be amongst the first to know what's going on.
1) Make our website your homepage at www.sussexexpress.co.uk/
2) Like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/Sussex-Express/
3) Follow us on Twitter @sussex_express
4) Register with us by clicking on 'sign in' (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don't miss out!
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Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe today delivered the Economic Policy Statement in Parliament and clarified the current status of Sri Lanka's economy and the way forward for his government and the people. He stated that the challenge faced today is to sustain what they have built, and strengthening the economy. He …Read More »
Daily Archives: October 20, 2017
Railway unions called off planned strike
Railway Unions decided to call off their planned strike from midnight today, following discussions with the authorities, Railway Trade Unions said.Read More »
Water supply disruption due to damaged pipeline in Kadawatha
The Water Board announced that the water supply to several areas and roads in and around Kadawatha will be suspended for 12 hours from 9.30am today due to a damaged pipeline. Accordingly the water supply to Kadawatha, Ragama Road, along Kandy-Colombo road from Kadawatha to Kiribathgoda, Pushparama Road, Genmulla Road, …Read More »
Ryan Jayalath further remanded
Medical Student's Action Committee Ryan Jayalath further remanded until November 1 by Maligakanda Magistrate, our news sources said.Read More »
President to announce govt stand on SAITM on Monday
President Maithripala Sirisena would reveal the government's position on the SAITM (South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine) issue on Monday, Higher Education and Highways Minister Lakshman Kiriella told Parliament yesterday. Answering a question raised by MEP and Joint Opposition Parliament Group leader Dinesh Gunawardena, Minister Kirielle said the government …Read More »
A special team to study COPE findings and take appropriate action
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya told Parliament yesterday that he had instructed the officials of the Finance Ministry to appoint a special team of experts to study the reports of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) and take appropriate action on its findings. The Speaker said so in response to COPE …Read More »
Taiwan money transfer suspects surrenders to CID
A suspect involved in the money transfer scandal from a bank in Taiwan surrendered to the CID with Rs. 3 million a short while ago, our news sources said . The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) arrested Litro Gas chairman N.M.S. Moonesinghe in connection with the transfer of 1.1 million USD …Read More »
Govt: takes disaster minimizing steps to reduce landslide risks
The government plans to implement a special project within the next four years to reduce the landslide risk by taking disaster minimizing steps. Landslides have become a common occurrence in the hilly areas due to heavy rains brought about by the climatic changes and improper land usage, according to the …Read More »
SC indefinitely postpones decision on former CJ's petition
The Supreme Court today indefinitely postponed the order on granting leave to proceed the fundamental rights petition relating to Provincial Council Election (Amendment) Act filed by the former chief Justice Sarath N. Silva. The fundamental rights petition was called Thursday before a three-member Panel of Judges comprising Chief Justice, Priyasath …Read More »
Prime Minister criticizes media for publishing fabricated news
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe says that the responsible media should not highlight false and fabricated news misleading the people of this country. He made this statement at an event held at the parliamentary complex today. The research report on the proposed new constitution draft prepared by three institutions including Sri …Read More »


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A couple of weeks ago I tried to drain out my grey waste (everything that goes down the sinks) tank after my little mini camping trip but the waste pipe just snapped off in my hand.
I found a place called WKD Caravans to fix it for me. The guy there (Wayne, the owner I believe) did a nice job at a very reasonable price.
It was dark by the time I got home so I tested it out the next day. The pipe didn't seem to work! I turned on my water pump which pumps the water from my fresh water tank to my taps and then I opened up all the taps in the kitchen and the bathroom to drain out all the water.
Once the water tank was almost empty and the pump started making a funny noise I turned it off and attempted to drain the waste tank by opening up the valve on the newly fitted pipe. Nothing came out…
So I phoned up Wayne and told him my problem. He advised me to open the valve on the pipe and then watch it as I then pour a large bucket of water down the kitchen sink. I did this and I could hear water going into the waste tank but nothing was coming out of the pipe. There appeared to be a blockage somewhere.
I needed to go back to WKD anyway as I had ordered a new light which had come in and needed to be fitted so this morning I went back and did a spot of vacuuming in the van whilst the lights were being worked on 🙂
Then the waste water was tested… and it all seemed to work! Wayne's colleague put a hose down the sink pumping large amounts of water in and it all drained out of the waste pipe fine!
I will never know what happened to the original waste water; it will remain a mystery!
But I must give a thumbs up to Wayne & WKD as he charged me only for the light and not his time even though he also fixed my cab light (wire had come loose), tested the waste system and also gave me advise on leveling the vehicle using leveling chocks while I was there.
Nice bloke, very knowledgeable and above all, honest and did not try to rip me off! 🙂


text: Last weekend I headed over to Mandalay Bay for the Bob Dylan concert; figured I hadn't seen him live in a while and this may be the last time I get to see him live. With Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame serving as the opening act, it was a double billing of great music. Check out my review which ran in the November 1 issue of Vegas SEVEN.


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Q2: "The Argument"?
Q3: Which other choirs did you think did particularly well?
Q4: What other songs would you want to hear or sing again?
Q5: What advice would you have for another particular choir?
Please write a paragraph (using good writing) detailing your evaluation of some or all of the music presented at the May 27 spring concert.
Q1: On a scale of 1-5, how did we do on "He Never Failed Me Yet"?
Q2: "The Argument"?
Q3: Which other choirs did you think did particularly well?
Q4: What other songs would you want to hear or sing again?
Q5: What advice would you have for another particular choir?
5/28/2015 03:07:20 am
I believe that the concert went well. Some performances from the highschool were kind of rocky like a whole new world but solos were great middle school and high school.
5/28/2015 03:10:15 am
Personally, I really enjoyed the concert. I wish all of our concerts were more like that. Lots of energy and good songs. I liked singing with middle schoolers too it would be cool to do more concerts that way. I feel pretty confident about our performance overall but we always end up forgetting the words to one song and we still haven't broken it. Lol
J@rod T@ylor
5/28/2015 03:11:26 am
The concert went alright, but it could have gone much better. Lyrics were obviously a problem, as was remembering when to sing or not. I felt we could also have been more animated, especially given the nature of the songs we were singing. In particular, I feel I needed to work on my facial expression, both being more animated and not cringing dramatically when I realized I was singing when I shouldn't have been.
Jordyn Davis
5/28/2015 03:12:24 am
The spring concert went pretty well. But we did have some mess ups. The combine middle school and high school performance was kinda of way to hot. But over all it went pretty well.
Jenna crites
5/28/2015 03:15:34 am
I think we did a really good overall. It was really cool singing with the middle school. I feel we should do more songs where we sing together. It feels more powerful when we sing together. And I think we sound amazing
5/28/2015 03:18:00 am
This consert by far was my favorite. We hit all our notes and we're in tone. We did forget some of our words. We worked hard everything went as planed and next consert I think we should focus more on learning the words along with the notes because often we only remember the notes and forget what we are supposed to be singing. I also think we need to work on showing emotion during our music so it's a bit more exiting to the audience.
Kayla Bunker
5/28/2015 03:19:22 am
I think the concert was pretty good. All of the soloists did awesome! I think that the frozen song went pretty well. The middle school did REALLY good.
Alicia Tyszko
5/28/2015 03:21:12 am
The Disney concert last night I think went great and everyone deserves a thumbs up. We may have forgot a couple words in songs but i ts fine we were still. good. The solos were great too. It could have been worse but it wasn't and thats all that matters.
Daniel Dodge
5/28/2015 03:22:40 am
After reviewing the performance, I decided that we sang pretty darn well. The lack of preserving attitude in rehearsals hindered out true potential. A lot of notes did not flow the right way like the way they should of. The audience members I spoke to said the performance was overall entertaining, and from my opinion was fun. Not too many complaints from my end.
Breanna knickerbocker
5/28/2015 03:23:53 am
I had a lot of fun with the Disney songs. I think it went really good. We had a few funny moments but all the soloist sounded perfect. I love Disney it was a good choice for the spring concert.
5/28/2015 03:25:00 am
The concert did not meet my expectations. In my opinion the frozen piece was not as good as we could have made it. We forgot a lot of words due to lack of practice. The middle school did an amazing job and all of the soloists were great!!
Breanna Dorfe
5/28/2015 03:25:28 am
I feel that we could have done better at remembering words and notes.
Danielle Twiss
5/28/2015 03:26:27 am
This concert was by far one of the most interesting concert this year. We forget some of the words but we did rember most of the notes, we had good volume and overall the concert sounded really good
And at last I see the Lightner
5/28/2015 03:28:15 am
Our biggest problems were remembering lyrics and notes, both of which were caused by our laziness. This has been our biggest problem throughout the entire year and should be one of the main things we focus on next year. Anyway on to the positive, all the soloist did a great job (especially the A Whole New World soloist, man I love that guy.) The first third of Frozen was decent and the middle schoolers did suprisingly well for middle schoolers.
Calista Sherman
5/28/2015 03:32:02 am
I really enjoyed listening and participating in such a great concert. I think we could of worked a little harder remember words and notes. overall I think it sounded pretty decent.
Gracie newland
5/28/2015 03:35:04 am
Over all I thought the performance was good. There were some amazing parts and some not too amazing parts. The middle school exceded my expectations, all of the soloists nailed there parts. Part of your world was great except for the part that we forgot
5/29/2015 03:29:06 am
Our volume was good. We had great posture. Our soloists were amazing.
11/10/2015 10:17:03 am
I think the day went well, however I was not at the concert. But the rehearsals sounded good. The other choirs were also really good at there songs. All in all it was a fun and good experience to improve our singing.
Leave a Reply.
May 2016
Mr. Keith Hadley
Vocal Music Director,


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Ghost Hunt UK struggled after Aldershot, Sarah Baldwin disappeared, and Melanie couldn't stop thinking about the creature that attacked her. Over the next year the team stopped turning up to shoots and everyone eventually quit until Melanie was the only person left. She returned to the Cambridge Military hospital, but found nothing.
She started looking into anywhere with military history and started to notice a pattern with what ghost hunters were finding: similar patterns and results, but what Melanie experienced with Sarah Baldwin was different.
She started looking for places that ghost hunters wouldn't go, usually without realising it. Her friends started to distance themselves from her, almost as though they sensed she was crossing some unspoken line. After a really deep dig into some less reputable sites, she started to find some cases which she believed to be real: ones which lacked narrative or any guess at explanation.
One such story was from someone who worked for the CF Booth Scrap Metal and Recycling Yard in Rotherham. The anonymous writer said that there was an extremely old carriage which never came up to be scrapped, none of his colleagues could explain why it wasn't being scrapped, but every time he walked past the carriage he smelt the metallic scent of blood.
Melanie made arrangements to stay with some family in Sheffield. The security around the scrap yard was intense, but Melanie was able to sneak in after a few nights of watching. After several minutes, she smelt blood on the wind. She followed the scent and found the featureless box car with a boxed roof, sliding door and peeling olive paint.
The carriage felt heavier than it should have been. She approached the sliding door and spotted a serial number, making a note of it. As she opened the sliding door, blood streamed out. Inside was a hospital gurney with a twitching body in a white bag with black stains at the bottom. Suddenly, someone charged from the shadows and started to plunge a scalpel into the body. The man was in his twenties wearing a white arm band with a red cross and his eyes didn't look human. Without warning, he charged at her, slicing her arm.
The security arrived as she screamed and dragged her away. She started screaming about ghosts and knives and was filmed by a passing dog walker, which totally destroyed her remaining credibility.
When the charges has been dropped, she came to the Archives to do some research with the serial number. The carriage was from World War 2, the 11th U.S. army hospital train operating in the European theatre operating since August 1944. The train crashed in April 1945, which killed 5 crew and injured 14. There were no patients on board, officially, and only one of the cars avoided derailment.
The most detailed report of the crash was from William W. Hay, who later became a noted occultist. Most of his books were heavily edited, but the Archives had original copies. Using these unedited books, Melanie found that William Hay had served on the carriage as an engineer, writing a passage about savagery. He wrote that, over time, people who are witness to savagery become more savage themselves. The smell of blood can cause some people to commit unspeakable violence. He saw atrocities, but at the infirmary at Amritsar he saw two dozen men tearing each other apart over savagery they had inflicted. He comes to the conclusion that violence (inflicted, received or even witnessed) can injury more than the body or the mind but the soul itself.
Melanie is going to India to find out more information and wanted to make a statement before she left, in case she doesn't come back. She says that she'd like to see Sasha and the two argue about who brought Melanie to the office, with the ghost hunter thinking that Jonathan is trying to mislead her.
Supplemental Edit
Jonathan hasn't followed up on Melanie's statement because he is concerned about what she said about Sasha. He wonders why Melanie said she wasn't Sasha, and now Jonathan has an idea of where to start with Gertrude's tapes.


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Regardless of ones political affiliation, this sort of corruption sucks all the way around and should make everyone upset.
I think Chicago has a serious problem with gun-violence, and as many, I'm not really sure what we can realistically do about it. All I can actually do is to encourage my fellow competitors to be moral and ethically correct when it comes to access and use of their firearms - in essence, all I can do is be correct in my actions myself.


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About Us
Nino Tours & Travel was incorporated in 2008 as a full service inbound travel agency based in Kuala Lumpur. And also we're provide Outbound Service.
Our current aim is to focus more on outbound business plan . Indirectly, we are providing opportunity to fellow Malaysians to travel outside Malaysia.
On Sep 2012 marked another milestone, NINO ONLINE SDN BHD (associate company of Nino Tours & Travel Sdn Bhd) was incorporated. The objective and vision solely adapting the current online business trend to facilitate our clients faster with better efficiency in terms of hotels and tour package bookings.
Nino Tours & Travel was incorporated in 2008 as a full service inbound travel agency based in Kuala Lumpur. Our services include, top down from tailor made tours for frequent individual travellers (FITs) and groups, airport transfer, ground transportation, car and coach rentals, special package tours, hotel reservations, convention and inventive planning and visa formalities.
Nino Tours & Travel Sdn Bhd is awarded 11th, 12th & 13th Asia Pacific International Honesty Enterprise Keris Award – Gold Medalist
Nino Tours & Travel Sdn Bhd awarded Asia Pacific Excellence Service 2009 Genting Best Supporting Inbound Travel Agent


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South Albany (GNIS FID: 1459564) is a populated place located within the Town of Albany, a minor civil division (MCD) of Orleans County.
The elevation of South Albany is 1,342 feet. South Albany appears on the Craftsbury U.S. Geological Survey Map. Orleans County is in the Eastern Time Zone (UTC -5 hours).
Orleans County: Subdivisions (MCDs) | Cities & Towns | ZIP Codes | Features (airports, churches, hospitals, etc.)
Also See: Nearby Photos | Nearby Hotels | Driving Directions
BIG Map |
Driving Directions |
Terrain Map |
Satellite Map |
Data Source - USGS GNIS FID: 1459564
BOUNDARY MAPS: Town of Albany | Orleans County
Albany, VT
(4.3 miles NW)
Glover, VT (6.3 miles E)
Barton, VT (7.7 miles ENE)
Irasburg, VT (7.9 miles NNE)
Greensboro, VT (8 miles S)
Orleans, VT
(9.5 miles NNE)
Lowell, VT (10.1 miles NW)
Greensboro Bend, VT (10.1 miles SSE)
Coventry, VT (12.2 miles N)
Hardwick, VT (13.2 miles SSW)
Merrill Corner, VT
(1.4 miles WNW)
East Albany, VT (2.7 miles N)
Albany Center, VT (3.6 miles NNW)
Mill Village, VT (3.6 miles WSW)
East Craftsbury, VT (3.6 miles SSW)
Craftsbury Common, VT
(4.3 miles SW)
Gebbie Corner, VT (4.3 miles SSE)
Craftsbury, VT (4.7 miles SW)
West Glover, VT (4.9 miles ENE)
Campbells Corner, VT (7 miles S)


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International students bring in £10 billion to the United Kingdom each year, according to estimates from the British Council. I am part and parcel of that economic drive, thank you very much. It is what I remind myself everyday as an immigrant living in post-Brexit UK.
I feel a sense of pride for five minutes before I transition to anxiety. What was I doing giving my third world money to the world's fifth largest economy? They certainly do not need it, and I definitely do not have it.
Even though I have been living alone since I was 13 years old, between puberty and college and the measly beginner paychecks, I have never felt lost; journalism was my ultimate clarity. Until it began to feel it wasn't.
To be a journalist is one thing, to be a journalist in the Philippines is another, and at the risk of misrepresenting my generation, to be a millennial journalist in the Philippines proved to me the worst. I was financially reckless, overly ideal and resigned to the thought that I didn't need money nor tenure to be happy. I was telling stories, that to me was enough.
Again, until they weren't. I don't know how or when I started to feel lost, but the fear of seeing myself loving journalism less and less sent me running back to England, surrendering my independence, and my patriotic license.
I don't know what's more daunting, that I am back living with my mother for the first time in 12 years, and financially dependent at 25, or the fact that I can never again say that I didn't turn my back on my country. Because I did, I left, I am now part of that statistic, and that haunts me every now and again.
Studying Abroad Is Expensive
International students in the UK pay twice as much as Home or European students. I was able to get a part scholarship but even then I still had to pay so much.
But that is the correct policy. They have built a reputable educational system and outsiders need to pay to enjoy it, which keeps the machinery running long enough for their own to enjoy it for less. Because our economy is so much weaker, we are doing the exact opposite. Foreign students come into our country precisely because we offer education cheaply — it's better to have them cheap than not have them at all.
So I respect this policy. But it doesn't make it any less stressful to know that I'm the poorest in my class, yet I'm paying the most. And not only that, I am paying with just family support while my classmates are paying with state support. Most of the Western governments loan money, but there are others like Denmark who shoulder the tuition of students on top of a monthly stipend.
According to Germany-based research firm International Consultants for Education and Fairs (ICEF), there were five million international students in the world last year, a 300% increase from 1990. They have observed that much of this growth was coming from Asia, noting that "emerging economies are investing heavily in the expansion of their higher education systems; creating scholarships to help their students acquire education abroad – and then bring it back home."
Such is the case for one of my classmates from Indonesia. In the Philippines, there are external opportunities like UK's Chevening Programme or Australia's Awards Scholarships or USA's Fulbright who commit to supporting a limited number of Filipino students every year. In Indonesia, it's their own government who sends hundreds of young people abroad to sustain this cross-border exchange.
That we are behind is an understatement. Because I was a practicing journalist back home, there was an assumption that I made good money, which should cover part of the tuition. So often, with the help of my calculator, I would find myself explaining the massive income gap between the world they know and the world I come from.
In the Philippines, the national minimum daily rate is £6. And not everyone is lucky to find a job that pays minimum. An entry level journalist is paid £15 a day. In the UK, £6 is also their minimum rate — but not per day, but per hour. Entry level white-collars could earn as much as £15 per hour.
Then we come around to living expenses. The cheapest room in a shared house in London would cost £500 a month, that's P30,000 or double the monthly salary of an entry-level journalist. A day's train fare within London would cost around P200, or 1/5 the daily salary of the entry-level journalist.
I explain this for a bit and summarize it unglamorously to 'No, my money is worth nothing here.'
I have had my time to dwell, but heartache notwithstanding I had to move on. I had to get a job, and I had to get a job fast.
You Can't Be Choosy with Jobs
I thought I had built a competent resume in the Philippines. I graduated from a reputable university and have been with a top news network for six years. At the very least, I thought that these credentials would be a shoo-in to a simple writing job.
I wasn't disillusioned that I would make it to the BBC or CNN — I set my standards extremely low. Anything remotely related to media would do. But I could not even get interviews. Then I set them even lower. I've always had dreams of moving to the development sector; I thought that my understanding of newsroom decisions would make me a good communications liaison for NGOs. But as I said, I did not expect to be thrust into that job readily in my first months here.
So I applied to be an office clerk for NGOs. Evidently, I was not good enough for those jobs too; my resume couldn't make the first cut.
UK's underemployment rate in 2015 was at 6.2%, and very luckily for me, I tick off all the boxes of what makes a person a great candidate to be underemployed.
7% of the underemployed were women, only 5.7% were men. 20.6% of the underemployed were young people, aged 16-24. (I'm 25 and adamant I still fall into this statistic). And lastly, according to the think-tank The Work Foundation, UK's underemployment rate shows a "startling difference between ethnic groups" — White (5.3%), Asian (10.6%), Black (18.3%).
This even though statistics suggest there are more educated migrant workers than UK-born workers. According to UK-based Migration Observatory, "nearly one in two recent migrants was in the highest educational category compared to one in four UK-born workers." Employment rates for migrant workers were also lower than for UK-born workers. Moreover, Migration Observatory noted that "migrants from some Asian countries experience significantly lower employment rates than the UK-born."
One reason for that may be a recruitment bias against foreign names. Research have shown that if you're an applicant with a name that is hard to read or pronounce, you are less likely to get a job interview.
But there is no time to waste to be bitter. This world is tough and I chose this world.
Say Goodbye to Luxuries
Currently I have two jobs, one would cover my living expenses, and the other I hope to save. To achieve that I have to re-adjust my lifestyle. I can no longer enjoy the luxuries I had in Manila. No more eating out, no more watching movies, and certainly no more traveling. There's just not enough money to, and anyway, there is no time in the week to spare.
I'm in school three days a week, the remaining two weekdays I go to work to teach writing to adults with learning disabilities, and on the weekend I take calls for a startup's customer service line. Hopefully my income from these two jobs will help me survive London's expensive ways.
It remains to be seen whether my Masters degree will be worth it in the end, or if I would have just incurred massive debt from paying the tuition. Will my post-graduate credentials earn me better wages and a tenured position as a returning journalist in Manila, or would I have to stay in London to earn more money and forego being a journalist for God knows how long?
Sometimes I wake up in the morning still not understanding why I took this incredibly high-risk leap.
But for what it's worth, it's a humbling experience that is continuing to test my character as months pass by. I've learned that you can never be too good for anything, and that there are jobs you take for granted that are actually really difficult to do.
It's also a test of my commitment to journalism, to see if one year in post-grad Journ school could restore my once unbridled belief in the goodness and value of telling stories.
To also test how much I love the Philippines, whether I can see past all the reasons why I left and stay here in England just long enough to realize they are the same reasons why I would need to come back.
[Entry 174, The SubSelfie Blog]
About the Author:
Lian Nami Buan is the Managing Director and the European Bureau Chief of SubSelfie.com. She also leads the #SubStory and #TanawMindanao segments of the website. She was a news producer for GMA News for six years before she moved to England to take up her Masters in Digital Journalism at the Goldsmiths University of London. She wants to shift focus to human rights, particularly indigenous people, women and migration. Whenever she has money, she travels to collect feelings for writing material. Journalism 2010, UST. Read more of her articles here.


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Our success will be measured by how well we foster the creativity of our children. Whether future scientists have the tools to cure diseases. Whether people, in developed and developing economies alike, can distinguish reliable healthcare information from commercial chaff. Whether the next generation will build systems that support democracy, inform the electorate, and promote accountable debate.
I hope that you will join this global effort to connect humanity.


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|Vazhaipazham Halwa / Banana Halwa
Ingredients :
- 4 Banana (any variety)
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp ghee
- 1/4 cup water
- cardamom seeds powder – a pinch
Method :
- Peel off the skin of banana and cut into round slices. Keep it aside. Heat sugar and water in a non-stick pan.
- When the sugar is completely dissolved and the syrup becomes little sticky (which may take around 2 mins), add banana slices to it.
- Mix well with the syrup and cook on medium flame. Stir it occasionally. After 5-10 mins, mash the banana using ladle or paav bhaji masher.
- Add cardamom seeds powder and little ghee to it. Stir it frequently. Add ghee little by little and when the halwa starts leaving the sides of the pan, remove from the heat. Serve hot or cold.