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For years, Andrea Di Grisi resented his boss, Gianfranco Soldera, a legendary winemaker at Case Basse, an Italian winery that produces some of the world's most coveted Brunello di Montalcino. So when he was fired earlier this year after five years of service, Di Grisi decided to get even with the 75-year-old winemaker, according to Pasquale Aglieco, a commander of the Siena Carabinieri, the Italian military police. On Tuesday Agilieco announced that the police had arrested Di Grisi for sabotage, and that the Rome native had confessed to spilling the equivalent of 85,000 bottles of Soldera's wine, which was worth at least $6 million dollars. "He was an angry man who knew exactly what he was doing," Aglieco told The Daily Beast. "It was an act of unthinkable revenge."
Soldera wasn't the easiest man to work for by anyone's account, but the pay was good and Di Grisi needed the money. Plus, no one else was hiring because of the recession, so Di Grisi held on to his job. But when Soldera let another employee move into the estate's coveted housing, which Di Grisi had his eye on, the younger man snapped. After an angry confrontation with the older man, Di Grisi was sent away and told never to come back. But Di Grisi couldn't let it go. He had a hot temper and a rap sheet. He had been arrested at least three times for destroying the property of previous employers. "Di Grisi had demonstrated the propensity to destroy another man's property," said Aglieco. "We had our eye on him within 48 hours of the crime."
Di Grisi apparently did not hide his anger, nor was he alone in his hatred for Soldera. In the tiny town of Montalcino where he lived, witnesses who spoke to the police during the investigation say he bragged about seeking revenge against Soldera. The police said they used damning witness testimony and forensic evidence left at the crime scene to convince Di Grisi to confess. Many people apparently knew Di Grisi was planning revenge, but because the winemaker was not well-liked in the village, it appears that no one tried to stop him.
There were whispers in Montalcino for years that Soldera, who was a cult figure among wine enthusiasts and a purist when it came to winemaking, had snitched to local authorities that his competitors were cutting their Brunello with lesser grapes in a 2008 scandal that became known as "Brunello-Gate." Four of the top producers in Montalcino were sanctioned when the rumors turned out to be true. Simply put, there was no love lost on Soldera. "He is a hated man in Montalcino," Franco Zillani, who has chronicled the case on his blog Vino al Vino told The Daily Beast. "The case is interesting and complicated, and very, very Italian".
"Still, no one could have imagined what Di Grisi was about to do next. It wouldn't be enough to take revenge by threatening him or even killing him. In fact, during the investigation Di Grisi was overheard on a wiretap telling his nephew: "Wine isn't like blood, it washes away." For Di Grisi, to the horror of wine producers and oenophiles the world over, the sweetest revenge would be to destroy what Soldera loved most—his wine.
The ex-employee confessed to sneaking onto the expansive estate and heading straight for Soldera's cantina late on Dec. 2, according to the Siena police who investigated the crime. The police say that because Di Grisi had worked for Soldera since 2007, he knew the winemaker would be sound asleep when he broke the cellar window and turned the key to let himself in. Then he walked past the vats of Soldera's lesser wines heading straight to his most valuable inventory—six vintages of aging Brunello in giant vats, all produced during the time Di Grisi worked for the winemaker.
Categories: Wines


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You are my Costa Rica.
I spent a few moments today perusing her latest online photo album from her exotic experience--scenes of lush plant life veiled in drifting fog, snapshots of food I doubt I could pronounce let alone recognize, and sweet pictures of her fellow young travelers.
It's enough to make this stay-at-home mom feel a bit, well, plain. My own decisions in college (ones I certainly do not regret) kept me stateside while friends ventured to Florence and Mazatlan. Even my hubby has been to Europe twice, both for World Youth Days. My older sister went to Oxford for a semester, and came back with a penchant for dark coffee, dark beer and good cigars.
Did I miss out, then? Where's my adventure?
My answer came as Baby J tugged at my jeans. "Up," he asked, and onto my lap he climbed. As I continued flipping through the pictures, he sat on my lap, fascinated by the images.
Then I noticed his reflection on the glossy surface of the laptop screen. His little face was near-perfectly framed by each photo, so that instead of just seeing happy kids in a hammock in the rainforest, I saw two big, green eyes and a little nose too. Instead of seeing just a plate of fried plantains, I saw chubby cheeks and a mouth smeared with pizza sauce.
That kid is my Costa Rica. He's my adventure.
And since he's got a new baby brother or sister on the way next year, I'm remembering to take as much time as I can to treasure his new words, his always-inquisitive hands and feet, his priceless hugs and goodnight snuggles.
A trip around the world, he ain't. But the Lord entrusted all of his exploits, his escapades and his own adventures to me and his dad. And I'm thankful for this journey.
Labels: baby, parenthood
1 comment:
It's a beautiful country, isn't it ? but you should know something about its pubs. critico de bares has been talking regarding it. We'll give you the best information about San Jose, Costa Rica. We just want your visit, it's going to be important for us.ReplyDelete
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text:
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text:
'Badges' Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas
The spread of a seemingly playful alternative to traditional diplomas, inspired by Boy Scout achievement patches and video-game power-ups, suggests that the standard certification system no longer works in today's fast-changing job market.
Educational upstarts across the Web are adopting systems of "badges" to certify skills and abilities. If scouting focuses on outdoorsy skills like tying knots, these badges denote areas employers might look for, like mentorship or digital video editing. Many of the new digital badges are easy to attain—intentionally so—to keep students motivated, while others signal mastery of fine-grained skills that are not formally recognized in a traditional classroom.
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The spread of a seemingly playful alternative to traditional diplomas, inspired by Boy Scout achievement patches and video-game power-ups, suggests that the standard certification system no longer works in today's fast-changing job market.
Educational upstarts across the Web are adopting systems of "badges" to certify skills and abilities. If scouting focuses on outdoorsy skills like tying knots, these badges denote areas employers might look for, like mentorship or digital video editing. Many of the new digital badges are easy to attain—intentionally so—to keep students motivated, while others signal mastery of fine-grained skills that are not formally recognized in a traditional classroom.
At the free online-education provider Khan Academy, for instance, students get a "Great Listener" badge for watching 30 minutes of videos from its collection of thousands of short educational clips. With enough of those badges, paired with badges earned for passing standardized tests administered on the site, users can earn the distinction of "Master of Algebra" or other "Challenge Patches."
Traditional colleges and universities are considering badges and other alternative credentials as well. In December the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that it will create MITx, a self-service learning system in which students can take online tests and earn certificates after watching free course materials posted by the university.
MIT also has an arrangement with a company called OpenStudy, which runs online study groups, to give online badges to students who give consistently useful answers in discussion forums set up around the free lecture materials the university has long posted as part of its OpenCourseWare project.
But the biggest push for badges is coming from industry and education reformers, rather than from traditional educational institutions. Mozilla, the group that develops the popular Firefox Web browser, is designing a framework to let anyone with a Web page—colleges, companies, or even individuals—issue education badges designed to prevent forgeries and give potential employers details about the distinctions at the click of a mouse. Hundreds of educational institutions, traditional and nontraditional, have flocked to a $2-million grant program run in coordination with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, seeking financial support to experiment with the educational-badge platform.
Employers might prefer a world of badges to the current system. After all, traditional college diplomas look elegant when hung on the wall, but they contain very little detail about what the recipient learned. Students using Mozilla's proposed badge system might display dozens or even hundreds of merit badges on their online résumés detailing what they studied. And students could start showing off the badges as they earn them, rather than waiting four years to earn a diploma.
"We have to question the tyranny of the degree," says David Wiley, an associate professor of instructional psychology and technology at Brigham Young University. Mr. Wiley is an outspoken advocate of so-called open education, and he imagines a future where screenfuls of badges from free or low-cost institutions, perhaps mixed with a course or two from a traditional college, replace the need for setting foot on a campus. "As soon as big employers everywhere start accepting these new credentials, either singly or in bundles, the gig is up completely."
The idea is already well established in some computer-programming jobs, with Microsoft and other companies developing certification programs to let employees show they have mastered certain computer systems.
Some observers see a darker side, though, charging that badges turn all learning into a commodity, and thus cheapen the difficult challenge of mastering something new. Rather than dive into an assignment out of curiosity, many students might focus on an endless pursuit of badges, argues Alex Reid, an associate professor of English at the University at Buffalo. "The presence of a badge could actually be a detriment to an otherwise genuine learning experience," he wrote on his blog earlier this year.
But in an interview, he agreed that in today's tough job market, people are searching for alternatives that better reflect the range of their qualifications.
What is the best way to certify higher learning? And who gets to decide?
The Lure of the Badge
When it comes to biology, Catherine Lacey is a Level 40 Hero. That's her ranking on OpenStudy, where the University of Western Australia student spends up to 30 hours per week answering homework questions posed by students around the world. The level indicates time spent on the site, and Hero is the hardest-to-attain badge. If you think of helping with homework as a game, she's got the high score.
The 20-year-old first stumbled upon the OpenStudy site while surfing the Web. She was hooked after an answer she tossed out yielded an online medal signaling that her knowledge had served as a lifeline to a struggling student. "I said, Wow, people think I'm smart," she recalls. As she spent more time on the site, "achievements start popping up," she says. Now her online persona on OpenStudy, TranceNova, has racked up a page of merit badges, including one for helping people with MIT open biology courses.
She receives no pay for all the time she logs on the site. A paycheck would be "an honor" but would make the experience feel like toil, she told me. "I don't see it as a labor, I see it as no different than going out to the movies with friends." Going out with friends is one thing she doesn't do much (calling herself "not that social"), so for Ms. Lacey the site is an important outlet.
So far that Hero badge isn't listed on the student's résumé, but she might add it if she ever applies for a teaching job. "It's a measure of how much time and effort I've put into this and what other people think of me."
That's just what OpenStudy's designers hoped for. One of them, Preetha Ram, argues that "massively multiplayer" online games like World of Warcraft do a better job exciting players about learning complicated controls and fictional missions than professors do motivating students in the classroom. "We've been called a massively multiplayer study group," she says with apparent pride at the comparison. Ms. Ram is no gamer herself, though—she has spent her career in academe, and she is on leave from her job as associate dean for pre-health and science education at Emory University.
She wanted to take her ideas about peer-to-peer learning beyond her own classroom in Atlanta, so she helped start the company, which now has offices in Georgia and in Palo Alto and backing from the National Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the venture-capital firm Learn Capital.
Far from replacing university degrees, her goal is to fill a gap by recognizing soft skills that traditional grades and diplomas often miss. Students who help out other students in face-to-face study groups have no way to show the effort they invested there, she contends. "We all know that teaching someone is the best way to deepen your understanding of the concept," she argues. And she says that crafting a clear answer to explain tough material to a peer is a the kind of soft skill that employers say they increasingly value.
Winning recognition for underappreciated educational activities drives many of the college officials who are experimenting with badges.
The University of Southern California's service-learning division, for example, is among the first-round winners of the MacArthur grant to try the new badge platform. Called the Joint Educational Project, the USC program works with professors to run community-service projects that grant students extra credit for volunteer work.
"The service-learning community has struggled with how to identify and recognize the outcomes that students learn, like civic knowledge and diversity," explains Susan Harris, an associate director of the project.
One of its proposed badges would recognize "Mentorship." Ms. Harris hopes such a badge would carry more cachet than simply listing volunteer work on a résumé.
Credential Overload?
Throwing open educational certification and multiplying the number of skills recognized could lead to résumé overload, though.
A world of badges would also create extra work for both job applicants trying to organize and present their badges and to employers trying to judge their actual worth. All badges could seem more flash than substance, like the "flair" worn by the waitress in the movie Office Space.
One thing badge proponents I talked with seemed surprisingly blasé about was the possibility of falsely claimed skills and certificates.
"Seventy-five percent of most résumés already have at least one very stretched truth," says Sheryl Grant, who helps run the MacArthur grant competition, through her work with Hastac, or the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory. "People say, 'You could just make up a badge or give yourself a grade.' Yeah, but if you got caught for that you're taking a chance just like anything else." And technical systems would ensure that students earned the digital badges they claim.
Accreditors say they haven't looked into the issue seriously—at least not yet.
"The idea of badges hasn't risen to our radar as a concept, but I think we can't ignore it," says Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. "The whole idea of learning beyond high school has changed," she adds. "College used to indicate that not only did you have a skill set in a particular area, but that you gained a body of knowledge that made you a well-rounded person. People don't care about being well-rounded anymore, they just want to get a job."
Fundamentally, badges are all about perception, so it's difficult to predict whether the key players—employers and job applicants—will click the like button on the concept.
"The biggest hurdle is the one I had, which is prejudice," says Cathy Davidson, a professor of interdisciplinary studies at Duke University and author of Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. She says she initially viewed educational badges as frivolous, but is now a leading proponent as a co-founder of Hastac.
"People seem to think they know what school is and they know what work is," she says. "We live in a world where anyone can learn anything, anytime, anywhere, but we haven't remotely reorganized our workplace or school for this age."


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From The New York Review of Books, an overview of the bleak Somali pirate situation.
There's no doubt that in Somalia, crime pays-it's about the only industry that does. There is even a functioning pirate stock exchange in Xarardheere, where locals buy "shares" in seventy-two individual pirate "companies" and get a respectable return if the company is successful. Most of the money, though, is frittered away. Boyah, who personally has made hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions, asked me for cigarettes when I met him. When I asked what happened to all his cash, he explained: "When someone who never had money suddenly gets money, it just goes." He also said that because of the extended network of relatives and clansmen, "it's not like three people split a million bucks. It's more like three hundred."
The pirates used to be fisherman who moved from defending their fishing territory by boarding foreign ships to collect "fines" to more lucrative full-blown piracy. (thx, tom)


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It also lets the user choose whatever he or she wants. If a user likes Xine more than GStreamer, he or she can choose to use it.
ALERT! Most "users" have no idea what a multimedia framework IS. They don't know which one they're using, or which one they should be using. Pretty much everyone just wants something that works out of the box. If the user is ever forced to understand multimedia frameworks and choose one, just to get things to work, then something has gone catastrophically wrong.
I sometimes hear the slogan "Free software" (or "Linux") "is all about choice" used to defend this kind of diversity. That is a very misleading statement. Free software gives you all kinds of choices about what you can do with code, but a lot of those choices are bad ones. Sharing code has many advantages over forking or duplicating --- mainly avoiding wastage of development resources, but also simplifying deployment and support, and avoiding the need to pile on abstraction layers like Phonon which have their own costs. You shouldn't fork or duplicate unless you have a very good reason. Interestingly, we see very few forking decisions, and those we see seem to have good reasons behind them. Sadly, we see a lot of duplication decisions and mostly their justifications don't convince me.
[It could be that there are actually a lot of forking decisions but forks get resolved quickly (by all but one of the forks dying or merging back), while duplications don't. I wonder...]
This is particularly important when dealing with libraries and frameworks which other components depend on. If we have five MP3 players, that's not a terribly big deal. But if we have five GUI toolkits, then every GUI app has to choose one of those toolkits which encourages the creation of four clones of that app, i.e. more fragmentation.
Anyway, offering users a choice of which largely-equivalent desktop to use, or which multimedia framework to use, or which of five dozen crappy text editors to use*, isn't doing anyone any good compared to what could have been if those developers had pooled their efforts. It's far too late for the KDE/GNOME breach to ever be healed, but I still wish for consolidation in other areas of effort.
[* I have yet to find one Linux text editor with all the features I want. If the authors of some of the dozens of text editors out there had instead contributed to an existing editor, I think I'd have a better chance.]


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"Open for me your cabinet of Patterns, and I open for you a record, which but for these half-forgotten witnesses, would have disappeared under the finger of Time. Read to me their catalogue and I read to you, in part, at least, the story of an escape from the impractical schemes of visionaries and hobbyists — a tale of national deliverance from minted evil." — Patterson Du Bois, "The Pattern Piece," published in the American Journal of Numismatics, January 1883
History will be made in Heritage Auction's FUN Signature Auction when it holds its first-ever Pattern Night on Wednesday, January 7, 2009 — an extraordinary sale anchored by the incredible collection of 475 different patterns assembled by the Queller family and named "The Lemus Collection" to honor Mrs. Queller's special collecting efforts. These wonderful pieces of numismatic history range from coins that might have been, to off-metal strikings of familiar series, to preliminary designs for collecting specialties.


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Saturday, February 11, 2012
seafood weekend
My husband and I have have found a good seafood grocery here in St. Louis. Seafood City on Olive Boulevard flies in fresh blue crabs every weekend. And ever since we tried Nangnang's recipe, my husband would always request for it. We had it for two consecutive weekends... but now we have to abstain from eating it, as we had enough crabs for the whole month. So let me pass on the obsession to you... here's my Nangnang's Singaporean Chili Crabs but hey let me warn you... it is so finger-licking addicting!
Singaporean Chili Crabs ala Nangnang
2-3 lbs of blue crabs
5 tbsp oyster sauce
3 tbsp ketchup
1 1/2 sriracha
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp butter
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp cooking oil
Clean crabs thouroughly. Boil the crabs for a few minutes, just enough for the color to change to orange/light red. Season with salt and pepper. Drain the crabs.
In a big wok, melt the butter. Saute the garlic and onions. Add oyster sauce, ketchup, sriracha and brown sugar. When the sauce is mixed thoroughly, add the crabs. Cook for another 10 minutes. Break one crab to add more flavor to the sauce.
Let cool for a few minutes then serve. Enjoy!
12 comments:
You are so lucky to have a local Seafood City, Malou and your husband is so lucky to have you to cook him this dish. Lip smacking!ReplyDelete
Look wonderful. I love the heat that goes with the crabs.Finger licking good indeed.ReplyDelete
I've never had crabs in this manner - but I'm game - love, love crabs and the heat would be a welcome change.ReplyDelete
Hi Malou! It's been so long since we caught up! I've missed checking your blog the whole of December as I was travelling & then Jan got crazy too. The crabs look fantastic, sadly I can't eat crabs yet as I am on medication for the allergy I've had since a few years now. But I hope to try this for my hubby as he loves crabs!ReplyDelete
Also, thanks for the lovely comment on my blog, I am so glad that my blog is a medium for you to learn about so many cultures that are encapsulated in my blog. If you ever make a trip to Mumbai I will definitely make the Daal-Baati u!
Hi Adora, yes we are lucky to have Seafood City here, although it's not as good as the one that we had in San Diego// but we can't complain. at least we have.ReplyDelete
Roti: and ess it's addicting...
Claudia: I hope you get to try this kind of cooking the crabs for yourself. Trust me you're going to love it.
Shireen: so so glad to see you! I know we should get to visit each other's kitchen more often. I promise I will visit you as often.
wow these crabs look so good, adore crabsReplyDelete
Oh my goodness! This dish looks sensational! We don't have access to blue crabs, but will save this recipe for when I return to the bay area.ReplyDelete
I've been seeing these chili crabs everywhere lately. Yours look super amazing! I'll have to see if one of my aunts will be responsible for the touching of the live crabs (I'm weirdly squeamish) and I'll take over the rest of the recipe.ReplyDelete
Great post!
- AnonymousFebruary 13, 2012 at 8:41 PM
Hi, Malou! Those crabs are "batok special"! Hahaha! But High BP aside, I want to try this recipe.ReplyDelete
What's sriracha? Any substitute for it here in Manila?
Thanks and happy valentine's day!
Reb: thanks for stopping by.ReplyDelete
Christine: Thank you for the kind words. Oh no you don't have crabs over there? sorry to hear that.
FoodJaunts: Yeah let your Tita do it if you can. I was squeamish to at the start but I had no choice hihi
Mima: Sriracha is a Thai chili hot sauce. It is difficult to find in Manila. You could use Chinese Chili garlic sauce. I hope you could find an alternative over there.
Wow these look fantastic! I have never seen crab prepared this way before...wonderful recipe!ReplyDelete
This literally made my mouth water, I just wish really really bad that I'm binging on this right this moment. o_OReplyDelete
Thank you for stopping by and oh I would be thrilled even more if you could leave a comment... :) Cheers!


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Health Canada Expands Indications of Abilify® (aripiprazole), to be the First Add-On Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
06 Jun, 2013, 11:00 ET
MONTREAL, June 6, 2013 /CNW/ - Abilify® (aripiprazole) has received an additional approval from Health Canada as an adjunct, or add-on, treatment to antidepressants for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) in adults who had an inadequate response to prior antidepressant treatments during the current episode. When used with an antidepressant, Abilify has been shown to improve the symptoms of adults living with MDD who had an inadequate response to at least two trials with antidepressants during the current episode. It is the first add-on treatment for MDD to be approved in Canada.
The Health Canada approval is based on results from three six-week double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, multicentre studies (n=1088). The results from all three studies demonstrated significant improvement in depressive symptoms in adult patients with a primary diagnosis of MDD who had experienced an inadequate response* to monotherapy with two or more antidepressants. In fact, significant improvements in depression symptoms were seen in the second week of add-on treatment with Abilify, when compared to the control.
"Even if a patient responds according to set standardized scores, they often still experience problematic residual symptoms, which can prevent a fully functional return to everyday activities. Furthermore, these residual symptoms are a strong predictor of relapse within a relatively short timeframe," says Dr. Pierre Blier, Head of the Mood Disorders Research Unit of the Royal Ottawa Hospital and Government of Canada Chair in Psychopharmacology. "In the Canadian CANMAT treatment guidelines for the treatment of MDD - as in others around the world - Abilify is recommended for add-on to antidepressants. This new indication gives physicians and their patients with MDD an option when relief cannot be achieved with antidepressants alone."
MDD is a serious mental illness characterized by one or more major depressive episodes. The primary symptom of MDD is a sad, despairing mood, which is present most days and lasts most of the day, continues for more than two weeks, and impairs the individual's functioning at work, at school and / or in social relationships. MDD is a complex mood disorder, which is caused by several factors including genetic disposition, personality, stress, and brain chemistry. It can develop at any age, with the average age of onset in the mid-twenties.
"Major Depression Disorder is a tremendous burden, to the individual living with the illness, their family and friends and ultimately the Canadian economy. By having new options to relieve and control symptoms, the physicians treating these individuals are better equipped to help them function in their daily lives - be it performing at school, being more productive at work or interacting in social situations," says Phil Upshall, National Executive Director of Mood Disorders Society of Canada.
About Major Depressive Disorder in Canada
Depression is a significant contributor to global disease burden and constitutes the single leading cause of disability worldwide according to the World Health Organization. Depression is the most common illness among those who die from suicide, with approximately 60 per cent suffering from this condition.
In Canada, MDD affects eight per cent of the population, or approximately 2.64 million Canadians in a given year. While some may experience only a single episode within their lifetime, more often a person has multiple episodes. If left untreated, the frequency of MDD and severity of its symptoms increase over time and can lead to suicide. In adults, MDD occurs in women twice as frequently as men.
Depression can start at a young age and is often recurring. It profoundly affects everyday function and carries a heavy personal, social, and financial burden on health care resources. Patients who do not respond to treatment with antidepressants alone suffer from a difficult-to-treat, long-standing episode of depression; they are estimated to constitute 28.8 per cent of adult patients with depression.
MDD and other mental illnesses result in a significant cost on the Canadian economy. At least 500,000 employed Canadians are unable to work due to mental illness every week, including approximately 355,000 disability cases due to mental and / or behavioural disorders and approximately 175,000 full-time employees are absent from work due to mental health issues. The estimated cost of mental illness in Canada due to health care costs and loss of productivity is $51 billion.
About Abilify®
Abilify®, is the first therapy approved by Health Canada for add-on treatment of major depressive disorder in adults and also the first Health Canada approved antipsychotic for adolescents (schizophrenia patients 15-17 years old and acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes in bipolar I disorder as monotherapy in adolescent patients 13-17 years of age). It was first approved on July 9, 2009 by Health Canada for the treatment of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders in adults and for the treatment of manic or mixed episodes in bipolar I disorder in adults as acute monotherapy or co-therapy with lithium or divalproex sodium when there is an insufficient acute response to these agents alone.
About Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada
Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, a global biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases. Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada is a leading provider of medicines to fight cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, infectious diseases (including HIV/AIDS), nervous system diseases and serious mental illness. Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada's operations are headquartered in Montréal, Québec. www.bmscanada.ca.
About Otsuka Canada Pharmaceutical Inc.
Otsuka Canada Pharmaceutical Inc. (OCPI) is an innovative, fast-growing health care company that commercializes Otsuka medicines in Canada, with a focus on and commitment to neuroscience, cardiovascular, and oncology treatments. OCPI is dedicated to improving patients' health and the quality of human life. OCPI is part of the Otsuka Group, and was established in 2010, with headquarters in Technoparc Montréal, in Saint-Laurent, Québec.
ABILIFY® is a registered trademark of Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. used under license by Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada.
* Inadequate response for prospective treatment was defined as less than 50 percent improvement on the 17-item version of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD17), minimal HAMD17 score of 14, and a Clinical Global Impressions Improvement rating of no better than minimal improvement.
SOURCE: Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada
For further information:
Monica Flores
Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada
(514) 333-3845
[email protected]
Julia Dyck
Environics Communications
(416) 969‐2787
[email protected]


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High Levels of Shellfish Toxin
Monitoring work undertaken on behalf of Food Standards Scotland has identified raised levels of shellfish toxins in Seilebost Sands in Harris
Eating shellfish such as cockles, mussels or razor fish from these areas may pose a risk to human health and notices to warn the public and casual gatherers will be posted at various locations on the shore. Commercial shellfish harvesters in these areas have been contacted by the Comhairle and steps taken to postpone harvesting until algae levels subside.
It is a sensible precaution to avoid eating shellfish from these areas until further notice.
The council is monitoring the situation and will remove warning notices when it improves.


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TUMS accepts international students for Subspecialty of Vascular Surgery program.
Applications are now open for TUMS's Master of Science in Medical Microbiology.
TUMS accepts international students for the Master of Science in Medical Biotechnology program for the 2018/2019 academic year
A three-week training program at the School of Public Health of Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
TUMS offered me so many possibilties and introduced me to various subjects in the field of medical sciences.
- Lawal Dahiru Rogo from Nigeria


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Four Cisco Systems executives who led "spin-in" ventures that became important parts of the company have resigned.
The longtime leaders decided to leave the company on June 17 because of "a disconnect regarding roles, responsibilities and charter" after a new Cisco business unit was announced, according to an internal memo posted Monday by CEO Chuck Robbins and seen by IDG News Service. The move was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Engineers Mario Mazzola, Prem Jain, and Luca Cafiero, and marketer Soni Jiandani, nicknamed "MPLS" after their first initials, started several companies with Cisco's backing that later were absorbed back into the networking giant. The companies included Andiamo Networks in storage, Nuova Systems in data-center switching and Insieme Networks in SDN (software-defined networking).
The four resigned after Cisco announced the formation of the Networking & Security Business Group, which will handle engineering for routing, switching and security products, the memo said. David Goeckeler, a 16-year Cisco veteran, leads the group. Starting June 17, the Insieme business unit will also become part of it.
Cisco brought the four on board when it bought LAN switching vendor Crescendo Communications in 1993, the company's first major acquisition. More than once, Cisco invested in startups spearheaded by MPLS and then acquired those companies.
That was under former CEO John Chambers, who stepped down last year after 20 years leading the company. He is still Cisco's chairman, and MPLS continued to report to Chambers after Robbins succeeded him, sources told Network World last August.
In a statement on Monday, Robbins praised the outgoing executives.
"I want to recognize Mario, Prem, Luca, and Soni for the countless contributions they have made to Cisco. I have personally learned so much from them, and they will always be an important part of Cisco's engineering story," he said. "Their legacy will live on through our ongoing innovation and the talented engineering leaders they have mentored."
Robbins has made major changes in Cisco's leadership as he puts his own mark on the 32-year-old company. Sanjiv Ahuja, leader of the service-provider business, resigned in March.


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In the market for a new 1200 Custom? Browse our range of used 1200 Custom Motorcycles for sale at your Woodstock Harley-Davidson® dealership.
Used Harley-Davidson® 1200 Custom Motorcycles for sale near New York, Albany
These used Harley-Davidson® Motorcycles for sale at Woodstock Harley-Davidson® located near New York, Albany. Contact Woodstock Harley-Davidson® today to SCHEDULE A TEST-RIDE If this isn't the exact Harley-Davidson® you're looking for don't hesitate to go back and REVISE YOUR SEARCH. We're sure to have the perfect used Motorcycles for you on our showroom in Woodstock Harley-Davidson® where we host one of the largest selections of new and used Motorcycles in Albany. Visit Woodstock Harley-Davidson® of New York, your Albany Harley-Davidson® dealership. New York's premier new & used Motorcycles dealer, we'll help you ride home on a new Harley-Davidson® today!
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A power surge is a transient voltage spike in a power or data line. The most familiar cause is lightning strikes, but this is actually just one of several common causes.
More frequent causes include the switching on and off of high-powered machinery, such as elevator motors or air conditioners. The resulting changes in magnetic or electrical fields around these high-power lines can lead to voltage transients in surrounding cabling.
Surges can also occur as a result of faulty equipment or downed power lines. In today's complex power distribution system, this kind of event should be considered inevitable.
As electronic equipment gets ever more compact, the modern, delicate components contained therein become increasingly sensitive to excessive variations in current and voltage. If a sufficiently powerful transient enters the equipment, it may become irrevocably damaged and even catch fire.


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EIRIKR (Eric) upsi GNUPSSON, bishop; fl. 1121.
Almost nothing is known of this man. Icelandic annals s.a. 1113 record "Voyage of Bishop Eric" and s.a. 1121 "Bishop Eric from Greenland went to look for Vinland." Claus C. Lyschander (1558–1624), not a very trustworthy source, says that he went to Vinland and there planted both the faith and a colony which still exist. Beyond this nothing is known of Bishop Eric except his genealogy and Lyschander says that he was buried at Gardar in Greenland in 1146. This paucity of information has, however, not prevented much writing and speculation: that Eric was bishop of Greenland and Vinland; that knowledge of the location of Vinland had been lost and Eric went to find it; that Vinland was an old colony and Eric was making a visitation to part of his diocese; that he was seeking to convert pagans to Christianity or regain apostates for the faith; that vestiges of the Christian faith supposedly found in the 16th century among the Indians of Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces stem from Eric's work. Yet all that is known is that Eric went in search of Vinland, wheresoever it may have been.
Hennig, Terrae incognitae, III, passim. C. C. Lyschander, Dend Gr
pnlanske chronica (K pbenhavn, 1726). Oleson, Early voyages, 100. P. de Roo, History of America before Columbus according to documents and approved authors (2v., London, 1900).
© 1966–2023 University of Toronto/Université Laval
Cite This Article
T. J. Oleson, "EIRIKR GNUPSSON," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 3, 2023, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/eirikr_gnupsson_1E.html.
The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:
|Author of Article:
|T. J. Oleson
|Title of Article:
|Publication Name:
|Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1
|University of Toronto/Université Laval
|Year of publication:
|Year of revision:
|Access Date:
|October 3, 2023


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The American Civil War, Ambrose Everett Burnside (1824 - 1881)
Edited by: Robert Guisepi
If there is any mitigating circumstance in the failure of Ambrose E.Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac it is that he had twice previously refused the post, recognizing his own inexperience, and only accepted at the urging of others who said he had to obey the assignment order.
An Indiana native and West Pointer (1847), he served six years in the regular artillery, including garrison duty in Mexico and being wounded in an 1849 fight with Apaches in New Mexico Territory. Resigning in 1853 to manufacture his breech-loading carbine, he settled in Rhode Island but failed to gain a government contract and had to assign his patent to creditors. During this period he was also a major general in the state militia.
With the outbreak of the Civil War he raised a regiment and his assignments included: colonel, Ist Rhode Island (May 2, 1861); commanding 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, Army of Northeastern Virginia (June-July 1861); brigadier general, USV (August 6, 1861); commanding North Carolina Expeditionary Corps (December 1861 - April 1862); also commanding Department of North Carolina (January 13 - July 10, 1862); major general, USV (March 18, 1862); commanding 9th Corps, Army of the Potomac (July 22 - September 3, 1862, March 17-19, 1863, and April 13-August 14, 1864); commanding Left Wing, Army of the Potomac (September 1862); commanding Army of the Potomac (November 9, 1862 - January 26, 1863); and commanding Department of the Ohio (March 25 -December 11, 1863). After leading his brigade creditably in the flank attack at 1st Bull Run, he was mustered out with his three-months regiment on August 2, 1861. Four days later he was commissioned a brigadier general and organized an expedition against the North Carolina coast.
For his successes at Roanoke Island and New Bern he was awarded a second star and was offered command of the main Union army following McClellan's failure on the Peninsula. Refusing this, he detached part of his corps to the aid of Pope in the 2nd Bull Run Campaign. Again offered command following that debacle, he again declined and was given charge of the lst and 9th Corps during the Maryland operations. He fought at South Mountain and then at Antietam, where his two corps were placed on opposite ends of the Union battle line. He nonetheless remained in wing command over the 9th Corps-a cumbersome arrangement that may explain his slowness in attacking at the Stone Bridge. The delay allowed A. P. Hill's Confederate division to come up from Harpers Ferry and contain the Union breakthrough. With McClellan's removal he was assigned to the command of the army. He hesitated but was convinced that he had no alternative but to obey the order. His advance upon Fredericksburg was rapid but later delays, some not his fault, allowed Lee to concentrate along the heights and easily repulse the Union attacks. Upset by the failure of his plan, Burnside declared that he himself would lead an assault by his old corps. He was talked out of it but relations between the commander and his subordinates were strained. Accepting full blame, he offered to retire but this was refused.
The next month he launched his ill-fated "Mud March," which bogged down before it was fairly underway. This time he asked that several officers be relieved of duty and court-martialed and also offered to resign. The latter was accepted; the former not. Lincoln was unwilling to lose him and assigned him to the Department of the Ohio. Here Burnside dealt with copperheads like Clement Vallandigham and Confederate raiders such as John Hunt Morgan. He advanced to Knoxville and was besieged there by Confederate General James Longstreet until a column under Sherman came to his relief. For his stand at Knoxville Burnside received the Thanks of Congress on January 28, 1864. Taking his freshly recruited 9th Corps back to Virginia, he fought directly under Grant-instead of being assigned to the Army of the Potomac because Meade was his junior during the early part of the Overland Campaign. This cumbersome arrangement was soon rectified. He fought at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania where he did not shine, appearing reluctant to commit his troops after the Fredericksburg experience. After North Anna and Cold Harbor he took his place in the siege lines at Petersburg where he bungled the follow-up to the explosion of the mine. In reaction to this failure he was sent on leave and never recalled. He finally resigned on April 15, 1865. After his resignation he occupied numerous railroad and industrial directorships. During the course of his career, he was elected three times governor of Rhode Island (1866-'67-'68). In 1874 he was elected a US Senator from Rhode Island and served until his death at Bristol, Rhode Island, on September 13, 1881. His buried in Swan Point Centary, Providence, Rhode Island. Another of his legacies is the term "sideburns," which originated from his peculiar whiskers.
(Poore, B.P., The Life and Public Services of Ambrose E. Burnside, and Woodbury, Augustus, Major General Ambrose E.Burnside and the Ninth Army Corps)


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LIKE Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand
Upon the desert verge of death, and say:
"What shall avail the woes of yesterday
To buy to-morrow's wisdom, in the land
Whose currency is strange unto our hand?
In life's small market they had served to pay
Some late-found rapture, could we but delay
Till Time hath matched our means to our demand."
But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold,
Our gathered strength of individual pain,
When Time's long alchemy hath made it gold,
Dies with us--hoarded all these years in vain,
Since those that might be heir to it the mould
Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again.
O Death, we come full-handed to thy gate,
Rich with strange burden of the mingled years,
Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears,
And love's oblivion, and remembering hate.
Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight
Upon our souls--and shall our hopes and fears
Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares,
And sell us the one joy for which we wait.
Had we lived longer, life had such for sale,
With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap,
But now we stand before thy shadowy pale,
And all our longings lie within thy keep--
Death, can it be the years shall naught avail?
"Not so," Death answered, "they shall purchase sleep."
Return to the Edith Wharton library , or . . . Read the next poem; Grief


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5.3 percent of 12 to 24-year-old internet users report that they were bullied, stalked or threatened online in 2018. Over 140 thousand young people were affected. Girls were almost twice as likely to be a victim as boys (7.1 versus 3.6 percent). Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reports this based on a survey on cybersecurity and cybercrime.Read publication
The school dropout rate in the Netherlands was reduced in recent years to 8.8 percent in 2012. The rate across the EU was also gradually reduced. The reduction of school dropouts is high on the national and international policy agenda.Read publication
Approximately one quarter of young people became victims of crime in 2012. Young men are more often victims of violent crimes than young women. The number of young men receiving victim support is also higher.Read publication


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Home Page Chess Life Online 2008 December Hanken Philosophizes in his Corner
|Hanken Philosophizes in his Corner
|By Jerry Hanken
|August 4, 2008
U.S. Open includes trivia and philosophizing on chess culture. Check out current standings and pairings from the U.S. Open and live games from the Denker and the Open on Monroi.com.
Jerry Hanken's "corner" from the second round of the
Being here at the US Open, with its long and colorful history and tradition, got me pondering upon a term I myself have used lately, "Chess Culture" But what does it really mean? We say that America doesn't have it but, say, The Netherlands does. In a recent interview with 15-year-old Grand Master Parmijaran Negi from India, who played in his first U.S. tournaments in Philadelphia last month, (He won the Philly International and tied for first in the World Open), I was quite surprised to hear him say that there was about the same level of "chess culture" in India as there is in the US. I recalled reading how thousands upon thousands of people turned out to cheer the victory of Anand in a recent World Championship. I had assumed that Parmi had rock star status in his native land as one of only 19 GMs from the vast sub continent. He laughed at the suggestion and told me that, in India, only the name Vichy Anand was widely known. Most Indians would be hard pressed to name any other player. Kinda like here, where the average guy knows the name "Bobby Fischer", or at least, "That kid from Brooklyn who beat the Russians." They are surprised when told that he died this year at 64. A lot only know the name only because of the popular "Searching for Bobby Fischer" movie, which wasn't even really about Bobby! Another chess player? "Sorry, I don't know" So is chess culture defined by how many players Ordinary Joe can name? It's got to be a great deal more than that. I am reminded of Justice Potter Stuarts' famous remark while trying to pin down obscenity, " I can't define it, but I know it when I see it". Perhaps it means the entire history, the many great players and their stories, the White library in Cleveland, and the vast number of books written about chess, a topic that they say is only second to the bible in the volume of literature commenting on it.
When a sports writer tries to talk chess and confuses a "match" with a game, or a reporter writes of the U.S. Chess Federation as a " chess club in Crossville Tenn", we know that they don't have a clue as to what chess culture is. On the other hand, if you recognize the Torre-Adams back rank mate game and delight in it, you definitely have got it!
I don't offer any easy blanket definition of chess culture here, but its something you might ponder at the board when your opponent thinks 15 minutes before making a forced recapture!
I wrote down these "profound" ramblings before the second round.
No one even tried to get last rounds US Open quiz so its' still in play. The current question is: How were the prizes determined at the very first US Open in 1900 at Excelsior Minnesota? Hint: This odd method had never been used before and only once since. Sorry David Kuhns and Phil Smith, you are ineligible.
I won again tonight but in an embarrassing way. I got a big edge in the opening with Black and played like an old man.
I could have safely played 15 ….Qe4 but my timid Qf8 forced me to give up the exchange for a pawn on move 17 and my opponent, a very congenial and friendly man, Jonathan Allen from here in Texas, decided to go all out for a win. When he sacked his queen on d4, on move 25, I had a moment of panic. "Hoist on my own petard! It's a Parting With the Lady" I thought. Then I saw that when he plays 26.Re8 check,I can return the queen and be a couple of pawns ahead in the ending which is how the game went. What NEITHER of noticed until the post game analysis, was that my bishop on a4 can move BACKWARDS and take the checking rook! A couple of strong players came up to me after the game and asked, "why didn't you just play …26 B takes the checking rook on e8???) Duhhhhhh, I didn't see it! Chessman wins again! (Apologies to John Watson for stealing his line from the late lamented "Chessman" comic book.) I blush.
No one even tried to get last rounds US Open quiz so it's still in play. The current question is: How were the prizes determined at the very first US Open in 1900 at Excelsior Minnesota? Hint: This odd method had never been used before and only once since. Sorry David Kuhns and Phil Smith, you are ineligible.
By the way, I am happy to be on CLO. My trivia will be forever out there in cyberspace!


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Enjoy today's update to the Digital Comics store for the PSP. It will be the last, Sony says, putting an end to the 18-month-old service that offered downloadable comics from Marvel, DC Comics, Devil's Due, IDW Publishing and more.
The PSP comics store will tap out with more than 4,000 titles, comics that Sony says it will continue to make available for PlayStation Portable owners who love them some Spider-Man and Superman. Offering a glimmer of hope for future downloadable comics, Sony says "The Digital Comics Team will continue to work on bringing the comic service to other Sony devices."
Hopefully, that means the PlayStation Vita, which would do better justice to digital comics with its larger OLED screen and touchscreen controls.
Digital Comics Store Update [PlayStation.blog]


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Minorca Biosphere Reserve
Minorca: a nature reserve
The island of Minorca was declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1993, thanks to the great variety of habitats that it comprises. Ravines, caves, wetlands, isles, dune systems and beaches are the habitat of numerous species, some of which are endemic.
The southern part of the island is characterised by numerous ravines (about 40 of them), the perfect biotype for more than 200 species, of which 26 are native of Minorca. In particular, we see sea birds and birds of pray. Marine erosion has also formed numerous caves, both underwater and on land. Pools, marshes and lagoons make up the coastal wetland of the S'Albufera des Grau Nature Park, which was also declared Special Bird Protection Area (ZEPA). Thorny shrubs abound, as well as birds like the cormorant and the Cory's shearwater. The entire island exhibits a perfect state of conservation, especially the isles of Aire, Porros and Colom, among others. Because there are no human settlements, the area has become a refuge for numerous animals, like the Balearic lizard (Podarcis lilfordi). In the dune systems we find mock privets, mastic trees, Phoenician junipers and sea daffodils. The beaches and coves have white sands and crystal waters, where a rich population of plants and animals thrives. The Posidonia oceanica seagrass meadows are the first indicator of the quality and the health of this environment. The inland scenery of the island is dominated by pine woods, holm oak groves and wild olive forests. Holm oaks and arbutus (or strawberry trees) are usually found together. In the pine woods a species unique to this island, the Pinus ceciliae must be noted.
Minorca Biosphere Reserve
Plaça Biosfera, 5
07703 Minorca (Balearic Islands)
What you need to know
Cultural information
Towns like Ciutadella and Maó are a must for any visitor, in addition to many other villages of great traditional flavour. Also, you should not miss Minorca's archaeological sites.
Environmental information
The diversity of its ecosystems and a wide variety of endemic species must be noted. The local flora includes species like the navelwort and the bocha (Ephedra fragilis), while the fauna presents remarkable species such as the Eurasian green toad. The most remarkable part of the reserve is the S'Albufera des Grau Nature Park, a very important wetland.
Information for visits
The entire island of Minorca was declared a Biosphere Reserve. The road that leads to the S'Albufera des Grau Nature Park can be taken in Maó.


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At UN summit, world leaders highlight key role of rule of law in preventing war
"We reaffirm that human rights, the rule of law and democracy are interlinked and mutually reinforcing and that they belong to the universal and indivisible core values and principles of the United Nations," stated the Outcome Document, adopted at Monday's High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Rule of Law.
Heads of State and Government and ministers from nearly 80 nations are attending the meeting, which aims to highlight the essential link between the rule of law at the national and international levels and economic growth, sustainable development and the eradication of poverty and hunger.
"The wider body of international law developed at the United Nations gives the international community a basis to cooperate and peacefully resolve conflicts – and the means to ensure that there is no relapse of fighting," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared at the start of the meeting, held the day before the start of the 67th General Assembly's General Debate session.
The UN chief called on Member States to commit to the equal application of the law at both the national and international levels without selectivity, uphold the highest standards of the rule of law in their decision-making, and accept the jurisdiction of the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal UN judicial organ set up in 1945 to settle legal disputes submitted by States.
States should also strengthen UN initiatives in the rule of law by training police and enhancing the judiciary in fragile and conflict-torn countries around the world, he said.
Addressing the meeting, the General Assembly's President Vuk Jeremic warned against seeing international law as a utopian aspiration with little relevance to the conduct of world affairs.
"By strictly adhering to the rule of law, we discourage the recourse to war," he declared. "To be effective, the corpus of international law must be observed by all Member States – great and small, rich and poor alike."
The Outcome Document called on all States that had not yet done so to accept the jurisdiction of the Hague-based ICC, an independent international organization that is not part of the UN and tries those accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. So far 121 countries have adhered to the treaty that set up the ICC.
"We commit to ensuring that impunity is not tolerated for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as for violations of international humanitarian law and gross violations of human rights law," the document declared.
It underscored the sovereign equality of all States, the right to self-determination of peoples under colonial dominion and foreign occupation, non-interference in the internal affairs of States, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.
It called on States to refrain from promulgating unilateral economic, financial and trade measures that impede full economic and social development, particularly in developing countries, and stressed that the independence, impartiality and integrity of the judicial system are crucial.
The document also emphasized the importance of ensuring that women enjoy the benefits of the rule of law in full equality with men, and that children are protected from discrimination, violence, abuse and exploitation.
"Today's meeting is a milestone – but it is not an end in itself," Mr. Ban said in concluding his opening remarks. "Our challenge now is to follow up, and continue to deepen and develop the rule of law, this essential foundation for a better future."
The heads of various UN bodies also addressed the meeting. The ICJ President, Peter Tomka, welcomed Mr. Ban's call for all Member States to accept the Court's jurisdiction.
Mr. Tomka noted that only 67 of the UN's 193 States – or 34 per cent, including only one permanent member of the Security Council – currently accept the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction. That compares with 59 per cent in 1948, when 34 of the then 58 UN Member States, including four of the five permanent members of the Security Council, recognized its jurisdiction.
The Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Helen Clark, whose organization works on rule of law related programmes in over 100 countries by helping to train judges and lawyers and to strengthen national police forces, stressed the fundamental role the issue plays in national development by protecting women from discrimination and righting the wrongs inflicted on the poor and the marginalized.
"Thus rule of law is at the very heart of what is needed for development efforts to be effective," she said. "Conversely, shortcomings in the rule of law underlie the exclusion, suffering, and poverty of many people."
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Navi Pillay, warned that rule of law without human rights is only an empty shell, citing her own experience of growing up in South Africa under the Apartheid regime's veneer of a 'rule of law' based on legislation that institutionalized injustice.
"National action as well as international support to strengthen the rule of law on the ground must be based on the body of international human rights law developed mainly under the auspices of the United Nations," she said, highlighting the need to end impunity.


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One of the best things about PHP is that it's a great language to just "dive into", thanks to its wide-ranging popularity. Anyone with the ability to hit "Search" on Google can quickly create a program. However, this also lends to a major criticism of PHP: it's almost too easy to find and reproduce bad code.
Here are 10 PHP mistakes that any programmer, regardless of skill level, might make at any given time. Some of the mistakes are very basic, but trip up even the best PHP programmer. Other mistakes are hard to spot (even with strict error reporting). But all of these mistakes have one thing in common: They're easy to avoid.
Take the time and make sure that your PHP is secure, clean and running smoothly by checking your site for these common PHP blunders.
1. Single quotes, double quotes
It's easy to just use double quotes when concatenating strings because it parses everything neatly without having to deal with escaping characters and using dot values. However, using single quotes has considerable performance gains, as it requires less processing.
Consider this string:
# $howdy = 'everyone';
# $foo = 'hello $howdy';
# $bar = "hello $howdy";
$foo outputs to "hello $howdy" and $bar gives us "hello everyone". That's one less step that PHP has to process. It's a small change that can make significant gains in the performance of the code.
Photo by dantaylor.
2. Semicolon after a While
It's funny how one little character can create havoc in a program, without even being reported to the PHP error logs! Such as it is with semicolons and While statements.
Codeutopia has an excellent example of this little error, showing that these nasty errors don't even get reported (even to E_ALL!), as it quietly falls into a silent loop.
$i = 0;
while($i < 20); {
//some code here
Omit the ; after the while statement, and your code is in the clear.
Photo by RTPeat.
3. NOT Using database caching
If you're using a database in your PHP application, it is strongly advised that you at least use some sort of database caching. Memcached has emerged as the most poplar caching system, with mammoth sites like Facebook endorsing the software.
Memcached is free and can provide very significant gains to your software. If your PHP is going into production, it's strongly advised to use the caching system.
Photo by aged_accozzaglia.
4. Missing Semicolon After a Break or a Continue
Like #2, a misused semicolon can create serious problems while silently slipping off into the shadows, making it quite difficult to track the error down.
If you're using a semicolon after a "break" or "continue" in your code, it will convince the code to output a "0" and exit. This could cause some serious head scratching. You can avoid this by using braces with PHP control structures (via CodeUtopia).
Photo by ed_gaillard.
5. Not Using E_ALL Reporting
Error reporting is a very handy feature in PHP, and if you're not already using it, you should really turn it on. Error reporting takes much of the guesswork out of debugging code, and speeds up your overall development time.
While many PHP programmers may use error reporting, many aren't utilizing the full extent of error reporting. E_ALL is a very strict type of error reporting, and using it ensures that even the smallest error is reported. (That's a good thing if you're wanting to write great code.)
When you're done developing your program, be sure to turn off your reporting, as your users probably won't want to see a bunch of error messages on pages that otherwise appear fine. (Even with the E_ALL error reporting on they hopefully won't see any errors anyway, but mistakes do happen.)
Photo by Eliya.
6. Not Setting Time Limits On PHP Scripts
When PHP scripts run, it's assumed that they'll eventually finish in a timely manner. But every good programmer knows that nothing should be assumed in a piece of code. Nothing makes a program crankier than an unresponsive script.
You can get around this issue by simply setting a time limit on the script (set_time_limit). While it may seem like a trivial thing, it's always clever to prepare for the worst.
7. Not Protecting Session ID's
A very common PHP security mistake is not protecting session ID's with at least some sort of encryption. Not protecting these Session ID's is almost as bad as giving away a user's passwords. A hacker could swoop in and steal a session ID, potentially giving him sensitive information. MT Soft an example of how to protect Session ID's with sha1:
if ($_SESSION['sha1password'] == sha1($userpass)) { // do sensitive things here
Adding the shai1 to the ($userpass) gives an added bit of security to the session. Sha1 isn't a bulletproof method, but it's a nice barrier of security to keep malicious users at bay.
8. Not Validating Cookie Data
How much trust do you put into cookies? Most people don't think twice about the seemingly-harmless bit of data that's passed by a cookie. The name "cookie" itself is associated Milk, nap time and Santa, for crying out loud! How could a cookie possibly harmless?
If you're not validating cookie data, you're opening your code to potential harmful data. You should use htmlspecialchars() or mysql_real_escape_string() to validate the cookie before storing it in a database.
9. Not Escaping Entities
Many times PHP programmers are too trusting with data, especially data generated by user. It's imperative to sanitize data before it goes into any sort of storage, like a database.
Source Rally shows us how to correctly escape entities in things like forms. Instead of using this:
echo $_GET['username'];
You can validate the data by using htmlspecialchars() (or htmlentities()) like so:
echo htmlspecialchars($_GET['username'], ENT_QUOTES);
10. Using Wrong Comparison Operators
While comparison operators are an extremely basic part PHP programming, mixing these up in your code is certain to bork your program. As the German proverb states, the Devil is in the details.
Being familiar with the often-misused operators like =, ==, != , are absolutely critical to PHP programming. Taking the time to really understand the differences will greatly speed up your programming and yield less bugs to debug.
Photo by Foxtongue.


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Tsarnaev Told Friend Martyrs Go To Heaven, Prosecutor Says
Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told a friend a month before the deadly attack that he knew how to make a bomb and said it's good to be a martyr because you "die with a smile on your face and go straight to heaven," a federal prosecutor told jurors Monday at the friend's obstruction trial.
Tsarnaev also texted the friend, Azamat Tazhayakov, 90 minutes after the bombings and said, "Don't go thinking it's me," Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Siegmann said.
Siegmann's comments came during opening statements at Tazhayakov's trial, a prosecution that promises to provide a glimpse into the government's case against Tsarnaev.
Tsarnaev is scheduled to go on trial in November on charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty. Prosecutors say he and his older brother, Tamerlan, built two bombs and placed them near the finish line of the 2013 marathon to retaliate against the U.S. for its actions in Muslim countries. The explosions killed three people and injured more than 260. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died following a shootout with police several days later.
Tazhayakov, 20, has pleaded not guilty to obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges. He and his roommate, Dias Kadyrbayev, went to Tsarnaev's University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth dorm room several days after the bombing and took a laptop computer and a backpack containing fireworks that had black powder spilling out or had been emptied of their powder, Siegmann told the jury.
"The government will prove to you that the defendant and his co-conspirator removed the backpack for one reason, and that reason was to protect their friend who they had just learned was one of the two suspected marathon bombers," Siegmann said.
Prosecutors acknowledge that Kadyrbayev is the one who actually put the backpack in the trash but said Tazhayakov agreed to get rid of it.
She described a conversation Tsarnaev had with Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev a month before the bombings while they ate together at a restaurant.
"Tsarnaev told the defendant and Kadyrbayev that it was good to die as a shaheed, or a martyr, as you would die with a smile on your face and go straight to heaven," she said.
During that same meal, Siegmann said, Tsarnaev also told his friends he knew how to make a bomb and went on to list the ingredients, including gunpowder or explosive powder like what was found in the fireworks inside the backpack.
Tazhayakov's defense attorney, Nicholas Wooldridge, urged jurors not be swayed by the emotional impact of the marathon bombings. He asked them instead to focus on Tazhayakov's actions.
"Azamat's actions will show that he never intended to obstruct justice. As a matter of fact, he never intended to help the bomber himself," Wooldridge said.
As the lawyers outlined their cases to the jury, the mother of two men who each lost their right leg in the bombings listened in court. Liz Norden declined to comment afterward.
Wooldridge said Tazhayakov went to Tsarnaev's dorm room with Kadyrbayev three days after the bombings and hours after the FBI released video footage and photos of the brothers.
But he said Tazhayakov watched a movie while Kadyrbayev looked around Tsarnaev's room after receiving a text from Tsarnaev that said, "If you want, you can go to my room and take what's there," followed by a smiley face, which Wooldridge said was a symbol that meant marijuana to the friends.
Wooldridge said it was Kadyrbayev who threw the backpack away in the trash after his girlfriend learned it belonged to Tsarnaev and told him, "Get it out of the apartment."
"Azamat never even touched that bag," Wooldridge said.
Kadyrbayev's girlfriend is expected to testify against Tazhayakov under a grant of immunity from prosecutors.
Kadyrbayev faces his own trial in September.
This article was originally published on July 07, 2014.


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Hudhur gave a discourse on the excellence of the Holy Qur'an and belief in the unseen in his Friday Sermon today. Hudhur began by reciting the following verse: 'The month of Ramadan is that in which the Qur'an was sent down as a guidance for mankind with clear proofs of guidance and discrimination. Therefore, whosoever of you is present at home in this month, let him fast therein. But whoso is sick or is on a journey, shall fast the same number of other days. Allah desires to give you facility and He desires not hardship for you, and that you may complete the number, and that you may exalt Allah for His having guided you and that you may be grateful.' (2:186). Hudhur explained that this verse mentions the particular significance the Holy Qur'an has with the month of Ramadan. It is a month to read it with particular attention and deliberation. The revelation of the Qur'an started in this month to the perfect man (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) about whom the Qur'an states: 'Say, 'O mankind! truly I am a Messenger to you all from Allah…' (7:159) and 'And We have not sent thee but as a bearer of glad tidings and a Warner, for all mankind, but most men know not.' (34:29).
The Qur'an expounds that the advent of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) was for the rest of time. There will be no Prophet after him who will bring a law-bearing Book. He is for all mankind till the Day of Judgement and this is the message the Qur'an gives.
If only the extremist mullah realises that the Holy Prophet's (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) and Quranic teaching is to dispense mercy and grace in the world and not to take away the peace of the peaceable and to ruthlessly play with the lives of the innocent.
The Qur'an has guidance for entire mankind with manifest signs, it distinguishes between truth and falsehood. It is thus for a true believer to avail of the blessings of Ramadan, which is a month of spiritual development, to gain Divine nearness, to enhance the level of worship of God. And to keep the teaching of the Qur'an in view and reflect over it while reciting it.
The Qur'an states that '…it is a guidance for the righteous,' (2:3). Hudhur explained the standard of this guidance are varying. There is guidance for the righteous because guidance does not discontinue after belief, rather it is a continual process. If the claim of those who say they are righteous is true, it is essential for them to adhere to the all the finer points of this teaching. Otherwise, as the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) said, the fast of those who do not deliberate on the Qur'an is merely going through thirst and hunger. Stress is given on self-purification in this month. Adherence to all this can alone make us worthy of taking this teaching to other and we can tell the rest of the world that the way they have opted for leads to destruction and that it is not a mere claim of the Qur'an that in it is guidance for mankind.
In order to call others to Islam, the practices of Muslims should be first and foremost. Unfortunately, today it is the practice of the Muslims that is giving the detractors of Islam opportunities to raise objection against the Qur'an. An American Church, Dove Outreach Center, has a vicious plan to burn the Qur'an on 11 September. They have raised ten frivolous objections against the Qur'an. Objections can also be raised against the Bible, but we do not wish to create disorder. However, intellectual discussions should be carried out about these matters and this indeed is our practice. Yet, no Muslim has the right to burn the Bible because it negates the Unity of God. Indeed, the Qur'an purports the Unity of God from the beginning till the end, all Prophets of God came to establish it and no religion can have a basis without it.
In the current age, the one who was commissioned by God expounded the teaching of the Qur'an in such a great manner that those who gave man status of god, declared that religious discussions should not be held with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani (on whom be peace). Modern day Christianity is based on the concept of trinity. The Promised Messiah (on whom be peace) proved it from the Bible and from the words of Jesus (on whom be peace) that no one can be son of God. The main objection raised by the Dove Outreach Church against the Qur'an is the very same as well as that Islam states that Crucifixion was not a source of salvation rather man's own good works are. These senseless people do not understand that Jesus (on whom be peace) himself believed this.
When one is defeatist and has no argument left, one has no choice but to turn to extremism. This is what the Dove Outreach Center is doing. Quoting from the Bible, Hudhur said, 'The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' (Mark 12:29, 30). He explained that apart from this many other passages of the Bible also refute the divinity of Jesus (on whom be peace). The Promised Messiah (on whom be peace) established the superiority of the Qur'an and refuted every argument of Christians and the Ahmadiyya Community continues to do this. The Qur'an teaches that: 'Surely, right has become distinct from wrong;' (2:257). However, there is no compulsion in this, whoever wishes to accept it, may and whoever does not, may not. They are now making a concerted effort to burn this teaching, which in itself is against the teaching of the Bible, which enjoins 'If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also'. Many Churches have condemned this proposed burning and have declared their non-alliance with it. The Ahmadiyya Community is also trying to dissuade the Dove Outreach Church through the media and other means. Hudhur explained that the 'dove' is a symbol of the Holy Spirit in Christianity.
Hudhur said he has asked the US Jama'at to work on this as a project and other Jama'ats should do the same. This attitude of the Dove Church will create disorder in the world. They seem oblivious of the status the Qur'an gives to Jesus (on whom be peace) and Hadhrat Maryam. This action of theirs will raise barriers of hatred. Muslims, who have not accepted the Imam of the age and are unrestrained, or are in the hands of those with ulterior motives, may react badly and incorrectly. Today peace and brotherhood is needed. It is needed to absorb love of God. For this the Christians as well as the Muslims need to correct their religious thoughts. By all means, hold academic discussions but do not injure the sentiments of others.
Muslims should try and search for the guide who came in accordance with the prophecies. The Qur'an was revealed in the month of Ramadan and is a source of guidance. Muslims should inculcate those standards of guidance which the Qur'an has stated and try to find the person who came to give guidance with sincerity of heart. God has taught us the prayer of: 'guide us in the right path' (1:6). If supplication is made to God with this in view, He would certainly help Muslims for He even guides the non-Muslims with this prayer. If only our Muslim brothers would pay heed to this compassionate message of ours.
The Promised Messiah (on whom be peace) remarked on the sad aspect of those who considered the Qur'an to be Word of God but did not put its teaching in practice. He likened them to those who in spite of being thirsty do not go to a water spring which is sweet and pure and has healing properties. He said Muslims know that the Qur'an is the key to all success, yet they do not put its teaching in practice.
Hudhur said today let alone reflecting on the Qur'an, the majority of Muslims do not even pay attention to reading it and follow the so-called religious leaders who incite them that while the Qur'an states that the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) is Khatamum Nabiyyeen (the Seal of all the Prophets) Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani has claimed to be a Prophet. If only they would ask what was his claim. As they do not have any reasoning to support what they say, they have enforced restrictions on the Jama'at especially in Pakistan. People are told that it is an act of unbelief to talk to Ahmadis and to greet us. Similar extremism is being displayed by Christians. In fact they have been led to this because of the way Muslims act. Muslims do not seem to have enough confidence that if the creed of Ahmadis is incorrect they should refute it. Do they consider their belief to be so weak that if they speak to Ahmadis their belief will be ruined?
Similarly, it is the obligation of Ahmadis to honour their dues, to become a practical model of the way to guidance. Now that we have again been granted the blessed month of Ramadan, we should make full use and enhance our spiritual development and practice Quranic teaching. This can only be availed of when the Quran is recited regularly as well as practised on. The Qur'an gives commandments to practice virtues and to shun evil. The first step to attain the way to guidance is belief in the unseen. This is not an ordinary matter, it is what becomes a source of spiritual development which in turn takes one to the ways of guidance which are the ways to find God, to understand the teachings of God; ways to develop connection with God.
The Promised Messiah (on whom be peace) said that 'belief in the unseen' (2:4) should not be considered an insignificant stage. It has a lot of worth in God's sight. The Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) said that the greatest level of faith was of those who would come centuries after him and will see no apparent sign, unlike his Companions who witnessed many Divine signs, but would still believe. One practical display of such a belief is observance of Salat. Those who are granted steadfastness in belief, even endure weak phases in Salat without wavering and remain resolute in their belief.
Hudhur said these days when everyone is drawn to observance of Salat, concerted effort should be made to contend with Satan. When progress will be made towards strong connection with God, when it will be strengthened, it will lead to that guidance which the Qur'an gives. It is a requisite of belief in the unseen that all the prophecies of the Qur'an are believed in. Prayer should be made that God strengthens our belief in the unseen by exhibiting His signs. A true believer prays that just as God's commissioned ones had their advents previously, they may come to pass again for that is what the state of the world requires. As the Qur'an states: 'And among others from among them who have not yet joined them.' (62:4).
Hudhur said there should be no misunderstanding about the Holy Prophet's (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) saying that the belief of those who will not see signs will be strong, rather this is a reference to the period which he himself referred to as a period of darkness. When Muslims did not have any organised system for spiritual development and there were Mujaddads (reformers) in their own, isolated spheres.
With the advent of the Promised Messiah (on whom be peace) the era of Divine signs started again in accordance to the prophecy and the Ahmadiyya Community is witnessing them to this day and because of belief in the unseen is firm that all the prophecies will be fulfilled. We shall continue to repel satanic attacks with observance of Salat and satanic forces cannot weaken our steadfastness. They are using their might to abate the belief of Ahmadis. However, we know that the Qur'an states that godly communities face trials. Hudhur said our endeavour should be to utilise the blessings of Ramadan and pray for strengthening of our faith and for God's promises to be fulfilled soon. When, in this holy month, we will make earnest prayers for the kingdom of the Holy Qur'an to be established, most certainly God will manifest a powerful new series of His signs and we will witness through the greatness of the teaching of the Qur'an, establishment of truth and untruth defeated.
People will thus pay attention to the voice of the true and ardent devotee of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) who is inviting people to the truth exactly in accordance with the Holy Qur'an. If anyone stands for God today, it is the Promised Messiah (on whom be peace) and it is incumbent on his Community to be resolute and turn to prayers. It is the obligation of each Ahmadi to fully try to put the teachings of the Holy Qur'an in practice.
Hudhur said the objections raised by the Dove Outreach Church are age old objections and the Promised Messiah (on whom be peace) has provided the answers to all of them. No one could challenge his reasoning. It is unfortunate that rather than gather around him, as the Holy Prophet (may peace and blessings of Allah be on him) had enjoined, Muslims opposed him. This was a rejection of 'belief in the unseen'. Today this opposition is getting intense. May God enable us that we may, in accordance to our capacities, be excellent helpers of the Promised Messiah (on whom be peace).
Hudhur gave the sad news of two further martyrdoms in Pakistan. Our detractors do not see what fate is showing them for the cruelties they perpetrate against us. They acknowledge and are writing column inches that God's chastisement is befalling them due to the errors of their ways, but they are identifying their mistakes wrongly. They are so blinded that one ill-natured mullah has said that God's chastisement has befallen them because they have not tried hard enough to obliterate Qadianis.
Hudhur said Ahmadis will InshaAllah pass through this trial but the ill-natured mullah who is ridiculing the teaching of the Qur'an will definitely be seized by God. Hudhur said some people say to him that when, at times, Hudhur addresses the mullah, his words further incite them. Hudhur said this is a misunderstanding of the innocents and he wished to explain to his own that whether Hudhur said something or not, our detractors have terrible schemes and plots against us in Pakistan and are also trying this abroad. Hudhur said he says what he says so that someone decent may avail of his words and alert the nation against evil among men. Hudhur said we must be patient, may God save us from all evil of the enemy.
Next Hudhur gave news of the two martyrdoms. Unknown assailants fired at Dr. Najmul Hassan sahib on 16 August in Karachi. He was rushed to hospital where he succumbed to his injuries and passed away. He was struck by 13 bullets in his chest. Dr. Najmul Hassan was born in 1971 in Dhaka and was a Moosi. He was 39 years old, had seven brothers and one sister. When advised to move his clinic to another area he would say, 'I was brought up here and will serve the people of this area with my practice.' He was regular in his Salat and chanda payments. He is survived by two young daughters and one son.
The other martyrdom is that of Habib al Rehman sahib. He hailed from district Gujrat. His grandfather's brother was the first in the family to accept Ahmadiyyat. In 1912 his ancestors purchased land in Sindh. He was educated in Rabwah and studied with Hudhur. He was a cheerful person who arranged good gatherings of pious nature. Yesterday morning unknown masked men on motorcycle approached his car as he left home in Sindh and shot him. He passed away on the spot. He had moved to the US in 1990 and made distinctive contributions to alislam.org. He was among its pioneering workers who helped in finding talent for the website. In 2006 his brother was martyred and he moved back to Pakistan to serve his elderly father. Later, as he was a widower himself, he was advised to marry the widow of his brother. He was a sincere person, who was regular in Salat and payment of chandas and had great connection with Khilafat and shared the pain of the underprivileged. He is survived by his 91 year old father and his children are aged 32, 28 and 23 who all live in US. His second wife's children are aged 13, 11 and 7. May God elevate his status in Paradise and grant steadfastness to the bereaved.
Hudhur said he also wished to mention another sincere friend, Musa Rustawi sahib, whose funeral Prayer was offered a few days ago. He passed away on 5 August 2010. In his Jalsa speech at Kosovo this year he had mentioned how his brother met with and was influenced by Hadhrat Khalifatul Masih IV (may Allah have mercy on him) in 1985. In turn he was influenced by his brother. When he dedicated his life Hudhur asked him to go to Albania, but he could not do this due to some reasons. Later, in 2000, he volunteered to go there with Hudhur's permission. He served as president of Kosovo for ten years. He was very keen on Tabligh work. At one point he came to know that his wages were slightly more than those of missionaries. He took it upon himself to lower his wages. He did not have a car and travelled on a bicycle. He treated all the new converts like his family members and it is due to his Tarbiyyat that most of the Kosovo Jama'at is Moosi. He had fervent love for Khilafat and would meet with Hudhur at the Germany Jalsa. Our detractors in Kosovo spread the propaganda that Ahmadis do not go to Hajj. On Hudhur's advice he performed Hajj last year and was very happy about it. He passed away after sudden illness. May God elevate his status, and keep his family firm on Ahmadiyyat. May God provide us with more people like him who have heightened sincerity and loyalty and who selflessly serve the Community.
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