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eretzyisrael · 4 months

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by Judith Miller

Last fall, Egypt was on the brink of economic collapse. A decade of debt-fueled spending on a pharaonic-scale had emptied its Central Bank coffers. By February, Cairo’s public debt was 89% of its gross domestic product. External debt had soared to 46% of GDP. The pound, its currency, was one of the world’s worst performing. Unable to import supplies and repatriate profits, foreign companies were leaving, or threatening to leave Egypt in droves. Annual inflation was over 35%, and double that for some food staples. Egypt seemed on the verge of a sovereign default—its first ever.

Then came Oct. 7.

Officials, businessmen, and financial analysts say that however horrific the war has been for Israelis and for Palestinians in Gaza, Oct. 7 has helped save Egypt from economic ruin and growing political unrest. To be sure, Egypt is paying heavily for the ongoing Israel-Hamas war on its border. Its three main sources of revenue—hard currency from the Suez Canal, tourism, and remittances from Egyptian workers abroad—have plummeted by between 30% and 40%. But without Hamas’ horrific massacre, which killed 1,200 people and took another 240 hostage, and Israel’s much criticized retaliation in Gaza, Egypt would probably not have gotten the international financial lifeline that has rescued it yet again from economic ruin, just in time.

“Just after the attack, the government began strategizing, successfully it’s turned out, about how to use the crisis to secure a bailout,” said Ahmed Aboudouh, an Egyptian expert at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. “Oct. 7 helped save Egypt’s economy, at least temporarily.”

Last February, the Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company (ADQ), Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, unveiled plans to develop a city by the sea on part of the 65-square-mile peninsula of Ras el-Hekma, one of the few undeveloped areas on the Mediterranean coast, part of a sale worth $35 billion in investment and debt relief, the largest foreign direct investment deal in Egyptian history. Egypt will retain a 35% stake in the project. Since Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the chairman of ADQ, is Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan’s brother and the UAE’s national security adviser, the Ras el-Hekma purchase was far more than a financial transaction. It was part of an Egyptian bailout.

Egyptians bristle at the loss of their nation’s diplomatic clout. By reviving its regional profile, Oct. 7 has bestowed another gift on Egypt.

Then in March, Cairo secured a critical $8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, with strong American support. The IMF infusion, in turn, opened other foreign faucets. The European Union promptly agreed to provide another $8 billion in grants and loans, ostensibly to help Egypt’s economy, but in reality, to assure Egypt’s help in preventing Arab and African migrants from reaching European shores. In total, the IMF, Europe, and the Gulf have now poured well over $50 billion of foreign currency into Egypt’s cash-strapped coffers. “The U.S., Europe, and the Gulf clearly agreed that the Sissi government could not be permitted to fail,” said Steven Cook, an expert on Egypt at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. “Geopolitics has taken over.”

Only months before, the IMF had not completed the review of Egypt’s loan agreement approved in December 2022, thereby withholding a tranche of the $3 billion rescue package, as the government had failed to deliver on agreed benchmarks. While the fund attributed its about-face in March to the increasing damage being done to Egypt’s economy by the Israel-Hamas war—or what it euphemistically called a “more challenging external environment”—absent American pressure on the fund and on Egypt to agree belatedly to financial reforms it had previously rejected, the IMF loan and even the Ras el-Hekma deal would not have gone through. Since Washington is the fund’s largest shareholder with a 16.5% stake, it holds sway over its key lending decisions.

The Biden administration, too, was obviously unwilling to risk the economic collapse and political destabilization of the Arab Middle East’s largest country and the first Arab state to make peace with neighboring Israel in the midst of one of the region’s deadliest wars in modern history and with other conflicts around it still raging—especially since Egyptian mediation with Hamas was crucial to White House policy. “Egypt has proven, yet again,” said Aboudouh, “that it is, as its elite believes, too big to fail.”

#egypt #october 7 #hamas #gaza #too big to fail #imf #international monetary fund #cairo

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yssai-nne · 11 months

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finished the fontaine archon quest and i really liked it😭😭😭 i liked it so much i finished the quest THE DAY IT RELEASED

i dont even remember if i did this for the other regions, i always stretch out doing the quests bcos im lazy🫠 but for some reason i got hooked

but first THE WHOLE THING WITH FOCALOR AND NEUVILLETTE,, i just,,, when focalor’s death sentence was being carried out, I REALLY liked how they played neuvillette and the scene that followed

GOOD THING I PULLED FOR HIM EVEN IF I REACHED LIKE WHAT 88-89 PITY WITH HIM (even though i regreted him a little then, but not anymore lmao)

And i must get furina,, lost 50/50 to dehya so shes guaranteed now,, SHES SOOO 😭😭😭😭 its just so sad and to think i didnt like her when she was first introduced

i really liked it,, idk i enjoyed it, which surprised me since i rarely do quests in genshin nowadays (if u see my quest tab in genshin🙃🙃 it goes on forever)

YEA I REALLY LIKED FURINA, FOCALOR AND NEUVILLETTE IN THE QUEST not explicitly as a ship (thats just a bonus for me) just the how the whole thing played out

#genshin spoilers

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newstfionline · 2 years

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Monday, February 6, 2023

The mood of the U.S. (Gallup) Americans’ assessment of the state of the nation remains in the pandemic-era slump seen since 2021, marked by subdued satisfaction with 30 different aspects of the country. These include the public’s reaction to several aspects of U.S. society generally, as well as to numerous specific issues facing the country. These findings from Gallup’s Jan. 2-22 Mood of the Nation poll come as only 23% of Americans are broadly satisfied with the way things are going in the country, while the rest are dissatisfied, including nearly half “very dissatisfied.” The overall quality of life in the country (65%) and the opportunity for a person to get ahead by working hard (61%) are the only two societal dimensions of eight measured in this year’s Mood of the Nation poll that a majority of Americans view positively. Even these satisfaction ratings, however, are well below the record highs of 89% for the quality of life in 2001-2002 and 77% for opportunity in 2002. Close to half of Americans today are satisfied with the influence of organized religion, while satisfaction drops to a third for the size and power of the federal government as well as the U.S. system of government and how it works. Americans are least satisfied with the nation’s moral and ethical climate (20%), the way income and wealth are distributed (24%), and the size and influence of major corporations (27%).

Attacks on Electrical Substations Raise Alarm (NYT) A recent spate of attacks on electrical substations in North Carolina and other states has underscored the continued vulnerability of the nation’s electrical grid, according to experts who warn that the power system has become a prime target for right-wing extremists. Over the last three months, at least nine substations have been attacked in North Carolina, Washington State and Oregon, cutting power to tens of thousands of people. After those attacks, federal regulators ordered a review of security standards for the electrical system. Because they house transformers that transfer power from region to region, the tens of thousands of substations across the country represent the most vulnerable nodes in the nation’s vast electrical grid, said Jon Wellinghoff, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

America’s offices are now half-full. They may not get much fuller. (Washington Post) The tug of war over getting workers back to the office just reached a key milestone: 50 percent are back at their desks on average, the most since the pandemic hit in March 2020. But that means major corporate offices are only half as full as they once were—and many experts think this could be as good as it gets. The return-to-office figures are unlikely to go much higher as flexible work becomes entrenched in the lives of white-collar workers, experts say. Some employees have resisted hard mandates to return: They’ve left for remote opportunities elsewhere or even flouted in-office requirements, flexing worker leverage while the labor market remains hot. In response, more companies seem to be moving toward acknowledging that the 9-to-5, Monday-through-Friday in-office job is over. More than half of U.S. jobs that can be done remotely were hybrid as of November, up from 32 percent in January 2019, according to data from Gallup.

Peruvian politics (Reuters) As deadly protests rage across Peru, a political battle is unfolding inside the halls of Congress, walled off from the streets by hundreds of police, armored vehicles and a maze of gates. Lawmakers are at loggerheads over whether to hold a snap election this year following the Dec. 7 ouster of leftist President Pedro Castillo part-way through his term, an event that sparked weeks of protests that have seen 48 people killed. Despite the violence, and despite polls that show the majority of Peruvians want the election brought forward, Congress appears to be in deadlock. At least three election bills have been rejected and others knocked back before being debated in the past week, with parties on the left and right apparently unable or unwilling to compromise. “They fight like they’re in a street market,” said Juliana Gamonal, 56, a food delivery person in Lima. “We don’t have good leaders right now, everything is for their benefit, not for the people.” Congress has 13 different voting blocs, making it hard to reach majorities needed for legislation. Meanwhile, constitutional rules make it relatively easy to attempt impeachment—leading the fragmented blocs to use it to punish presidents they don’t like. There have been seven impeachment attempts in the last five years—which have seen six presidents.

Brazil sinks aircraft carrier carrying asbestos, other toxins (Washington Post) Brazil’s navy said Friday night that it had carried out a “planned and controlled” operation to sink a decommissioned aircraft carrier nearly 220 miles off its coast—despite the objections of environmentalists and some government officials who argued that it contained toxic materials that could contaminate the ocean. The navy said in a statement that the operation to sink the São Paulo, a Clemenceau-class carrier, was carried out with the necessary technical competencies and safety measures in “order to avoid logistical, operational, environmental and economic losses to the Brazilian state.” Before Friday’s operation, the São Paulo had been at the center of a months-long odyssey, with governments on several continents refusing to let it dock. Brazil bought the 30,000-ton São Paulo from France in 2000 and decommissioned it in 2018.

Most travelers will soon have to fill out an online application to visit the UK (The Week) As part of efforts to fully digitize its borders by 2025, the United Kingdom is launching the Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) system, which is expected to be up and running by the end of 2023. All foreign nationals will have to apply online for an ETA before arriving in the UK, providing “basic personal details, passport data, and some security information,” the ETA UK website says. People can apply from their own homes—there’s no need to go to an embassy—and most will be approved quickly, “with only complex decisions made by ETA officials.” There will be a fee, which has yet to be announced. This isn’t a visa, and the website stresses that “Europeans and travelers from countries including the US and Canada will maintain their visa-free status but will need an ETA to cross the UK border.” The details are still being worked out, but it’s likely the ETA will be valid for at least two years, meaning regular visitors will not have to keep reapplying.

Zelensky warns situation at war front ‘getting tougher’ (Washington Post) Russia is multiplying its attacks to break Ukraine’s defenses, and the situation on the war front is “getting tougher,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address. He said the situation was “very difficult” in the country’s east, especially around Bakhmut, Vuhledar and Lyman. Ukraine has said it will keep fighting for Bakhmut, even as Russia is tightening its grip on the city. Ukrainian losses are mounting in Bakhmut, where a U.S. citizen, Pete Reed, was killed while working as a volunteer paramedic with an outreach group.

Powerful quake rocks Turkey and Syria, killing more than 600 (AP) A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked southeastern Turkey and northern Syria early Monday, toppling hundreds of buildings and killing more than 600 people. Hundreds were still believed to be trapped under rubble, and the toll was expected to rise as rescue workers searched mounds of wreckage in cities and towns across the area. On both sides of the border, residents jolted out of sleep by the pre-dawn quake rushed outside on a cold, rainy and snowy winter night, as buildings were flattened and strong aftershocks continued. Rescue workers and residents in multiple cities searched for survivors, working through tangles of metal and giant piles of concrete.

The deepening chill of Afghanistan’s second Taliban winter (Washington Post) In a yard ankle-deep with mud and snowy slush, a woman named Farzana, 32, squatted and scrubbed clothes in a bucket last week. When she stood, her hands were stiff and red. Her daughters were out begging for bread; her sons were collecting trash to use as stove tinder. At night, in a mud-walled hut on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, the family of seven would huddle together under blankets as the heat slowly died. As 40 million Afghans struggle through a second winter since the return of Taliban rule, many are facing conditions far worse than during the first. The weather has been exceptionally harsh, with temperatures often near zero at night. More than 160 people nationwide have died of hypothermia. So have at least 200,000 goats, sheep and other livestock. In isolated northern provinces, many roads are blocked by snow and little emergency aid can be delivered. According to the World Food Program, nearly 20 million people face acute food shortages this winter, and 6 million face “emergency-level food insecurity.” Many foreign aid projects, which distributed food and supplies last winter across the country, have been cut back or suspended because of an impasse between international donors and Taliban authorities over women’s rights, especially new Taliban edicts banning women from attending college or working for foreign charities.

Sri Lanka marks independence anniversary amid economic woes (AP) Sri Lanka marked its 75th independence anniversary on Saturday as a bankrupt nation, with many citizens angry, anxious and in no mood to celebrate. President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who has started to improve some but not all of the acute shortages, acknowledged the somber state of the nation, saying in a televised speech, “We have reached the point of destruction.” Many Buddhists and Christian clergy had announced a boycott of the celebration in the capital, while activists and others expressed anger at what they see as a waste of money in a time of severe economic crisis. Sri Lanka is effectively bankrupt and has suspended repayment of nearly $7 billion in foreign debt due this year pending the outcome of talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout package.

Pope makes final bid for peace, forgiveness in South Sudan (AP) Pope Francis made a final appeal for peace in South Sudan on Sunday as he celebrated Mass before tens of thousands of people to close out an unusual mission by Christian religious leaders to nudge forward the country’s recovery from civil war. On the last day of his African pilgrimage, Francis begged South Sudanese people to lay down their weapons and forgive one another, presiding over Mass at the country’s monument to independence hero John Garang before an estimated 100,000 people, including the country’s political leadership. “Even if our hearts bleed for the wrongs we have suffered, let us refuse, once and for all, to repay evil with evil,” Francis said. “Let us accept one another and love one another with sincerity and generosity, as God loves us.”

In a world of drones and satellites, why use a spy balloon anyway? (Washington Post) In a world of advanced surveillance technology, including drones and satellites, why on Earth would a country use a balloon for spying? That was the question on everyone’s mind this week after U.S. defense officials accused China of flying a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental United States. Despite the furor, spy balloons are actually not that unusual. According to U.S. officials, they have been spotted over U.S. territory a number of times in recent years. “Balloons offer a few advantages over the use of satellites or drones,” James Rogers, an academic at Cornell and the University of Southern Denmark. “Not only are they cheaper than launching satellites into space, but by operating within the bounds of the earth’s atmosphere, closer to the surface, they can obtain better quality images,” he added. The latest generation of balloons are high-tech in their own right, “envisaged as systems that can fly up to 90,000 feet” high, “deploy their own drone systems” and detect incoming missiles. Balloons can soar above the range of most planes, Clarke said, and their slow speed means they aren’t always picked up by radar. Satellites can provide high-resolution imagery, Clarke said—but balloons can stay over one area for longer periods than satellites, if the weather permits.

#headlines #news

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orionrealtor · 2 years

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Signature Global Launches Second Phase of Premium Projects in Gurugram

Real estate firm Signature Global launched the second phase of its two luxurious independent floors projects on Friday.

The realtor will deliver the remaining 50 per cent of the units to customers in the second phase of the projects.

Signature Global City 37 D, the company’s first project, is located in Sector 37 D, while SG City 81, another project, is located at sector 81 Gurugram. Both are premium luxury offerings.

The first project has a total 536 units of 2 and 3 BHK independent floors. Independent floors of the project cost between Rs 82 lakh and Rs 1.29 crore. The other project, SG City 81, has 408 units of 2 and 3 BHK independent floors in the second phase. Their price range is Rs 89 lakh-Rs 1.06 crore.

The realty firm currently focuses on affordable and mid segment housing.

The company has grown its operations over the years and as of March this year, it had sold 23,453 residential and commercial units in Delhi-NCR region, with an aggregate saleable area of 14.59 million sq ft.

Its sales bookings (net of cancellation) have grown at a CAGR of 142.62 per cent, from Rs 440 crore in 2019-2020 to Rs 2,590 crore in the financial year 2022.

“Due to the pandemic, consumers’ daily needs have witnessed a paradigm shift, and they now prefer open green spaces around their homes as well as amenities within the vicinity. The work-from-home culture also prompted a need for extra space. As a result of consumer demand, we are trying to offer more advanced and new-age amenities in our Independent floors," said Pradeep Aggarwal, Founder & Chairman, Signature Global (India) Ltd.

The projects have been designed by noted architect Hafeez Contractor. These independent floors would be developed under state housing DDJAY policy (Deen Dayal Awas Yojna) and superfluous with EDGE certification (a global green certification provided by IFC, finance arm of World Bank).

“We have strategically focused on central and state government policies supporting affordable housing, specifically the Affordable Housing Policy (AHP), 2013 notified by the Town and Country Planning Department, Government of Haryana and the Affordable Plotted Housing Policy or the Deen Dayal Jan Awas Yojana (DDJAY-APHP),” said the company.

Moreover, Signature Global City 37D is well connected with proposed National Highway Pataudi Road, Dwarka Expressway, NH-8 and Hero Honda Chowk and another project which is Signature Global City 81 is well positioned and has smooth access to Cyber City, Udyog Vihar, Golf course extension road, Sohna and Manesar.Visit: https://www.orionrealtors.com/signature-global-builder.html

#Signature Global City 37D #Signature Global City 81

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sonasiaholiday · 1 year

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Inside 4 Michelin-starred restaurants in Vietnam

1. Anan Saigon 📍 Address: 89 Ton That Dam Street, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1, HCMC. 💸 Prices start from VND185,000 ($7.93). 2. Hibana by Koki Restaurant inside Capella Hotel 📍 Address: 11 Le Phung Hieu Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi. 💸 A meal costs from VND6-9 million per person. 3. Tam Vi Restaurant 📍 Address: 4b Yen The Street, Dong Da District, Hanoi. 💸 A meal here costs from VND200,000-500,000. 4. Gia Restaurant 📍 Address: 61 Van Mieu Street, Dong Da District, Hanoi. 💸 Meal prices cost from VND1.7-2 million.

********

Before being awarded a one-star rating by Michelin Guide for the first time, four Vietnamese restaurants - one in HCMC and three in Hanoi - were honored by international media and received applause from foreign diners.

🍜 Located inside an old market on Ton That Dam Street near Bitexco Financial Tower in District 1, 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐚𝐢𝐠𝐨𝐧 is well known as a fine dining restaurant but specializes in street food-inspired dishes created by its owner and chef, Peter Cuong Franklin.

The restaurant opened its doors in April 2017 and quickly catapulted to global fame for its $100 banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) that is topped off with French foie gras, truffle, a traditional garnish of sliced cucumbers, cilantro and mint and served with a side of fried sweet potatoes and caviar.

Due to its limited space, the restaurant only serves 40 diners at a time.

Other dishes that have helped the restaurant gain a reputation among international foodies are banh xeo taco, a dish consisting of a central Vietnamese region-style banh xeo (Vietnamese pancake) folded into the shape of a Mexican taco and filled with shrimp and pork, Hanoi-style grilled catfish or beef stew.

After five years, the restaurant has received a series of prestigious awards from international cuisine magazines. It was the only representative of Vietnam to be listed among Asia's 50 best restaurants at the World Travel Awards in March.

Prices start from VND185,000 ($7.93).

🍜 𝐇𝐢𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐚 𝐛𝐲 𝐊𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 inside Capella Hotel in Hanoi's Old Quarter specializes in serving Japanese cuisine like sashimi, yakitori, grilled meat, and seafood with salads, rice, and noodle dishes.

It was one of three restaurants in Hanoi that have been awarded a Michelin star by the French food guide.

Koki also boasts several secluded dining spaces including four private dining rooms accommodating up to eight guests as well as five other private dining areas each catering for between six to 16 guests.

Chef Hiroshi Yamaguchi told VnExpress that ingredients the most important factor that help his restaurant to be awarded Michelin star.

"I am very strict in choosing materials from vegetables to seafood to ensure freshness," he added.

Yamaguchi hopes the awarding of a Michelin star will help boost Vietnamese cuisine’s reputation on the global map, but what he is concerned for now is how to ensure the best quality of all dishes so that guests realize the restaurant is worth the Michelin star.

In addition to teppanyaki dishes, the restaurant’s menu features a distinctly decadent edge, epitomized by the premium ingredients flown in twice weekly from Japan, such as abalone, spiny lobster, sea urchin, Yaeyama Kyori beef and Hokkaido hairy crab.

A meal costs from VND6-9 million per person.

Last year, it was voted among best new restaurants in Hanoi by readers and travel editors of American magazine Condé Nast Traveler.

🍜 Located on Van Mieu Street in Dong Da District, 𝐓𝐚𝐦 𝐕𝐢 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 takes inspiration from the Tonkin period with a touch of northern Vietnamese architecture.

It boasts nostalgic collection of Chinese furniture, hand-written signs and an antique gramophone and telephone.

The restaurant was chosen by Tripadvisor readers in 2023 as one of the best in Hanoi.

The restaurant specializes in serving northern Vietnamese dishes. Its signature dishes include Vietnamese ham with periwinkle (snails) that comes with fresh herbs, vegetables and rice vermicelli with fish sauce.

"High quality cooking, worth a stop," Michelin Guide said.

The restaurant is open from Tuesday until Saturday.

A meal here costs from VND200,000-500,000.

🍜 𝐆𝐢𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 first opened its doors for business in December 2020.

The restaurant’s name means "family" in Vietnamese that derives from the family love of head chef Sam Tran and CEO Long Tran, who have been working abroad for years.

The restaurant decor draws inspiration from Hanoi's Temple of Literature.

Its menu includes dried black apricot, Hmong chicken served with rice, crab with beetroot, scallops with lime, and lamb with black garlic.

💸 Meal prices cost from VND1.7-2 million.

To be honored by Michelin, all restaurants must meet five criteria including the personality of the chef represented in the cuisine, harmony of flavors, mastery of cooking techniques, quality of ingredients, and consistency over time and across the entire menu. **** Source: vnexpress.net

#ananrestaurant #hibanabykoki #tamvirestaurant #giarestaurant #Michelin Starred Restaurants Vietnam

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pinerrelief · 2 years

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Cuphead free weekend

#CUPHEAD FREE WEEKEND CODE#

#CUPHEAD FREE WEEKEND PC#

#CUPHEAD FREE WEEKEND PLUS#

#CUPHEAD FREE WEEKEND SERIES#

#CUPHEAD FREE WEEKEND FREE#

Overwatch Game of the Year Edition - $34.99 (list price $60).

Dark Souls III (Steam) - $21.09 (list price $60).

Dark Souls III Deluxe Edition (Steam) - $39.56 (list price $85).

11/03: Call of Duty: WWII – Digital Deluxe (Steam) - $85.49 (list price $100).

10/27: Assassin’s Creed: Origins Gold Edition (Uplay) - $85.49 (list price $100).

10/27: Assassin’s Creed: Origins Deluxe Edition (Uplay) - $59.84 (list price $70).

10/27: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (Steam) - $51.29 (list price $60).

10/27: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus Deluxe Edition (Steam) - $68.39 (list price $80).

10/10: Middle-earth: Shadow of War – Gold Edition (Steam) - $80.99 (list price $100).

Xbox Live Deals With Gold: Week of October 16.

PlayStation Store Sale of the Dead Week 1.

#CUPHEAD FREE WEEKEND SERIES#

GOG Sale: Witcher Series + Bethesda RPG Games.

GameStop Retro Bundles (Gamecube, N64, NES Systems).

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition (Xbox One Download) - $20 (list price $50).

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition (PS4 Download) - $19.99 (list price $40).

The Witcher 3: Hearts Of Stone (DRM-Free) - $4.99 (list price $10).

The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine (DRM-Free) - $9.99 (list price $20).

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Expansion Pass (DRM-Free) - $12.49 (list price $25).

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt GOTY Edition (DRM-Free) - $19.99 (list price $50).

#CUPHEAD FREE WEEKEND CODE#

Destiny 2 Digital Deluxe Edition - £71.99 (UK/EU)

Destiny 2 - £40.50 (UK/EU)

Destiny 2 Digital Deluxe Edition - $84.99 (list price $100).

South Park: The Fractured but Whole – Season Pass (Uplay) - $25.64 (list price $30).

#CUPHEAD FREE WEEKEND FREE#

South Park: The Fractured But Whole + Free Stick of Truth (Uplay) - $51.29 (list price $60).Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (Steam) - $23.99 (list price $30).(Just kidding we pay our robots fair oil wages). If you spot any issue with any deals below, let us know in the comments and our unpaid interns will get right on them. Other sales event includes PSN’s Halloween sale, a WinGameStore Fall Sale (with tons of cheap Steam games), and GameStop hawking retro Gamecube and N64 bundles with starting price of $89 (yeah reliving your childhood isn’t cheap). The individual DLCs and expansions are all at lowest ever price as well thanks to this Witcher anniversary sale.

#CUPHEAD FREE WEEKEND PLUS#

In sales event, The Witcher 3 Complete/GOTY is now only $20 across all major platform, with the DRM-Free copy $20 at GOG, while the console versions will require PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold. IF we spot anything before Tuesday’s release, we’ll add ’em to the list below. We’ve previously seen a $10 off discount for a physical copy as well at Newegg but that deal has since expired. US gamers can grab it at GMG for 15% off, while UK/EU gamers can check out GamesPlanet and take 10% off with the coupon listed below. In other deals department, next Tuesday’s Destiny 2 is also on tap for 15% off across most region. For more details, check out our page here which list all the other games this unique coupon can qualify for. Digital retailer GMG is offering a 20% off discount for most regions on either Cuphead, PUBG, or ELEX provided you create an account on their store and request for a unique coupon code here on this page.

#CUPHEAD FREE WEEKEND PC#

You can currently pick up Steam copies of Cuphead or Playerunknown’s Battleground for 20% off with a few extra step, which is worth the hassle given these are two of top-selling title on PC right now. This weekend is filled with decent deals, once again in the domain of PC gamers.

#Cuphead free weekend

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delyth88 · 3 years

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I haven’t been on Tumblr much the last few weeks for a few reasons. Partly because I haven’t yet watched any of the What If...? episodes and I didn’t want to see spoilers. Partly because I want to re-watch the Loki series again and see what I think of it after taking a break - the amount of time and energy it took to keep up with an episode a week was surprisingly exhausting! And I kinda want to give the series the attention it deserves, and I just haven’t had the energy for that. But mostly it’s because we’re back in lockdown again and that’s challenging in its own way. (Yeah, this is going to be a post about real life and Covid, so if you’re not here for that you probably won’t want to read the rest of this post.)

New Zealand has kept Covid out of the country for most of the last year and a half. We had one nationwide lockdown in March-June of 2020 and a couple of shorter less intense local lockdowns in our biggest city, Auckland in August last year and again in February this year. But in between it’s been life pretty much as normal, unless you wanted to travel overseas in which case you have to quarantine in the government-run hotels for 14 days on your return for $3000+ and rooms are hard to book because there’s a limited supply.

On Tuesday the week before last someone at work read out an article from the news online in the early afternoon that said not much more than that a case had been detected in Auckland and everyone in Auckland travelling on public transport should make sure they were wearing a mask that afternoon. More details to come. An hour or so later reports that the Prime Minister was flying back to the capital, Wellington, for a Cabinet meeting at 4.30pm, and we knew it was serious. They generally only do that if there’s an alert level change coming. We’d all expected another outbreak at some point, and people were particularly on edge watching the outbreak in New South Wales, Australia, grow beyond their ability to stamp it out. We’d been warned that if an outbreak should happen it would likely mean an immediate move to our highest Alert Level. So I packed up and went home early, as most people in the office did, as we made a point to say goodbye and wish each other luck. I began packing my suitcase full of everything I could think that I’d need for a month or more and waited till the official announcement at 6pm. We were right - it was Alert Level 4. Alert Level 4 means we all must stay to our household bubbles and no-one except for essential workers can leave for reasons other than to go to the supermarket, the pharmacy, the doctor, or for a vaccine or a Covid test. Or to do a bit of exercise near your home. I live in a small apartment alone and did the last lockdown alone so this time I drove a couple of hours north to stay with my parents for however long it might turn out to be.

The case numbers were a bit of a shock for us. It started with one man who had no known links to the border but quickly grew to 30, 50, 80 people a day. Now I know that sounds tiny to most people, but we’re a small country, a ”Team of 5 million” TM. And during the first global wave of Covid the highest number of cases a day we peaked at was 89. So this was a bit scary, particularly as we’ve been warned for a while about the high transmissibility of the Delta variant. More worrying still is that the case numbers just kept going up past the point where we were expecting to see a stabilisation. The thing is, we don’t know if what we did the first time around will work against Delta. We think it might, but we can’t be sure like we have been in previous outbreaks. And unlike other countries where the virus was in the community, we’ve been slower to get and administer vaccines. Bookings were only starting to open up to people outside of the vulnerable categories and border workers a few weeks before this outbreak. I won’t have my first shot till mid September.

But today we had some good news. We’ve now had two days of lower case numbers. Yesterday’s were the results from Sunday which traditionally has lower testing rates so we couldn’t read too much into that, but today was lower again at 49 cases. So I feel we can take some heart from that. Though there is still quite a way to go.

Tomorrow most of the country moves down to Alert Level 3, which is pretty much the same as Level 4 but with contactless takeaway food and coffee (I mean it’s more than that, but for the average person those are the main differences). Auckland will stay in Level 4 for another two weeks at least. So it’s looking like I’ll be staying up here for 6 weeks or so (because inter-regional travel is prohibited until we get to Level 2). I’m lucky because I can do my job from home, but it’s hard to concentrate and I almost wish I couldn’t work from home so I wouldn’t have to deal with the stresses of work as well as lockdown, but I know there are people in much worse situations all over the place so I’m grateful.

The thing that this has really brought home to me is that we’re going to have to have a difficult conversation soon. One that Australia is having now. If we want to have higher numbers of people travelling to and from New Zealand we’re going to have to by choice let the virus in. And this is going to mean that we will lose the sense of normality and safety that we experience on a day to day basis between lockdowns. And it will mean choosing to allow people to die from this disease, looking at the data from other jurisdictions, even if we reach an incredibly high vaccination rate of over 90%. I would hate to be the person who has to make a decision like that. I know there are new treatments being developed and a second generation of vaccines that may be more effective, but then the virus is also changing and who knows what the situation will be like at the end of the year. Yay uncertainty. lol

So yeah, that’s where I’m at right now.

#and here endeth the sad and serious discussion #covid #covid-19 #pandemic #real life #new zealand #not fandom

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tlatollotl · 4 years

Link

As told to Scientific American

When a family member dies, we the Diné, whom Spanish conquistadors named the Navajo, send a notice to our local radio station so that everyone in the community can know. Usually the reading of the death notices—the names of those who have passed on, their ages, where they lived and the names of their matrilineal and patrilineal clans—takes no more than five minutes. It used to be very rare to hear about young people dying. But this past week, I listened to 45 minutes of death notices on KGAK Radio AM 1330. The ages ranged from 26 to 89, with most of the dead having been in their 30s, 40s or 50s.

I am in shock. The virus entered our community in March, through a Nazarene Christian revival in Arizona. They brought in vanloads and busloads of people from across the Navajo Nation for the gathering; then all those vans and buses returned them to their respective communities, along with the virus. There were immediate deaths because the medical facilities were not ready for it. More than 300 Navajos have already died of COVID-19, and the disease is still spreading.

I am a Diné storyteller and keeper of traditions. I live alone in a hogan, a traditional octagonal log house, in Chi Chil Tah, meaning “Where the Oaks Grow,” after the Gambel oaks indigenous to this region. Officially known as Vanderwagen, the community lies 23 miles south of Gallup, N.M.. The pandemic reached the area in late April. On May 1, the governor of New Mexico evoked the riot act to block off all exits into Gallup to stop the spread of the virus, and only residents could get in. The lockdown extended to May 11. It was not so bad the first week, but then we started to run out of food and water.

The groundwater in parts of Vanderwagen is naturally contaminated with arsenic and uranium; in any case, few of us have the money to drill a well. Normally, my brothers and my nephew haul water in 250-gallon tanks that are in the back of a pickup truck. At Gallup they have a high-powered well; you pay $5 in coins, put the hose in your tank and fill it up. You haul that home, dump that into your cistern, and you have water in your house. Without access to Gallup, people began to run out of water—even as we were being told to wash our hands frequently.

My hogan has electricity but no running water. My brothers bring me water, and they put it in a 75-gallon barrel. I drink that water, and I wash with it, but I also buy five gallons of water for $5, in case I need extra. I typically use a gallon of water a day, for everything—cooking, drinking and washing up. My great-grandmother used to say, “Don’t get used to drinking water, because one of these days you’re going to be fighting for it.” I have learned to live on very little.

We have a lot of cancers in our community, perhaps because of the uranium. And we have many other health issues that I think makes this virus so viable among us. We have a lot of diabetes, because we do not eat well, and a lot of heart disease. We have alcoholism. We have high rates of suicide. We have every social ill you can think of, and COVID has made these vulnerabilities more apparent. I look at it as a monster that is feasting on us—because we have built the perfect human for it to invade.

Days after Gallup reopened, I drove there to mail a letter. Every fast-food establishment—McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy’s, Burger King, Panda Express, Taco Bell, they’re all located on one strip—had long, long lines of cars waiting at their drive-throughs. This in a community with such high rates of diabetes. Perhaps there wasn’t any food available in the very small stores located in their communities, but I also think this pandemic has triggered a lot of emotional responses that are normally hidden. On the highway to Vanderwagen, there is a convenience store where they sell liquor. And the parking lot was completely full, everybody was just buying and buying liquor. There is a sense of anxiety and panic, but I also think that a lot of Navajo people don’t know how to be with themselves, because there isn’t a really good, rounded, spiritual practice of any sort to anchor them.

COVID is revealing what happens when you displace a people from their roots. Take a Diné teenager. She can dress Navajo, but she has no language or culture or belief system that tells her what it means to be Diné. Her grandmother was taken away at the age of five to a BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) boarding school and kept there until she was 18. At school, they taught her that her culture and her spiritual practice were of the devil and that she needed to completely deny them. Her language was not valid: “You have a Navajo accent; you must speak English more perfectly.” Same happened to her mother. Our languages were lost, the culture and traditional practices were gone. That was also when spankings and beatings entered Diné culture. Those kids endured those horrible ways of being disciplined in the BIA schools, and that became how they disciplined their own children.

I meet kids like this all the time—who don’t know who they are. For 35 years I have been trying to tell them, you come from a beautiful culture. You come from one of hundreds of tribes who were thriving in the Americas when Columbus arrived; we had a viable political and economic system that was based on spiritual practices tied to the land. Some 500 years ago, Spanish conquistadors came up the Rio Grande into North America in search of gold. They were armed with the Doctrine of Discovery, a fearful legal document issued by the Pope that sanctioned the colonization of non-Christian territories. Then in the mid-1800s, the pioneers came from the East Coast with their belief in Manifest Destiny, their moral right to colonize the land. As their wagons moved west, the Plains Indians were moved out and put on reservations. When your spiritual practice is based on the land you’re living on, and you’re being herded away from what somebody else would call her temple, or mosque, or church, or cathedral—that’s the first place your spirituality is attacked.

My great-great-great-great-grandfather on my father’s side was captured and taken on what we call the Long Walk to Fort Sumner. Initially about 10,000 Diné were rounded up, and many died on that walk, which took weeks or months, depending on the route on which they were taken. They were imprisoned for four years at Fort Sumner, and released in 1868, because of the Civil War. At about the same time, my great-great-great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side escaped from Colonel Kit Carson at Canyon de Chelly and traveled north with his goats. He came back down to this area at just about the time my great-great-great-great-grandmother escaped Spanish slavery. Slavery was introduced here by the Spanish—that’s never talked about. The children born at Fort Sumner were taken into Spanish families, to be slaves.

We had the Spanish flu in the 1920s, one of many viruses to invade our community. Then in the 1930s there was the Great Depression. We didn’t know that was happening: we did not have money, but we had wealth in the form of sheep. And the government came in and killed our sheep in the Stock Reduction Program. They said the sheep were eroding the land, but I think they did it because the sheep made us self-sufficient, and they couldn’t allow that. We had spiritual practices around our sheep. Every time we developed self-sufficiency and a viable spiritual practice, they destroyed it. My mother said they dug deep trenches, herded the sheep and massacred them.

A tuberculosis epidemic in the 1940s took away my mother's parents. My great-grandmother, a healer and herbalist, had hidden my mother from the government agents who snatched Diné kids to put them into BIA boarding schools. My mother became a rancher, a prolific weaver, a beautiful woman who spoke the language. She did not speak much English. She died at 96; my great-grandmother died at 104. Now, in our community in Chi Chil Tah, there are no more traditional healers; the oldest person is my great-grand-aunt, who is 78. I am the only traditional Diné storyteller.

Now that we are talking about issues of race in America, we need to also talk about the Native American tribes that were displaced. There is a reservation in upstate New York of the Iroquois people—all of 21 square miles. How much land were the Iroquois originally living on? Who was living in what is now Massachusetts? What about Pennsylvania? What about all the states under the umbrella of the United States? Whose land are you occupying? Abraham Lincoln ordered the massacre of 38 Dakota men the day after Christmas, the same week he signed the Emancipation Proclamation; they call him Honest Abe. They don’t talk about the dark side of things, and I think that is what COVID has revealed—the dark side. We see a police officer putting his full body weight on the neck of a black man. And suddenly everybody goes, Wow! What have we evolved to?

It seems to me that COVID has revealed a lot of truths, everywhere in the world. If we were ignorant of the truth, it is now revealed; if we were ignoring the truth, it is now revealed. This truth is the disparity: of health, wellbeing and human value. And now that the truth has been revealed, what are we going to do about it?

#native american #Diné #new mexico #navajo #covid-19 #coronavirus

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thegrandimago · 3 years

Text

Right now, only 2.7 percent of the ocean is part of a marine protection area, a far cry from the goal of 30 percent by 2030 that many countries have pledged to reach. But even as the coastal nations of the world begin to make headway on adding protections, a group of researchers is pretty sure it has found a better way of going about things.

The group's research, recently published in Nature, suggests ways to optimize marine protected areas around the globe. The study, done by more than two dozen international researchers, offers insight in the best ways to bolster fish population, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration potential in the ocean.

The research, which began three years ago, saw the large team divvy the oceans into thousands of parcels, each 50 km x 50 km, and analyze environmental data for every one of them. On this fine-scale maritime map, the researchers identified cells that provided benefits to the oceans.

The first of the benefits they looked at is biodiversity. The second is an area's benefits to fish stock—its ability to enable more fish to spawn. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 90 percent of marine fish stocks in 2018 are either depleted, overexploited, or fully exploited. The third quality is the parcel's capacity to sequester carbon in its sediment. Some of the team's researchers previously mapped the carbon sequestration potential of different parts of the ocean, and they found that ocean sediments can sequester more than twice the amount that terrestrial soils can.

"The world has decided to invest more into marine protected areas, and we want to make sure that there is a good return on that investment, and for that we need a plan," said Boris Worm, one of the paper's authors and a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.

Divide and analyze

The west coast of Vancouver Island in Canada, as an example, has all three attributes. It has a healthy amount of biodiversity. It also is very productive in terms of fish, and when these fish die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean, taking their carbon with them, Worm told Ars.

The team identified which parcels were hot spots for one, two, or all three of these features. The paper shows that only 0.3 percent and 2.7 percent of the ocean have three or two of these factors, respectively. The researchers then developed an algorithm that allows them to maximize the benefits of each zone using marine protected areas. According to Worm, this research could help the world's governments get the most out of their efforts to protect ecosystems in their waters and the ocean as a whole.

"In the end, we brought it all together to try to understand how the protection of any parcel of ocean space in the world would affect those three objectives: biodiversity, fisheries, and carbon," Worm said.

The algorithm allows users to weigh the objectives however they like and then provides them with the optimal network to do so—the smallest area you would need to protect to fulfill those objectives.

Less space, more benefits

Hypothetically, if the world's governments wanted to maximize for biodiversity, they would need a strategically located 21 percent of the ocean placed under marine protected areas. This would raise the average protection of endangered and critically endangered species from their current rates of 1.5 and 1.1 percent to 82 and 87 percent, respectively, the paper notes. This form of optimization would, coincidentally, protect 89 percent of at-risk carbon sequestering areas in the oceans.

Those protections would also come at a cost: 27 million metric tons of catchable fish would be off-limits. According to the FAO, in 2018, 84.4 million metric tons of fish were caught, though research from 2016 suggests that many metric tons of fish go unreported each year. "There are co-benefits, but you can't optimize everything at the same time necessarily. There are some trade-offs, but they are limited trade-offs because you have these co-benefits," Worm said.

There's also an option to deploy the algorithm to optimize all three outcomes, weighed according to the users' priorities. For example, to weigh food production and biodiversity the same would require protecting 45 percent of the ocean and yield 71 percent of the maximum biodiversity benefits and 92 percent of food benefits—but just 29 percent of carbon benefits. "That's where you're trying to find the sweet spot where you get the most return on the investment across all three objectives," he told Ars.

Further, though the algorithm could be used for each country's individual coastal waters, it is roughly twice as effective when applied globally, rather than piecemeal. "There are large efficiency gains if the global community were doing this in a coordinated approach," he said.

To get the full benefits of these optimizations, the targeted regions would need to be wholly free of industrial development and extraction. However, not all marine protected areas have been entirely free of human use. A 2018 study penned by Worm, among others, suggests that trawling for fish is still commonplace—59 percent of marine protected areas in Europe are regularly trawled.

#science #nature #biodiversity #animals #conservation #environment #wildlife #climate change #oceans #marine life #marine biology #fish stocks #marine protected areas #carbon sequestration #oceanography #ocean mapping #sustainability

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kirame90 · 1 year

Photo

SniperSpy gets a tad upset

Not much to say about this one, I believe it speaks for itself. This was another fun one to draw and write. Medic is the mood.

SniperSpy's gorgeous wedding outfits were designed by Vesper Nova ^^

The next page is now available on my Patreon!

The charity of April 2023 is Marine Megafauna Foundation!

This 4-star charity is actively working in Mozambique, Florida and Indonesia. These three priority regions have a high number of threatened marine species, represent the highest levels of ocean biodiversity and face significant threats from growing human pressures.

More about their projects here.

Thank you so incredibly much for reblogging this story! It means the world to me!

The characters don't belong to me, the artwork does.

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#sniperspy #sniper x spy #tf2 spy #tf2 sniper #tf2 #teamfortress2 #bloodysuit #knifeparty #comic #webcomic #fanart #k90 #gay disaster #together forever #miserable couple #tf2 medic #tf2 heavy

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gardenofkore · 4 years

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Also inhabited is Eryx, a lofty hill. It has an especially revered sanctuary of Aphrodite; in past times it was filled with women hierodules whom many of Sicily and elsewhere dedicated according to a vow. But now,just like the settlement itself, the sanctuary is depopulated and the plethora of sacred bodies has left.

[...]

Chronology and terminology are very much at issue here. Strabo is discussing two different times – the to palaion and nuni – and, potentially, two different categories of sacred persons – the hierodules and the hiera sômata. The various definitions of “hierodule” continued to function in the Roman period. […] The “women hierodules” discussed by Strabo in regards to Eryx seem to have a lot in common with their Corinthian counterparts – both are groups of exclusively women dedicated by men and women/Sicilians and others.

What about Strabo’s second term, the hiera sômata ? Who and what were these individuals populating the sanctuary of Eryx? From Strabo’s perspective, the term “sacred body” or “tou theou sômata ” (and as well the hieroi paides) could function as a synonym for “hierodule” especially in the more occidental regions of Anatolia. The epigraphic evidence from that region indicates that the hiera sômata worked for and came under the protection of the temples/deities. That “sacred bodies” worked for the temples is evident in a late third–early second-century bce building inscription from Didyma, where the temple architect and general manager give a list of expenditures, including an apologismos tôn gegenêmenôn dia tôn tou theou sômatôn, “an account of the works done by the bodies of the god.”

[...]

Evidently the sacred bodies were a group desirable to steal and most honorable to return. Strabo’s Erycine hiera sômata might then simply be seen as a synonym for his previously mentioned hierodules. The only odd aspect of this reference is the exclusive sex of the hierodules; in other instances both males and females were dedicated to the various deities, both as hierodules and as hierai/hieroi. That male hiera sômata existed is evident in the Didyma passage quoted above. Furthermore, there remains the question of whether or not Strabo’s Anatolian-based vocabulary (he was from Comana) adequately captures the realities of the Roman institution of so-called hierodouleia.Fortunately, in the case of Eryx we have additional, first-hand evidence that paints a fuller picture of these individuals sacred to Erycine Aphrodite in the Roman period from an earlier author – Cicero. In his Div. against Q. Caecilius, his Against Verres, and his Pro Aulus Cluentius Cicero sheds considerable light on the status and functions of the Venerii – the “slaves” of Erycine Venus. The passage in Caecilius is at once the most familiar and confusing, ultimately revealing the differences in sacred slavery as it pertained to the Roman west. According to Cicero (17.55–56),

There is a certain woman, Agonis of Lilybaeum, a liberta of Venus Erycina, who was quite well-to-do and wealthy before this man was quaestor. An admiral of Antonius abducted some musician-slaves from her in a violent, insulting manner, whom he said he wanted to use in the navy. Then, as is the custom of those of Venus (Venerorum) and those who have liberated themselves from Venus, she invoked religion upon the commander in the name of Venus; she said that both she and hers belonged to Venus. When this was reported to quaestor Caecilius – that best and most just of men! – he commanded that Agonis be called to him. Immediately he appointed a commission [to see] “If it appeared that she had said that she and hers belonged to Venus.” The justices judged that it was surely so, nor was there indeed any doubt that she had said this. Then the cad [Caecilius] took possession of the woman’s goods, sentenced her into servitude to Venus, then sold her goods and pocketed the money. And so because Agonis wanted to retain a little property by the name of Venus and religiosity, she lost all her fortunes and liberty by the outrage of this cad! Verres later came to Lilybaeum, heard the matter, annulled the judgment, and bade the quaestor to count up and pay back all the money he got for selling Agonis’s goods.

The notion of divine protection is strongly reminiscent of what we have seen in the Hellenized east. Agonis, a former slave of Erycine Venus (liberta Veneris Erycinae) still claims that both she and her household are under the goddess’s protection. And well she might, for this protected status is also recognized and respected by the Sicilian government (for the most part), Cicero, and presumably his audience.It must be noted, though, that the evidence from Eryx actually presents two separate categories of what might be termed in Greek hierodules: those who are free (as with the manumissions seen above) and those who still belonged to the goddess – “omnium Veneriorum et eorum qui a Venere se liberaverunt,” “all those of Venus and of those who have liberated themselves from Venus.” In contrast to the eastern tradition, in the Roman tradition it would appear that sacred slaves were the equivalent of state-owned slaves, with the temple as opposed to the government having ultimate authority over them. This is made clear in two additional passages from Cicero. In his Against Verres II, 38.86 Cicero, complaining about Verres’s abuses of power and nonstandard use of resources, mentions that when Verres was fleecing the people of Tissa:

The collector you sent to deal with them was Diognetus – a man of Venus (Venerium). A new style of tax-farming – why are the public slaves (servi publicani) here in Rome not taking up tax-farming as well through this fellow?

Cicero equates the man of Venus – Diognetus – to a servus publicanus, a public slave. That those belonging to deities were not considered to be free as were their eastern cognates is also evident in the cult of another deity – Mars of Larinum. In his Defense of Cluentius Cicero discusses a political power-play in this town pertaining to the Martiales – “those of Mars” (15.43):

In Larinum there are certain men called Martiales, public ministers (ministri publici) of Mars and consecrated to this god by the ancient institutions and religious ordinances of Larinum. There was quite a large number of them, and as well, just as the case in Sicily with the many Venerii, so too these men of Larinum were reckoned to be in the familia of Mars. But quickly Oppianicus began to demand that these men be free and Roman citizens.

The Martiales, who are likened to the Sicilian Venerii, are neither free nor citizens. Furthermore, they are reckoned to be in the familia of Mars. To be in a Roman-style familia is not to be a member of the blood clan, a concept better expressed by the word gens, but to be a member of a household, including the status of household slave. The Venerii, like the Martiales, then, were slaves belonging to a deity, and thus the temple, but otherwise likened to the state servi publicani. It is easy to understand how the sacred servi would be under the protection of their patron deities. However, as stated in Cicero’s anecdote about Agonis, she was a former Veneria, a liberta of Venus Erycina. Nevertheless, she claimed that both she and her own household still fell under the goddess’s protection. Thus two classes of sacred slaves, one actual slaves, one freedpersons, but equally under divine protection.

[...]

In this way, even though the former Veneria (or Martialis) was technically now a liberta, she remained to some extent within the famila of Venus, acquiring the goddess’s protection not only for herself, but also for her own household familia who might be called upon to help in the service of the deity. If we might accept that Cicero’s Venerii were the Latin “translation” of Strabo’s hierodules and hiera sômata, we must question Strabo’s understanding of the Sicilian practice. For, once again, Strabo claimed that the hierodules (and presumably the hiera sômata?) were female. It is very clear from the Roman evidence, however, that the Venerii of Eryx were not exclusively female. To give a quick summary of the various uses and abuses of these Venerii as enacted by Verres and condemned by Cicero in Verres II,

They acted as provincial police either directly under the governor or indirectly under his agents (3, 61; 74; 89; 105; 143; 200; 228). They made arrests and executed not only the sentences of the governor’s court (2, 92–93) but also, it would seem, the decisions of the tithe contractors (ibid., 3, 50); ran errands for the governor and carried out his commands that were not of a judicial nature (3, 55; 4, 32); took charge of the moneys and goods he ordered sequestered (3, 183; 4, 104); acted as bodyguard to his satellites (3, 65); were the beneficiaries of donations forced upon the cities by the governor (3, 143; 5, 141); collected the offerings, dues and emoluments accruing to the temple of their goddess (2, 92–93).

It may be my own deeply rooted sexism showing, but I have a terrible time imagining that these functionaries were female, especially the bodyguards (although I suppose having sacred prostitutes as police, tax collectors, and bodyguards might have contributed significantly to local feelings of goodwill toward the Romans . . .). While some of the Venerii, and thus the hiera sômata, were certainly female, as is evidenced by Agonis, many were also male.How might we understand Strabo’s “mistake”? First, we must remember that by the time of Strabo’s writing the “plethora of sacred bodies had left.” Strabo never actually saw any of these hiera sômata, and thus he was writing based on tradition. Furthermore, it is possible that Strabo allowed his knowledge of the Corinthian custom to color his understanding of the Erycinian. In both instances, both set definitively in the past, Strabo understood that the general populace dedicated hierodules to Aphrodite. In both instances, the sanctuary itself was famous for its wealth in times of old (see below). It is possible, then, that Strabo’s “knowledge” of Corinth colored his view of Eryx, claiming that only female hierodules (but not hetairai!) were originally associated with the sanctuary. As Strabo seems to have understood it, the temple of Aphrodite at Eryx was once populated by a number of female hierodules. Unlike Cicero, he was not entirely specific about whether the temple directly owned the hierodules; he merely related that in olden times the temple was “filled with” hierodules, and later, when the going got tough, the sacred bodies left. This stands in contrast with Cicero, who relates that the temple did in fact own Venerii, both female and male. In neither the Strabonic nor the Ciceronian accounts is there any evidence that would suggest that the normal service activity of the hierodules for the temple was sacred prostitution, either for the males or for the females, just as there is no suggestion in the literature that the Martiales, who are compared to the Venerii, are prostitutes for Mars. Nevertheless, the “sacred bodies” are often taken to be sacred prostitutes, the descendants of the female hierodules of earlier times who are also, of course, understood to have been sacred prostitutes. Furthermore, their sacred meretricious profession is generally traced back to the early Phoenician/Punic habitation of the site. The sacred prostitutes of Erycine Aphrodite are a holdover from the sacred prostitutes of Erycine Aštart.As with Corinth, then, sacred prostitution is understood to emerge from an initially Semitic influence. This, of course, is hogwash. As discussed previously, there is no “Semitic” sacred prostitution (see Chapter 2). Theword “hierodule” does not mean sacred prostitute and does not come into use in the Greek (much less Roman) vocabulary until the mid-3rd century bce. Thucydides fails to mention the temple slaves when discussing the apparent wealth of that sanctuary of Aphrodite of Eryx in 6.46.7–11 of his Peloponnesian War:

And leading them to the sanctuary of Aphrodite in Eryx they showed them the dedications, phiales and wine jugs and incense burners and not an insignificant amount of other paraphernalia which, being silver, presented an appearance of much greater worth by far.

Although it is never safe to argue from negative evidence, the evidence from Thucydides strongly suggests that there were no “sacred slaves” of Erycine Aphrodite in the fifth century bce, a point after the Greeks had assumed political and cultural control of the island from the Carthaginians, as well as the cult of the Erycinian. There can be no continuity, then, between the supposed sacred prostitutes of the cult of Erycine Aštart and those of Erycine Aphrodite or Venus. Strabo’s section 6.2.6 is not evidence for sacred prostitution in Sicily; it is a commentary on the women dedicated to a temple of Venus and how, in “modern” (for Strabo) times, the temple and town, having fallen on hard times, has fewer temple attendants – hierodules, hiera sômata, Venerii – than previously. Nothing indicates that the hierodules had prostitution as an aspect of their temple service, either for the males or the females.

Stephanie Lynn Budin, The Mith of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity, 184-191

#women #history of women #women in history #history #historical women #Greek Sicily #roman sicily #erice #Province of Trapani #Stephanie Lynn Budin #sacred prostitution #people of sicily #women of sicily #culture

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helgaw321 · 4 years

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Takeru’s 155 Q&A

To start off things, let me share (again) one of my most satisfying works from last year, that is Takeru’s Q&A section from his 30th birthday anniversary book. Looking back, I think I worked on this one for almost one week, and It felt really satisfying to finish it on Takeru’s 31th birthday ❤️

Once again, enjoy!

(Disclaimer: All translations are done by myself, pls don’t repost without permission, thank you!)

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These are the questions sent by fans through Takeru's official LINE account. Thank you for all of your participation!!

1. Is there anything you would like to do or achieve in 2019? I'd like to do anything good for my body

2. If there is one day you're not Satou Takeru anymore, what will you do? Go to sauna

3. If there is one day you become a girl, what will you do? Sing Sheena Ringo's songs in the original key

4. If you can travel back in time, when would you go? Middle high school

5. If you are being reborn, do you want to be yourself again? Not really

6. If there is an "Anywhere Door", where would you like to go? The world's best views

7. Do you think aliens exist? Not in this solar system I think

8. 10 years from now, what kind of father do you want to be? I want to avoid using weird emoji

9. If you move abroad, which country would you choose? Maybe America or Canada

10. If you got the chance to direct a film, what kind of film and who are the casts? Horror. Because it seems difficult to explain, I'll do it myself.

11. If you have to become one of the characters you've played before, who will you choose? Shishigami Hiro

12. Among of the movies created in the past, is there any movie you like to have acted in? (Anything from) Ghibli

13. Who would you like to meet the most right now? And what will you ask him/her? Hanyu (Yuzuru)-kun. "Do you want to join Amuse (Takeru's agency)?"

14. Anything you want to overcome in this year? Coughing out when sleeping

15. If you can go with your mom on a trip, where would you like to go? I don't know. I'll go where she would want to go

16. When you see food with the name you see for the first time, do you dare try? Or you tend to play safe? I tend to take the challenge.

17. If you can meet your 20-year-old self, what would you like to say? Nothing in particular

18. What kind of present you would like to receive in last year of Heisei-era? Speakers that can be used in bathroom

19. Where would you like to go on honeymoon? The world's best views

20. What would you like to do in your last day of your life? I don't want to know that day is the end of my life

21. If you can take a long holiday, what would you like to do? Watch movies. Escape room games.

22. I love Takeru-kun's singing voice. If someday you get to sing in your next project, do you want to do it? I don't mind

23. If you weren't in the entertainment world, what would you do? I imagined myself to study something related to science-field in university, but I don't know what to do next

24. What else you like in sushi other than Kohada (gizzard shad)? Between tuna and salmon, which one do you like? Tuna. I also like squid and uni (sea urchin). And also button shrimp

25. If you become an invisible person, what would you want to do? State secrets investigation

26. Favorite movie? Kimi no Na wa (Your name)

27. Do you like sweets? I like it but I rarely snacking

28. Favorite smell? Morning forest

29. What do you like in osechi (traditional Japanese new year food)? Kamaboko (fish cake)

30. Favorite manga? Tenshi na Konamaiki (Cheeky Angel) (note: he said in Yakai before that his first love is the heroine from this manga XD)

31. Do you like to go to onsen? Yes

32. If you have your own favorite/most disliked body parts, please tell us! I won't say because it's embarassing

33. Favorite color? Navy blue

34. Favorite kind of noodles? Cold soba

35. Favorite season? Winter

36. Do you like horumon (cuisine made from pork or beef offal)? I like it more than average people

37. You went to lots of places during filming or doing promotion for movies, do you have favorite region? Also please tell us if you have a must-eat food there! Hitsumabushi in Nagoya

38. If i remembered correctly, you've said that you like your home, is there any other place you like? I also like hotel

39. Any recommendation for foreign drama? Friends

40. Favorite novel? Shigatsu ni nareba Kanojo wa (also titled April Girlfriend - by Kawamura Genki)

41. What do you usually add when you eat medamayaki (fried egg)? Salt and pepper or Shoyu

42. What do you usually add when you eat freshly cooked white rice? Karashi (spicy) mentaiko

43. Please tell us your order of eating sushi! Omakase (literally meaning "I'll leave it up to you", a special course when the customer leaves it up to the chef to serve)

44. What are your memories of doing Kamen Rider? Commuting in a crowded train

45. Please tell us a happy episode from filming Den-O! We sometimes would go to Jojoen near Oizumi Studio

46. Who is your favorite Imajin from Den-O? Ura(taros)

47. If you act as (Nogami) Ryoutarou right now, what kind of person you think he will be? I think people will not change that much

48. If you have a child, what name will you give him/her? I think 2 letters would be nice

49. Among the actors-actresses you haven't co-starred with, who would you want to work together with? Fukatsu (Eri)-san

50. Among all of your projects, which role is the most fun/memorable? Rookies was fun

51. Do you still continue to learn English? Yes

52. Among all of roles you've played, was there a moment when you think it resembles yourself? Probably no

53. Is there any place inside Japan you want to go? Never-visited islands

54. Is there anything you want to learn right now? I want to learn to dance

55. When you first meet a person, what is the first thing you will look at? I got this question a lot and until now I don't know the answer. I wonder what I will look at first

56. What role you want to try this year? As a runaway child

57. Among all of your projects, is there anything you wouldn't want to watch? Basically I don't want to watch it. I don't watch most of it.

58. If you can do a sequel, is there a work you want to do? Rurouni, Kanouso, Gibomusu

59. Is there any villain role from movie/drama/manga/novel that you want to do? I'd like to if there's any (interesting roles)

60. Before you do a crying scene, how do you usually spend your time? Depends on the scene

61. What is your description of "Kakkoii"? Taking the initiative in what people hate, and don't show off your action

62. You said that you didn't like saba no misoni (mackerel with miso), was it because you didn't like mackerel itself? When I saw "saba no misoni" in school lunch menu, I would be very dissapointed. I like mackarel though.

63. If you got an offer for main cast in Taiga drama, will you take it? I like that kind of question where you don't think "If it's the main cast for Taiga I'll definitely do it"

64. Something to do to keep you healthy? Sleep 12 hours

65. Do you have any actor friends? Everyone that gave their comments in this book

66. How do you feel when you work in Rurouni Kenshin kiri (` ・ω・‘) (note: this is the actual answer (i only changed hiragana to romaji/alphabet), kiri/kiru is to cut/slash in japanese, so maybe he just felt like slashing ppl all the time XDD)

67. Something that makes you feel "I can die peacefully after doing this"? Become Ajin

68. What is the scariest thing in the world? Please see video original version of "Ju-on"

69. Have you seen Aurora? No

70. When you take a bath, what part of the body you washed first? Head

71. In what moment do you usually can be yourself the most? I am myself mostly everytime

72. If fans reach out to you in your private time, how far can we go e.g handshake/photograph? It'll be embarassing to take a photo, so only handshake is good

73. We always see Takeru-san in the acting side, do you ever think of creating a movie? If I create a movie, I also want to act in that movie

74. You showed us for a short moment in Horoyoi ads, but I want to hear more of your singing voice! Recently, is there any song that you will definitely sing in karaoke? Marigold, no I'm lying. I don't have such song.

75. You always give your best during promotions for dramas/movies, but was there any tough times? Ehh you're so kind.

76. You said that you want to take a break in this year because you've worked hard in last year, did that feeling change? It's not like I want to take break, but I think my exposure level is decreasing compared to last year

77. In Kanouso, during the moment when you weren't supposed to cry but tears suddenly fell down, how to control such emotion? I looked at her (Riko) face

78. Is there any actor/actress you admire? If I tell you, you will be more aware of that person, so because I don't want you to have such thought, I won't tell you.

79. How did you spend your time during 2019 new year? I watched Unnatural with my family at home

80. What is your special skill? Othello

81. Do you use perfume? I don't usually use it but because we're making it (as anniversary goods) this time so I'm using that.

82. When thinking about Takeru-kun, your image is strongly tied with solving riddles, how did you get into it? Also how much time did you spend in 1 day? My first time was when my friends invited me to play escape games. As long as time allows me to do it, I can do it all day.

83. Among all of Hanbun, Aoi cast, who is your best friend? Kan-chan (Suzume's daughter)

84. If you meet a person that you want to befriend, are you the type who reach out to him/her, or wait? Reach out

85. Regardless of gender, what kind of person you're not good at? People who makes mistakes

86. What is your decisive factor when choosing a project? Whether I want or I don't want to do it

87. By any chance, is Takeru-san the type of genius person with photographic memory? I'm not that kind of person

88. What do you sing when you go to karaoke? Radwimps

89. Do you do any muscle training? I do but depends on the timing

90. When you go out with somebody you like on a date, in what situation do you like? Autumn leaves

91. Has anybody said to you that you resemble someone (in entertainment world)? Shouhei's wife (Kiritani Mirei) (note: why he won't say her name directly XDD)

92. Do you have any age restriction for marriage? I'd like to do it in my 30s if I can

93. Why do you become "a man lost in love"? What a good word to express it. Love is not something you experience several times, isn't it?

94. What kind of hair type do you like for girl? I like natural, not shaped ones

95. In what moment do you think girls are cute? When you see they are excited when I choose her in SUGAR

96. When you found a girl you like, do you actively "attack" her? Of course if I like her

97. Do you like a woman who will casually do body touch, doing upward gaze, and sort of the aggresive type? I don't like it at all

98. In what moment you think you can't help but liking a girl? When she casually do body touch, do upward gaze (note: so which one do you actually like LOL -- refer to Q97)

99. Between older and younger woman, which one do you like? I like both

100. What kind of girl do you like? Girls with narrow "strike zone"

101. What is the minimum requirement for your partner to marry you? I no longer have such requirement

102. As a man, what do you think of a man who keeps looking at his phone, keeps looking at the clock when dating a woman? It's not a good thing to do, it's like he doesn't care about his partner.

103. What do you think about a fun and easygoing girl? Girls with good sense of humor are good

104. When you have a girlfriend, what kind of homemade food will you make for her? Miso soup

105. What kind of make up do you like for girls? As long as she doesn't overdo it

106. I have a person I can't forget even after so many years, Does Takeru-kun have that kind of experience? Yes for a few years, but I don't know what will happen for 10+ years

107. I called my nephews and nieces with nicknames. Does Takeru-kun have any nicknames you want to be called with? I like Takeru-san rather than Takeru-kun

108. What sound do you use as your alarm ringtone? Default settings

109. You have a really beautiful skin. Do you have any advice for it? Moisturizing

110. Any activities you've been into lately? Alternate baths (also called contrast bath therapy) (note: a kind of bath therapy where you alternate between hot and cold baths.)

111. Where do you usually go? Most recent is gym

112. Do you still hate caterpillars? Sorry, but yes

113. Do you cook? Do you have any specialities? Nope

114. Where and how you usually memorize your script? I usually memorize it with my costars moments before shooting in the set

115. For Takeru-san who loves reading, how do you usually choose books to read? I'd usually pick friends' recommendation

116. When you sleep do you prefer to turn on or off the lights? Turn off. I can't stand even the lights from humidifier

117. In what moment do you think it's nice being an actor? When people are being nice to you

118. Things like clothes, bags, shoes, is there anything that you have to make sure it's in good quality before you buy? Towel

119. If you have one full day with your beloved cats, what will you do? Cuddling its cheek

120. If you are being reborn as a cat, who do you want to take care of you? Do you want to play together with Kochirou and Puchirou in Satou's family house? Yes. (note: Kochirou and Puchirou are his beloved cats currently living in his parents' house)

121. If you can have one more cat, what name will you give? At least not names in katakana

122. Are you a dog person? Cat person? Cat

123. As a cat-lover, which part of a cat do you like? Face

124. What is your favorite Kochirou and Puchirou's pose? When they become rounded like a ball

125. If you can have a dog, what kind of dog do you like? Shiba-inu

126. Beside cat, do you have any other animals you'd like to have? Dolphin

127. Where do you want to live? Shiodome maybe

128. Have you give your mom presents from home bakery? Yes. I think you can also make mochi with those

129. If you're doing a solo trip, where will you go? Canada

130. How do you get along with Nobu-san (from Chidori)? We were working together in a variety show and I ask for his phone number

131. You were famous among the older people from long ago, what do you think about that? I don't really care about the age as long as I still got the "waa" and "kyaa"

132. In what moment do you feel happy? When I solved a riddle

133. What is your favorite song from Takahashi Yuu-kun? Hachigatsu Muika (August 6) (note: he sang this song in his 30th birthday event)

134. If you have to give a score for your acting career up until now, how many points out of 100? 60

135. In the future, can you create an event where fans can meet you directly? Yes

136. You've said before that because you can't tidy your room up so your mom had to visit your house to tidy things up, is it still the same now? I've become independent now

137. I'm still a kid, an elementary school student. When I talk about Kamen Rider, there are some kids who get along with me, but there also kids who call me weird. Is it alright that I still love Kamen Rider? Please tell me. I was also called weird by my friends in my school days so it will be alright

138. Do you plan to go to Kyoto in this year? I already go there few times

139. In what moment do you feel the happiest? I can't decide between the moment when I saw at Ruroken's (sales) performance or when I managed to clear an escape game challenge, or when I was in elementary school when I got into Yu-Gi-Oh, I got Summoned Skull from a booster pack.

140. Was there a moment when you cried while watching a movie? Usually I cried watching touching movies

141. Between the roles you've played almost simultaneously, such as Ritsu in Hanbun, Aoi, Mugita in Gibomusu, and Kazuo in Oku Otoko, which one is the most difficult to play? Kazuo

142. Recently, is there a moment when you laughed so hard? I was hitting my knees laughing while watching Aiseki Shokudou (Chidori's show) at home

143. Please tell us an episode from Kouhaku! When I hesitated to wave my penlight, but then I saw Nomura Mansai-san was waving his so I decided to follow

144. Please tell us your recommended places to visit from "Rurouni-hon Kumamoto e". Nature is always recommended. Negative ions are good for the body. (note: "Rurouni-hon Kumamoto e" was a book about Takeru doing a trip in Kumamoto, promoting places especially those which were affected by Kumamoto earthquake. A portion of the sales were donated to support Kumamoto recovery)

145. You said in the past that you couldn't sleep for a long time, how is it now? Hm it's complex but I think my internal body clock feels off

146. When telling our thoughts about your movies/dramas, do you have any preferred ways that makes you happy? When you shared it in the internet

147. My son is telling me that he wants to be a voice actor and wants to go to a vocational school. As a parent, should I support him? Did Takeru-kun get your parents' support when you want to be an actor? My parents had no objection at that time. It didn't cost me any money. By the way, do professional voice actors learn in vocational schools? I support him to become a voice actor, but I'm not sure if it's the right decision to enroll in a vocational school to become a voice actor.

148. Among all the places you've visited during your work or private trips, do you have any recommendation for us? Salar de Uyuni (note: he went to this place for X photobook)

149. When you watch a movie, do you prefer to read the original story first or straight to the movie? If I want to enjoy the movie, I'd watch the movie first. If I want to enjoy the book, I'd read the book first.

150. Can I hug you when I meet you? Maybe no

151. Do you use washing machine for drying your clothes? What will happen to your clothes after that? Wrinkled

152. What is the most important thing or person to you? People who put their faith in me

153. Are you looking forward to expand your career overseas? Rather than wanting to work in a Hollywood movie, I prefer to think more on how to make Japanese movies more visible to the world.

154. Is there anything you'd like to do in your 30s, any target or resolution? I have a few in mind, but I'll tell you when I manage to accomplish them

155. Please tell us about your vision of living your life from now on! I hope I can do more of what I want to do.

(pic: https://satohtakeru.amuseblog.jp/blog/2019/03/30th-anniversar-1c47.html)

#Q&A #can-we-have-more-of-this-pleasee #30th-anniversary-book #photobook #佐藤健

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Hostile school board meetings have members calling it quits (AP) A Nevada school board member said he had thoughts of suicide before stepping down amid threats and harassment. In Virginia, a board member resigned over what she saw as politics driving decisions on masks. The vitriol at board meetings in Wisconsin had one member fearing he would find his tires slashed. School board members are largely unpaid volunteers, traditionally former educators and parents who step forward to shape school policy, choose a superintendent and review the budget. But a growing number are resigning or questioning their willingness to serve as meetings have devolved into shouting contests between deeply political constituencies over how racial issues are taught, masks in schools, and COVID-19 vaccines and testing requirements. In his letter of resignation from Wisconsin’s Oconomowoc Area School Board, Rick Grothaus said its work had become “toxic and impossible to do.” “When I got on, I knew it would be difficult,” Grothaus, a retired educator, said by phone. “But I wasn’t ready or prepared for the vitriolic response that would occur, especially now that the pandemic seemed to just bring everything out in a very, very harsh way. It made it impossible to really do any kind of meaningful work.”

California fire approaches Lake Tahoe after mass evacuation (AP) A ferocious wildfire swept toward Lake Tahoe on Tuesday just hours after roads were clogged with fleeing cars when the entire California resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to evacuate and communities just across the state line in Nevada were warned to get ready to leave. The popular vacation haven normally filled with tens of thousands of summer tourists emptied out Monday as the massive Caldor Fire rapidly expanded. Vehicles loaded with bikes and camping gear and hauling boats were in gridlock traffic, stalled in hazy, brown air that smelled like a campfire. Police and other emergency vehicles whizzed by. “It’s more out of control than I thought,” evacuee Glen Naasz said of the fire that by late Monday had been pushed by strong winds across California highways 50 and 89, burning mountain cabins as it swept down slopes into the Tahoe Basin.

Hurricane Ida traps Louisianans, shatters the power grid (AP) Rescuers set out in hundreds of boats and helicopters to reach people trapped by floodwaters Monday, and utility repair crews rushed in, after a furious Hurricane Ida swamped the Louisiana coast and ravaged the electrical grid in the sticky, late-summer heat. People living amid the maze of rivers and bayous along the state’s Gulf Coast retreated desperately to their attics or roofs and posted their addresses on social media with instructions for search-and-rescue teams on where to find them. More than 1 million customers in Louisiana and Mississippi—including all of New Orleans—were left without power as Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. mainland, pushed through on Sunday and early Monday before weakening into a tropical storm. As it continued to make its way inland with torrential rain and shrieking winds, it was blamed for at least two deaths. But with many roads impassable and cellphone service knocked out in places, the full extent of its fury was still coming into focus. The governor’s office said damage to the power grid appeared “catastrophic.” And local officials warned it could be weeks before power is fully restored, leaving multitudes without refrigeration or air conditioning during the dog days of summer, with highs forecast in the mid-80s to close to 90 by midweek.

Heavily armed criminal group ties hostages to getaway cars after storming Brazilian city (Washington Post) A heavily armed group of bank robbers wreaked havoc across a southeastern Brazilian city early Monday, striking several banks, setting fire to vehicles and tying hostages to their getaway cars, in an assault that left at least three people dead, officials say. Even in a country long accustomed to random spasms of violence, Brazilians reacted with shock and fear. The group stormed Araçatuba, a city of 200,000 in São Paulo state, around midnight to strike several city banking agencies. Gunshots punctured the early-morning quiet. Authorities asked residents to stay inside. Images on social media and local news reports showed at least 10 people clinging to getaway cars, apparently strapped there to deter fire from police. The hostages were reportedly released after the group escaped. The raid bore the characteristics of what criminologists have called a growing pattern: nighttime assaults on midsize Brazilian cities—often elaborate bank heists, intricately planned, well choreographed and executed by well-financed criminal groups equipped with the weaponry and gadgetry of war. The group flew a drone over Araçatuba during the raid, according to local reports, to track movements throughout the city.

EU travel restrictions (AP) The European Union recommended Monday that its 27 nations reinstate restrictions on tourists from the U.S. because of rising coronavirus infections there, but member countries will keep the option of allowing fully vaccinated U.S. travelers in. The EU’s decision reflects growing anxiety that the rampant spread of the virus in the U.S. could jump to Europe at a time when Americans are allowed to travel to the continent. Both the EU and the U.S. have faced rising infections this summer, driven by the more contagious delta variant. The guidance issued Monday is nonbinding, however. American tourists should expect a mishmash of travel rules across the continent since the EU has no unified COVID-19 tourism policy and national EU governments have the authority to decide whether or how they keep their borders open during the pandemic.

Italy’s record droughts (La Stampa) The earth is cracking in Italy’s northwest region of Piedmont: the crops and the animals suffer. Italy has been ravaged by fires and storms, like Greece, Turkey and much of Southern Europe. Italy has recorded 1,200 “extreme” meteorological events—a 56% increase from last year. Wildfires ravaged the southern regions of Sardinia, Calabria and Sicily. The town of Florida, in Sicily, is thought to have recorded the hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe: 48.8 °C. Meanwhile, heavy rainfall devastated other parts of the country. Coldiretti, Italy’s largest agricultural association, has just summed up the bill for this Italian summer: The damages to agriculture, it says, amount to €1 billion. Wheat yields have fallen 10%; cherries 30%, nectarines 40%. Tomato and corn crops have also suffered heavy losses. Giovanni Bedino, a 59-year-old Italian farmer, has been working the land since he was 15. “I love this job, but a year like this takes away your love,” he told Turin daily La Stampa. “We couldn’t water the fields and nothing came down from the sky. I remember, the summer of 2003 was a very difficult one—but it wasn’t even close to this year. I have never seen such a drought.”

In India, a debate over population control turns explosive (Washington Post) Yogi Adityanath, a star of India’s political right wing, stood before television cameras in his trademark saffron tunic and dramatically introduced a bill pushing for smaller families—two children at most. In previous decades, this measure by the leader of the country’s most populous state might have been uncontroversial. Over the past month, it’s been explosive. Critics saw a veiled attempt to mobilize Hindu voters by tapping into an age-old trope about India’s Muslim population ballooning out of control. As India barrels toward a pivotal election in Uttar Pradesh early next year, population bills introduced by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have become a new flash point in the national debate, vividly illustrating how the issues of religion and identity, spoken or implied, form the most powerful undercurrent in the country’s politics. Since 2011, when official census figures emerged showing Hindus dipping to 80 percent of India’s population compared to 84 percent in 1951—Muslims increased from 10 percent to 14.2 percent during that same period—the question of how to maintain “demographic balance” has gained urgency for the Hindu movement’s leaders. A 2016 national survey finding that Indian Muslim women had, on average, 2.6 children compared to 2.1 for Hindus provoked more concern.

North Korea appears to have restarted Yongbyon nuclear reactor, U.N. body says (Washington Post) North Korea appears to have restarted its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon in July, a “deeply troubling” sign that the country may be on track to expand its nuclear program, according to a new report by the United Nations’ atomic agency. The finding adds another challenge to the Biden administration’s goal of denuclearizing North Korea. Although Yongbyon is not the only site where North Korea has produced highly enriched uranium, its role at the heart of Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions made the facility a bargaining chip in previous negotiations. In 2008, North Korea ceremoniously blew up the reactor’s cooling tower in a largely made-for-TV event amid nuclear talks between the United States and former leader Kim Jong Il. (A new cooling tower was built after the negotiations fell through.)

Last troops exit Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war (AP) The United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan late Monday, ending America’s longest war and closing a chapter in military history likely to be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises and a frantic final exit that cost the lives of more than 180 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, some barely older than the war. Hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline for shutting down a final airlift, and thus ending the U.S. war, Air Force transport planes carried a remaining contingent of troops from Kabul airport. Thousands of troops had spent a harrowing two weeks protecting a hurried and risky airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans, Americans and others seeking to escape a country once again ruled by Taliban militants. In announcing the completion of the evacuation and war effort. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said the last planes took off from Kabul airport at 3:29 p.m. Washington time, or one minute before midnight in Kabul. He said a number of American citizens, likely numbering in “the very low hundreds,” were left behind, and that he believes they will still be able to leave the country. The final pullout fulfilled Biden’s pledge to end what he called a “forever war” that began in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania.

Afghanistan’s ‘Gen Z’ fears for future and hard-won freedoms (Reuters) Almost two third of Afghans are under the age of 25, and an entire generation cannot even remember the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until it was toppled by Western-backed militia in 2001. During that time they enforced a strict interpretation of Islamic law, banning girls from school, women from work and carrying out public executions. Since 2001, the militants fought an insurgency in which thousands of Afghans died. Since re-taking power, the group has been quick to reassure students that their education would not be disrupted, also saying it would respect the rights of women and urging talented professionals not to leave the country. But used to a life with cellphones, pop music and mixing of genders, Afghanistan’s “Generation Z”—born roughly in the decade around the turn of the millennium—now fears some freedoms will be taken away, according to interviews with half a dozen Afghan students and young professionals. “I made such big plans, I had all these high reaching goals for myself that stretched to the next 10 years,” said Sosan Nabi, a 21-year-old graduate. “We had a hope for life, a hope for change. But in just one week, they took over the country and in 24 hours they took all our hopes, dreams snatched from in front of our eyes. It was all for nothing.”

They made it out of Afghanistan. But their path ahead is uncertain. (Washington Post) As the United States winds down its evacuation operation in Afghanistan, the Biden administration is accelerating efforts to resettle Afghans on U.S. soil, where they will be expected to apply for visas or humanitarian protection that could put them on a path to legal residency and citizenship. But the chaotic nature of the enormous airlift means that much is unknown: Officials have not said precisely how many Afghan evacuees have made it into the United States or whether all will be allowed to stay. More than 117,000 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan on U.S. and other flights as of Saturday, and Pentagon officials said the vast majority are Afghan citizens. Thousands have arrived in the United States, while thousands more are waiting in “transit hubs” in Europe and the Middle East. They are a mix of brand-new refugees and families with existing immigration applications that have been pending for months or years. Where the evacuees will end up is “a hard question to answer,” said Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, one of the refugee resettlement agencies operating in the United States. “I don’t really know where they stand,” Hetfield said in an interview. “It’s chaos.”

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