What Can We Learn From Ferguson?
Recently, the Grand Jury in Ferguson, Missouri declared Officer Darren Wilson not guilty in regards to criminal charges from shooting 18-year old Michael Brown on August 9th of this year. Immediately after the announcement, protesters began their destructive rampage throughout the city. News agencies reported violence, looting, and fires being started in numerous locations.
What can we learn from this terrible tragedy in Ferguson? Sin is rampant in the world. Sin came about at the beginning of creation when human beings decided to go against the will of God. Indeed, the Bible says that sin is transgression of God's law. In the protests taking place, we witnessed a plethora of God's commands being broken… Do not steal, do not covet, and do not kill are just a few.
Some people believe that Officer Darren Wilson is guilty. Others believe that Michael Brown was guilty. The truth is that we are all guilty of breaking the law, God's law. The Bible says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Think about it, you know it's true. Whether you've told lies or looked with lust, everyone stands guilty before God.
So what's the big deal? Well, because you've broken the law, you will be punished. Since the law was broken against an eternal God, the punishment will also be eternal. You won't just go to some prison or temporary holding cell… you'll be cast into the lake of fire, a place called Hell. Think about the flames in Ferguson last night, would you enjoy being thrown into one of those burning buildings? Of course not!
However, there is good news. You can be declared not guilty if someone else is willing to pay for your law breaking. Jesus Christ did just that when He came to Earth 2,000 years ago. He was born of a virgin and was God in the flesh. He lived a perfect life, never breaking any laws, but was treated like a criminal when they brutally beat and tortured Him… for crimes that you've committed. Metal spikes were driven through Jesus' hands and feet to hold Him to a wooden cross, where He died. Jesus paid for your crimes with His blood.
Three days later, Jesus Christ rose from the grave. He defeated death and Hell and now He offers you an opportunity to be declared not guilty. You need to have His payment credited to your account, but in order for that to happen, you must be born again. That means you need to turn from sin, turn your heart away from breaking God's laws. At the same time, place your trust in Jesus Christ and what He did for you on the cross, paying for the crimes you've committed.
Regardless of how you feel regarding the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, make sure you get right with God… before it's too late. Michael Brown was only 18-years old when he died, so don't think death only happens when you're old. Cry out to God today! Beg Him to forgive you of every time you've broken His laws. Place your faith in Jesus Christ alone and God will declare your innocence.


Included in the 1-day Persepolis tour is an expedition to the ancient site of Persepolis (Takht-e Jamshid), visiting the Naqsh-e Rustam, Naqsh-e Rajab, Eram Garden, Qavam House, Zinat Al-Moluk House, Tomb of Hafez and Tomb of Saadi.
Our departure from Jahan Nama Garden in the morning towards the ancient site of Perspolis, it occupies approximately 1 hour. Exploring in the Persepolis include The Apadana Palace, The Throne Hall and Tombs of kings. So, after the lunch, we start visiting Naqsh-e Rustam and Naqsh-e Rajab. We get back to the Shiraz around 16:30.


text:
A Descriptive Exercise & Plot Treatments
Just a quick, silly one, this. A large part of my job revolves around improving my technical writing ability. Another around finding any excuse not to do whatever work I've set out for myself. Ask any writer - more dishes get done, more Hollyoaks gets watched, more joints get smoked when you've got a deadline looming.
Lucky, then, that writing exercises exist to serve both needs. It's increasingly popular for a developer to commission three or four narrative designers to turn out a couple of days' worth of plot pitches - one page documents developed according to a brief which outline a proposed plot / scenario / gameplay. These are then discussed by all parties and the strongest goes on to be the basis for the project moving forward.
I've been hired via my agency, Sidelines, to do just this for a new racing / action game. So it was that, yesterday afternoon, I conked out for twenty minutes and wound up doing a writing exercise which resulted in the short 'story' below. I love dialogue, I love character, I love jokes. I am rubbish at description. Ayn Rand, however, fucking loves description. She will happily run three pages describing a room and the psychological makeup of its inhabitants:
"Francisco, in shirt sleeves, stood in the middle of his twelve foot square living room, with the look of a host in a palace. Of all the places where she had ever seen him, this was the background that seemed most properly his. Just as the simplicity of his clothes added to his bearing, gave him the air of a superlative aristocrat, so the crudeness of the room gave it the appearance of the most patrician retreat..."
Sitting almost exactly where the photo above was taken (that's my laptop screen bottom left), I set about pastiching Rand in describing the scene before me. What you'll find below is that. Halfway through I showed it to Roxy, the flatmate I describe, and she decided it needed a twist.
The result is, I hope, an entertaining and most importantly a physically expressive read. Personally I find the style a little over the top, but it's delivered something I'd never ordinarily write for myself, and that in itself is something an aspiring writer can always value.
Roxane sat head in hand, deliberating over what the muted blues and greys projected from the screen before her could tell of the status of her existence. The haphazardly evolved mesh of wood surfaces, stainless steel cabinets and laden shelves that made up the kitchen was just one arbitrary dissection of the great warehouse space around her. Dull afternoon light made its way through the broad frosted glass frontage behind, the paper-clad bulb suspended from the high angled ceiling doing little to affect the understated illumination that made the space seem to go on forever. She was not so much dwarfed by the open plan expanse as encompassed by it, a seamless element in the naturalistic lifestyle it represented. A reassuring amplifier scratch filled the soundscape briefly with promise of more organised tones to come as she plugged the auxiliary cable into her laptop and mused staccato over the first track. With the air of someone for whom creativity was production, and production life, she stabbed the play button and set to work.
Then a huge velociraptor crashed through the glass, its three tipped talons scraping lines of cement dust from the tiled floor. Its gait was broken only momentarily, the creature seeming to rebound off the awkwardly positioned counter that split the kitchen in two so that it turned to face her. The predator could not have stopped moving for even a second, and yet there was an imperceptible moment when the two locked stares; this leathery forgotten husk of violent history and its contemporary prey, the latter helpless in her superior understanding of what was necessarily to come. Roxane's ability to move the minds of men had served her and her kind far better than the monster's instinct ever had it and its, but for this moment all else was irrelevant. Art and music and love and understanding could not stop her crying out as the jaws closed around her neck.
In the next instant she had, like, this huge shotgun, you know, like out of Goldeneye. She made that pump action noise not because the chamber wasn't loaded but because it sounded fuck off cool. It was even in time with the music. Then she blew the motherfucker's head off. It was like Rambo, only with a hot French bitch and more dinosaurs. And everyone lived happily ever after.
at 9:33 pm 10 comments: Links to this post
Labels: Development, non games
Stories in the Most Unlikely Places No.1: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
This is the first in a (potential) series of posts aimed at celebrating and championing games which don't just further the art of interactive narrative design, but do so either from unexpected places against unlikely odds, or despite their continuing obscurity. No serious spoilers.
Sands of time was shockingly good. A reboot of an ancient licence, it was handled by an internal development team who up until the previous year had been best known for the N64's Tonic Trouble, and in the six months between announcement and release screens of hack & slash combat had done little to demonstrate any sense of ambition was at play.
Writing aside for a moment, Sands of Time reinvented platforming in a way (arguably, of course) only Mario 64 and Tomb Raider had done in recent memory. The natural grace and stunning agility of the Prince's movement was both sumptuous and rewardingly challenging. Even the combat - though overused and far from nuanced - was at least satisfying in a way every iteration since has failed to grasp.
But let's talk story. That Jordan Mechner - the original PoP's youthful auteur - had only one post-Prince credit to his name has since become moot. When that game is the much-overlooked Last Express, and when his work since has included the Disney iteration of the franchise and award-winning documentary Chavez Ravine, it's easier to see why the project was such a success.
Mechner was brought on as Creative Consultant, and then Writer / Designer, and it's clear from the very first screen that the man meant to rinse the opportunity for all its worth. Unlike a mind-bogglingly large number of even contemporary releases (I'm looking at you, Bioshock) Mechner understands enough about interactive story telling to give the player control immediately, even in the framing device.
And what about that framing device? The Prince steals into Farah's bedroom and proceeds to tell hear a tale unlike any she has heard before. Every level in the game proceeds as a thread of this story, even the Game Over screen is flicked away with a casual, "Wait, that's not how it happened." By the time he finishes his story (and the player the game) we understand just what he's been through and lost, and why it's so vital she believe him.
Despite its innovative rewind mechanic (ultimately a quick-save gimmick, but one so useful and so integrated into the fantasy that the term hardly seems fair) it remains the dialogue and the characters that really mark the experience out as something special. In an industry where gruff talking space marines and broody ninja bitches continue to rule the roost the down-to-earth backtalk...
[after Farah has accidentally shot the Prince during a previous fight]
You go ahead. I'll cover you!
Please don't. You're liable to hit me.
...and resentful bitching...
I'll just ask the first Sand Creature I run into, "Could you direct me to the baths, please?" Well, thank you. "Don't mention it, I used to be a bath attendant back when I was alive... "
...remain a breath of fresh air. The relationship is plausible and fun enough (albeit in a very Hollywood fashion) to invest in, and I genuinely was made to care about the conclusion (of the story, not the inevitably rubbish boss fight) in a way few platformers have managed before or since.
It speaks volumes to the timeless quality of Mechner's writing that no sequel has achieved the same heights. Ubisoft demonstrated startling ignorance of what made the original great when they went all emo with Warrior Within - dislodging Mechner in the process - and even managed to lose much of what made the platforming so sublime in the 2008 reboot-reboot. I appreciated the return to a more likeable hero with first Andy Walsh's 2008 script and then The Forgotten Sands interquel, but it's proved too little too late.
The Sands of Time remains a very personal favourite for me, not to mention a surprise outsider. It plays as well today as it did seven years ago - but it reads even better.
at 2:24 am 12 comments: Links to this post
Labels: Unlikely places
GAMESbrief Guest Post: The Ship Dev, Outerlight, Dead in the Water
The guys who made Agatha Christie simulators The Ship and upcoming Bloody Good Time (a game I was actually excited about) have all but gone under.
Bad ship-related puns aside it's real sad news. Chris Peck, co-founder of Outerlight, is the last man standing, and he's spoken very candidly about how big publishing is antithesis to innovation, and how the true home in the future for people-who-like-more-than-just-blowing-shit-up (ie us) is in digital distribution - if you can magic the financing.
Full thing over at GAMESbrief.
at 5:18 pm 1 comment: Links to this post
Labels: industry, massive love
Flash Fiction for Interactive Types: An Open Challenge
I love flash fiction, both as a writer and a reader. Trending at around 100 - 1000 words, it exists in a sweet spot between the short story and the poem; a compressed form requiring the utmost discipline in a writer, without quite descending into the quagmire of interpretation that tighter pieces have to deal with. It's a non-commercial form that fits a short attention span society and rewards sharp ideas implemented efficiently.
It agrees with me.
What's the interactive equivalent? Clearly we have a lot of short form, non-commercial games out there, but I wonder if they quite hit the mark. Even a ten minute game like ir/rational requires as a minimum a good week or two of solid work to produce, and it contained significantly more than 1,000 words.
The interactive fiction community turns out some fascinating experimental shorts, though they still ask a lot of both designer and reader. One of the joys of flash fiction is that the barrier for entry is very low, but the technical ability required for success remains very high. Variety is everything.
I rather like the idea of the short form dialogue tree. Anybody can knock up a 1,000 word dialogue in MS Word or HTML, and polish it to buggery and back. It would ask only about a minute of its player's time. It would give us, as designers, the opportunity to explore a multitude of high concepts and ideas unpalatable to larger projects. As consumers we could be far more experimental in our interests.
Above all else, the reason I love flash fiction is that its brevity encourages risk taking. Where it's nigh impossible to pull off a commercial novel without, say, a plot, and challenging in the extreme to implement a crazy idea throughout without it becoming gimmicky, flash fiction provides an outlet.
Could it do the same for interactive writing?
You'll find a very bad example of the format here. It'll be familiar to players of Black Plague - it's a vaguely Kafkaesque computer program, inspired at the time by a frustrating phone conversation with BT.
I know we can all do better. As soon as I get some time I'll be dying to have a go at producing something more ambitious. In the meantime I'd love for you guys to have a crack. It might take you as little as an hour, and if you do produce anything you'd like to show off please post it to the comments, or email me. If it goes well maybe I'll throw the same exercise at my BA kids and see how they get on.
Labels: Development, play
Stories in the Most Unlikely Places No.1: Prince o...
GAMESbrief Guest Post: The Ship Dev, Outerlight, D...
Flash Fiction for Interactive Types: An Open Chall...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
9 Christmas Episodes From Your Favorite TV Series
By Liam Hunt - December 25, 2020
If you need to get in the holiday mood, feel free to watch the Christmas episode of your favorite TV series. The Internet Protocol team has selected iconic Christmas episodes to help you enjoy these December evenings in anticipation of the most magical holiday of the year.
1. Friends (Season 7, Episode 10: The One With the Holiday Armadillo)
In this episode, Ross wants to explain to Ben what Hanukkah is. However, he could only find the armadillo costume in the store. Later, Chandler arrives in a Santa costume and Joey in a Superman costume, and the holiday turns into a farce.
2. House, M.D. (Season 5, Episode 11: Joy to the World)
House gives the patient an incredible Christmas present and makes his team wonder who gave the surprise gift to him.
3. Mr. Bean (Season 1, Episode 7: Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean)
Irma Gobb (Mr. Bean's girlfriend), whom Mr. Bean invited to dinner, is waiting for the coveted ring as a gift. But instead of a ring, Irma gets a hook from a photo frame and an advertising poster for a jewelry store.
4. The Big Bang Theory (Season 7, Episode 11: The Cooper Extraction)
While Sheldon is in Texas, everyone decorates a Christmas tree and imagines what their life would be like if they hadn't met Sheldon.
5. The X-Files (Season 6, Episode 6: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas)
On Christmas Eve, Mulder and Scully find themselves trapped in a house with two ghosts, determined to prove that it is possible to be very lonely on holiday.
6. Two and a Half Men (Season 3, Episode 11: Santa's Village of the Damned)
Alan starts dating a girl named Sandy, who is an excellent cook. Soon, Alan and Charlie gain weight, but this is not the only problem with Sandy's appearance in their lives.
7. Black Mirror (Season 2, Episode 4: White Christmas)
Somewhere in the middle of the snowy desert stands a lone outpost. Matt and Joe have been working together for 5 years, but they hardly speak. Over Christmas dinner, they strike up a conversation and share three strange stories from their lives with each other.
8. Modern Family (Season 1, Episode 10: Undeck the Halls)
It's Christmas outside, and everyone celebrates it differently. Jay prefers traditional celebrations, while Manny misses Colombian customs a lot.
9. The Simpsons (Season 1, Episode 1: Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire)
There is a Christmas party at the Simpsons kids' school. The fourth-grade chorus sings Christmas carols, but Bart misinterprets the words on purpose and is kicked off the stage.
HypeTV SeriesHolidaysChristmasNew Year
More in Hype
TikTok Owner ByteDance Launched Its Own Payment Service
Epic Games Files Another Lawsuit Against Apple and Google in the UK
Virgin Orbit Sent a Rocket Into Space From Boeing 747
2020 Game Will Let You Play Through All the Major Events of 2020
ByteDance Shuts Down the Development of Its Smartphones
How Tinder's Competitors Solved Its Issues: Part 1
Netflix Confirms It Will Launch a Shuffle Play Feature This Year
Handy Tips: 5 Signs a Person Is Getting Bored of You
The People of Israel Will Say Tehillim (Psalm 121) for the Recovery of Those Sick With COVID-19
Handy Tips: How to Determine Which Temperament Type You Have
Apple May Ditch the Lightning Port in 2021 iPhone Lineup
4 Signs You're Ready to Move in Together
Samsung Presented Galaxy S21 Line of 5G Smartphones
Get all the latest posts delivered straight to your inbox.
Copyright © 2021 The Internet Protocol - All rights Reserved.
Don't miss the next top notch things!
We know they're worth it. Like or website to enjoy them night and day.


People have many purposes or reasons for wanting to expand or open their psychic abilities. Many of the best reasons focus around helping others with your expanded gift, connecting to your own soul at a deeper level, connecting to Spiritual energy and simply to make better decisions using your intuitive senses.
If it is your intention to expand so you can use psychic skills and gifts for very selfish reasons or to harm or interfere with others, then I clearly recommend that you choose a different path as you are not cut out to do psychic or medium work.
Once you've decided on your intention and purpose for expanding psychic ability, then I also recommend creating a plan to achieve your goals. The plan should involve a structured training program and a clear timeline.
There are many types of training in both the Psychic and Medium arena to help you learn, grow your skills and expand your abilities. The best kind of training has a step by step approach as opposed to a willy-nilly haphazard approach with a mixture of esoteric skills.
It's very important to get clear and precise information like "The 12 Month Evidential Psychic Mediumship Course" which helps you learn in a way that is most suited to you. The program allows you to learn with a mixture of concepts, techniques, skills and exercises and to be assessed on the skills and results you are exhibiting.
This is clearly the best way to learn and is a solid and proven course to take. You will learn how to improve along the way, you'll get a clear understanding of why you're receiving this information and you'll also learn a number of ways to improve your own techniques and skills.
You will get a clear measured outcome and can receive confirmation on the information you receive along the way which improves your confidence level. So many students experience massive growth and are surprised by the accurate and consistent information they are receiving.
Structured learning to expand your psychic abilities will bring a new quality of life to you and to those you choose to help. Isn't it time to begin your psychic journey?


text:
Q: Pandas change values in column based on values in other column I have a dataframe in which one column represents some data, the other column represents indices on which I want to delete from my data. So starting from this:
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

df = pd.DataFrame({'data':[np.arange(1,5),np.arange(3)],'to_delete': [np.array([2]),np.array([0,2])]})
df
>>>> data       to_delete
     [1,2,3,4]    [2]
     [0,1,2]     [0,2]

This is what I want to end up with:
new_df
>>>>   data     to_delete
     [1,2,4]       [2]
       [1]        [0,2]

I could iterate over the rows by hand and calculate the new data for each one like this:
new_data = []
for _,v in df.iterrows():
    foo = np.delete(v['data'],v['to_delete'])
    new_data.append(foo)
df.assign(data=new_data)

but I'm looking for a better way to do this.

A: The overhead from calling a numpy function for each row will really worsen the performance here. I'd suggest you to go with lists instead:
df['data'] = [[j for ix, j in enumerate(i[0]) if ix not in i[1]]
              for i in df.values]

print(df)

       data to_delete
0  [1, 2, 4]       [2]
1        [1]    [0, 2]

Timings on a 20K row dataframe:
df_large = pd.concat([df]*10000, axis=0)

%timeit [[j for ix, j in enumerate(i[0]) if ix not in i[1]]
         for i in df_large.values]
# 184 ms ± 12.4 ms per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)

%%timeit
new_data = []
for _,v in df_large.iterrows():
    foo = np.delete(v['data'],v['to_delete'])
    new_data.append(foo)

# 5.44 s ± 233 ms per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1 loop each)

%timeit df_large.apply(lambda row: np.delete(row["data"],
                       row["to_delete"]), axis=1)
# 5.29 s ± 340 ms per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1 loop each)

A: You should use the apply function in order to apply a function to every row in the dataframe:
df["data"] = df.apply(lambda row: np.delete(row["data"], row["to_delete"]), axis=1)

A: An other solution based on starmap:
This solution is based on a less known tool from the itertools module called starmap.
Check its doc, it's worth a try!

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
from itertools import starmap

df = pd.DataFrame({'data': [np.arange(1,5),np.arange(3)],
                   'to_delete': [np.array([2]),np.array([0,2])]})

# Solution:
df2 = df.copy()
A = list(starmap(lambda v,l: np.delete(v,l),
                             zip(df['data'],df['to_delete'])))

df2['data'] = pd.DataFrame(zip(A))
df2

prints out:
        data to_delete
0  [1, 2, 4]       [2]
1        [1]    [0, 2]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
SPI Articles
Industry Insider Articles
FSBO Direct From Owners
Spanish Property Insight by Mark Stücklin
Everything you need to know about property in Spain
<---- Select One ----> Looking to buyHomeownerLooking to sellPrivate investorProfessional investorGolden Visa residency investorProperty professionalJournalistOther
Subscribe to SPI's FREE weekly email news bulletin packed with Spanish property information
Registration will allow you to participate in the forum, exchange private messages with other users, and save articles and properties in your favourites. Your information will not be used for any other purpose, and you can delete your profile at any time by emailing gdpr@spanishpropertyinsight.com. By submitting this form you agree to our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Cookie Policy.
Buying and Owning Spanish Property through Companies: Pros and Cons
The pros and cons of buying and owning Spanish property through a company structure, off-shore or otherwise, by legal expert Raymundo Larraín Nesbitt.
By Raymundo Larraín Nesbitt
Lawyer – Abogado
7th of March 2014
There was a time in which not a single Spanish law firm that prided itself would pass on the opportunity to heartily recommend its affluent non-resident client base (and even foreign residents) to acquire and own property in Spain by means of corporate structures ranging from the simple to the overtly complex often involving a multijurisdictional approach.
It was commonplace in the not-so-distant past to hear socialites in exclusive summer soirées on the coast boasting on how their law firm had devised and set up ingenious structures to the point that tax payment was negated and only a paltry sum was ever paid to the Spanish taxman.
Times change and legislation has moved on both in Spain and internationally since the events that led up to the tragic events of the 11th of September 2001. The war against international terrorism, unwaveringly led by the US, has meant intense pressure is exerted on the sources that finance it. These heartrending events coupled with 2008s financial sub-prime meltdown, and the ensuing world-wide credit-crunch, which left western countries' coffers bereft, has meant that the once all-powerful and buoyant off-shore industry, now under intense scrutiny, has been forced to maintain a low profile in order to survive and accommodate to today's imposed trends.
But even more fundamentally we have collectively assisted over the last decade not only to a change in laws but to a ground-breaking paradigm shift in social and moral values that no longer hold these structures as socially admissible as they are widely held in contempt by society and media at large i.e. the recent tax campaigns targeting Amazon and Starbucks amongst others high-profile companies.
You won't find nowadays many Spanish based law firms or lawyers actively recommending this option, much less clients boasting of their use. In fact, you will find many are even reluctant to the very idea and will likely try to dissuade you. This of course doesn't rule out that it is still done, far from it, but it is not as widespread and most certainly not as openly publicized as before.
It is mostly foreign companies (which are not even law firms or FSA-regulated finance advisers!), located outside Spain, who now peddle a bespoke legal service offering "100% protection" to beneficiaries against Spain's inheritance tax.
Spanish law firms located in Spain have been forced to take a back seat when it comes to offering and soliciting these legal services after new stringent legislation has been passed and tough obligations and controls have been set up across the board for lawyers and other professionals involved in their set up and administration.
Due to the enormous complexity of the matter, this article endeavours only to give a broad unbiased overview on the overall state of affairs, with particular focus in Spain, weighing in the pros and cons, albeit making no attempt whatsoever to delve in its complexity and most certainly being careful not to take stance on the matter one way or another.
Spanish Property Ownership through Corporate Structures
1. Concealing Ownership
Several reasons may lead owners to conceal who really owns, controls and disposes of assets. Broad examples of such needs:
high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) have their wealth managed through companies run by family offices
ongoing marital disputes which in time may lead to an eventual break-up and disposal of assets. Pre-empting such scenarios unfolding
security reasons
defaulting on contractual obligations abroad – avoiding asset-hunting through non-asset disclosure
2. Tax Mitigation
One of the traditional reasons that drive clients to seek incorporating structures is to lower their tax bill. From income and wealth tax to Spain's cumbersome inheritance tax (ISD/IHT) corporate structures may allow at times the means to circumvent, in a legally accepted manner, footing hefty tax bills. The latter is particularly efficient when shareholders are non-residents.
These structures should ideally always be incorporated prior to acquiring the real estate asset, not after for optimum results. Careful forward planning is key from the outset on devising and incorporating them which should be tailored to each client's particular needs. There are no magical one-size-fits-all schemes as clients' needs differ widely from one another and even evolve in time with, for example, new family members or changes in their civil status (divorce).
Corporate structures range from the most basic ones to really ingenious ones that border on fiscal engineering. Law firms in Spain will have no qualms incorporating a Spanish or foreign company i.e. a UK limited liability company (as long as not offshore or located in tax haven). This is perfectly legal. They may even offer them off-the-shelf for a reasonable fee and additionally offer bookkeeping services. The company will then be placed on top of the Spanish real estate. They will however, following new legislation, be reluctant (understatement) when it comes to devising and incorporating more complex corporate structures, specifically offshore ones. This fine red line marks the difference between tax avoidance (legally acceptable tax planning) and tax evasion (criminally pursuable).
3. Asset Preservation
Affluent families have a mandate to preserve and accumulate wealth for future generations. Some corporate structures (i.e. trusts, which are not recognised in the Spanish legal system) help to achieve this by 'protecting' assets, even from their current beneficiaries, by legally separating the property's legal ownership and control from its equitable ownership and benefits thus facilitating their transmission to future offspring. Trust dispositions may allow their use but will bar of their disposal as technically they no longer belong to their 'owners'. We can imagine this as being particularly useful in the event of a divorce settlement (gold digger deterrent) as the assets are effectively locked-up in a corporate structure and cannot be disposed of being jealously guarded by the trustees in compliance with the trust's dispositions. This is also useful over many generations as it allows keeping significant properties within the family's control (i.e. Scottish ancestral castle).
New laws, most notably Law 10/2010 on Anti-Money Laundering and Finance of Terrorism, have created a vast array of new obligations for all those involved in the setting up of corporate structures, ranging from lawyers, civil servants (notaries), financial advisers to bank employees.
It is now mandatory that the 'ultimate beneficiary' of such structures is disclosed and clearly identified not only at the time of setting up new structures post 2010 but also – incredibly – on those that pre-date this 2010 law e.g. banks have been formally requesting to disclose beneficiaries as recently as January 2014 on structures incorporated a decade ago, long before these laws even existed.
So basically this law marked a turning point no longer allowing a fool-proof system that accommodated the warm mantle of anonymity i.e. bearer shares on multilayered off-shore structures. Anonymity is now achieved, yes, but to a certain extent only, at a basic level, as it limits the exposure to third-party information requests. So anyone requesting information from a Land Registry search will turn up with nothing (particularly if you've not made the mistake of appointing yourself as company director). However, it will remain glaringly visible to the Tax Office, or a judge, if needed be under this new law.
Spanish lawyers and financial advisers are under great scrutiny and face stiff penalties, including severe jail terms, if found guilty on devising and collaborating in the set-up of tax avoidance structures. Every week we are treated with an unpleasant new story on how some prominent law firm or lawyer has been found guilty and charged.
For this reason alone Spanish lawyers and law firms in general are now highly reluctant to devise, assist, create or abet in any manner whatsoever such corporate structures. Much less to accept appointing themselves as administrators of said companies.
From a client's perspective it is now debatable on whether such structures are able to mitigate or negate income or inheritance tax as efficiently as in the previous decade. It is open to debate.
New treaties, such as the Double-Taxation Agreement with Spain dating from 1976 has been recently amended in London on the 14th of March 2013 in an attempt to plug existing holes.
Additionally, and more worryingly, inspired by the US's successful FATCA agreement, five European countries – including the United Kingdom and Spain – signed in April 2013 a pilot initiative enabling an automatic exchange of fiscal information which overall impact still remains to be seen. Traditionally European countries had the onus of undergoing protracted and expensive multijurisdictional investigations requesting information on a particular individual or company from other European countries to which not all complied with or the information supplied was often scant, incomplete and outdated. This pilot scheme no longer requires the signatory countries to actively pursue the information; it is actually fed back to them on a regular basis automatically on a wide range of companies and individuals falling within certain parameters. The possibilities this leads to on cross-referencing information are significant if done right.
Only this week we've learnt that the Spanish Tax office has approved that 40% of a tax inspector's wage will be contingent upon results going forward. This creates a spectacular perverse incentive as now inspectors have truly a vested interested of their own in targeting tax avoiders. And corporate structures holding real estate assets is always a nice red flag in their eyes, whether true or not, as it has been traditionally considered a 'wealth indicator'.
Some regions now incentivize and are more lenient, specifically on inheritance taxation, on having property under your own personal name rather than through structures which is being increasingly more taxed.
In the case of non-resident companies owning property in Spain and located in what the BoS lists as tax havens they attract a special annual tax equating to 3% of the property's value. Art. 40 et seq. Spain's Non-Resident Act 5, 2004.
In light of the ongoing recession and high levels of unemployment some European countries, i.e. Spain, are cash-strapped and have become increasingly more aggressive pursuing tax offenders. Not exactly the best of times to be setting up structures to mitigate taxes really.
3. Running Costs
Depending on the structure chosen this can range from several hundred euros a year for basic bookkeeping services to raking up dozens of thousands on more complex structures. You really have to ask yourself, given your wealth level and coupled with the value of the underlying asset, if you can actually afford or even if it is worth your while engaging in huge annual running costs on the long run that may even come to negate altogether any tax mitigation sought.
4. Who's really in Control?
So many scary stories over the years it is hard to list them all. When you relinquish control of your asset through a power of attorney in favour of a physical person or a company abroad you better be sure of what you are doing and ensure you are fully aware of the risks this entails that may lead your beneficiaries to lose control of the asset upon your death.
Dispelling Spanish Inheritance Tax Myths
Scaremongering, a time-proven sales tactic. Car and insurance salesmen, in my experience, have always been top of the game at this because they know exactly what makes a customer tick. You will read plenty of scary stuff on ex-pat newspapers and internet on inheritance taxation in Spain which aims to prey on the gullible and harp on people's inbred prejudices. I will try to cast away some of these widely held misconceptions.
Examples of such are:
1. "Spanish Inheritance tax legal fees can be at least 40 to 50%."
Fact: On average inheritors pay in Spain 15% in inheritance tax. Only in the most extreme cases would you pay such a high amount. To give an idea, a single beneficiary that inherits over €800,000 would stand to pay 34%. Normally there are multiple beneficiaries to an estate; it's not just one person that inherits all. Also the beneficiaries of the bulk of the estate are normally children, not non-relatives (which do not qualify for tax allowances). The significance this has is that the taxable base (the 800k) would then be split amongst the heirs dramatically reducing the IHT liability as it follows a sliding scale. To this you must also add the legal and family allowances (both national and regional) which reduce the percentage to be paid even further. Also worth mentioning is the fact that the taxable base for property is well-below the true market value.
I'll put this in perspective with the most common example on British nationals inheriting in Spain. In my experience expatriates have second homes in Spain worth on average €400k. This property is normally owned in joint names meaning each spouse owns 50% of the property. On average couples have two children. So when one parent passes away, his 50% (the €200,000) is normally inherited by his two children. Therefore the taxable base of each child would be €100,000 (as the €200,000 is split equally between them). The surviving spouse naturally still owns his 50%. The state inheritance tax on a taxable base of 100k would be approximately €10,000 (10%). Children are classified in Group I for inheritance taxation purposes. The state tax-free allowance amounts to almost €16,000 for each child. In other words, the state allowance completely offsets the inheritance tax liability (meaning they pay nothing on inheriting in Spain in this example). Additionally children under 21 years old have further annual reductions with a maximum cap of €48,000. On top of this there are autonomous regional allowances that children may benefit from. So in this particular example, which in my professional experience I dare say is the most common, each children would stand to pay zero on inheriting a taxable base of €100,000 each. When the surviving spouse passes away the same result will unfold again providing the laws are not changed. So basically each child will have paid almost nothing on inheriting €200,000 each when both parents are dead.
On the other side of the spectrum, we can imagine a parent passing away bequeathing a €3,000,000 property to a single child or to a friend. In this particular case the inheritance liability would indeed sky rocket (over a million). For this particular case I strongly advise obtaining an estimation on the inheritance tax the beneficiary stands to pay. In this example it is definitely worthwhile looking into corporate structures to mitigate exposure to ISD/IHT as much as possible.
2. "Heirs will be forced to sell the property in Spain to pay off Spain's extreme inheritance tax"
Fact: Same as previous point. Selling a property would be exceptional. In fact I've never come across a single client in over a decade that has been forced to sell to pay Spain's ISD/IHT on inheriting. Moreover, you cannot inherit anything until you have first paid inheritance tax. So no-one can sell the property they are inheriting to then pay off the tax as the property is technically not theirs to sell as it is still under the deceased's name. Only once the tax duties have been settled and the property is lodged under the name of the beneficiary at the Land Registry is he free to sell on if he wishes as the property is now legally under his name to do with it as he pleases.
3. "The financial debt of your heirs is maybe as much as 50% of the value of your property"
Fact: Everyone inheriting in Spain would then be broke. Same as the previous two bullet points, on average inheritors (beneficiaries) pay 15% for IHT/ISD in Spain.
4. "Yours husband or wife will not be exempt from Spanish Inheritance Tax."
Fact: Spouses indeed are not exempt from paying inheritance tax in Spain but they qualify for legal tax allowances. If resident in Spain then the surviving spouse is entitled to further autonomous regional tax allowances. These allowances, both from the state and from the autonomous region where the property is located, may greatly reduce the burden. Additionally if the surviving spouse is resident in Spain they may qualify for a 95% reduction on the main home providing they have lived in it the previous two years and keep it the following ten years (with a maximum reduction of €122,000).
5. "Want to avoid up to 81% of Spanish Inheritance Tax?"
Fact: Scaremongers love quoting the extreme 81.6% tax rate for IHT as if this were the norm on inheriting in Spain. While it's true that Spain's inheritance tax can be as high as 81.6 pc – in the most extreme case – this only applies to the following case:
a) the beneficiary inherits > €800,000
b) the beneficiary is already well-off (his pre-existing wealth before inheriting > €4,000,000 or £3,000,000)
c) is a non-relative of the deceased classified in Group IV (no family ties to him i.e. a friend)
Clearly a problem affecting only a privileged few. Not a problem that the vast majority of beneficiaries inheriting in Spain will have to contend with unless they are already multimillionaires.
6. "If you incorporate a UK Limited Liability company and place the Spanish real estate inside you will be 100% shielded against Spain's ISD/IHT. After death, only the shares are reorganised, the company owns the asset, and so it doesn't change hands. This falls outside Spanish inheritance tax. Win-win"
Fact: Resident beneficiaries are obliged to pay inheritance tax under article 17 of Spain's Inheritance and Gift Tax Royal on inheriting real estate within Spanish territory; regardless on whether the property is locked up or not within a holding company structure and regardless of whether you inherit the property itself or the shares. Likewise non-resident beneficiaries of a property located in Spanish territory also stand to pay Spanish inheritance tax (ex art. 18 of same decree) regardless if it's in a holding structure or not. Moreover, I believe in the latter you may even be liable to attract UKs IHT beside Spain's if the beneficiary happens to be a UK national.
Additionally Spain's Non-Resident Act 5, 2004 clearly states that any re-arrangement of company shares (regardless of company's nationality) which main asset is real estate located in Spain is taxable in Spain (CGT).
Depending on how clumsily this tax avoidance scheme is carried out it may be labelled as tax evasion (criminally pursuable for defrauded amounts above €120,000 ex art. 305 et seq. Spanish Criminal Code).
And to close I would like to take the opportunity to dispel a malicious misunderstanding on misreading one of my articles: Making a Spanish will. Making a Spanish will does not reduce or mitigate your beneficiaries' inheritance tax bill in any way whatsoever (as highlighted in the article itself). But it is extremely useful to save your beneficiaries time, money and hassle at a time of bereavement.
Without a Spanish will a beneficiary will normally incur in penalties and surcharges for late payment on inheritance in Spain. The reason for this is because there's a deadline of 6 months as from the time of the testator's demise to file and pay Spanish Inheritance Tax. UK probate, in my professional experience, always exceeds the six months deadline if there is no Spanish will. In which case penalties and surcharges are accrued and added to the inheritance tax for late payment. So 'in a way', making a Spanish will helps to mitigate or reduce the inheritance tax bill by way of helping not to attract said surcharges and penalties as the beneficiary is able to pay in time within the six-month deadline thus avoiding a lengthy procedure. I hope this clarifies the misunderstanding.
Spain's Statutory Four-Year Tax Limitation
Another matter is if Spanish authorities do not get wind on the death of an owner who holds company shares, property or other assets. The statutory limitation of 4 years on all taxes, including Spanish Inheritance Tax, may kick in timing out the obligation to pay inheritance tax altogether – there is nothing the Tax Office can do after said time has elapsed to claim payment of inheritance tax from the beneficiaries. It should be noted that – exceptionally – the statute of limitation for Spanish Inheritance Tax is 4 years, six months and one day. In the particular case of a non-resident in Spain it is extremely difficult for the Spanish Tax Office (understatement) to know if and when they have passed away; unless of course his beneficiaries take to pro-actively inform the Spanish tax authorities… (or for that matter their bank in Spain; which also has the legal obligation to disclose the death to the tax office).
Pros and Cons of Owning Property in Spain through Corporate Structures – Conclusion
Generalisations are often dangerous and even more so on this delicate matter. The only sound advice that can be given is that a case-by-case study is required before any decision can reasonably be taken. Each client has different needs which evolve over time so structures may need to be changed to accommodate their changing needs i.e. post-divorce, new heirs, change in tax laws.
Different experts will give you different amounts or thresholds based on different reasons on whether it's worthwhile or not to incorporate a company (or string of companies) for tax mitigation purposes. I would generally recommend only looking into corporate structures, for tax mitigation purposes, on a taxable base of €600,000 or above (£500,000). Note the use of the term 'taxable base'. It is not referring to the value of the underlying real estate, but the amount that each beneficiary stands to inherit from the estate. Also note that the taxable base, when referring to property itself, is normally well-below the current market value of the property; it is not an up-to-date property appraisal.
So, for example, on inheriting an estate of €800,000 located in one of Spain's seventeen autonomous regions that actually do tax inheritance tax and there is only one inheritor (beneficiary) then in this particular case I think it may be worth looking at getting quotations on setting up a structure to mitigate exposure to ISD/IHT. In Catalonia for example you would pay €350 in taxes (as resident) and if this estate were located in Andalucía the beneficiary would pay €164,000. This whopping difference that makes a beneficiary pay 469 times more in one region than another on the same estate is explained because autonomous regions in Spain are empowered to rule on inheritance tax.
Following on the same example set above, if instead we had three children (three beneficiaries) to inherit the €800,000 estate my answer would change and I think it would no longer be worthwhile. Because the taxable base would now be split between the three of them, thus reducing the attraction of the IHT rate band which follows a sliding scale. After legal and family allowances kick in there will be very little IHT to pay by each beneficiary not making it really worthwhile to incorporate a structure and to pay annual running maintenance fees for bookkeeping services and tax compliance purposes.
Not to mention that potential buyers normally refuse buying real estate locked up in holding structures out of fear of non-disclosed debts and hidden liabilities. A due diligence must normally be carried out prior to acquiring a company holding real estate to rule off such legal risks. To sell on a property, the vendor is normally required to first unwind the holding company (inheritors stand to pay for this) at a great expense to actually sell the underlying real estate itself.
Non-resident beneficiaries unfortunately do not benefit as much as those holding resident status when it comes to legal allowances to reduce the IHT taxable base as the applicable law is the state law (which is less lenient than regional tax allowances available only to residents). Admittedly non-residents unfortunately, and unjustly, still do not qualify to opt for the full range of tax allowances that residents are entitled to. The EU is looking into this as it is tantamount to discrimination with fellow EU member nationals – unacceptable.
EDIT May 2015: The EU ruled on the 3rd September 2014 on the matter in favour of non-residents ending all tax discrimination on inheritance matters. You can read my in-depth article Changes To Spain's Inheritance And Gift Tax Law.
Inheritance tax planning in Spain is a complex matter, so please seek legal advice from a qualified lawyer and be wary of anyone advocating property ownership through corporate structures is "always beneficial" – not the case and in fact may be even be counter-productive and a complete waste of money. Beware of companies offering bespoke one-trick ponies to circumvent Spanish inheritance tax by offering "100% protection" against it.
If you fear Spain's inheritance tax (IHT/ISD) you should first ask for en estimation from a gestoría or law firm before you do anything rash such as setting up a Spanish company or UK limited company to place it on top of the Spanish real estate. Inheritance tax varies widely within Spain's seventeen autonomous regions (in some it's not even taxed!). Truth is that corporate structures are neither needed nor recommended for the vast majority of people.
"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes" – Leona Helmsley.
US billionaire hotelier.
Legal services Larraín Nesbitt Lawyers can offer you
Conveyancing – Buying
Conveyancing – Selling
Off-the shelf-company
Company Registry Search
Will Service
Transfer of Estate to Heirs
Buying Distressed Property in Spain – 8th August 2011
Non-residents: Six Advantages of Making a Spanish Will – 8th August 2012
Buying Resale Property in Spain – 21st February 2013
Buying Off-Plan Property in Spain – 8th of June 2013
How to Buy Commercial Property in Spain – 4th July 2014
How to Buy Rural Property in Spain – 8th August 2014
How to Buy Property in Spain Safely – 10th October 2014
Taxes on Selling Spanish Property – 8th December 2014
Spanish Wills and Probate Law In Light Of European Regulation – 8th January 2015
Changes To Spain's Inheritance And Gift Tax Law – 21st February 2015
Dispelling Spanish Inheritance Tax Myths – 8th August 2015
Please note the information provided in this article is of general interest only and is not to be construed or intended as substitute for professional legal advice. This article may be posted freely in websites or other social media so long as the author is duly credited. Plagiarizing, whether in whole or in part, this article without crediting the author may result in criminal prosecution. VOV.
2014 © Raymundo Larraín Nesbitt. All rights reserved.
Guides, Legal & legislation
Buyers, Company structures, Raymundo Larraín Nesbitt
Knowledge is power!
Subscribe to my news bulletin for insight and reports to help guide you in this opaque market.
Nationality * United Kingdom Aaland Islands Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua And Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote D'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curacao Cyprus Czech Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard and Mc Donald Islands Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey (Channel Islands) Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macau Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island North Korea Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Republic of Kosovo Reunion Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa (Independent) San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka St. Helena St. Pierre and Miquelon Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks & Caicos Islands Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United States of America Uruguay USA Minor Outlying Islands Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City State (Holy See) Venezuela Vietnam Virgin Islands (British) Virgin Islands (U.S.) Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
Looking to buyHome ownerLooking to sellPrivate investorProfessional investor"Golden Visa" residency investorProperty professionalJournalistOther
By submitting this form you agree to our Privacy Policy & Terms of Use. You will be sent an opt-in email with data privacy (GDPR) information to confirm your subscription.
Click here to get Spanish home insurance from UK provider
Adverts at this website do not imply any recommendation. Always use an independent lawyer to do legal checks on your behalf before buying property in Spain.
Property For Sale Direct From Owners
Sell Property in Spain
Real Estate Guides
Q&A, Discussion Forums
About SPI
Contact SPI
The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. While we endeavour to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.
© Spanish Property Insight 2019
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. If you continue to use the website you agree to our use of cookies. You can find out more here. Accept


The Premium Rooms at RnB Select Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, have a great ambience which goes hand in hand with the RnB Select's brand accents. The Premium Room at RnB Select Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, offers unmatched comfort for travellers and holidaymakers coming to the land of Nizams. These rooms have great furnishings and come with a number of amenities to make your stay with us as enjoyable and hassle-free as possible. Also, our hotel staff is always present to look after any of the guest's needs.
The RnB Select has one of the best rooms in the Banjara Hills area, that too at reasonable price points.


text:
Airtel, Meta to boost India's digital ecosystem
By Sarkaritel December 5, 2022 18:09
SC grants four weeks parole to Sahara group chief
ITC logs 9.3% rise in Q4 consolidated net profit 0 26.Jun
Tata Steel's sales grow marginally in Q1
New Delhi, Dec 5 (IANS) In a bid to support the growth of India's digital ecosystem, Bharti Airtel and Meta (formerly Facebook) on Monday announced a key collaboration.
Airtel partners with Meta and STC (Saudi Telecom Company) to bring 2Africa Pearls to India as part of its ongoing effort to improve the nation's infrastructure.
2Africa is the world's longest subsea cable system and is expected to provide faster internet connectivity to nearly 3 billion people worldwide.
"With our contributions to the 2Africa cable and Open RAN, we are investing in crucial and progressive connectivity infrastructure which is needed to support the increasing demand for high-speed data in India. We look forward to working closely with Meta to deliver best-in-class digital experiences to our customers in India," Vani Venkatesh, CEO, Global Business, Bharti Airtel said in a statement.
Both companies will jointly invest in global connectivity infrastructure and CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) based new-age digital solutions to support the emerging requirements of customers and enterprises in the country.
"We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Airtel to further advance the region's connectivity infrastructure that will enable a better network experience for people and businesses across India," Francisco Varela, vice president of mobile partnerships for Meta said in a statement.
The company said that it will integrate Meta's WhatsApp within its CPaaS platform.
With this integration, businesses will be able to use WhatsApp's extensive features and reach to provide enterprises with unparalleled omnichannel customer engagement.
TAGS: airteldigital ecosystemcmeta


Western Maryland Health System (WMHS) Plastic Surgery located in Cumberland, Maryland, is targets three services: breast reconstruction following mastectomy, non-invasive cosmetic procedures (non-surgical procedures) and cosmetic plastic surgery (surgical procedures).
In order to continue educating former, future and reoccurring patients, BlaineTurner Advertising (BTA) was tasked with updating the WMHS Plastic Surgery website to include a simplistic, yet informative design—making Dr. Chapman-Jackson as the local female authority on plastic surgery. BTA designed with parallax scrolling navigation in mind and less clicks, accommodated all devices using responsive design and installed Google analytics for tracking and measurement. The site now provides useful content that is meaningful and engaging to specific target personas, instructs cancer care providers and patients about insurance, as well as tracks social shares and media requests.


text:
The arc of evolutionary genetics may be irreversible
Gene ExpressionBy Razib KhanOctober 21, 2009 6:33 PM
One of the banes of modern life is the stack of papers in one's "to-read" list. I guess that goes to show how cushy modern life is, as what sort of complaint is that? In any case, I began to consider this after reading Joe Thornton's magisterial response to Michael Behe's giddy excitement over his most recent paper, An epistatic ratchet constrains the direction of glucocorticoid receptor evolution. Thornton dispatches Behe's muddled misconceptions with economy and precision, but after reading the paper, as opposed to cogent summaries such as Carl Zimmer's in The New York Times I'm even more at a loss as to how Behe arrived at the conclusions he did as to the paper's significance (please read the paper, available on Thornton's lab website, and then try and make sense of what Behe is asserting) . But at least Michael Behe prompted me to push the paper to the top of my stack. To understand why this paper is important, one has to know a bit of the history of evolutionary theory (ironic in that this paper points to the importance of contingency, that is, historical sequence of events, in evolution). The arguments about whether evolutionary process is contingent or not go back a century. One can see glimmers of it in the debates between R. A. Fisher and Sewall Wright, the two preeminent figures of 20th century population genetics (Fisher arguably invented the field). Fisher and Wright are relevant to the discussion around this paper because of their views about the genetic architecture of evolutionary process. The former tended to elaborate a simple perspective whereby the focus was on genetic variants of independent and additive effect against an averaged genetic background. As an example, presumably the thousands of genes which effect normal variation in height, and are selected en mass when a shift in height away from the mean value results in higher reproductive fitness. In a Fisherian world the adaptive landscape is smooth and without discontinuity, with a simple symmetrical peak around which the species' total population flows. The world may not be flat, but its geometry is elegant. In contrast, Sewall Wright conceived of the adaptive landscape as far more rugged, subject to the complex interlocking effects of epistasis as well as stochastic random walks, and fragmented into numerous populations with some barriers to gene flow. Wright's ideas were not entirely coherent, as his biographer Will Provine lays out in Sewall Wright and Evolutionary Biology, but the metaphors and generally more empirical methodology left an imprint (while Fisher's contributions tended to be theoretical, Wright was an experimental geneticist with a more intuitive feel for the shape of reality). Though Stephen Jay Gould gave a hearty nod to Sewall Wright as a primary influence (though he also argued that Wright watered-down his own theories to conform to Neo-Darwinian orthodoxy), Gould's nemesis William D. Hamilton declared that Wright was the strongest influence upon his later work in his collection of papers. The combination of Wright's extremely long career (he was 1 year older than Fisher, but outlasted him by 26 years) and his occasional tendency toward lack of clarity may go some way to explaining how and why such disparate intellectuals could look to him as an influence. The tension between Fisher's elegant formalism which led one toward an ahistorical sensibility, and Wright's more sloppy empirically informed conjectures, has to a great extent echoed down the decades. In the 1960s Ernst Mayr attacked "beanbag genetics," in other words, Fisher's genetics. Fisher's British colleague, J. B. S. Haldane, rose to the challenge (Fisher had died by this point), publishing A Defense of Beanbag Genetics. In more recent years Stephen Jay Gould laid out his vision of historical contingency in Structure of Evolutionary Theory. As the inevitable counterpoint Richard Dawkins took Simon Conway Morris' side in The Ancestor's Tale, arguing for the inevitability of particular morphological types due to the deterministic character of natural selection. And so it goes. Thornton's paper does not resolve this general argument, but it does illustrate starkly the constraints which natural selection faces in a universe of finite time:
The extent to which evolution is reversible has long fascinated biologists...Most previous work on the reversibility of morphological and life-history evolution...has been indecisive, because of uncertainty and bias in the methods used to infer ancestral states for such characters...Further, despite theoretical work on the factors that could contribute to irreversibility...there is little empirical evidence on its causes, because sufficient understanding of the mechanistic basis for the evolution of new or ancestral phenotypes is seldom available...By studying the reversibility of evolutionary changes in protein structure and function, these limitations can be overcome. Here we show, using the evolution of hormone specificity in the vertebrate glucocorticoid receptor as a case-study, that the evolutionary path by which this protein acquired its new function soon became inaccessible to reverse exploration. Using ancestral gene reconstruction, protein engineering and X-ray crystallography, we demonstrate that five subsequent 'restrictive' mutations, which optimized the new specificity of the glucocorticoid receptor, also destabilized elements of the protein structure that were required to support the ancestral conformation. Unless these ratchet-like epistatic substitutions are restored to their ancestral states, reversing the key function-switching mutations yields a non-functional protein. Reversing the restrictive substitutions first, however, does nothing to enhance the ancestral function. Our findings indicate that even if selection for the ancestral function were imposed, direct reversal would be extremely unlikely, suggesting an important role for historical contingency in protein evolution.
To be terse about it, you have ancestral phenotype A and derived phenotype D. And you have ancestral set of amino acids and a derived set of amino acids. In a "beanbag" conception you simply focus on the amino acids which directly effect A & D, and assume that the "background" can be ignored as a first approximation. But it turns out that it doesn't work like that, in their experiments the researchers found that there are other amino acids which had changed in the interval between A & D and blocked potential evolutionary reversal by simply changing the core set of amino acids back (labeled "XYZ" in the paper). There are always supportive biological process around many mechanisms which you take as "givens," the formless background. As you are focusing on the genes and traits of interest these givens may also change, and no longer be givens which can be ignored. It turns out that there were other amino acids which changed between the ancestral and derived states (labeled "W" in the paper) which made a reversion back to the ancestral genotype result in loss of function. The ancestral genotype was out of sync with its background singers, so to speak. In the paper they used some ingenious methods to map from the amino acids to the biophysical structure of the proteins generated by a particular acid sequence. After all, it is the nature of these structures which determines the function of the DNA-binding transcription factor. If you are curious about the details of the mechanism in terms of how it physically manifests, I recommend you follow the link I provided earlier. The conformation of proteins is not my cup of tea, rather, I will continue to speak of more abstract constructs in the paper, the cluster of amino acids XYZ and W. Not only does the state of W result in the lack of functionality of xyz (the ancestral state), but reversing W back its ancestral state first often reduces functioning as well! And there you have the ratchet. Stepwise changes result in fall into the fitness valley, and there lay extinction. Rather, there must be an unlikely leap across to directly reverse path. There are likely other ways in which one could reconstruct the ancestral phenotype through other sets of amino acids which would neutralize W first, and so allow for the mutation of XYZ back to xyz without penalty, but as noted in the paper the longer the path the more unlikely the probability of wending back toward the original location. So why did w mutate to W in any case? They speculate that the change was either as a modifier of XYZ, or, that it was neutral. If the change was neutral we are now adding an element of stochasticity, that is, the ratchet is somewhat random. It's as if some of the time when you crossed a bridge it collapsed behind you, and some of the time it remained sturdy. Imagine you're making your way through a network of such bridges which collapse stochastically after you've crossed. Now assume that the goal is to go from point A to point Z, and then reverse back to point A. If all the paths are initially open, but some of them close up behind you by chance then every single reversal from Z to A may have to take a different path. These are the random acts of contingent history. Here is the conclusion of the paper:
Our observations suggest that history and contingency during glucocorticoid receptor evolution strongly limited the pathways that could be deterministically followed under selection.The 'adaptive peak' represented by the promiscuous AncGR1 is a relatively close neighbour in sequence space to themore specific AncGR2. This peak was occupied in the ancestor of jawed vertebrates--indicating that no intrinsic constraints prevent its realization--but it became far more difficult to access just 40 million years later because of intervening epistatic mutations. Selection is an extraordinarily powerful evolutionary force...nevertheless, our observations suggest that, because of the complexity of glucocorticoid receptor architecture, low-probability permissive substitutions were required to open some mutational trajectories to exploration under selection...whereas restrictive substitutions closed other potential paths. Under selection, some kind of adaptation will always occur...but the specific adaptive forms that are realized depend on the historical trajectory that precedes them. The conditions that once facilitated evolution of the glucocorticoid receptor's ancestors were destroyed during the realization of its present form...The past is difficult to recover because it was built on the foundation of its own history, one irrevocably different from that of the present and its many possible futures.
There's a fair amount of hedging in the text, as there should be in science. How relevant are these sorts of insights on the biomolecular level to gross morphology? I suspect this is exactly the sort of thing that Richard Dawkins would reply with; specifically, that his support for Simon Conway Morris' thesis was on the scale of gross higher-level phenotypes, not details of biomolecular function so closely coupled to the state of amino acids. As a reductionist it seems that one would be behooved to focus on the real and concrete manifestation of the genetic substrate which has such a direct connection to structural constraints. And yet I wonder if perhaps this opens up an avenue to rescue those who would argue that history does not matter on a larger scale, because inevitability is a function of the laws of physics. As an example, the persistent reduction in appendages across taxa characterized by larger body size may be due to physical biomechanical efficiencies which natural selection will hone in upon given enough time. Neither the partisans of contingent history or those of the march of inevitable history in this battle really espouse an either/or model. Rather, they're fighting on the margins as to what is, or isn't, significant, what should, or shouldn't, be emphasized. After all, selection itself to a great extent is stochastic, maximizing fitness with the parts on hand because of the limits of time. It seems that the most forceful implication of this type of research is that biological cartographers need to fan out and map the lay of the land, one simply can't be complacent with a simple heuristic assuming idealized topographies. Below I've reformatted Figure 4. If the prose above was unintelligible, look at hard....
Citation: An epistatic ratchet constrains the direction of glucocorticoid receptor evolution, Jamie T. Bridgham, Eric A. Ortlund, Joseph W. Thornton, Nature 461, 515-519 (24 September 2009) doi:10.1038/nature08249
The SciencesNASA's Spitzer Space Telescope Will Soon Retire. What Will Take Its Place?
The SciencesListen to the Solar Wind With New Data From NASA's Parker Solar Probe
HealthCBD Oil UK: Discover the 8 best CBD oils in the UK (2020)
Planet EarthHow Archaeologists Know Where to Dig
The SciencesA Timeline of the Spitzer Space Telescope's 16 Years of Science
MindA Rat with No Brain?


text:
Child soldier sentenced for deserting
Sept 23, 2009 (DVB), The family of two underage children forcibly recruited into the Burmese army last year have filed a complaint to a UN body after both were punished for escaping their depot, with one now in prison.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) received the complaint on Monday from the family of Zaw Naing Win and Than Htun Oo, cousins from southern Burma's Bago division.
The complaint details the case of the two boys who were both 16-years-old when they were abducted at a train station in June 2008 and sent to a Rangoon army unit.
Burmese law states that children under the age of 18-years-old cannot serve in the army, while international law says that those younger than 18 can only join voluntarily.
Daw Nyo, the mother of Zaw Naing Win, said the two were taken to a soldier recruitment centre and forcibly enlisted into the Burmese navy's Central Naval Stores Depot.
After six months of training with the navy, the two were allowed 10 days breaks each, during which they returned home.
"My son said he couldn't bear the strict rules and pressure from the army and he didn't go back to them," Daw Nyo said.
After refusing to return Zaw Naing Win to battalion officials who arrived at the house, the family was asked to pay 200,000 kyat ($US2,000) by a local deputy police chief. Police arrested Zaw Naing Win after the family failed to pay.
While Zaw Naing Win was punished with 15 strokes of the cane, Than Htun Oo was given a six-month sentence in Rangoon's Hlawga prison.
The family filed the complaint with assistance from Bago human rights and legal advocacy group, Guiding Star.
The head of Guiding Star, Aye Myint, said the army has a responsibility for recruiting child soldiers.
"This is a form of domestic human trafficking, the [army] should release these children," he said.
The ILO's liaison office in Rangoon was unavailable for comments.
Recruitment of child soldiers in Burma is common, with reports regular surfacing of abduction of children into the army.
A UN team was last month sent to Burma to pressure the ruling junta and armed ethnic groups to end use of child soldiers.
Reporting by Naw Noreen
Tags: childsoldier
Previous story Political prisoner amnesty a 'cynical ploy'
Next story US to step up engagement with Burma
Military to take action against trigger-happy soldier
Burmese soldier jailed for raping disabled Kachin girl
Children's art depicts pain of communal violence
'Most serious penalties' for child solider case


Dutch short documentaries Wild Boar by Willem Baptist (I'm Never Afraid!) and Louis the Ferris Wheel Kid by Tara Fallaux have been selected for the AFI DOCS Film Festival in the US. Both films will be competing for the Sterling Award for Best Short Documentary. By winning this award a film becomes elegible for the 87th Academy Awards consideration in the Documentary Short Subject category. AFI DOCS is the American Film Institute's annual documentary festival in the Washington, D.C. area, which takes place from 18 - 22 June, 2014.
Wild Boar had its international premier at the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival - Visions du Réel (Swiss), where the film received a Special Mention and also screened at HotDocs in Toronto (Canada). Last year, Wild Boar received a nomination for a Golden Calf for Best Short Documentary at the Netherlands Film Festival.
Wild Boar is produced by Zuidenwind Filmproductions in coproduction with NTR. International sales by NPO Sales. Willem Baptist's quirky youth documentary I'M NEVER AFRAID! (2010, VPRO) screened at 80+ film festivals worldwide and won 6 international awards.
Wild Boar is a poetic, and visually arresting documentary about the curious relationship between man and the rise of the wild boar. The film tells a story about confusion, despair and opportunity amidst the invasion of unruly creatures that won't abide by manmade rules and laws.
Louis the Ferris Wheel Kid is Tara Fallaux's first short documentary. The film had its world premier at the Amsterdam International Documentary Filmfestival - IDFA and was also selected for the HotDocs International Documentary Film Festival (Canada).
The film was produced by 100% Halal in coproduction with NTR. In the film Louis' life as a travelling child living in a funfair comes to an end when he has to attend high school.


It's the echoed harmonies that sell this song. Sure, the deliciously fuzzed out guitar (bass? synth?) peaks interest early. And the machine gun drums that begin to crest around the three minute mark and continue into a relentless pummel drill the point home. But it's those haunting vocal echoes, making Channy Leaneagh's lyrics almost indecipherable, that pack the song's entire emotional punch. Grab the song for free below.


Rahotep (raising arms) while offering to Osiris. Stele BM EA 833, drawn by Wallis Budge.
↑ Wallis Budge: Hieroglyphic texts from Egyptian stelae, &c., in the British Museum, Part IV, London: Printed by order of the Trustees [by] Harrison and Sons, 1913, available not-in-copyright here, pl. 24.
หน้านี้แก้ไขล่าสุดเมื่อวันที่ 3 กุมภาพันธ์ 2562 เวลา 13:41 น.


Chris Brown and Trey Songz officially announce their 'Between The Sheets' tour.
The ladies will definitely enjoy this one. Well, maybe not for Trey's Scooby Doo-inspired vibrato/vocals but for those sweaty abs at least! The North American 25-date trek kicks off on January 28th, 2015 in Hampton, Va and wraps March 8th at The Forum in Los Angeles.
The tour comes 10 years after Trey and Chris' first college tour together and will see rapper Tyga joining them as a special guest. They will perform new material off their latest albums 'X' and 'Trigga' during the two-hour concert, as well as delivering their joint collaborations on stage. Citi cardmembers will have access to a pre-sale beginning Wednesday, November 12th. Tickets for the general public go on sale Monday, November 17th.


About 12 years ago, we were shooting in Acapulco and our producer came up against opposition from some local business owners on the beach we were using as a set. The problem was confined to certain areas of the beach and thanks to some skillful negotiations and careful planning we were able to carry on shooting. I'd been in situations like this before, but I especially remember this one because it suddenly dawned on me that I have a true passion for this job and that doing it to the best of my ability brings me enormous satisfaction.


text:
Yes, the Trump-Kim DMZ Meeting Was a Breakthrough. Here is What Should Come Next | Opinion
Christine Ahn
On 7/1/19 at 11:16 AM EDT
Opinion Donald Trump Kim Jong Un North Korea Denuclearization
Over the weekend, President Donald Trump did what no sitting U.S. sitting president has done: he crossed the demarcation line dividing the two Koreas at Panmunjom and set foot on North Korean soil. Not only that, he greeted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and together they traversed the cement border and met South Korean President Moon Jae In. Then, President Trump sat down with Kim for a 50-minute conversation in the Freedom House in South Korea.
Who could have imagined all that could have been orchestrated with a single tweet from Trump as he departed the G-20 Summit in Osaka: "After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!"
With the world's cameras on them, Trump invited Kim to the White House. With National Security Advisor John Bolton notably absent, Trump and Kim agreed to restarting working-level talks, with U.S. Special Representative Stephen Biegun taking the lead. "We moved mountains," Trump said as he departed the DMZ. "The meeting was a very good one, very strong... We're not looking for speed, we're looking to get it right."
Last year's Singapore Summit was repeatedly and forcefully denounced as a failure, but if anything, it's proved that meeting and talking works. Less than a year before, Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un had traded threats and military provocations. Now that high-level trust appears to have been established, we need reliable, sustained diplomacy to end the seven-decade Korean War.
As someone who has crossed the DMZ in 2015 with 30 women peacemakers including Gloria Steinem and two Nobel Peace Laureates, and has since been engaging with women leaders from all sides and from countries that participated in the Korean War, I have a few insights on what the Trump administration will need to get right to achieve peace and denuclearization.
Last week, I sat down with senior officials from the Trump and Moon administrations and with the DPRK Mission to the United Nations. I discussed ways my organization's network of women could support the peace process, especially given the evidence that women's participation leads to more durable peace agreements. What struck me was that in contrast to the blame game being played in public, everyone individually shared a desire for a diplomatic breakthrough.
So how can this breakthrough be achieved?
The most important step is to clear the slate of the so-called Bolton Libya model, which caused the peace process to fall apart in Hanoi. The Trump administration insisted on the immediate, complete and unilateral nuclear disarmament of North Korea before improving relations — a clear nonstarter for Kim. Reuters confirmed that "U.S. President Donald Trump handed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a piece of paper that included a blunt call for the transfer of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States." The North Koreans countered with a proposition for an interim deal of dismantling Yongbyon, the heart of its nuclear program, and the formal halting of nuclear and missile testing, in exchange for the partial lifting of sanctions. Both sides walked and relations have been kept on life support by "excellent" and "beautiful" letters exchanged between Kim and Trump.
But love letters will not end a seven-decade war. And time is not on their side. In his April speech to the Supreme People's Assembly, Kim signaled to Washington that they had until the end of this year to change their negotiating stance before what we can all guess will be a return to provocations. Meanwhile, as one senior Trump administration official told me, the "gale winds of the 2020 election" will make a diplomatic breakthrough impossible.
The good news is that, for now, the Bolton model (including Bolton himself being sent to Mongolia while Trump met Kim), seems to have been tabled for a more pragmatic and realistic approach. While unverified, The New York Times reported Sunday that the Trump administration may have agreed to an interim deal allowing North Korea to maintain its nuclear weapons (between 20 to 60) but freeze the production of nuclear material and testing.
But even once the Trump administration abandons the Bolton model for good, it still faces three hard realities, if it wants to resume dialogue towards achieving North Korea's denuclearization.
First, sanctions won't force North Korea to denuclearize, and President Xi's first trip to Pyongyang has made it clear that China will provide relief before any breaking point is reached. Instead, sanctions are harming innocent civilians. There is widespread consensus among the humanitarian community that sanctions are impeding the ability of aid agencies and NGOs to provide life-saving medicine, food, and materials to the most vulnerable in North Korea. According to a May 2019 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program, 40 percent of North Koreans are in dire need of food aid, in part due to sanctions.
Furthermore, sanctions harm the civilian economy by limiting the country's ability to import oil needed for cooking, heating, and running tractors. They're also hurting industries like textiles, which employs possibly hundreds of thousands of workers, of which 98 percent are women.
At a meeting with Sen. Bernie Sanders and South Korean women Parliamentarians last March, Esther Lee, a North Korean defector living in Michigan, said sanctions have a counterproductive effect on ordinary North Koreans. "What will improve the ordinary North Korean people's situation is more engagement with people from the outside world, not less," she told us.
Second, engaging in peace talks with North Korea is not a gift to Kim Jong Un or his government but a morally just decision that also advances all of our security. This argument really hit home for me and my family in 2018 when we experienced the false alarm of a North Korean missile attack on Hawaii. For my relatives in South Korea, this is the constant anxiety they live with. But for over 400 days following the Singapore Summit, Pyongyang did not conduct a single test while engaging Washington and Seoul. This calmed the nerves of 80 million Koreans living on the peninsula and in the diaspora and thousands of American soldiers and their families serving on dozens of U.S. military bases in the region.
Lastly, and certainly most significantly, peace is the only path to denuclearization. North Korea will not unilaterally disarm given the U.S. record with Iran, Libya and Iraq, much less their own experience surviving indiscriminate U.S. bombing during the Korean War, which killed one in four North Koreans and flattened 80 percent of their cities.
It's time to acknowledge that the root cause of the nuclear crisis is the continuing state of war between the United States and North Korea. The Korean War is not over: we have yet to replace the 1953 ceasefire with a formal peace agreement. The North Koreans have repeatedly declared that they are developing nuclear weapons because of America's "hostile policy." Moon Chung-in, President Moon's senior advisor on North Korea, explained that security assurances in the form of an end-of-war declaration or nonaggression pact "doesn't cost the U.S. any money." I would add that they will give us a lot by helping to create peace and stability in Northeast Asia and the world.
To achieve North Korea's denuclearization requires peace and normalization of relations. This necessitates reciprocal goodwill steps, and patient long-term work—not a grand bargain demanding everything at the front end of a process with a promise for the future.
Christine Ahn is the executive director of Women Cross DMZ and international coordinator of the global feminist campaign, Korea Peace Now! Women Mobilizing to End the War.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Yes, the Trump-Kim DMZ Meeting Was a Breakthrough. Here is What Should Come Next | Opinion | Opinion
China Deserves Credit for Donald Trump's North Korea Meeting: State Media
Former Bush Aide Slams Trump's Effort to 'Kiss Up' to Kim Jong Un


MANY FAMILIES AND FRIENDS gather together on a weekly basis to watch their favorite teams go head to head. And while people come to watch the game, we all know what they're really there for… the food!
Traditional game day snacks may be delicious–think wings, sliders, nachos, pizza–but they are certainly not the healthiest for our bodies, or our teeth for that matter.
October is one of the busiest sports months of the year. For all you sports fans out there, you're going to have a lot of games to watch and, as a result, a lot of unhealthy finger food you may be planning to eat. Making healthier choices for the big game is easy… and well worth it!
Veggie-filled wraps instead of sliders. Leafy greens contain vitamins essential for healthy teeth and gums.
Yogurt instead of ice cream. You know dairy is good for your teeth! But watch out for added sugars you can find in ice cream and some yogurts. Make a greek yogurt parfait or a yogurt-based dip for fruit to protect those chompers.
Bruschetta instead of pizza. Fresh-made bruschetta, especially with calcium-rich cheese on top, is a great substitute for greasy pizza.
Vegetables instead of chips. Refined, starchy foods can be worse for your teeth than sugar. Bake your own kale chips or substitute cucumbers, celery, and carrots for greasy chips. You'll get that crunch factor you crave as well as protect your teeth from decay.
Zucchini or sweet potato fries instead of french fries. Bake your fries instead of deep-fry them. Sweet potatoes have a lot of vitamin C which promotes healthy gums. Zucchini has an extremely high water content which will get your saliva flowing.
You could even try this healthy spinach and artichoke dip at your next watch-party!
Here's another fun fact: including apples and strawberries in your snack game plan can actually help whiten your teeth! These fruits contain malic acid which removes surface stains from your teeth and whitens enamel.
In addition, nuts, celery, carrots and again, apples, are great finger foods that work as natural toothbrushes. That's right! Because of their abrasive texture, they naturally remove bacteria and plaque. They also increase saliva production, helping to wash away food particles and bacteria in your mouth. So the next time you want to just eat the wings and leave the celery, think again.
We know you want your team to win the big game, but it's even more important to have a winning smile! What are your favorite healthy game day snacks? Let us know in the comments below. We'd love to get some more ideas!
Happy watching to all our sports fans!
Top image by Flickr user Abdulla Al Muhairi used under Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 4.0 license. Image cropped and modified from original.
Family Dentist in Centreville | Are You Prepared For A Dental Emergency?


Although the British have a saying that it's the intention that matters when giving gifts, that is, that it's nice of you to have even remembered the person for whom the gift is, let's not fool ourselves, everyone will very much appreciate even a hint of extravagance and elegance.
any say that it's difficult to buy gifts for women, but every woman knows it is much more difficult to find a perfect gift for the "stronger" gender, whether it's a partner, father, brother or a friend. It doesn't matter whether you have known him for years or you have just began a relationship, to choose something for a man who seems to have everything, especially for such a big holiday as Christmas, is not easy at all. However, for a real man, exuding elegance and style, the perfect gift will primarily be a luxurious design piece, which we have - a lot.
The Croata necktie by itself doesn't need any additional explanations. Therefore, if the man, who the gift is for, would like to stand out in a crowd but also prefers a modern and clean look, a tie is the perfect choice.
If we are talking about a man who finds the inspiration for a sophisticated look in James Bond, he will prefer a bow tie. Croata offers bow ties for all kinds of occasions and styles, from the classic – the essential part of the black tie dress code, to the artistic ones – which will symbolize refinement with a personal stylish choice.
When it comes to men who want to stand out from a crowd even more, and show their sense of fashion in a fun but appropriate way, select a piece that will greatly impact his look – such as a Croata shawl.
For those with a trained eye for detail, there are also Croata cufflinks, a perfect final touch. Luxurious cufflinks are timeless artworks and jewellery for every gentleman, since they are both functional and ornamental, and can become with time a precious family legacy. They thus become the perfect choice for all men who look forward to the future.


Gatlinburg Dinner Shows combine a night of entertainment with a delicious meal for a one-of-a-kind experience. From toe-tapping music shows to spirited stampedes and lumberjack feuds, Dinner Shows in Gatlinburg, TN are engaging productions the whole family will enjoy. Purchase Gatlinburg dinner show tickets online to receive special discounts and savings.


Nigel Farage heaped praise on Donald Trump's administration over their post-Brexit optimism.
Today, US president's national security adviser said American is ready to do a trade deal with a "newly independent Britain".
In an interview with Sky News, John Bolton added: "We can do these deals quickly. We are ready to go".
And, the revelation was music to Nigel's ears as he gave an ecstatic reaction live on LBC.
"I love it, I love it, I love it," he boomed.
Nigel added: "What do we get in Brussels? We get condescension, we get the Prime Minister being belittled, we get talked down to by the Juncker's, the Barnier's, the Verhofstad'ts, half of them hate us!


text:
El Gawhara Palace, one of the palaces in the Citadel of Saladin and the Mosque of Muhammad Ali Mosque or Muhammad Ali Castle, the Palace was built mainly to be a home for Muhammad Ali wife and it was established in 1814.
This museum was built during the period from 1811 AD to 1814 AD, it was the headquarters for the government and official meetings. This is the oldest official palace for the former governors of Egypt until 1874, the palace has a number of halls and rooms, some of which still furnished with art paintings represented on the walls and ceilings.
The main lobby of the museum is located at the entrance to the palace and houses a collection of gifts that was given to Muhammad Ali Basha from the rulers of Europe. This lobby leads to leads to rooms including vases and metal artifacts and rare antique watches and Candle Holders.


Support the growth, development, and expansion of the SC Adopt-a-Stream citizen science program. Participate in research, grant writing, and outreach related to watershed health. Other duties as assigned.
30% - Essential - Lead the development of training modules for educators on SC Adopt-a-Stream in the classroom. Create supporting lesson plans and activities.
20% - Essential - Participate in the launch of the tidal waterways monitoring program and grant writing. This will include development of training resources, database expansion and testing, hosting trainings and meetings, and research and collaborations.
10% - Essential - Identify new partners and potential sponsors of the program. Be a leader in identifying new training opportunities and efficiently recertifying growing numbers of volunteers.
10% - Essential - Assist in being a resource to growing watershed monitoring requests from schools and other stakeholders.
A bachelor's degree in biology, chemistry, wildlife management or related technical area and experience in fish, wildlife or marine resource management or research programs. A master's degree in biology, chemistry or wildlife management may be substituted for the required work experience.
No Supervisory Duties - Not responsible for supervising employees.
No Budget Responsibilities - No fiscal responsibility for the department's budget.
2+ years working with the public and environmental sciences or monitoring.
Clemson University was established to fulfill our founder's vision of "a high seminary of learning" to develop "the material resources of the State" for the people of South Carolina. Nurtured by an abiding land grant commitment, Clemson has emerged as a research university with a global vision. Our primary purpose is educating undergraduate and graduate students to think deeply about and engage in the social, scientific, economic, and professional challenges of our times. The foundation of this mission is the generation, preservation, communication, and application of knowledge. The University also is committed to the personal growth of the individual and promotes an environment of good decision making, healthy and ethical lifestyles, and tolerance and respect for others. Our distinctive character is shaped by a legacy of service, collaboration, and fellowship forged from and renewed by the spirit of Thomas Green Clemson's covenant.


text:
BP p.l.c. (RNS)
BP p.l.c.: Transaction in Own Shares
DGAP-News: BP p.l.c. / Key word(s): Share Buyback
BP p.l.c.
BP p.l.c. (the "Company") announces that on 11 November 2021 it has purchased, in accordance with the authority granted by shareholders at the 2021 Annual General Meeting of the Company, a total of 8,650,000 of its ordinary shares of $0.25 each ("Shares") on the London Stock Exchange and Cboe (UK) as part of the buyback programme announced on 2 November 2021 (the "Programme") and as detailed below:
London Stock Exchange Cboe (UK)/BXE Cboe (UK)/CXE
Number of Shares purchased: 5,650,000 2,000,000 1,000,000
Highest price paid per Share (pence): 347.2500 347.2000 347.2000
Lowest price paid per Share (pence): 340.1000 339.8500 340.0500
Volume weighted average price paid per Share (pence): 344.6355 344.5428 344.5257
The Company intends to cancel these shares in accordance with the intentions expressed in connection with the authority granted by its shareholders at the Company's 2021 Annual General Meeting.
The schedule below contains detailed information about the purchases made by Citigroup Global Markets Limited (intermediary code: SBILGB2L) on the date of purchase as part of the Programme.
Further enquiries:
bp Investor Relations +44(0) 207 496 4000
Schedule of Purchases
Shares purchased: BP p.l.c. (ISIN CODE: GB0007980591)
Aggregate information:
Venue Volume-weighted
average price (pence) Aggregated volume
London Stock Exchange 344.6355 5,650,000
Cboe (UK) - BXE 344.5428 2,000,000
Cboe (UK) - CXE 344.5257 1,000,000
Individual transactions:
To view details of the individual transactions, please paste the following URL into the address bar of your browser.
http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/1508S_1-2021-11-11.pdf
11.11.2021 Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a service of EQS Group AG.
BP p.l.c.: Release of a capital market information
19. Januar 08:10 Apple: Endlich wieder die Nummer 1
19. Januar 08:16 Intel: Bald aktiv im Bitcoin-Mining