text:
International Employment Law
Select the world region you're interested in Select Region Argentina Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Costa Rica Mexico Panama Peru USA Venezuela Austria Belgium Bulgaria Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Hungary Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Sweden Spain Switzerland Turkey Ukraine UK Bahrain Egypt Israel Kuwait Oman Pakistan Saudi Arabia Qatar UAE Australia China Hong Kong India Indonesia Japan Malaysia New Zealand Philippines Russia Singapore South Korea Sri Lanka Taiwan Thailand Vietnam Angola Cameroon Ghana Kenya Mozambique Nigeria South Africa Zambia
Key Developments for 2019
National Minimum Wage Act
The National Minimum Wage Act came into effect on 1 January 2019. This sets minimum wage at R20 per ordinary hour worked, amounting to around R3,500.00 per month. Non compliance with this minimum wage will be deemed to be unfair labour practice. The minimum wage cannot be waived and takes precedence over any agreement. Save for a few exclusions it will, by law, become a term of all contracts of employment.
Assign Services (Pty) Limited V National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and Others 2018 (5) SA 323 (Cc)
The constitutional court has confirmed that a labour broker (i.e. temporary employment service) is the employer of a placed employee for the first three months. During this time, the labour broker and the client are jointly and severally liable for any contraventions of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, sectoral determinations and any collective agreements. After this three month period, the client will become the sole employer. The court held that this does not create a new employment relationship; it merely changes the statutory attribution of responsibility within the triangular relationship.
Granting of parental leave under the Employment Amendment Bill
An employee, who is a parent of a child, will be entitled to 10 days of parental leave, which will be granted from the day of the child's birth or the day of the granting of a child's adoption order. This means that male employees and adoptive parents will no longer be disadvantaged by a lack of parental leave benefits. It is anticipated that this Bill will come into effect in early 2019.
Approval of the National Minimum Wage Bill
The National Minimum Wage Act 2017 (the "Act") will come into force on 1 May 2018. The Act introduces a minimum wage of R20, 00 per hour which translates into a monthly wage of about R3 500 for a 40-hour week, and about R3 900 for a 45-hour week. This will take precedence over any other contrary law, contract or collective agreement. Employers who fail to pay wages in line with the Act will be required to pay interest on late payments and a fine equal to twice the value of the underpayment or twice the employee's monthly wage, whichever is greater. Employers who anticipate that they will not be able to pay employees in line with the Act will be afforded the opportunity to apply for exemptions which will operate for a specified period.
Amendment to Whistleblower Laws
The Protected Disclosures Amendment Act, No 5 of 2017 (the "Amendment Act") was assented to on 31 July 2017 and supplements the obligations employers are held to under the Protected Disclosures Act, No 26 of 2000 (the "PDA"). Both the Amendment Act and PDA provide for and regulate reports made by employees, of unlawful or irregular conduct by employers and fellow employees. The Amendment Act has been expanded to extend to independent contractors, consultants, agents and temporary employment services workers, who now fall within the definition "worker".
Employers will need to implement appropriate internal procedures for receiving and dealing with disclosures and further obligations in terms of informing employees or workers as to whether the employer has decided to investigate the matter or refer the disclosure to another person or body. Notably, the Amendment Act also provides employees with wider protection in that they will not be liable for disclosures which are prohibited by any other law, oath, contract, practice or agreement requiring him or her to maintain confidentiality or otherwise restricting the disclosure of the information with respect to a matter.
Parental Leave Developments
On 28 November 2017, the Labour Laws Amendment Bill (the "Bill") was passed by Parliament. As a result, paternity leave of 10 days will now be available to fathers. Additionally, 1 adoptive parent of a child who is less than 2 years old will be entitled to 10 weeks' adoption leave, and the other parent will be entitled to 10 days' leave. Surrogate parents will share the same entitlements as adoptive parents. The Bill also provides for payment of parental and surrogate parental benefits from the Unemployment Insurance Fund ("UIF").
The enactment of the Protection of Personal Information Act ("POPI") and developments in data protection law are expected to continue to affect the way organizations and companies conduct their businesses.
POPI intends to give effect to the constitutional right to privacy by introducing measures and obligations upon employers, and granting rights to employees with a view to striking a balance between the right of employers to conduct a business on the one hand, against the rights of its employees to privacy on the other.
Limited sections of POPI have already been brought into force, with the majority (including the sections which create compliance obligations) to take effect at a later date. Once the legislation takes full effect, there will be a one year transition period for employers to ensure compliance, but it this is likely to be insufficient in many cases. Businesses should start to consider what steps and how long it is likely to take to take to comply, to ensure compliance within the prescribed period.
Establishment of a new labour federation
The plans to establish a new trade union federation are well under way, and its first campaign will focus on organising workers in the formal and informal sectors, and fighting job losses.
While 57 unions have expressed interest in joining the new federation, the report said 31 unions were represented in a meeting to discuss the way forward. The new federation remains open to other unions and members who want to join, and its attempts to unionise informal sector workers (such as recyclers and home workers) would be a crucial step forward for the labour movement.
The proposed new federation (incorporating breakaway Cosatu unions and those independent of it) has been in the pipeline since the expulsion of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA ("Numsa") at end of 2014. The union will be strictly unaligned politically, as a result of growing concerns of disaffection over political parties.
SA faces first long period of salary decline
South Africa has seen a plateaued and steady salary decline, which supports the growing sentiment that salaries are unlikely to beat inflation in 2017.
This has led to a period of subdued consumer spending, which has the potential to result in a recession.
Executive remuneration and King Code IV
The King Code IV ("King IV") will seek to address the issue of executive remuneration issue. It aims to foster enhanced accountability for remuneration, by insisting on more definitive disclosure requirements.
Additionally, it provides that the remuneration of executive management should be fair and responsible, in the context of overall employee remuneration. This acknowledges the need to address the gap between the remuneration of executives and those at the lower end of the pay scale.
Bid to set a National Minimum Wage/ National Living Wage
Talks regarding the national minimum wage have taken place throughout 2016, but nothing was legislated. Legislation is expected to be finalised and implemented later in 2017.
Increased regulation of strikes
The debate regarding increased regulation of strikes continued. The government had proposed changes to labour laws regulating strikes, reintroducing compulsory strike ballots and increasing the powers of the Labour Court to intervene in violent strikes, but these were withdrawn following trade union lobbying.
Similar provisions are, however, the subject of a separate on-going engagement process at Nedlac. There is some prospect that improved regulation of strikes will emerge from this process going into 2017.
Parental benefits should be universal – activists
Legislation which looks to offer 10 days of parental leave and new leave provisions for parents who adopt or have children through surrogates which was proposed in 2016 remains in draft form. The Labour Law Amendment Bill (the "Bill") is still subject to on-going consideration and submissions which recognise a disparity between fathers and mothers with regards to parental leave. The Bill proposes that any parent who is not entitled to maternity leave can apply for 10 days' parental leave after a child is born, or, when an adoption order is granted. This leave would be paid for from the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
The Bill is yet to be passed.
Suzanne Horne Partner, Employment Law Department
Kirsty Devine Associate, Employment Law Department
With thanks to Karen Fulton and Lusanda Raphulu of Bowmans for their invaluable collaboration on this update.


text:
Session 12 Synopsis
Real Date: January 24, 2014
In-Game Date: December 24, 2011
Session Title: Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Memorable Quote
Chet: "Hey look - there's Zombies!"
After a brief rest in the townhouse (1), the group moved out the back door and across to another townhouse (2) which they hoped would provide a better view of the radio tower. The back door was ajar and looking in revealed a corpse well on its decomposition journey laying on the kitchen floor. A creaking sound emanated from the second floor and after clearing the rooms of the first floor the group went up to investigate. Additional creaks were heard as they crept down the upstairs hallway. Heading into one of the bedrooms, a bed with bloody linens was lightly investigated. A louder creek was heard as the origin was narrowed down to be from behind what was suspected to be a bathroom door.
Greg opened the door and dispatched a Zombie which attempted to rush out at the sign of fresh meat. Nothing of much interest was found in the bathroom and the group finished clearing out the rest of the second floor. Now turning their attention to the windows facing the tower, several hundred Zombies could be seen milling about the radio station grounds.
Thinking for only a moment, everyone agreed that they needed to set up a diversion to draw some attention away from their target. The group headed Southwest and came to a parking lot infested wtih 30 or so Zombies (3). Not wanting to stir up any problems quite yet, the group quietly moved further west and encountered two Zombies on top of a parking ramp. This way seemed to offer less resistance so Colton took aim with the crossbow and cleared the way without much issue.
The group found a stairwell leading down (4), put down one Zombie waiting within and then quietly dealt with another couple Zombies on the first floor of the ramp. With the ramp seemingly cleared out, progress continued to the West with only a chain link fence slowing things down until Greg clipped through it with his bolt cutter.
(5) Road after coming down from parking ramp
The group now found themselves on a road with a few Zombies to the North and fairly clear to the South (5). It was decided to just leave the Zombies to the North alone and continue South. Unfortunately, a few Zombies hanging out in another parking ramp above the road level spotted the group and alerted the Zombies to the north of the group's presence by some ghastly howls. A few silenced MP5 rounds later and the group continued Southward.
(6) Intersection
As they neared a major intersection (6), Colton spotted a couple Zombies standing around and took them out after an initial miss which fortunately didn't draw any attention. Now at the major intersection, a few scattered Zombies could be seen up and down the cross street. Colton went out to fetch his bolts and unknowingly drew the attention of a few Zombies from the Western stretch of road. Chet was on top of things and took out the threat with his MP5 before any major issues arose.
Now heading Eastward, the group walked past a car with a Zombie strapped in the front seat. It began to howl until Greg punched a hole in its head with his crowbar. Nothing of interest was found in the car and the group continued through the graveyard of parked cars with the thunk of Chet's crossbow occasionally taking out a head bobbing among the cars.
Ahead a tall church bell tower stretched up in the shadows of the large corporate buildings. Ringing bells could possibly provide the diversion they needed... Moving to the church (7), Greg peeked inside doors held partially open by the corpses that littered the ground. Lots of motion could be seen inside and he doubted it was a friendly congregation.
Moving around the side of the church in search for easier entry, the group walked up to what looked like the a side entrance to the bell tower itself (8). The door was locked and Greg began prying at it with his crowbar. As he began to crack off bits of wood, a book landed on the walkway behind the group with a thud. Looking up, no sign of life could be seen.
Bell tower entrance
Surprised that anything alive could still be holed up in the church, a different approach was taken. Greg knocked with the familiar "knock-knock-knock-knock-knock" and quickly heard the responding "knock-kock". Greg loudly whispered "let us in" and was quickly answered with a loudly whispered "no way!".
Backing up a bit and looking around, someone with a rifle trained on the group could be seen taking cover behind a pillar on the roof of the church. Not wanting to risk a confrontation with both the living and the dead, the group decided to just move on and find a different distraction.
Transport van diversion
The group looped around to the back side of the church and looked through several vehicles only to find they lacked batteries. Continuing on, several other vehicles were searched until they came upon a transport van (9) which seemed to have power. Greg used his window opener (crowbar) and granted Chet access to the inside of the vehicle. In a few minutes, Chet wired the horn to an always-on state and the group high-tailed it it to the church and hid next to some air conditioning units (10).
Hiding spot behind the church
After a minute or two, a few Zombies appeared at the far side of the parking lot and moved towards the source of the sound. A few minutes later, several more Zombies headed the same route. Oddly, a couple of them stopped dead in their tracks in the middle of the parking lot and seemed to sense something. Chet and Colton didn't wait around to get spotted and quickly put them down from the safety of their hiding spot.
Crossing the road to the radio station
As the stream of Zombies flowing towards the honking horn began to slow, the group moved cautiously up the side of the church and back to the main road. Greg led the way down the road towards the radio tower and staged in a patio area between two buildings to cross the final road to the station.
It had appeared as though a good portion of the wandering walkers had been successfully drawn away from the radio station property, however the bulk of the herd still remained within the confines of fenced in area surrounding the buildings they hoped to investigate. The group made their move and crossed the street, silently dispatching a handful of Zombies between them and the side of the building.
(11) windows along station building
Quickly, yet cautiously, the group maneuvered along the side of the building and occasionally peeked in the windows lining the wall. One of the windows (11) provided a bit of a surprise as some hungry faces of Zombies pressed against the glass followed by the beating of their clenched fists. The group noted the window and continued moving on and around the corner of the building.
(12) - locked doors with scraping and bumping
Colton and Greg moved in to take a closer look at a pair of doors (12). The first door looked like a small garage door and the second, positioned a few feet from the first, was a metal keypad locked door. Scraping and bumping could be heard behind both doors and the group decided to move on and up the next side of the building.
The East side of the building appeared to be a driveway leading North flanked by a small woods. As the driveway entered what appeared to be a parking garage, the group cautiously looked in to see a large group of Zombies that appeared to have some interest in a metal door (13) inside the garage on the North side. The group withdrew quietly and headed back to the pair of doors they saw earlier.
After briefly trying to gain entry via the doors, they decided to go back and create another diversion to try to draw the Zombies away. They headed back along side the building and across the street. Moving a bit further away from the radio station, the group found themselves in the parking lot they saw several Zombies in soon after leaving the townhouse. No Zombies remained in the lot - likely drawn to their first truck horn diversion. A quick search through the cars revealed one with a working battery as the alarm went off in response to the group's entry attempt.
With the second diversion in play, the group hustled back their now well-worn path along side the building to the Zombies behind the window. With a couple swift hits with Greg's crowbar, the window broke open and the Zombies within finished the job of clearing out the broken shards of glass before being brained as they got half way out the window (11).
Climbing in revealed a small office with several Zombies coming towards the open door from a larger room within. Kim's ax and Greg's crowbar both got a workout allowing the group to move into the large room that connected several offices similar to the one they entered (14). Desks, chairs, and sections of office cube walls barricaded the hallways leading Northeast. Several Zombies could be heard shuffling around behind the obstacles.
Heading Southwest, the group traveled through a hallway and to a door leading into a conference room. Slight motion caught the eye of Greg as their flashlight scanned around the room. Moving in closer, a Zombified head attached to what looked like a mostly eaten body rocked back and forth as the eyes frantically searched for prey. With a quick stab with the crowbar, Greg put the beast down and the group moved out of the room.
The hallway opened up again to a large room filled with cubicles. A few Zombie heads could be seen bobbing above the cube walls, but were quickly put down with Colton's crossbow. A stairwell drew the group's attention and they took it up to the 3rd floor. The halls and rooms to the Northeast were open and after taking care of a few more cube walkers, the group exited into a breezeway (15) leading to the attached parking ramp. The group headed through the ramp and found another stairwell leading down. Exiting cautiously, the group found themselves behind the group of Zombies that were still crowding around the metal door they had seen earlier. A few of the Zombies caught wind of the group and with a loud howl, moved towards them.
With several Zombies in tow, the group headed back into the stairwell and back up to the 3rd floor. Taking up position several yards away from the door, Colton readied his crossbow and took out the first to emerge from the stairwell. Several MP5 rounds later, the stream of Zombies seemed to be increasing and the group decided to run down the stairwell next to the office.
A single Zombie was at the ground floor of the stairs and was quickly shot down by Chet's MP5. The group exited the stairwell and ran across the ramp back towards the metal door. Cautiously peeking around the corner again, the group was pleased to see that the bulk of the Zombie herd had disappeared - probably directly above them on the third floor. A half dozen Zombies still remained in the vicinity of the door which were quickly put down.
Greg knocked on the door (13) and waited for a few seconds. Hearing no answer, he knocked again which was met with an almost immediate opening of the door. A large man with a proportionally large beard greeted them with a hearty "Who are you??". After a brief explanation that they were here to see what happened at the station, the bearded man signaled them all in and down a metal staircase. What appeared to be a generator maintenance room looked to be home to several of the team sent to silence the broadcast advertising the Chinese-run refugee camp and to capture those who started it. The captives could be seen tied and gagged in a corners of the room.
A man with an injured ankle approached the group and introduced himself as Ken. He explained that they were able to capture most of the Chinese group and that they had taken a couple casualties. Greg offered to take a look at Ken's ankle, but he wasn't very interested. Colton and Chet, both running a little low on 9mm ammo to feed their MP5s, asked Ken if they had any extra ammo. Ken called over Anthony, who looked to be barely a teenager, and told him to give all his ammo to Chet. Anthony complied and gave Chet three spare magazines and with an extra prod from Ken, the mag from his handgun. Ken explained that it is probably better that Anthony stick to hand weapons only, but didn't elaborate much more.
The group helped gather up the equipment and prepared to head back out the metal door before another undead crowd gathered. Ken was able to walk at a decent pace, but it was obvious he would be running very far on his ankle. A couple Zombies were found to be hanging around outside the door and were quickly axed. The now much larger group headed out of the garage and walked along the driveway back the way the group originally traveled.
As the group headed across the radio station property they saw a still very large group of Zombies to the North. Greg noticed Anthony nervously fingering the trigger of a rifle from one of the Chinese captives and with a bit of leadership skill was able to calm him down a bit. The group snaked their way back to the townhouse and met only minor resistance. They were able to deal with in a quiet manner and amazingly enough drew very little attention to themselves as they filtered the last of those rescued into the townhouse (1) and shut the door.
Now it was just a matter of 5.5 hours until sundown and the helicopter's scheduled arrival...
Colton 58 470
Chet 61 509
Kim 37 254
Human Interaction Totals
Rescued Killed
Session 0 0
Total 23 5
Posted by Ryan Skow at 9:59 PM No comments:

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Most of our posts are about mounting stuff but after using Waze for the past month, thought it was worthwhile to pass a quick review of this incredible app on to our readers. Waze is a GPS application available on IOS and Android. What sets Waze apart from the hundreds of other GPS apps is the integration of maps, technology and community based feedback to provide a driving experience that will save you time and tickets. I remember a company ten years ago that tried to do this using cell phone transmissions. Needless to say, they didn't last long as the GPS units cost around $500 so usage was minimal.
Take a look at the screen shot that accompanies this post. It highlights a part of the Route 80 corridor in Northern New Jersey. The little policeman head indicates there is a police presence. Waze received this information from an alert driver (or hopefully passenger) that saw the issue and notified Waze. The cat with the crown is a fellow Wazer a mile away. This is tracked by Waze's computers using your GPS coordinates passed to Waze by your phone. If you need gas, there's a BP nearby as seen in the upper left. This is a screen shot taken on a Saturday night so you don't see a lot of activity on the screen. If it were during the day on a weekday, you would see far more activity as Route 80 is a parking lot during rush hour. You will also see some rather interesting activity as the app permits Map Chat where drivers who don't know each other can strike up chats. You see a lot of that going on at around 6PM on Route 80 West here in Northwest New Jersey.
Set your destination into the application and it will provide the most optimal route using current traffic patterns. Garmin, TomTom and others can do this too however what sets Waze apart is the extreme granularity of incident reports and the integration into the route calculation. Wazers report everything from a car in the shoulder to a traffic jam to a police officer giving a ticket to someone. You can verify the presence back to Waze by clicking the thumbs up or by clicking 'not there' as you drive by. As traffic conditions worsen or improve, Waze will change your route to get you to your destination faster.
As an incentive for using Waze, they award points based upon your miles driven and for reporting incidents or providing map corrections. You are then ranked versus other Waze users. You can also provide Waze with access to your Facebook friends and it will rank you against them as well. Accumulate enough points and get to wear a crown on your cartoon car. I guess this is a way to provide incentive to their users without costing Waze (now Google) any money.
Similar to Gas Buddy and a few other similar services, Waze provides gas prices in your vicinity. Click the station of choice and the app automatically routes you there.
Did I mention all of this was free? I was trying to figure out how this app company could be profitable as ads are very seldom. Then I read that Google purchased them for about $1 billion. Makes sense if they integrate it into Google Maps which I suspect is their plan.
While I wholeheartedly recommend this application, I do have concern about the allure of interacting with the application while driving. It can be as dangerous as texting while you drive so leave the incident reporting to your passengers or use the integrated voice function.
If you would like to read a good article on phone mounts which will make using Waze more fun, you may view it here.


text:
Hitachi steht für:

 Hitachi (Ibaraki), Stadt in der Präfektur Ibaraki in Japan
 Provinz Hitachi, ehemalige japanische Provinz auf dem Gebiet der heutigen Präfektur Ibaraki
 Hitachi (Unternehmen), japanisches Elektro- und Maschinenbauunternehmen
 Hitachi Transportation Systems, Bahnfahrzeugsparte

Hitachi ist der Familienname/Titel folgender Personen:
 Prinzessin Hanako Hitachi (* 1940)
 Prinz Masahito Hitachi (* 1935)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Gilbert Grape is a small-town young man with a lot of responsibility. Chief among his concerns are his mother, who is so overweight that she can't leave the house, and his mentally impaired younger brother, Arnie, who has a knack for finding trouble. Settled into a job at a grocery store and an ongoing affair with local woman Betty Carver, Gilbert finally has his life shaken up by the free-spirited Becky.
Studio: Paramount, J&M Entertainment
Keyword: sibling relationship, mentally disabled, based on novel or book, iowa, widow, obesity, dysfunctional family, single mother, grocery store, mentally handicapped child
Cast: Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, Mary Steenburgen, Darlene Cates, Laura Harrington
When an insatiable great white shark terrorizes the townspeople of Amity Island, the police chief, an oceanographer and a grizzled shark hunter seek...
A former Secret Service agent grudgingly takes an assignment to protect a pop idol who's threatened by a crazed fan. At first, the safety-obsessed...
Heroin addict Mark Renton stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends -- Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Tommy. He also...
Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their...
Young Dorothy finds herself in a magical world where she makes friends with a lion, a scarecrow and a tin man as they make their way along the yellow...
In year 1250 B.C. during the late Bronze age, two emerging nations begin to clash. Paris, the Trojan prince, convinces Helen, Queen of Sparta, to...
Special agent 007 comes face to face with one of the most notorious villains of all time, and now he must outwit and outgun the powerful tycoon to...
Harry Potter has lived under the stairs at his aunt and uncle's house his whole life. But on his 11th birthday, he learns he's a powerful...
When Harry Potter's name emerges from the Goblet of Fire, he becomes a competitor in a grueling battle for glory among three wizarding...
A radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever picked up on Earth. As the world powers scramble to decipher the message and...
Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.
Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the...
Young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan decides it's time for an adventure after he finishes his formal education, so he decides to try his luck in...
Dr. Henry Frankenstein attempts to create life by assembling a creature from body parts of the deceased. Aided by his loyal misshapen assistant,...
A successful physician and devoted family man, John Dolittle seems to have the world by the tail, until a long suppressed talent he possessed as a...


text:
Q: I need help plotting this graph in R Here is my data:
t2=[89221345,87542657,90886527]
t1=[0.5,0.5,0.1]
I need to plot a graph so that the x axis has labels set to the values in t1 and the y axis are the corresponding t2 values. The x axis correspond to VIN numbers, so they need to be evenly spaced, and discrete points on the axis that are labaled. When i try plotting them by using plot(t2,t1), I see three big blocks on screen that don't make any sense to me.
Thanks!!

A: How about this?
require(ggplot2)
t2<-c(89221345,87542657,90886527)
t1<-c(0.5,0.5,0.1)
qplot(factor(t2),t1)+geom_point(size=5)+
  theme(axis.text.x=element_text(angle=-90))

A: See this article.
t1=c(0.5,0.5,0.1)
t2=c(89221345,87542657,90886527)
plot(1:3,t2,xaxt="n",xlab="VIN")
axis(1,at=1:3,labels=t1)

A: I'm assuming that t2 are your VINs. Start of by defining the data like R would expect:
t2 <- c(89221345, 87542657, 90886527)
t1 <- c(0.5, 0.5, 0.1)
plot(t2,t1,xlab="VIN",ylab="???")

This will generate a plot with points at (89221345, 0.5), (87542657, 0.5), and (90886527, 0.1). The plot() command is looking for at minimum a vector of x values (first argument) and a vector of y values (second argument).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
New Director of Culture, Sport and Tourism for Welsh Government
The Welsh Government have announce that Jason Thomas has recently been appointed the new Director for Culture, Tourism and Sport and brings a wealth of varied experience to the role.
Before taking up this post, Jason led both Cadw and the Museums, Archives and Libraries Divisions within the Welsh Government. Prior to this Jason was seconded to Cardiff Airport as the Chief of Staff, where he played a key role in transforming the airport once it came under public ownership.
Jason has worked for Welsh Government the majority of his career, particularly within the Department for Economy and Infrastructure, and has led a number of major government programmes, projects and successful teams.
Jason leads a Directorate of around 400 people working across the whole of Wales, is accountable for a budget of circa £115m and looks forward to working with the Wales Tourism industry.
Recent All Part Parliamentary Group (APPG) and UK Parliamentary Select Committee inquiry updates
Tourism levies. Your views sought
Please do share your thoughts and comments Cancel reply


Use ONLY on clean, cool paint and out of direct sunlight. DO NOT work on the surface below 15°C and over 50°C. Please use in an inconspicuous place for the first time in case of unexpected adverse effects on paint surface.
Very good quality pad, execellent results, easy to use.


What are the top 5 legal cover mistakes most mentioned by employers. Learn what they are and how to stay away from them.
Great lawyer resumes should be paired with excellent attorney cover letters. This is an applicant's first chance to catch the attention of an employer as it is usually read before the resume. Employers read this document only for a minute or two to determine if your resume is worth examining. So be direct and go straight to the point.
An attorney cover letter serves two purposes: to cover the gaps left by the resume, and to make your case to a potential employer as to why you should be considered for the position.
Your law student cover letter is akin to a writing sample provided to potential employers. It's a test that you must pass. If the cover letter has grammatical mistakes, poor structure, and unclear writing, you might not get the full consideration you deserve. If you are going to be drafting your own cover letter, here are some tips to make your letter error free and ready to make good impression on employers.


text:
Jessica Chastain In "Vogue"
Sneak Peek new images of actress Jessica Chastain ("Interstellar") in the June 2017 issue of "Vogue" (Spain), photographed by Mario Sorrenti, wearing Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Givenchy and a whole lot more:
After graduating in 2003 from New York's Juilliard drama school Chastain nurtured her craft until 2011...
...then appeared in four films in quick succession including "The Tree of Life", "Take Shelter", "The Help" and "The Debt", followed by "Zero Dark Thirty", gaining her an Oscar nomination.
Starring in "Interstellar", Chastain's other features include "A Most Violent Year", "Crimson Peak", "The Zookeeper's Wife" and "The Martian".
"Probably there are some people who feel great about themselves," said Chastain.
"...and don't second-guess anything they say or do or wear, but that's just not me..."
Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek Jessica Chastain...
Posted by Michael Stevens on Tuesday, June 06, 2017


text:
African Auschwitz: The Concentration Camps of Darfur; The UN and the International Community Are Acquiescing in Genocide, May 12, 2004
15 December 2004 | Early Analyses and Advocacy | Author: ereeves | 3429 words
Eric Reeves, 12 May 2004
There are no trains leading to the death camps of Darfur: transportation takes the form of militarily coerced displacement, forcing the African tribal peoples of Darfur, bereft of all resources, to trek over a harsh and unforgiving landscape. We have no idea how many have perished on these journeys of terror because the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum has worked to restrict all news access and continues to impede humanitarian access to all but a few areas. But we can be sure that the number is measured in the tens of thousands.
There are no crematoria in the Darfur camps: blistering heat, rapid decomposition, and scavenging animals have disposed of most of the bodies to date, and Khartoum's military transport assets are now removing many more bodies from the sites of better reported atrocities and mass executions, dumping them in remote locations. Still, when the death rate soars, when engineered famine begins to accelerate beyond control later this fall, the bodies will simply decompose where they fall. The vast piles of corpses—presently missing from the picture of genocide that is evidently required for UN or international action—will be fully in evidence.
The camps will then be abandoned by Khartoum and its Arab militia allies (the Janjaweed), their genocidal task completed. Survivors, the few who manage to fashion a means of existence over these cruel months, will have no land to which to return. Their livelihoods and culture will have been destroyed. Present skeptics about whether there is genocide in Darfur will no doubt retreat into variously disingenuous professions of ignorance: "we didn't know that conditions were so bad," or "we didn't have the pictures," or most disgracefully, asking "how could we have known that this would happen?"
But there is no ambiguity in Darfur. There is no lack of unassailable evidence or authority in previously conducted human rights investigations, especially by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Even the recently released UN report on the human rights catastrophe in Darfur, hedged and trimmed by the political realities of the UN in New York, makes fully clear the immense human suffering and destruction deriving from Khartoum's genocidal ambitions.
Within this widespread, deliberate, and systematic assault on the African civilian populations of Darfur a new holocaust is burning. Genocide has begun again, threatening the Fur, the Massaleit, the Zaghawa, and other African peoples—"as such."
Khartoum's strategy of massive civilian displacement has been in place for over a year, generating a highly vulnerable population of well over 1 million Darfuri people, overwhelmingly from the African tribal groups of the region. This is the population that continues to fill badly overcrowded camps, in conditions that are presently appalling and rapidly deteriorating. These camps are already ghastly arenas of catastrophic child mortality, acute malnutrition and water shortages, surging disease rates, even as entire inmate populations face rape, torture, and murder on a daily basis. It will soon become much worse.
There are no sanitary provisions in the camps. As a consequence, disease—especially the water-borne diseases that will very soon proliferate with the impending seasonal rains—looms as the source of many tens of thousands of casualties in the very near future. Outbreaks of cholera have been reported, and meningitis above the "epidemic" threshold has been reported in at least one camp for the displaced in Chad. Cholera, while eminently treatable with proper medical intervention, is likely to spread uncontrollably soon, taking huge numbers of casualties. Measles, frequently fatal among weakened child populations, has been reported in a number of locations. The already catastrophic child mortality rates will soon spiral out of control.
But, perversely, the camps continue to beckon as "safe havens" from the military threat of Khartoum and its Janjaweed militia allies; unconstrained and ongoing savagery has turned the lands of the Fur, the Massaleit, the Zaghawa, and others into killing fields. Terror beyond description has left these agriculturally productive civilians no choice but to flee toward camps located throughout Darfur and spilling into Chad. In turn, the camps in Darfur are controlled by Khartoum's regular military and intelligence forces, and by the Janjaweed. Ominously, control is often relegated entirely to the Janjaweed.
[Cross-border raids by the Janjaweed into Chad, against refugee camps and Chadian villages, are also being reported by international news services and humanitarian organizations on an ongoing basis. See Reuters, May 5, 2004; Agence France-Presse, May 5 & 8, 2004; BBC May 6 & 8, 2004; Associated Press, May 9, 2004]
Once in the camps, the displaced Darfuris becomes inmates—restrained by force, by the surrounding presence of menacing Janjaweed forces, and by a desperate hope for the food and security that no longer exist in their homelands. This hope seems no more warranted than that offered to European Jews in the form of Nazi promises of work and survival to "the east."
In the main, there is no escape from the camps, even when it becomes clear that the most likely fate they offer is extermination through disease, starvation, and murder.
The camps, to be sure, vary considerably—depending largely on whether or not there is an international humanitarian presence. But food is rapidly running out throughout Darfur, and there are not nearly enough pre-positioned stocks for the coming months. The very Janjaweed militias that have done most to disrupt food production in Darfur will commandeer (as they already have on a number of occasions) future humanitarian deliveries. UN maps of the increasingly numerous and overcrowded camps make clear that humanitarian access and presence is already extremely limited. When the food does run out, this will precipitate a radically new and extraordinarily dangerous humanitarian crisis for which there is no contemplated response.
For the present, we may be sure that all too many of the camps are like the Kailek concentration camp south of Kass in South Darfur, definitively assessed by a UN inter-agency team in late April ("Report: A United Nations Inter-Agency fact-finding and humanitarian needs assessment mission, Kailek, South Darfur, 24 April 2004" [this team is not the UN human rights investigative team whose report on Darfur was suppressed at the annual Geneva meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights, though press accounts have blurred this fact]).
Most strikingly, the UN inter-agency team made clear that the realities of the Kailek concentration camp justify an explicit comparison between Darfur and Rwanda. Their report thus joins a growing chorus of human rights and humanitarian professionals who find the Rwandan genocide the only appropriate point of historical reference.
Mukesh Kapila, former UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, declared in the closing days of his tenure that "the only difference between Rwanda and Darfur now is the number" of casualties, and that Darfur was not simply a conflict but an "organized attempt to do away" with ethnically defined groups of people (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, March 22, 2004). Kapila was in Rwanda at the time of the genocide in 1994.
Samantha Power, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning study of genocide, expressed at a recent Congressional hearing on Rwanda her fear that, "in ten years we'll be sitting on a similar panel," talking about Darfur instead of Rwanda.
John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group very recently spoke of Darfur and Sudan generally as "Rwanda in slow motion" ("Ethnic Cleansing in Darfur: A New Front Opens in Sudan's Bloody War," before the House Committee on International Relations, May 6, 2004)
Human Rights Watch, in the introduction to its powerful new report on Darfur, based on deeply important research in both Darfur and Chad, declares: "Ten years after the Rwandan genocide and despite years of soul-searching, the response of the international community to the events in Sudan has been nothing short of shameful" ("Darfur Destroyed: Ethnic Cleansing by Government and Militia Forces in Western Sudan," Human Rights Watch, May 6, 2004)
What did the UN team find in Kailek? It is important to note first the team's keen awareness that it caught only a glimpse of the horrors of the camps: "We are sure that the team would have learned more about the crimes committed against civilians in the region had it been granted wider access to the areas of conflict. The stories that we have received from the survivors of the acts of mass murder are very painful for us and they remind us of the brutalities of the Rwanda genocide."
Kailek may have gained sufficient profile to force a UN investigation, but there are now dozens of camps completely beyond reach, beyond scrutiny, and in all likelihood beyond hope. The total population is likely pushing toward 1 million, as more and more of the displaced see no option but to enter the camps.
In aggregate, these concentration camps in Darfur have become an African Auschwitz. Their purpose is human destruction. Those being destroyed have been displaced and concentrated in these camps because of who they are, because of their racial/ethnic identity as Fur, Massaleit, Zaghawa, and members of other African tribal groups.
The specific findings at Kailek thus demand the closest possible attention, as access to other camps will now likely be even more severely restricted (Khartoum's obstructionism is highlighted at several points in the UN team's report). We are morally obliged to infer from this limited data larger conclusions about the camps throughout Darfur:
The UN team found that "the circumstances of the internally displaced persons in Kailek [must] be described as imprisonment."
The team found that, "with a under five child mortality rate of 8-9 children per day due to malnutrition, and with the Government of Sudan security representatives permanently located in the town without having reported this phenomena to the UN, despite it having taken place for several weeks, [this] also indicates a local policy of forced starvation."
The team found that, "the numerous testimonies collected by the team, substantiated by the actual observations on the ground, particularly the longstanding prevention of access to food, alludes to a strategy of systematic and deliberate starvation being enforced by the Government of Sudan and its security forces on the ground."
The team found that, "the Government of Sudan has deliberately deceived the United Nations by repeatedly refuting claims to the seriousness of the situation in Kailek as well as having actively resisted the need for intervention by preventing the UN access to the area."
And the team also found that, "despite having been directly informed of the grave findings made by the UN mission in Kailek, the Government of Sudan continues to stall any concrete actions related to this urgent relocation."
"Strategy of systematic and deliberate starvation," "imprisonment," a "policy of forced starvation," an unreported "child mortality rate of 8-9 per day," and the continued obstruction of humanitarian aid for this critically distressed, forcibly confined population—and the explicit comparison, by professional humanitarian aid workers, to Rwanda.
This is genocide.
Numerous reports coming to this writer on a daily basis from Darfuri sources, including the original source reporting on conditions in Kailek, make clear that this particular camp is distinctive only by virtue of having come under scrutiny. Unsurprisingly, Khartoum is actively working to diminish this scrutiny, and there is considerable evidence of the regime's success in silencing witnesses to the realities of Darfur. For example, Sudan Organization Against Torture (SOAT) reports (May 10, 2004) that a number of people from the Fur tribe were arrested for meeting with the International Committee of the Red Cross on May 9, 2004 in order to report on human rights abuses, graves containing bodies from mass executions, and conditions in the camps of Darfur. The men are all being held incommunicado in the regime's Kabkabia security offices (SOAT press release, May 10, 2004). There are scores of such reports.
But tragically, the most painfully telling feature of the Auschwitz analogy is the international response to the crisis, and the increasingly contrived refusal to accept or assign responsibility for what is occurring in Darfur. Nowhere is this rapidly compounding moral failure clearer than at the United Nations. Here, Bertrand Ramcharan, acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, offers a signal example of such failure. In presenting a UN human rights report on Darfur, Ramcharan declared: "first, there is a reign of terror in this areas; second, there is a scorched-earth policy; third, there is repeated war crime sand crimes against humanity; and fourth, this is taking place before our very eyes" (Associated Press, May 8, 2004)
But while declaring further that the Khartoum regime "clearly has supported the militias, organized the militias, and this is taking place with the knowledge and support, and the active complicity of the [Khartoum] government," Ramcharan concluded with a spineless bit of semantic incoherence:
"But when asked if he held the government of Sudan responsible for the atrocities, Ramcharan said: 'I condemn the government of Sudan and I do not think it was responsible." (Associated Press, May 8, 2004)
Out of such diplomatic failure of nerve and dishonesty, genocides are fashioned.
For the destruction of Darfur is not spontaneously occurring. Nor is it mere "collateral damage," as Khartoum's ambassador to the UN, Fatih Erwa, declared in his contemptuous response to the findings in the UN report (Reuters, May 7, 2004). On the contrary, Khartoum's campaign of displacement and its system of concentration camps amount to deliberate, systematic, widespread human destruction animated by racial/ethnic hatred. It can be halted only if the genocidaires in Khartoum, who have so far enjoyed immunity from any meaningful international sanctions, are held accountable, and presented with an ultimatum for humanitarian intervention.
All too predictably, the UN Security Council—though fully briefed by Ramcharan and by the UN humanitarian assessment team recently back from Darfur—declined at the end of last week (May 8, 2004) to condemn Khartoum, let along begin the urgent task of planning for an international humanitarian intervention. The long slide toward utter catastrophe in Darfur continues to accelerate.
For humanitarian intervention, so conspicuously unmentioned by the Security Council, is now all that can save hundreds of thousands of Darfuri civilians. Plans for such intervention must confront squarely and honestly the present realities in Darfur if there is to be any chance for real success. Comments like those by Ramcharan, silence on the part of the UN Security Council, and suggestions from various quarters that the humanitarian crisis is somehow still manageable—all make the task of a meaningful response more difficult.
For the first truth that must be acknowledged is that this catastrophe can no longer be averted, only mitigated. As many as fifty thousand or more may have died already; more than twice that number will surely die in the next few months. The world simply must not learn to live with a moral or geopolitical calculus in which the deaths of well over 100,000 Africans are acceptable, or count as anything but a profound international failure.
Secondly, the greatest challenge over the next eighteen months will be providing food for a population that has now missed the planting season that might have produced a critically important fall harvest. This planting season has been missed because there is no security from Janjaweed predations, even as most of those who have been displaced from their lands are desperate to return. Without this fall harvest, and with their own food reserves already exhausted, the people of Darfur will require humanitarian food assistance for more than a year. The affected population is well over 1 million. 1.2 million is the most recent figure from the US Agency for International Development for the war-affected population, and this number continues to grow steadily.
The only way in which food in sufficient quantity can be supplied for a population this large and dependent, over an extended period of time, is by overland transport. Airlifting such quantities of food for so many people is simply not practicable over the longer term. Since the road arteries between Chad and Darfur will shortly be fully severed by the seasonal rains, the most logistically suitable means of transport is Sudan's rail line from Port Sudan through El Obeid, terminating in Nyala (South Darfur). The challenges of such food transport by rail are very considerable (see previous analysis of the subject by this writer; available upon request). Implementation will almost certainly entail an infringement upon Khartoum's inevitable claim of "national sovereignty."
But this only serves to put the real issue in the starkest possible form: is the international community prepared to allow Khartoum's genocidaires to obstruct food aid to over 1 million people? Is the international community prepared to accept the hundreds of thousands of casualties that will follow from such obstruction? Roger Winter, Assistant Administrator at the US Agency for International Development, testified before the full House International Relations Committee on May 6, 2004 that the number of dead would be between 300,000 and 400,000 if humanitarian access and security in Darfur did not increase dramatically. Is this a number that we may in any way countenance? Can we do so without giving full meaning to Prendergast's terrible phrase: Darfur "is Rwanda in slow motion"?
Acquiescing in Khartoum's claim of "national sovereignty," given the inevitable consequences, is morally indistinguishable from the international refusal to intervene in Rwanda during the 100 days of slaughter in the spring of 1994. The international community either does what is necessary to provide food, and security on the ground in Darfur—especially in liberating the death camps and protecting humanitarian workers and assets–or we will indeed be holding meaningless hearings on Darfur ten years from now.
To be sure, some in the UN and the international community are desperate not to confront Khartoum, given the regime's continued support from the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Countries. And some are dignifying their refusal to act by virtue of a contrived agnosticism. Thoroughly persuasive accounts have reached this writer of high-level expressions of doubt within the UN and some nongovernmental organizations about the scale of Darfur's catastrophe. Human rights organizations are being accused of rushing to conclusions, generalizing from insufficient and doubtful data. Again the cynically skeptical query, "where are the piles of dead bodies?"
The question is posed with what seems an astonishingly willful ignorance of both the terms of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, as well as the statistical data that is now available. It certainly takes no cognizance of a key element of the definition of genocide found in the 1948 Convention:
"Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." (Article 2, clause [c], 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide)
Perhaps because this language—so clearly characterizing Khartoum's actions in Darfur—does not require "piles of dead bodies" to justify a finding of genocide, there has been a corresponding skepticism about the projected morality rates for Darfur, particularly the projections of the US Agency for International Development (see data at http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/sudan/cmr_darfur.pdf). The data for these projections were the basis for much of US AID Assistant Administrator Roger Winter's recent Congressional testimony. Despite the authority of these data, they seem to have become a focus for doubt, if not scorn. Such doubt and scorn are perversely misplaced.
The epidemiological data in the US AID chart for Darfur draw fully on data from famines in Ethiopia and in Bahr el-Ghazal Province in southern Sudan (1998). US AID's superb epidemiological experts for this particular report have drawn on the most current data available from Darfur. The authority of the data and methods easily withstands the expedient carping of those evidently intent on downplaying the largest implications of Darfur's catastrophe. The realities in Darfur are in fact so shocking, so clearly bespeak genocide, that we must surmise that there are some who simply wish to avoid the difficult decisions about humanitarian intervention in Darfur, decisions forced by these uncomfortable truths.
But whatever the urges of expediency, we cannot wish away Assistant Administrator Winter's figure for deaths from the impending famine and epidemics: 300,000 to 400,000 without dramatically improved humanitarian access and security.
Yet such improvements in access and security are nowhere in sight; nor is there any honest discussion of the means necessary to provide them. All that is apparent is a shameful willingness to continue with present efforts, wholly inadequate, despite a clearly imminent cataclysm.
For those cynical skeptics determined to see the "piles of dead bodies," the wait will not be long. To be sure, they will not be the images familiar from Auschwitz or Rwanda…these have their own terrible singularity. As Samantha Power has recently reminded us, no two genocides are alike.
But the "piles of dead bodies" will soon be in evidence in Darfur. And they will be enough. They will be more than enough.
ereeves@smith.edu


text:
Q: Adding tooltip for TableViewer Cells doesn't work This answer explains how to set tooltips for a table viewer cell. I tried to follow that but it doesn't work. This is my code:
TableViewer coTableViewer = createBasicTableViewer(coDetailsComposite);
TableViewerColumn labelColumn = new TableViewerColumn(coTableViewer, SWT.NONE);
coTableViewer.getControl().setLayoutData(new GridData(SWT.FILL, SWT.FILL, true, true));

labelColumn.getColumn().setText("Property");
ColumnViewerToolTipSupport.enableFor(coTableViewer);

EditingSupport coTableEditingSupport = new CoTableEditingSupport(coTableViewer, treeViewer, this, valueColumn.getViewer(), outlineElements);
valueColumn.setEditingSupport(coTableEditingSupport);

coTableViewer.setContentProvider(new CoTableContentProvider());
// coTableViewer.setLabelProvider(new CoTableLabelProvider());
labelColumn.setLabelProvider(new CoTableLabelProvider(0));
valueColumn.setLabelProvider(new CoTableLabelProvider(1));

As you can see I have set a label provider to the two TableViewerColumn instances. The label provider is derived from ColumnLabelProvider and overrides getColumnText. This part works. But the getToolTipText method is never called. What am I missing here?
public final class CoTableLabelProvider extends ColumnLabelProvider implements ITableLabelProvider {

    private int columnIndex;
    public CoTableLabelProvider(int columnIndex) {
        super();
        this.columnIndex = columnIndex;
    }

    public Image getColumnImage(Object element, int columnIndex) {
        return null;
    }

    public String getColumnText(Object element, int columnIndex) {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    // this method works
    public String getText(Object element) {
        if (element instanceof ...) {
            if (columnIndex == 0) {
                ...
            } else if (columnIndex == 1) {
                ...
            }
        }
        return "";
    }

    @Override
    public String getToolTipText(Object element) {
        return "hello";
    }
}


text:
Netflix puts Red Notice production on hold over coronavirus
Netflix has halted production on action heist thriller Red Notice, starring Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, amid coronavirus scare. The cast and crew will be getting paid during the two-week hiatus.
By: PTI | Los Angeles | March 15, 2020 1:10:54 pm
Red Notice stars Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds.
Netflix has halted production on action heist thriller Red Notice, starring Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, amid coronavirus scare.
According to Variety, the film was being shot across the world since February but the production had recently moved to Atlanta.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the production will be on "pause" for two weeks, effective this Monday, Johnson announced on Instagram on Saturday.
"It's my privilege to speak eye to eye with our entire crew to help give a little clarity and guidance, as the most important thing right now is for us to get everyone home to their concerned families. Gotta protect our babies, spouses, loved ones and elderly," the former wrestling star wrote.
The 47-year-old actor said they will continue to monitor and assess the situation closely to make the best decisions for their families first and then their businesses.
We are pressing pause on our @netflix production of RED NOTICE effective this Monday for the next two weeks. It's my privilege to speak eye to eye with our entire crew to help give a little clarity and guidance, as the most important thing right now is for us to get everyone home to their concerned families. Gotta protect our babies, spouses, loved ones and elderly. We'll continue to monitor and assess this situation closely to make the best decisions for our families first and then our businesses. We're a resilient nation who ultimately, will always rise to the occasion to be accountable and work together to overcome whatever hardship lies in front of us. Our country will do its job, as the rest of the world will do theirs. Everyone please stay healthy, vigilant, safe and let's protect one another. We're all in this – together. DJ @sevenbucksprod @flynnpictureco @Netflix
A post shared by therock (@therock) on Mar 14, 2020 at 11:06am PDT
"We're a resilient nation who ultimately, will always rise to the occasion to be accountable and work together to overcome whatever hardship lies in front of us. Our country will do its job, as the rest of the world will do theirs," he said.
"Everyone please stay healthy, vigilant, safe and let's protect one another. We're all in this – together," he added.
The cast and crew will be getting paid during the two-week hiatus.
It is unknown when the shoot was going to end, though the film had yet to be given a release date by the streamer.
Red Notice is directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber.
Thurber has earlier directed Johnson in Central Intelligence and Skyscraper and Gadot will reunite with her Fast and Furious co-star on the project.
For all the latest Entertainment News, download Indian Express App.
EntertainmentMaster box office collection Day 3: Vijay-starrer enters Rs 100 crore club
10 photos from Hina Khan's visit to vineyards
10 photos from Hina Khan's visit to vineyards with boyfriend Rocky Jaiswal
11 pics from Karan Patel and Ankita Bhargava's Maldives vacation
11 celebrity photos you should not miss today


text:
HomeNewsIndia bags a total of $638 million investment in blockchain and cryptocurrency...
India bags a total of $638 million investment in blockchain and cryptocurrency in 2021
By Soumen Datta
2021 was a great year for Blockchain and Cryptocurrency startups in India. A total of $638 million was invested across industries in 48 rounds. According to reports, globally, the total funding in crypto and blockchain stood at $24.86 billion across 930 funding rounds.
Earlier in 2021, several successful blockchain projects came out of India. This includes Polygon, SoluLab, Instadapp, OpenXcell, Deqode, and others. Also, the year 2021, has seen a rising awareness and interest among retail investors to invest in cryptocurrencies and tokens. Thus it is normal for investors to have confidence in this growing developer ecosystem as the demand will rise more in the next few years.
Foreign investors into the booming ecosystem of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
International funds such as Pantera Capital and Coinbase Ventures, and entrepreneur investors like Mark Cuban, have been actively investing in blockchain and cryptocurrency startups founded by Indians.
Adding to that, Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm also entered India this year through its investment in crypto selling platform CoinSwitch Kuber. Recently, San Mateo, California-based VC firm Draper Dragon has also set up an India practice. Furthermore, Antler India is looking to invest in 25-30 startups in the blockchain and Web 3.0 space in the next 2-3 years.
But, what about the Indian investors?
Many Indian investors are cautious due to the lack of a regulatory framework and the possibility of a blanket ban.
But still, many don't want to miss the opportunity of early participation. For instance, Elevation Capital, Sequoia Capital India, and Kalaari Capital have backed several blockchains and crypto projects in India. This includes non-fungible token (NFT) projects, decentralized finance (Defi), as well as other ventures.
"The potential of the crypto and blockchain space is very evident. This is something we've been keenly looking to invest in"
Vaas Bhaskar, Vice president at Elevation Capital
The absolute investment is still modest as high-growth Indian startups receive more. But it is notable with the interest of the large VC funds in backing some of these companies.
According to a Chainalysis report from October 2021, the Indian crypto market grew by 641% from July 2020 to June 2021. This development will help turn a region spanning central and southern Asia and Oceania into one of the world's fastest-growing cryptocurrency markets, according to top experts.
However, the bulk of the capital this year was invested in crypto selling platforms, including CoinDCX and CoinSwitch Kuber. This helped both of the startups surpass valuations of $1 billion, making them unicorns.
According to experts, the Web 3.0 space, which encompasses decentralized tools and projects including NFTs, crypto exchanges, and protocols, will attract capital this year as well.


text:
T.R. Ramachandran, group country manager, Visa India, and South Asia. Photo: Mint
Visa token service will protect and devalue data: T.R. Ramachandran
2 min read . Updated: 23 Mar 2017, 06:27 AM IST Komal Gupta, Remya Nair
Visa India boss T.R. Ramachandran says the visa token service is the underlying foundation for most of the new stuff going to happen in the digital payments space
mint-india-wire Visa IndiaTR RamachandranVisa token servicedigital paymentsSamsung Payonline transactionsmobile paymentsdebit cardscredit cardsmobile wallets
New Delhi: Replacing the traditional way of making payments through plastic cards with a unique digital identifier for processing mobile and online payments could go a long way in protecting digital transactions, T.R. Ramachandran, group country manager, Visa India, and South Asia, said in an interview. Edited excerpts:
What is the Visa Token Service (VTS)?
Visa token service is the underlying foundation for most of the new stuff that is going to happen in the payments space. It will be as important as the magnetic stripe was 25 years ago or chip technology was 10 years ago. It effectively converts your 16 digit personal account number (PAN) into a digital token. So when something is being transmitted, the PAN credentials are not transmitted but a digital token that is native to your device.
This will protect data but more importantly it will devalue the data. Even if the information falls into the wrong hands, it will be useless as you cannot decrypt it.
Will this help in preventing the recent data breaches that the Indian banking system saw?
It will go a long way in avoiding that. The beauty is that it can be hacked but what will you get when you hack it? It devalues the entire data.
It strengthens and augments the security layer especially when customers' credentials pass from one form factor to another or when they use more than one device.
Most of the devices are going to be connected devices in the world. The fundamental foundation for all these connected devices to have invisible convenient payments will be something like VTS. It is safer than the magnetic stripes.
How do you see this technology growing vis a vis cards?
In a country like India, both will grow hand in hand.
Everyone has a payment credential. The challenge is how to make it ubiquitous---increasing the acceptance points and how do you make sure that it is being used in non-discretionary categories.
In India, digital penetration among discretionary categories is pretty high. Whether it is restaurant or hotel bills, shopping or movies, air and train bookings, it is about 50-60% digitized. But when you talk about non-discretionary spending---buying rice and atta (flour), (paying) dentist bills, chemists or transport (except rail), digital spends are still less than 10%.
So any form factor that allows this share to increase to 20-30%, they will all coexist for some time. Then the market will settle and then probably it will become completely mobile or something else happens. We don't know what will happen.
Samsung Pay is the first in the country to use this technology, what next?
It can be used anywhere related to mobile payments. For example, in the US, each bank has their HCE or Host Card Emulation wallet which is like Samsung Pay but is used by them to store only their card details and make payments, most of this ride on VTS. In the US, Apple Pay also rides on VTS.
India's acceptance infrastructure is still not ready for digital payments, do you agree?
Yes, absolutely. I think India needs a lot more digital acceptance points but I would say that we have seen arguably more progress in the last five months than in the last five years put together. The number of terminals in the market was around 1.6 million till 7 November 2016 and from 8 November (the date of demonetisation) to March, there has been around 800,000 new terminals installed and by June there will be a million more.


text:
Half an Inch of Water: Stories
Percival Everett (Author)
FORMAT
Paperback$16.00(English)

A new collection of stories set in the West from one of the most gifted and versatile of contemporary writers (NPR)
Percival Everett's long-awaited new collection of stories, his first since 2004's Damned If I Do, finds him traversing the West with characteristic restlessness. A deaf Native American girl wanders off into the desert and is found untouched in a den of rattlesnakes. A young boy copes with the death of his sister by angling for an unnaturally large trout in the creek where she drowned. An old woman rides her horse into a mountain snowstorm and sees a long-dead beloved dog.
For the plainspoken men and women of these stories--fathers and daughters, sheriffs and veterinarians--small events trigger sudden shifts in which the ordinary becomes unfamiliar. A harmless comment about how to ride a horse changes the course of a relationship, a snakebite gives rise to hallucinations, and the hunt for a missing man reveals his uncanny resemblance to an actor. Half an Inch of Water tears through the fabric of the everyday to examine what lies beneath the surface of these lives. In the hands of master storyteller Everett, the act of questioning leads to vistas more strange and unsettling than could ever have been expected.
5.5 X 0.5 X 8.2 inches | 0.5 pounds
Short Stories (single author)
Percival Everett is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California and the author of nearly thirty books, including Percival Everett by Virgil Russell, Assumption, Erasure, I Am Not Sidney Poitier, and Glyph. He is the recipient of the Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Believer Book Award, and the 2006 PEN USA Center Award for Fiction. He has fly-fished the west for more than thirty years. He lives in Los Angeles.
Praise for "Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
"[A] stark, shattering novel . . . Deeply moving." --"The Wall Street Journal
"Percival Everett numbers among his very best." --Lydia Millet, "Los Angeles Times
"Funny, insightful, and unpredictable . . . Everett is a master of his trade." --"Time Out Chicago"
[A] stark, shattering novel . . . Deeply moving. "The Wall Street Journal on Percival Everett by Virgil Russell"
Percival Everett numbers among his very best. "Lydia Millet, Los Angeles Times on Percival Everett by Virgil Russell"
Funny, insightful, and unpredictable . . . Everett is a master of his trade. "Time Out Chicago on Percival Everett by Virgil Russell""
[A] stark, shattering novel . . . Deeply moving. The Wall Street Journal on Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
Percival Everett numbers among his very best. Lydia Millet, Los Angeles Times on Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
Funny, insightful, and unpredictable . . . Everett is a master of his trade. Time Out Chicago on Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
"[A] stark, shattering novel . . . Deeply moving." --The Wall Street Journal on Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
"Percival Everett numbers among his very best." --Lydia Millet, Los Angeles Times on Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
"Funny, insightful, and unpredictable . . . Everett is a master of his trade." --Time Out Chicago on Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
Motherhood Books for Moms Who Don't Like Mushy Books About Motherhood
by Trista Edwards View all (3)


text:
Norway's coalition party 'may push' for oil and gas tax break
Norway's Christian Democrats may push to reduce tax incentives for oil and gas investments as the party starts talks to join the Conservative-led government.
The Johan Sverdrup riser platform, operated by Equinor ASA, center, and the Safe Zephyrus mobile accommodation unit, operated by Prosafe SE, stand in the Johan Sverdrup offshore oil field, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of Norway's oil capital, Stavanger, Norway, on Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018. When Sverdrup reaches maximum production of 660,000 barrels a day by the middle of the next decade, it will make up about 40 percent of the country's total oil and gas output, according to Equinor ASA. Photographer: Mikael Holter/Bloomberg
Norway needs to make sure its tax system doesn't provide too much incentive to invest in petroleum projects that could be threatened by efforts to curb climate change, lawmaker Tore Storehaug said. A review would focus on the so-called uplift, which allows for extra deductions, and the level of exploration refunds.
"We need to adjust our tax system to the increasing climate risk," Storehaug said in a phone interview on Tuesday. "These are tax terms that support investments to a higher extent than in other industries. So we have to ask some of these questions."
Prime Minister Erna Solberg is keen to strike a deal that would allow her to form a majority government for the first time since she came to power, in 2013. But her party and her coalition partner, the Progress Party, are strong supporters of the oil and gas industry and are unlikely to agree to terms that would hinder Norway's biggest cash source just as it revs up from a long slump.
The position of Progress leader and Finance Minister Siv Jensen "on the important framework conditions for the oil industry is well known," State Secretary Petter Kvinge Tvedt, also from Progress, said in an email. "Beyond that we have no comment on potential negotiations with the Christian Democrats."
To be sure, any push for a review of the tax system will have to compete with other priorities raised during their negotiations to join the government, such as changes in abortion legislation and family allowances.
The Christian Democrats could nevertheless find a partner in the government's smallest member, the Liberals. They have over the past five years won concessions from Solberg on continuing a ban on drilling around the environmentally sensitive Lofoten islands. The two parties have eight representatives each in parliament, compared to 45 for the Conservatives and 27 for Progress.
Here's how Norway taxes oil companies:
Profits are subject to a tax rate of 78 percent, which includes a corporate tax of 23 percent and a special tax of 55 percent Companies can deduct all costs from the tax base, and a so-called uplift allows for extra deductions in the special tax base Oil companies that don't have taxable income can carry losses forward, and can also opt for an immediate cash refund of the tax value of exploration expenses
The Conservative and Progress parties, together with the Labor Party, the biggest opposition group, have historically been guarantors of stable and predictable terms for oil companies in Norway, which is western Europe's biggest petroleum producer. Yet the oil industry's future is increasingly stoking debate in the Nordic nation, as Norwegians question the moral and financial aspects of drilling for oil at the same time as fighting against global warming.
Norway's oil habit at stake in election about climate change
Norway Christian Democrats