What you need to know about All-Sorts-of-Sports!
*Shin pads are strongly suggested for weeks when teams will be playing futsal or floor hockey.
Fitted shin guards/pads and must be worn underneath their pants to reduce the wear and tear to the gym floor (not full-width goalie pads).
Trappers (any size is permitted).
A chest protector (must be fitted and cannot extend to the arms or over shoulders).
There will be some goalie equipment provided on-site.
All equipment is provided for teams at each All-Sorts-of-Sports game.
SPIRIT POINTS: An integral part of all the sports that the Victoria Sport & Social Club offers. It is based on the primary focus of the VSSC, which is sportsmanship and to have FUN...NOT on competitive and aggressive sport.
Thursday: St. Margaret's School, Victoria Citadel, Macaulay Elementary, Pearkes Recreation Centre.


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France coach declines to touch upon Karim Benzema's rumored World Cup return
AL KHOR, Qatar — France coach Didier Deschamps refused to verify Wednesday a report that star ahead Karim Benzema may rejoin Les Bleus in Qatar earlier than they tackle Argentina within the World Cup Ultimate on Sunday (10 a.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports activities app).
Spanish outlet Marca claimed Tuesday that the 2022 Ballon d'Or winner has returned to full coaching with Actual Madrid, which he helped win the UEFA Champions League earlier this yr, which means there is a chance he'll at the least be in attendance for Sunday's last. Benzema was initially named to Deschamps's squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup however was injured earlier than France performed its first recreation of the match. However he was by no means changed from the roster, which makes him eligible to return.
Requested by FOX Sports activities following Les Bleus 2-0 semifinal win over Morocco if Benzema was en route again to the World Cup, Deschamps politely declined to say whether or not the report was true. However he additionally didn't deny it.
"I don't really want to answer that question," Deschamps mentioned following a protracted pause. "Next question. I do apologize."
Deschamps mentioned Nov. 29 that Benzema wouldn't come again.
Apart from Benzema's standing as one the world's most prolific strikers, one motive for Deschamps' potential about-face is the actual fact France's camp has been ravaged by sickness in current days. Midfielder Adrien Rabiot and defender Dayot Upamecano didn't practice on Tuesday. Phrase is winger Kingsley Coman can also be sick. None of them performed in opposition to Morocco. Rabiot wasn't even on the substitutes bench.
"We've had a few cases of with flu-like symptoms," Deschamps mentioned. "We're all trying to be careful so that it doesn't spread."
If France can beat Lionel Messi's Albiceleste on Sunday and repeat as world champions, one thing solely two nations have executed earlier than on the quadrennial occasion and none since Brazil six many years in the past, it could mark Benzema's first World Cup title. Benzema was left off of France's workforce in 2018 after he was banned from worldwide play for allegedly blackmailing French teammate Matthieu Valbuena. Benzema wasn't summoned to the nationwide workforce once more till June 2021, virtually six years after his final call-up, regardless of being arguably France's greatest ahead.
Benzema has received loads of trophies in his illustrious profession, together with 5 Champions League titles. However the World Cup would undoubtedly be his crown jewel — particularly since that is probably the final likelihood for the soon-to-be 35-year-old.
Benzema has scored six objectives in all competitions this season.
Learn extra from the World Cup:
High tales from FOX Sports activities:
Hear:

Doug McIntyre is a soccer author for FOX Sports activities. Earlier than becoming a member of FOX Sports activities in 2021, he was a employees author with ESPN and Yahoo Sports activities and he has coated United States males's and girls's nationwide groups at a number of FIFA World Cups. Observe him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.
Get extra from FIFA World Cup 2022 Observe your favorites to get details about video games, information and extra
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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satyamkapoor
I work at ValueFirst Digital Media Private Ltd. I am a Product Marketer in the Surbo Team. Surbo is Chatbot Generator Platform owned by Value First. ...
I work at ValueFirst Digital Media Private Ltd. I am a Product Marketer in the Surbo Team. Surbo is Chatbot Generator Platform owned by Value First.
Success story of Haptik
Who is afraid of automation?
What's happening in AI, Blockchain & IoT
3 million at risk from the rise of robots
5 ways Machine Learning can save your company from a security breach
Google Course for IT beginners, certificate in 8 months: Enrollment starts on Coursera today, check details
7 of the best chatbot building plaftorms out there
Could your job be taken over by Artificial Intelligence?
'Star Wars' and the Future of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence Timeline: Infographic
AI Artificial Intelligence Machine learning data science future trends
Big Data & Artificial Intelligence, both need each other
By satyamkapoor |Email | Dec 27, 2017 | 13272 Views
Artificial intelligence and big data have formed a truly symbiotic relationship, and they need each other to ring to fruition what both are promising.
If there are any lingering doubts that the fates of artificial intelligence and big data are intertwined, consider these recent quotes from two highly regarded thought leaders in this space:
"Throughout the business world, every company these days is basically in the data business, and they're going to need AI to civilize and digest big data and make sense out of it." (Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired)
"In the past, AI's growth was stunted due to limited data sets, representative samples of data rather than real-time, real-life data and the inability to analyze massive amounts of data in seconds. Today, there's real-time, always-available access to the data and tools that enable rapid analysis. This has propelled AI and machine learning and allowed the transition to a data-first approach. Our technology is now agile enough to access these colossal datasets to rapidly evolve AI and machine-learning applications." (Bernard Marr, noted AI author and speaker)
AI and big data have formed a truly symbiotic relationship, and they need each other. Another well-regarded expert, Mike Manchett, senior analyst with Taneja Group, has been observing this revolution in the AI market, noting that a new generation of tools and platforms is helping to make AI a reality for businesses of all types and sizes. His observations are part of a special report on AI prepared in conjunction with the recent AI World conference in Boston.
Apache Spark is the Spark for AI Development. AI is a resource-intensive environment that gobbles up data by the truckload. While many enterprise infrastructures may not have been ready for this, open source tools make the proposition highly cost-effective and compelling. In particular, Manchett points to the widespread adoption of Apache Spark, which provides in-memory, real-time queries and fast machine learning at scale.
AI Democracy Approaches. Artificial intelligence is no longer the exclusive domain of PhDs. Now, thanks to a new generation of easier-to-use tools and platforms, tech professionals can start building and deploying AI solutions within their projects. "Today, I get a real sense that big data analytics is finally within reach of the average engineer or programming techie," Manchett says. "There is now a large and growing middle ground where smart non-data scientists can be very productive with applied machine learning even on big and real-time data streams." AI is not quite ready for non-technical business, users, however, Manchett cautions. "To achieve the big data and AI goals, you still need to understand extract, transform and load concepts and what machine learning is and can do, but you certainly don't need to program low-level parallel linear algebra in MapReduce anymore."
Data Takes Center Stage: Data management long has been relegated to the backwaters of data centers, as something to be stored and secured. With the increasing emphasis on AI as a strategic tool, there's a recognition that data is essential to the corporation's future as well" and needs to managed as such. "Like other systems management areas, data flows can have their own service-level agreements, availability goals, performance targets, capacity shortfalls and security concerns," Manchett says. "Flowing data has provenance, lineage, veracity and a whole lot of related metadata to track dynamically. This is a new world, and providing big data and big data flows with their own systems management focus has real merit as data grows larger and faster."
All Data Becomes Big Data: "Eventually, all data will be big data, and machine learning and the broader AI capabilities will be applied everywhere to dynamically optimize just about everything," says Manchett." Given the power easily available to anyone through cloud computing, the impending explosion of IoT data sources and increasingly accessible packaged algorithms, the possibilities of big data and AI are becoming real in our lifetimes. AI and machine learning, then, will become commonplace, with the data center of the near future may soon be a converged host of all the data an organization can muster, continually fed by real-time data flows, supporting both transactional systems of record and opportunistic systems of engagement, and all driven by as much automated intelligence as possible.
Source: RTInsights
While Artificial Intelligence and data science make up part of most computer science undergrad degrees, it's at a post-grad level where students can really start to develop expertise.
The OpenAI API is a new way to access new AI models developed by OpenAI. It provides a general-purpose interface, which you could specify what you want it to do, with just a handful of examples.
Understanding the types of AI, how they work, and where they might add value is critical. AI, in short, is a pretty big deal.
Recently, there has been a surge in the consumption and innovation of information-based technology all over the world.


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3 in 10 NSW adults drink alcohol at levels posing risk of long-term harm
Alcohol continues to be one of the major causes of preventable disease in Australia. Drinking alcohol is associated with a risk of developing health problems such as mental and behavioural disorders, liver cirrhosis, some cancers and cardiovascular diseases.
The impact of others drinking includes harmful affects to unborn babies, alcohol induced violence (including domestic violence), falls and road accidents.
See the Reducing alcohol-related harm snapshot under Reports and Strategies below for more information.
While there was a reduction in rates of long-term harmful alcohol drinking in NSW from 2002 to 2015, since 2015 rates have returned to levels last seen in 2002
Men are twice as likely to drink alcohol at levels posing long-term or immediate harm than women
Young people are initiating drinking later
Older people are most likely to drink daily
NSW Health is committed to reducing alcohol-related harm in NSW. The current priorities are to:
Provide information and education to improve knowledge about alcohol and other drugs and help people make healthy choices.
Enhance harm reduction efforts to improve the wellbeing of people and their communities and lessen the burden of disease on the health system.
Provide support for families and carers to help them manage the impact of alcohol and other drugs on the family and support those in need.
Support whole of government strategies to enhance prevention and reduce harms from alcohol and other drug use.
Click through the icons under Reports and Strategies and State-wide initiatives below to learn more.
These data are based on self-reporting of who is and who is not drinking alcohol in NSW. The data are collected through Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing as part of the NSW Population Health Survey. The survey data are adjusted to the actual NSW population so that the statistics represent the percentage of people drinking alcohol in NSW.
Hospitalisations and death data do not contain information about individuals who are and who are not drinking alcohol. However, the burden of hospitalisations and deaths attributed to alcohol can be calculated from the proportion of diseased cases caused by alcohol consumption levels in the short- and long-term.
Health indicator Sex Year Long-term
Current data 5 years prior 10 years prior
Adults drinking at levels that increase lifetime risk of harm Females 2018 22.5 (20.8-24.2) 17.3 (16.0-18.6) 21.3 (19.7-22.8)
Males 2018 40.9 (38.9-43.0) 36.4 (34.5-38.3) 43.2 (40.9-45.4)
Persons 2018 31.5 (30.2-32.9) 26.6 (25.4-27.8) 32.1 (30.7-33.5)
Adults drinking at levels that increase immediate risk of harm Females 2018 - - 17.1 (15.5-18.6) - -
Males 2018 - - 34.8 (32.8-36.8) - -
Persons 2018 - - 25.8 (24.5-27.1) - -
High school students who consumed alcohol in the past year # Females 2017+ 42.7 (37.0-48.4) 46.9 (43.5-50.2) 62.1 (58.0-66.3)
Males 2017+ 45.3 (39.3-51.3) 47.2 (43.6-50.8) 64.8 (61.3-68.2)
Persons 2017+ 44.0 (39.5-48.6) 47.0 (44.3-49.8) 63.5 (60.5-66.4)
Adults who never consume alcohol Females 2018 29.4 (27.7-31.5) 37.2 (35.6-38.9) 38.1 (36.4-39.8)
* Trend analyses age-standardised each year to the 2001 population
+ Data are shown for the years 2017, 2011, 2005
# Pair-wise comparison between 2011 and 2017, and 2008 and 2017; age-standardised each year to the 2001 population
Who drinks alcohol and who doesn't?
Teen data
Adult data
Who is at higher risk of harm from alcohol?
Who goes to hospital due to alcohol?
Who dies due to alcohol?
Alcohol attributable injury hospitalisations
Interpersonal-violence-related hospitalisations


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News & Supplemental
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Game of Thrones: Saudis Funding Taliban as Trump Gives Nod to Increased Military Support for Afghans
Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ August 24, 2017Post a comment Email This Post Print This Post Tweet This!
Tags 9/11, Achmed Huber, Al Qaeda, al-Haramain, al-Qadi, al-Taqwa, Albert Huber, Francois Genoud, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Ibn Saud, Islamist, Islamists, Muslim Brotherhood, Operation Green Quest, Ptech, SAAR, SAAR Network, Saudi, Youssef Nada
COMMENT: Deja vu all over again. In the wake of Trump announcing that he will increase the U.S. troop contingent in Afghanistan, it is worth noting the mainstream coverage of Trump's (and America's) good buddies the Saudis.
This after the Saudis are essentially on record as having funded Al-Qaeda for years, working with profound elements in the U.S. intelligence community and the Bush administration. Public attention has been on the fact that 15 of 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. The financing of Al-Qaeda, which never stopped, is of far greater significance.
We note, in passing, that Hizb Ut-Tahrir (spelling varies with trans-literation) is one of the organizations gaining traction in Central Asia, thanks to Saudi financial benevolence. Note that the group's funders include people from Europe, according to the article. It has historical links with Nazi elements in Germany, as well as the Al-Taqwa milieu. (Following the programs indicated by the tab will flesh out listeners' understanding. " . . . . Another youth movement gaining traction is Hisb ut-Tahrir, a secretive, anti-establishment group that has a wide underground following in Central Asia, according to several government officials. Officials and former insiders of the group said they believed it was funded by foreigners including Saudis and other gulf Arabs, as well as donors in Egypt and Europe. . . ."
Watch your back(side)!
"Saudis Bankroll Taliban, Even as King Officially Supports Afghan Government" by CARLOTTA GALL; The New York Times; 12/06/2016
Fifteen years, half a trillion dollars and 150,000 lives since going to war, the United States is trying to extricate itself from Afghanistan. Afghans are being left to fight their own fight. A surging Taliban insurgency, meanwhile, is flush with a new inflow of money.
With their nation's future at stake, Afghan leaders have renewed a plea to one power that may hold the key to whether their country can cling to democracy or succumbs to the Taliban. But that power is not the United States.
It is Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is critical because of its unique position in the Afghan conflict: It is on both sides.
All the while, Saudi Arabia has officially, if coolly, supported the American mission and the Afghan government and even secretly sued for peace in clandestine negotiations on their behalf.
The contradictions are hardly accidental. Rather, they balance conflicting needs within the kingdom, pursued through both official policy and private initiative.
The dual tracks allow Saudi officials plausibly to deny official support for the Taliban, even as they have turned a blind eye to private funding of the Taliban and other hard-line Sunni groups.
The result is that the Saudis — through private or covert channels — have tacitly supported the Taliban in ways that make the kingdom an indispensable power broker.
Saudi royal throne.
In interviews with The New York Times, a former Taliban finance minister described how he traveled to Saudi Arabia for years raising cash while ostensibly on pilgrimage.
The Taliban have also been allowed to raise millions more by extorting "taxes" by pressing hundreds of thousands of Pashtun guest workers in the kingdom and menacing their families back home, said Vali Nasr, a former State Department adviser.
Yet even as private Saudi money backed the Taliban, Saudi intelligence once covertly mediated a peace effort that Taliban officials and others involved described in full to The Times for the first time.
Playing multiple sides of the same geopolitical equation is one way the Saudis further their own strategic interests, analysts and officials say.
But it also threatens to undermine the fragile democratic advances made by the United States in the past 15 years, and perhaps undo efforts to liberalize the country.
The United States now finds itself trying to persuade its putative ally to play a constructive rather than destructive role. Meanwhile, the Afghans have come to view Saudi Arabia as both friend and foe.
The question now, as Afghan officials look for help, is which Saudi Arabia will they get?
Prince Turki al-Faisal, who led the Saudi intelligence agency for over 24 years and later served as ambassador to the United States until his retirement in 2007, rejected any suggestion that Saudi Arabia had ever supported the Taliban.
"When I was in government, not a single penny went to the Taliban," he wrote in emailed comments.
He added that the "stringent measures taken by the kingdom to prevent any transfer of money to terrorist groups" had been recognized by Daniel L. Glaser, the United States assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury, in testimony to Congress in June.
Others say the verdict is still out. "We know there has been this financing that has gone on for years," Hanif Atmar, director of the Afghan National Security Council, said in an interview. "This sustains the terrorist war machine in Afghanistan and in the region, and it will have to be stopped."
That may be easier said than done. Saudi Arabia remains one of the main sources of what Secretary of State John Kerry recently called "surrogate money" to support Islamist fighters and causes.
Much of that largess is spread about in pursuit of what Mr. Nasr describes as a Saudi strategy of building a wall of Sunni radicalism across South and Central Asia to contain Iran, its Shia rival.
That competition is being rekindled. With the Americans leaving, there is the sense that Afghanistan's fate is up for grabs.
In recent months, the Taliban has mounted a coordinated offensive with about 40,000 fighters across eight provinces — a push financed by foreign sources at a cost of $1 billion, Afghan officials say.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia is offering the Afghan government substantial defense and development agreements, while Afghans say sheikhs from Saudi Arabia and other Arab Persian Gulf states are quietly funneling billions in private money to Sunni organizations, madrasas and universities to shape the next generation of Afghans.
"The Saudis are re-engaging," said Mr. Nasr, now dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, in a telephone interview. "Afghanistan is important to them, which is why they invested so much in the 1980s, and they are looking to make themselves much more relevant."
Surrogate Support
The seven-year Taliban theocracy in Afghanistan was coming to a fiery end. It was 2001, and the Taliban government was collapsing under United States bombing unleashed in retaliation for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Disguising himself as a doctor, Agha Jan Motasim, the Taliban finance minister, escaped over a remote border crossing into Pakistan aboard a Red Crescent ambulance, he said in a recent interview.
In the Pakistani border town of Quetta, he and other Taliban leaders regrouped and began organizing the insurgency that continues today. Mr. Motasim was appointed head of the finance committee.
One of his first stops was Saudi Arabia.
As home to both enormous oil wealth and Islam's holiest sites, it was the perfect place to make appeals not only to rich Saudi sheikhs and foundations but also to important donors who traveled to the kingdom on pilgrimage from all over the Muslim world.
Between 2002 and 2007, Mr. Motasim traveled to Saudi Arabia two or three times a year. Ostensibly he went on pilgrimage, but his primary purpose was to raise cash for the Taliban.
"There were people coming from other countries for umrah and hajj," he said referring to the different Muslim pilgrimages. "Also the Saudi sheikhs would come as well. I would ask them for their help for the war."
"It was not only the Saudis who would help us but people who would come from different countries," he recalled. "Saudi Arabia was the only country where I could meet them."
Once secured, the money could be moved in myriad ways to Taliban coffers, officials said, including through regional banks near Pakistan's tribal areas and the hawala system of informal money-changers.
Last year, Afghan security forces even discovered families of Al Qaeda members entering eastern Afghanistan with a stash of gold bars, Rahmatullah Nabil, former head of Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, said.
The Saudi authorities often say they cannot control or always identify the millions of Muslims who travel to the kingdom every year on the hajj, said Barnett Rubin, who worked as special adviser to the United States envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Taliban always traveled on fake Pakistani passports under assumed names and were unknown to Saudi authorities, said a security official in the region, who spoke on condition of strict anonymity, citing the extreme sensitivity to upsetting Saudi Arabia.
American requests to cut the funding yielded little result.
In 2009, American officials complained that the Taliban and other extremist groups were raising millions of dollars during annual pilgrimages, according to American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.
A December 2009 cable from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that donors in Saudi Arabia constituted the "most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide."
The cables date from a period when Richard C. Holbrooke, who died in 2010, acted as special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and actively sought to curb funding to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The funding from the gulf extended well beyond that period and to other groups besides the Taliban, including the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
In a leaked email from 2014, Mrs. Clinton described the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia as "providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region."
Financing such groups, she wrote, was part of a contest between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who were in "ongoing competition to dominate the Sunni world."
Covert Peace Efforts
It was September 2008, the holy month of Ramadan, and King Abdullah was hosting an iftar dinner in Mecca. But this was no routine breaking of the fast at sunset.
The feast was an important signal of the king's personal support for a covert yet still evolving peace effort. Among the dozens of guests were Afghan officials and elders, as well as former Taliban members.
Within months, at a more discreet venue in the Red Sea port of Jidda, the Saudi intelligence agency convened Afghanistan's chief adversaries to hash out a peace deal.
Mr. Motasim, the same man who had been collecting money for the insurgency, was named by the Taliban as its representative.
On the other side, the emissary for President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan was his brother, Qayum Karzai.
During three days of intense discussions — breaking at intervals when the men locked horns — a Saudi intermediary nudged the two sides forward.
The peace effort had begun in 2006. The initial broker was Abdullah Anas, an Algerian who had won credibility by fighting the Soviets for 10 years in Afghanistan.
In an interview, Mr. Anas said his decision to seek out the Saudis as a third-party mediator was obvious, because of the kingdom's special status as home to Islam's two holiest sites and its support during the fight against the Soviet occupation.
"Even in a very far village in Afghanistan, Saudi means something," said Mr. Anas, who today runs Al Magharibia, a satellite television channel based in London.
Still, getting the Saudis on board took some persuading. The events of 9/11 had deeply embarrassed them.
Both the kingdom and the United States had nurtured the mujahedeen to push out a Soviet occupation in the 1980s, but the subsequent behavior of the Taliban infuriated the Americans. Harboring Osama bin Laden was the last straw.
For the Saudis, it was more complicated.
Even when the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden — Prince Turki, the Saudi intelligence chief, requested it in person in 1998— the kingdom still did not break with them.
Saudi Arabia supported the Taliban government up to 2001 and beyond, in alignment with Pakistan, the kingdom's main ally to check Iranian influence in the region.
"The problem is Saudi Arabia sees Afghanistan through the lenses of Pakistan," Mr. Anas said, describing a prime challenge of his peace initiative.
To achieve peace, Mr. Anas said he wanted to encourage the Saudis to build a relationship with Afghanistan directly.
People involved in the effort — who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process was conducted in confidentiality — say King Abdullah was moved to back the effort out of a sense of compassion.
He did so, they said, even in the face of resistance from other Saudi royals who were unhappy with the American occupation. Yet others were wary of further involvement in Afghanistan.
To overcome Saudi reluctance, Mr. Anas took the Saudi emissary to Afghanistan to show that it remained a freely practicing Muslim society, despite the presence of American troops. President Karzai wrote King Abdullah, who had ascended to the throne in August 2005, a deferential letter requesting his intercession. It worked.
King Abdullah met the Afghan leader at the door of his plane on a pilgrimage visit. Mr. Karzai still speaks highly of his friendship with King Abdullah, who died in 2015.
"He would never, never, never leave my call unanswered," he recounted in an interview. "The same day he would get back to me, talk to me and do all that I asked."
The Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz, personally oversaw the negotiations, sending his emissary between Mr. Motasim of the Taliban and the Afghan government for two years.
But when talks neared a critical endpoint, the Taliban were gripped by a vicious power struggle. The Saudi demand that the Taliban renounce terrorism and its ties to Al Qaeda was never met. Mr. Motasim was accused of embezzlement and removed.
The next year, 2010, his main protector, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's chief operational commander, was arrested in Pakistan, while an assassin shot Mr. Motasim and left him for dead outside his home in Karachi, though he survived.
Both events were interpreted as Pakistan's opposition to any peace process being negotiated without its participation, several of those involved in the process say.
"It was then that this process was sabotaged," Mr. Motasim said.
King Abdullah intimated to President Karzai in 2010 that there were obstructions beyond his control.
"I wish to help Afghanistan," Mr. Karzai recalled the king's saying. "I want it to be peaceful, I want you to sit down and talk to the Taliban, but you must recognize that all I can do is what Saudi can do.
"That was a very meaningful word," Mr. Karzai concluded, "meaning that there were other forces who were probably not willing to allow this to happen."
Trouble on the Horizon
Despite those covert efforts, the Saudi kingdom, publicly and officially, has been largely absent in Afghanistan. While paying lip service to the American mission, Saudi Arabia has not built a significant project in its own name in Afghanistan in 15 years.
Yet official Saudi neglect stands in stark contrast to the wealth of private Saudi funding that has done more than bolster the Taliban and allied militant groups in the region.
It has also spawned hundreds of universities, madrasas and radical groups that have extended Sunni influence and that Afghans fear are sowing seeds of future turmoil.
One of those Afghans is Nisar Karimzai, who runs a small research office, the Organization for Research of Peace and Stability.
During the Soviet occupation, Mr. Karimzai went to school in Pakistan, where he fell in with a Sunni extremist crowd. "They teach that the Shia are not Muslim," he recalled, referring to Shiites.
He eventually discarded extremist thinking. But his own experience made him wary when he saw a cousin become involved with an Islamist group called Jamiat Eslah.
"I recognize the way they are training them," Mr. Karimzai said. "It was exactly the same way they taught me.
"Personally I am scared," Mr. Karimzai added. "In five years we will face a danger from them. One day they will fight and we will have a very big problem."
Jamiat Eslah promotes a strict Islamist worldview and describes itself as a self-financed, nonpolitical organization focused on humanitarian and educational work.
But the size of its operations, with 40 to 50 buildings including offices, a university and a hospital, indicates substantial outside funding, said Mr. Nabil, a former head of Afghan intelligence.
The group's bank accounts show no foreign bank transfers, according to an internal government report. Nevertheless, the report concluded that the group is financed by sources in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The group is just one of a proliferating number that have sprouted in recent years as Sunni Arabs from the Persian Gulf compete with Shiite Iran for influence here.
The Iranians, too, have been busy building madrasas, universities and cultural centers for the Shiite population, and even a road to the border with Iran.
The rivalry underlying the scale of such competing funding, Afghan officials and others warn, spells trouble. In 2001, Afghanistan had just 1,000 madrasas. Today, there are more than 4,000, the majority of them built in the last few years.
After a summer and fall of violent attacks, including at the American University of Afghanistan and against Shiite gatherings, Afghans worry at the growing sectarian tilt of Sunni extremist groups. . . .
. . . . Another youth movement gaining traction is Hisb ut-Tahrir, a secretive, anti-establishment group that has a wide underground following in Central Asia, according to several government officials.
Officials and former insiders of the group said they believed it was funded by foreigners including Saudis and other gulf Arabs, as well as donors in Egypt and Europe.
"They want to reach as many people as they can and bring them into the party and eventually strengthen their ranks and announce a caliphate," said Massoud Rahimi, a student at Kabul University, who said he declined when a cousin tried to recruit him.
"It is going to put Afghanistan on the road of conflict," he said.
Which Saudi Now?
Upon his election 2014, Afghanistan's current president, Ashraf Ghani, chose Saudi Arabia for his first official trip. Then five months later, after a second trip to meet the new Saudi king, Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, Mr. Ghani pledged Afghan support for the Saudi military coalition for Yemen.
In return, Mr. Ghani wanted Saudi Arabia's rulers to stop the flow of funds from rich Saudi sheikhs to the Taliban and encourage the Taliban back into negotiations.
"The signs are positive," said Mr. Atmar of the National Security Council. "We have not yet seen concrete movements against this, but we believe that we have a strong commitment."
Yet other Afghan officials and local diplomats are deeply skeptical.
One diplomat in Kabul said tracking the flow of illegal money was virtually impossible. Another, who had served in Saudi Arabia, doubted that Riyadh would change, adding that the vast royal family is split into fiefs often working at odds with each other.
The scale of the Taliban's recent offensive also has left many Afghans wary.
"The level of finance, the level of logistical support in terms of weapons and other materials, and the level of organizational support in terms of leadership of the war they have received is unprecedented," said Nader Nadery, chief adviser on strategic affairs to the president.
"It clearly indicates a declared war against Afghanistan," he added, accusing Pakistan, the stalwart Saudi ally.
Mr. Abdullah, Afghanistan's chief executive, recently led a delegation to Saudi Arabia. They went seeking investment, but also asked Saudi leaders to press Pakistan to end its safe haven for terrorists, a request President Karzai also made repeatedly.
"They said they will do that, and they said they will try in the gulf region to use their influence to mobilize against terrorism," said Nasrullah Arsalai, director general of the council of ministers secretariat in Afghanistan, who was part of the delegation.
"Saudi Arabia knows if we fight together, it means the Taliban will not be able to bring money from there," he said.
Yet Ruhullah Wakil, a tribal elder who is now a member of the Afghan peace council says he, too, recently beseeched Saudi officials to sponsor the work of the council, which is authorized to pursue negotiations.
The Saudis were uninterested.
"They are deaf," he said. "We asked them to help. We asked them even just to give us some dates to serve to guests.
"But they gave us nothing."
One comment for "Game of Thrones: Saudis Funding Taliban as Trump Gives Nod to Increased Military Support for Afghans"
It may prove ironic in hindsight that the hoi polloi were distracted by a fictional Game of Thrones while this all took place.
Posted by Uncle Grody | August 29, 2017, 2:07 pm
NEWS &	SUPPLEMENTAL
Banking with Bin Laden In 2002, Lucy Komisar lifted the lid on the offshore intersections of SICO, Al Taqwa, Clearstream, the Banca del Gottardo , Read more »


The other day I went to see the open performance at the South Oxford Space, which was incredibly moving. It was so nice to listen to other peoples comments and participate in a process, which is different from mine. I also felt that I wanted to know more, to continue the conversation. I luckily had the chance to spend the next several hours after the performance at a nearby bar with some of the performers. By the end of the night, I was filled with an energy, as though I it was my performance or as though I had been on the stage along with them. It makes me very happy to think that the ideas that we share and the things that float in the air between us sometimes come together and materialize.
Tiredness is the title of the research that I'm doing and it is about how people lives in big cities and how it relates with the inhabited space.
I have an image for Tiredness: someone is sitting on the subway, her eyes are not quite closed and her head is leaning on the glass. She looks through the window to all these people moving during the rush hour. She is just leaning, looking the stations pass and unable to move; only contemplating. Sometimes I have this sensation about myself. The body doesn't want to move but it is supposed to do it.
When I arrived to NY, one of the first impressions I had was that everything was too much: buildings, kinds of food, infrastructure, people leaving and arriving, clothes, theatre plays, work, languages, traffic, sizes, proportions, money, etc. You have to keep moving to be here. It is the city that never sleeps and though most of the people seem to be really tired. That's the reason -I think- for which the people uses the time to get from one place to another to get some rest.
Closing your eyes can be like consolation, or like consciously disappearing, a way to get some relief. It is a time for not having to act or to think. In that sense, Tiredness is the rebellion of the body when it has reached its limits.
For me, Tiredness is a symptom of a body collapsing under the structure of life in big cities; it is a physical and rebellious response to the overwhelming activity, the production and exploitation in modern urban areas.
I really like the title: TIREDNESS. I think I wouldn't find a better one, no one wants to be tired and it's impossible not to be. The body gets tire, the ideas wear out and nothing moves but everything is still about to happen.
Katia Castañeda, 2012, Movement Research Artist-in-Residence.


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text:
Background Music è il primo album studio dei Give Up the Ghost, pubblicato una prima volta nel 2001 da Equal Vision ancora con il precedente nome American Nightmare e ripubblicato nel 2003.

L'album non ha ricevuto critiche molto positive, anche se è stato elogiato per i testi profondi e riflessivi.

Tracce
(We Are) -	2:38
There's a Black Hole in the Shadow of the Pru - 2:00
AM/PM - 3:05
Shoplifting in a Ghost Town - 2:51
I Saved Latin - 0:22
Postmark My Compass - 2:15
I.C. You Are Feeling Drake - 2:09
Hearts - 1:03
God Save the Queen - 2:00
Your Arsonist - 2:48
Farewell -	2:22

Crediti
Dean Baltulonis - produttore, ingegnere del suono
Jacob Bannon - design, direzione
Alan Douches - mastering
Bill Goldberg - fotografia

Formazione
Wes Eisold - voce
Tim Cossar - chitarra
Brian Masek - chitarra
Jarvis "Josh" Holden - basso
Alex Garcia-Rivera - batteria

Note

Collegamenti esterni

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Not a huge surprise, to be expected in a second term.
The number of rooms booked in the District of Columbia area between Saturday and Monday is down 16% compared to four years ago, according to TravelClick, a New York company that provides e-commerce products and services to the hotel industry.
As a result of the drop in demand, hotel rates are down 11% compared to the last inauguration, the company said.


I've been playing around with Domain Driven Design (DDD) and trying to write a small web application without implementing an anemic domain model. I have found that it is more difficult than it ought to be and I want to share some of my experiences.
An anaemic domain is something that happens in an enterprise application when your domain objects don't really contain any real logic. Instead the logic nearly all resides in a secondary "service" component. This is an example of badly encapsulated code and will lead to messy, difficult to maintain applications.
You are currently browsing the jblewitt.com blog archives for December, 2008.


text:
Most Expensive Shoes In The World
Shoes are a basic footwear necessity for some but for others, the love of footwear knows no bounds. No matter which category you fall into, you'll find the subject of today's discussion quite enthralling. Hold on to your socks people, this is a compilation of the top 5 most expensive shoes in the world.
1) Harry Winston Ruby Slippers
Kicking off our list is this Hollywood memorabilia that was modeled in the image of a pair of red magic shoes worn by the endearing character Dorothy from the Wizard of OZ. The shoe architecture takes on a domineering crimson that takes over the entire upper body but for the shiny diamonds that line out the boundaries of the bow and top enchantingly. The shoes are adorned with rubies, hence the red color and name, and will set you back $3 million.
2) Stuart Weitzman Rita Hayworth Heels
These subtle heels tie with its predecessor for the number 1 spot on account of its $3 million price tag. Inspired by an exquisite earring piece belonging to Rita Hayworth, the shoe takes on a gorgeous obsidian shade with folded flowers atop the front that are fused together by a delightful earring that consists of rubies, sapphires and diamonds. A vivid satin alteration breaks the monotony of the chocolate-brown leather whilst also complementing the glittering stones marvelously.
3) Cinderella slippers
Another Stuart Weitzman design claims a position on this list at number 3 and the name pretty much speaks for itself here. These princess-inspired slippers are imbued with a beguiling top-notch brand of Italian leather that forms the perfect backdrop for its 565 Kwiat diamonds. If you ever wondered what you'd do with $ 2 million dollars, then wonder no more as these Cinderella-esque stiletto heels cost just that.
4) Tanzanite Heels
Another $2 million dollar shoe from the aforementioned American designer also makes the cut as joint third. The tanzanite heels consist of a mesmerizing silver canvas that is brought to life alluringly by an assortment of gemstones and diamonds. Lively blue tanzanite stones decorate the top-most lace and the lovely stones share the exterior with silver-set diamonds that decorate both of the upper body supports.
5) Jason Arasheben Custom
These customer-made shoes are star-studded in every sense of the word not only because they boast a diamond-encrusted upside but also because they were worn by superstar Nick Cannon for the series finale of American Idol. The shoe design incorporates round-cut white diamonds placed against a similarly colored shade of gold and the two materials portray a classy shade of square patterns isolated by overflowing black contours. $ 2 million is the price tag to match to get yourself a pair of these beauties.
A "most expensive shoes" list would certainly be incomplete without acknowledging a pair of size 10 office wears whose value went from a few dozen dollars to $10 million in a matter of seconds. These shoes are not special in any way rather they were the ones thrown by an Iraqi reporter at former president G. Bush during a press briefing on December 14, 2008. This zero-to-hero footwear dubbed the "farewell kiss" rounds off our top 5.
These shoes are just a dream for most of us girls, but in the meantime, there are many web shops all around the internet where we can get nice shoes for much less money.
Jaspreet Kaur
Expensive Shoesweb shops
What are the Business Benefits for Using Softphone Advanced Technology?
What Are the Benefits of the Getting Your Car Serviced?


Gonçalves et al (2017) found Cataglyphis hispanica to be one of the most common ants in the Iberian vineyards they sampled (pitfall trapping).
Palaearctic Region: Iberian Peninsula, Portugal, Spain (type locality).
Queens are brachypterous (i.e. short-winged), implying a significant reduction in female dispersal (Peeters & Aron 2017).
hispanica. Myrmecocystus viaticus subsp. hispanica Emery, 1906d: 57 (w.) SPAIN. Tinaut, 1991: 218 (q.m.). [First available use of Myrmecocystus viaticus r. niger var. hispanica Forel, 1903c: 267; unavailable name.] Combination in Cataglyphis: Santschi, 1919e: 246; in C. (Monocombus): Santschi, 1929b: 29. Senior synonym of nigroides: Tinaut, 1991: 220.
nigroides. Cataglyphis (Monocombus) hispanica var. nigroides Santschi, 1929b: 59 (diagnosis in key) (w.) PORTUGAL. [First available use of Cataglyphis viaticus st. hispanicus var. nigroides Santschi, 1925g: 346; unavailable name.] Junior synonym of hispanica: Tinaut: 1991: 220.
This page was last edited on 13 April 2019, at 09:13.


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If there is one brand that makes the cutest lipstick packaging, it has to be Shu Uemura. Whether it is a regular Rouge Unlimited, or the limited edition ones, the pure transparent casing will sure to make you feel special. But that's not all about these lipsticks, recently a newly formulated Rouge Unlimited line came out with amazing performance. For the press info please click here. For the initial release last month, there was a batch of 9 new colors with 9 more to come in April and 11 in May. That is a lot of new lipstick colors! So what makes these so special? Let's take a look.
Today, I am featuring OR 540 from the collection which is the only orange shade for this release. Like other Shu Uemura products, the new Rouge Unlimted is packed in a white box.
The color for OR 540 is a medium burnt orange with warm undertone. It is fresh and pretty that brings a sense of Summer. I can't believe Summer is just right around the corner!
If you look at the direct sunlight pictures below, you can see slight shimmers sprinkled throughout the lipstick. But they don't translate into visible shimmers on the lips, they rather enhance the overall finish by giving a more dimensional look.
So the new lipstick features a double hybrid pigment technology. What does that mean? It simple means the delivery of the purest color which brings a high pay-off with fidelity. There is also a new crystal core hybrid pigment which brings the best in pure color. Sounds pretty high tech? And it sure results the best quality. With just one swipe, I immediately noticed how moisturizing it looked. The color is also true to the tube.
I have been wearing it for 2 days straight. Unlike a lot of lipsticks that feel moisturized when you first applied, but at the end of the day it still dries out your lips, the new Rouge Unlimited is able to seal in moisture for a full 6 hours. That's the max amount of time I was wearing it. Even though the initial glossy finish wears off, color remains fresh. It looks even more natural like your lips are born with the color. And non-drying formula really feels like wearing a lip balm.
Shu Uemura Rouge Unlimited is genius and incredible. The color is so translucently natural and the formula is so moisturizing. As comfort as wearing a lip balm, it brings a burst of color with pigmentation that lasts all day. Not to mention the simple yet cutting edge clear case design.
More information including purchasing can be found online at www.shuuemura-usa.com.
I LOVE Shu Rouge Unlimited formulas! Great Colour!
Shu's new formula is quite wonderful. Vibrant too!
The lipstick looks so pigmented and thick too. Does it feel dry?
It doesn't feel dry at all moisture is all sealed in. It's quite a good lippy.
I bought 2 of the new lipsticks. I have yet to give them a try.
The color looks gorgeous on you. So spring too!


A Pakistani kid, Qamar Muneer Akbar, registered his name among the world record holders by acing in British Ordinary Level (O-levels) Chemistry exams.
Interestingly, the eight-year-old boy from Chiniot broke the record of his sister Sitara who made this feat in 2011. While, at the age of 10, she had first set the record for passing O-level Biology.
Akbar expressed his wish to make his country proud. The little genius insists that country could witness positive change if education was made public for all.
His sister, Sitara Brooj Akbar, at the age of 11, had passed six O'level subjects including Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.
In addition to this honor, Sitara also holds the title of being the youngest Pakistani candidate of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and successfully attained seven bands out of nine, scoring 7.5 in the testing system.
At the time of her daughter's feat in 2011, Sitara's mother had said that her daughter is a great fan of Dr. Abdus Salam, Pakistan's sole Nobel laureate at that time, and aims to become a top researcher in the field of biochemistry.


Design Holidays are delighted to launch our latest collection of Quinta do Lago villas to rent – Martinhal Quinta.
Formerly known as Monte da Quinta Club villas this fabulous resort has been taken over by the Martinhal Resort and re branded as Martinhal Quinta.
What we say : 'Luxury villas to rent in Quinta do Lago with the back up of a proven luxury resort management team of Martinhal is a winning recipe for any family looking for a luxury villa holiday in Quinta do Lago'. Says Zoe Boniface Operations Manager at Design Holidays.
'Martinhal Quinta offers an exclusive private collection of independently owned luxury villas ranging from 2-bedroom townhouses to 5-bedroom villas. Each property is positioned in its own landscaped grounds overlooking a private garden and swimming pool, some of which are fenced for child safety.
Martinhal Quinta is located in the well-known Quinta do Lago area in the Algarve and is part of the expansion of the Martinhal brand, which has the luxury family beach resort Martinhal Beach Resort & Hotel in Sagres. The Martinhal brand has been conceived and designed specifically for families and we intend to take this concept to Martinhal Quinta.
We have only just taken over the management of the resort previously known as Monte da Quinta Club and for 2015, we will have a soft opening of the Martinhal concept.
For 2015, we will have the pool at the Clubhouse open as previously with a boutique menu of snacks offering poolside diners some drink and snack options and our "Mercado Deli & Bake" at the shopping centre will offer a wide variety of take-away breakfast options, fresh fruit and vegetables, high quality deli items and a wide range of drinks. A full range of cold take-away dishes are also available through the day. "Mercado Deli & Bake" is also a convenience store offering a range of daily basics for families. Our Raposinhos Kids Club located at the Clubhouse will offer childcare for ages 3 to 8 years and baby-sitting can be organised for any age from a few months old on request.
By 2016, our childcare offer will be extended and improved and we will have an upmarket "food court" concept offering guests a range of great, mouth-watering food ranging from Pizzas, Pastas, Asian delights, Hamburgers, Rotisserie chicken.