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Serbia to Sue NATO for 1999 Bombings Using Depleted Uranium Ammunition? – Center for Research on Globalization

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

Serbia has formed an international legal team to file charges against NATO for using depleted uranium munitions during the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia.

The legal team, proposed bythe Serbian Royal Academy ofScientists and Artists, will bring together the best lawyers fromSerbia and also fromGermany, France, Italy, Russia, China, Britain and Turkey.

In March 1999, NATO launched a series ofairstrikes againstFederal Yugoslavia.

The aerial campaign and also NATOs military intervention inKosovo were not authorized bythe UN Security Council and, therefore, violated international law.

In an interview withRadio Sputnik, Vice President ofthe International Association ofRussian-Speaking Lawyers, Mikhail Ioffe, said that Serbia should have filed the lawsuits immediately afterthe 1999 bombings.

From a legal standpoint, they should have brought the charges when the damage [caused bythe airstrikes] was there foreveryone tosee, not now that its traces are no longer evident. Still, the damage they caused tothe peoples health is hard tomiss, Ioffe said.

He described the idea ofsuing NATO forthe 1999 airstrikes as viable.

Mikhail Ioffe also mentioned a number oflegal problems that would prove hard toresolve.

The question is whether the US will respond tothese charges or not. The other countries could likewise want toshirk responsibility forwhat they did. The biggest hurdle is that [the 1999 bombings] have not been recognized asan international aggression byany authoritative international body, the lawyer stated.

The UN refused toauthorize them, neither did they term the actions bythe US and its coalition partners asan act ofaggression. I guess this could be a matter forsome backdoor diplomatic bargaining Serbia could benefit from, Mikhail Ioffe concluded.

NATO launched air strikes inSerbia onMarch 24, 1999, withoutthe backing ofthe UN Security Council.

Codenamed Operation Allied Force, it was the largest attack ever undertaken bythe alliance and the first time that NATO used military force withoutthe approval ofthe UN Security Council and againsta sovereign nation that did not pose a real threat toany member ofthe alliance.

In the course ofthe campaign, NATO launched 2,300 missiles atalmost 1,000 targets and dropped 14,000 bombs, including depleted uranium bombs and cluster munitions.

More than2,000 civilians were killed, including 88 children, and thousands more were injured. Over 200,000 ethnic Serbs were forced toleave their homeland inKosovo.

Featured image: credits to the owner

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Serbia to Sue NATO for 1999 Bombings Using Depleted Uranium Ammunition? - Center for Research on Globalization

5 Unanswered Questions Raised By The Leaked NSA Hacking Report : NPR

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

Here are 5 questions that were raised by the leaked NSA hacking report and the ongoing threat that national security officials say Russia poses to the integrity of American elections. Patrick Semansky/AP hide caption

Here are 5 questions that were raised by the leaked NSA hacking report and the ongoing threat that national security officials say Russia poses to the integrity of American elections.

America's sprawling elections infrastructure has been called "a hairball" but as people in Silicon Valley might ask, is that a feature or a bug?

Then-FBI Director James Comey touted it as a good thing "the beauty of our system," he told Congress, is that the "hairball" is too vast, unconnected and woolly to be hacked from the outside.

That was before Monday's leak of a top secret National Security Agency report about a Russian election cyberattack. What that document confirms is that if the whole is safe, its many individual parts may not be.

The NSA report, posted by The Intercept, documents a scheme by Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, to compromise the systems of a Florida elections services company then use that access to explore local voting registration records.

"It is unknown whether the aforementioned spear-phishing deployment successfully compromised the intended victims, and what potential data could have been accessed by the cyber actor," as one NSA analyst wrote in the report.

Here are 5 other questions that remain unknown about this story and the ongoing threat that national security officials say Russia poses to the integrity of American elections.

1. How widespread are these attacks?

The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. intelligence leaders have said generally that voter registration rolls were a pet target of Russian cyberattackers, but that Russia didn't change any votes. The American leaders also have warned, however, that they expect the Russian mischief to continue in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles. If the GRU continues operations like this elsewhere, how much better of an understanding will it have of local elections officials and their vendors next year or beyond?

Elections systems analysts tell NPR that although electronic voting machines are not connected to the public Internet, the computers that update their firmware are, or the ones that program them at the factory. It isn't clear what's practically possible in this realm in terms of hacking or compromising those systems; Comey told members of Congress that Russia has attempted to tamper with votes "in other countries," but the details aren't clear.

Even with the redactions, The Intercept made at the request of the NSA to protect some of its key secrets, there are tantalizing details about the extent of the GRU mischief. One note makes clear that this so-called "spear-phishing" campaign was separate from another major program known within secret circles though the name of that is blacked out.

Another mention in the NSA report suggests that two-factor authentication the popular system in which Gmail, for example, sends users a text message with a code they must enter along with a password in order to log in is not a failsafe security feature. The GRU hackers were able to use fake websites that used real Google verification codes to gain access to victims' accounts.

2. Can the federal government do more?

Then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said last year that the federal government was offering help across the board to local elections officials to be aware of the Russian cyber-mischief. And Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee last month that the government continued to provide information about the ongoing threat.

"Two things we can do, and that we are doing, both in the United States and with our allies, is telling the people responsible for protecting the election infrastructure in the United States everything we know about how the Russians and others try to attack those systems," Comey said. "How they might come at it, what [Internet protocol] addresses they might use, what phishing techniques they might use."

That may have been one eventual goal for the NSA report posted on Monday it could have been the top secret original from which DHS or other agencies might have created unclassified advisories to send out to states.

But is it enough just to share information about such a sophisticated adversary? Local vendors and state officials don't have vast IT resources or sophisticated counterintelligence to help defend themselves against state-actor adversaries. And states "pushed back" against Johnson when he offered help last year, as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress they rejected what he called "federal interference."

Clapper said he believed Congress should designate the national election apparatus "critical infrastructure," the way the U.S. has labeled 16 other "sectors," including the American chemical industry, dams, the power grid and others. That could get very complicated, however, and it would take time and cost money.

3. Why do these leaks keep happening?

The Justice Department has charged a U.S. intelligence community contractor, Reality Winner, with allegedly leaking the NSA report to The Intercept. According to court documents, when the news site's correspondents asked the NSA's public affairs office to verify the report, that enabled the FBI to narrow down who had access to it and pinpoint Winner.

From the perspective of NSA leaders, that's a partial success story: they plugged a leak quickly instead of having it turn into a gusher. But at the same time Winner's case is just the latest example of a contractor on the outer periphery of a spy agency hazarding closely held secrets.

Last month, tens of thousands of sensitive files connected to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency were left on a publicly accessible Amazon server by an engineer with contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Last year, an NSA contractor also with Booz Allen was charged with hoarding a "breathtaking" amount of sensitive material. And before that, NSA contractor Edward Snowen took huge amounts of secret information about the U.S. intelligence community and the military.

Agency bosses, now led by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, say they've focused intensely on what they call the "insider threat" since the Snowden days, and the intelligence community now has a task force dedicated to helping snuff it out.

The question that Winner's case again raises is how secure Coats and agency leaders can make a constellation of 17 separate agencies that each has its own wider network of contractors who support it.

4. Why can't the U.S. stop these cyberattacks?

Then-CIA Director John Brennan called his counterpart in Russia last year to read him the riot act: "I said that all Americans, regardless of political affiliation or whom they might support in the election, cherish their ability to elect their own leaders without outside interference or disruption," Brennan told the Senate last month. "I said American voters would be outraged by any Russian attempt to interfere in the election."

But Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia's FSB intelligence agency the successor to the infamous KGB claimed he didn't know anything about any election meddling. In Brennan's telling, he promised he'd relay the details of the phone conversation to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Barack Obama also is believed to have warned Putin to knock off the interference with no result. The NSA report posted on Monday describes a cyberattack that lasted until just before Election Day in November, well after the U.S. announced publicly that Russia had been responsible for campaign mischief.

U.S. intelligence officials said at the time that they believed so-called "attribution" was a powerful weapon. The FBI later issued indictments for Russian intelligence officers and others involved with the meddling, making public how much information Americans have about what's taking place behind the scenes.

None of it, however, appears to have made a difference. Coats, Comey, Brennan and other leaders continue to warn that Russian cyber-mischief proceeds, that Moscow considers it successful and that it could ramp up again in the 2018 midterm and 2020 presidential elections. One political scientist told NPR the world of foreign meddling is "the new normal."

Is that so, or can the U.S. government do more launch cyberattacks of its own, impose further restrictions on Russia or take some other step to impose greater costs on the Russians?

5. Will this change Trump's tune?

"As far as hacking, I think it was Russia," then-President-elect Trump said at a news conference before Inauguration Day.

Since then, however, he's dismissed the election-meddling story as an excuse created by Democrats to cover up Hillary Clinton's loss, or opined that cyberspace is so complicated that no one could ever know for certain who might have been behind it. Russian President Vladimir Putin made the same point over the weekend to NBC News' Megyn Kelly.

The NSA report leaked on Monday, however, shows that, in fact, American intelligence officers have a highly detailed technical understanding about how much of Russia's hacking operation works. They attribute the scheme without hesitation to the GRU and talk in detail about the software and other tools used to try to compromise the victims' computers.

It was one thing for the intelligence community to conclude that Russia had interfered and not explain how it knew. Now there are more clues in the open about how it knows. And the report, completed in May, shows that its analysis continues about the ways Russia's intelligence agencies attacked the U.S during the 2016 cycle.

Trump rejects any notion that his campaign aides might have colluded with the Russian operatives who meddled in the election, but does the emergence of this NSA document make it tougher for him to continue to question whether it even happened?

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5 Unanswered Questions Raised By The Leaked NSA Hacking Report : NPR

Alleged NSA Leaker May Have Had Plans to Release More Classified …

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

Billie Winner-Davis and her husband, Gary Davis, parents of Reality Leigh Winner, arrive at the U.S. District Courthouse on June 8 in Augusta, Georgia. Chris Aluka Berry / EPA

She said that despite the allegations against her daughter, she remains "a proud mom ... I have every reason to be proud of that girl."

Her mother cried continuously after Winner was denied bail.

Winner was arrested Saturday, but the Justice Department announced she had been taken into custody on Sunday, barely an hour after online publication

The publications report described new details about Russian efforts to hack voting systems in the United States a week prior to the 2016 presidential election.

While the document doesnt say the hacking changed any votes, the publication said it "raises the possibility that Russian hacking may have breached at least some elements of the voting system, with disconcertingly uncertain results."

The criminal complaint against Winner did not link the charge against her with the story, but a senior federal official confirmed to NBC News that Winner is the accused leaker of the document published by The Intercept. The NSA has a large facility in Georgia.

Gabe Gutierrez reported from Augusta, Georgia, and Daniella Silva from New York.

Bitcoin bulls runs wild as cryptocurrency surges above $3,000

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

Provided by CNBC

Bitcoin (BTC=-USS)traded above $3,000 for the first time on Sunday, continuing this year's massive surge and helped by increased demand from Asia-based investors.

FactSet Research Systems Inc

After trading in a range for the last week, bitcoin climbed to an all-time high Sunday of $3,012.05, according to CoinDesk.

On Chinese exchanges such as BTCC, the currency traded about $40 to $60 above that price. Last week, several major Chinese bitcoin exchanges allowed customers to resume withdrawals of the cryptocurrency, after halting withdrawals in early February amid scrutiny from the People's Bank of China.

The digital currency has had a stellar year, rising nearly 200 percent and easily outperforming stock market benchmarks like the S&P 500 (.SPX) Index and the Nasdaq composite (.IXIC) in 2017. The cryptocurrency has now more than tripled in value since trading at $968 on Dec. 31, and has gained nearly 30 percent in June alone.

Bitcoin in 2017

Source: FactSet

Brian Kelly, CEO and founder of BKCM and a CNBC contributor, told CNBC this week that the cryptocurrency was "in the first years of what is likely to be a multi-year bull market. Of course there will be corrections and even crashes along the way, but bitcoin is here to stay."

A contributing factor to bitcoin's recent surge is growing demand from Asia. In addition to the China factor, Japanese interest has risen ever since the government approved bitcoin as a legal payment method in April.

Investors also plowed more money into the currency after Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari commented on the blockchain technology behind bitcoin, saying it "has more potential than bitcoin itself."

CNBC's Fred Imbert contributed to this report.

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Bitcoin bulls runs wild as cryptocurrency surges above $3,000

Former UBS innovation lead establishes cryptocurrency fund – Finextra

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

Europe's first diversified Cryptocurrency Fund Crypto Fund AG is launching the Cryptocurrency Fund, which will be based on the Cryptocurrency Index, investing in the most important cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether, Ripple, and other well-established cryptocurrencies.

The Cryptocurrency Index is calculated by a well-known index provider, and invests in the largest virtual currencies by market capitalization and liquidity. This ensures a high level of diversification which leads to a reduced volatility of the fund, while at the same time ensuring the ability to benefit from the emergence and high growth rate of new cryptocurrencies.

Jan Brzezek, CEO of Crypto Fund AG, explains: "We recognized the growing demand of qualified investors for a regulated and transparent gateway to cryptocurrencies and realized that we need a proven and recognized legal framework allowing qualified investors to invest in cryptocurrencies. Unlike the Winkelvoss-ETF, which was rejected by the SEC, we use the regulated and proven Swiss fund structure according to KAG, where the asset manager, the fund management company and the custodian bank are legally separate from each other. The Fund will be highly diversified and will not list on an exchange and exclusively target qualified investors.

The team headed by cryptocurrency expert Mr. Brzezek, who until recently worked for the President of UBS Asset Management and UBS Group EMEA and was also nominated as Group Innovation Expert by UBS, is complemented by experienced other finance professionals and is supported by well-known Swiss entrepreneurs: Dr. Tobias Reichmuth, CEO and Founder of the successful infrastructure fund manager SUSI Partners AG, has joined Crypto Fund AG both as founding investor and Chairman of the Board. Together with Fintech expert and investor Marc P. Bernegger (Board Member) and further soon to be announced senior banking industry professionals, they support the fast growth of Crypto Fund AG.

Mr. Reichmuth says: "Private and institutional investors alike show a keen interest for cryptocurrencies as a deflationary value storage medium independent of central banks. Access via a regulated vehicle, to execution and safe storage were so far missing. The Cryptocurrency Fund will be the first regulated fund globally which provides a safe and easy access to the rapidly growing cryptocurrency world.

The fact that Switzerland was chosen as a fund domicile is not a coincidence. Mr. Bernegger adds: The term "Crypto Valley" has quickly gained acceptance and demonstrates the concentration and growth of Cryptocurrency companies and foundations in the region of Zug and Zurich. It is also important to mention that Switzerland with its good reputation in asset management and stable regulation has already accepted virtual currencies as an asset class. In addition, the Swiss mountains offer safe and tested warehouses for digital assets.

The law firm MME Legal, which is specialized in blockchain and ICOs, advises Crypto Fund AG on legal matters. The launch of the Fund is expected for Q4 2017. Initial discussions with FINMA have already taken place.

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Former UBS innovation lead establishes cryptocurrency fund - Finextra

Raoul Pal: Bitcoin Is Mania And Not A Store of Value… I Sold-Out Last Week – Forbes

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

Forbes

Raoul Pal: Bitcoin Is Mania And Not A Store of Value... I Sold-Out Last Week
Forbes
The price of Bitcoin has risen by 210% since March to over $2,900 and one of the world's most successful investment strategists is warning investors to stay away. Speaking at the Mauldin Economics' Strategic Investment Conference, Raoul Palauthor ...

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Raoul Pal: Bitcoin Is Mania And Not A Store of Value... I Sold-Out Last Week - Forbes

Bitcoin Breaks $3K – PYMNTS.com

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

Bitcoins big surge continued on Sunday when the price per unit of the digital currency briefly broke the $3K mark.

That figure comes care of CoinDesks Bitcoin Price Index rival currency indexCoinMarketCap calculated the peak exchange rate at just a few cents short of $3,000. Because prices for bitcoin tend to vary across exchanges, there are slightly different ways to calculate the exchange rates hence the variation.

Whether it hit, or almost hit, $3K, however it is undeniable that bitcoin has been on a epic run for about the last six weeks or so. Bitcoins price hit $1,400 in early May and has been on a steady upward climb ever since, despite the now-frequent protests that this latest spike in the price of bitcoin is a bubble.

Billionaire Mark Cuban managed to briefly throw some cold water on the price surge by noting his concerns about a bubble. And those fears are not just for crypto-currency naysayers central figures in the bitcoin community were warning of a bubble from the stage atthe Consensus blockchain conference in May.

The enthusiasm is driven by the idea that bitcoin and its enabling technology, the blockchain, can bring data security innovation to a wide variety of fields fromhealth care record management tosupply chain tracking. Hence, bitcoin is not the only digital currency seeing a spike the tide is also lifting rival blockchain-based currencies like Ethereum, Dash, and Litecoin, which are mostly rising in tandem with bitcoin.

But a speculation-driven market is also an emotionally fragile market, and as bitcoin has shown in the past, rapidly cooling sentiment in bitcoin land can cool the price of coins as quickly as increased passion can raise them.

So whats next? With bitcoin, its always hard to say. This time next month we could be writing about how the bubble burst and bitcoin is back to $200 or we could be writing that bitcoin has broken $4K.

Well keep you posted either way.

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Bitcoin Breaks $3K - PYMNTS.com

Bitcoin’s Price Could Cross $100000 in 10 Years – Investopedia

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

The prediction made regarding Bitcoins price in Saxo Banks report titled as Outrageous Predictions For 2017 has already been proven right. Now Kay Van-Petersen, Global Macro Strategist at Saxo Bank who made this prediction, has made a long-term call predicting Bitcoins price 10 years from now. He told CNBC that Bitcoins price has the potential to cross $100,000 in 10 years. This translates to an increase of more than 3000% from its record high.

The numbers are based on Van-Petersens prediction that cryptocurrencies will be equal to 10% of the average daily volumes (ADV) of fiat currency trade in 10 years. Trading in foreign exchange (FX) markets averaged $5.1 trillion per day in April 2016, according to the Triennial Central Bank Survey of FX and over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets. The figure was down from the $5.4 trillion reported in April 2013.

Ten percent of $5.1 trillion indicates around $510 billion of average daily volumes (ADV). With Bitcoin accounting for 35% of the market share, it alone would account for $175 billions in average daily volume. Going by Van-Petersens analysis, the market capitalization for Bitcoin would be 10 times the average daily volume, translating into a whopping $1.75 trillion.

Bitcoins come into circulation through a process called Bitcoin mining. Since the amount of new Bitcoin released with each mined block (called the block reward) is halved every 210,000 blocks, or roughly every four years, it is estimated that this diminishing block reward will result in a total release of Bitcoin that approaches 21 million. According to current Bitcoin protocol, 21 million is the cap and no more will be mined after that number has been attained. The 21 million cap would be reached only by 2140. It is further projected that in the next 10 years, Bitcoins in circulation would potentially be around 17 million. Based on this figure, coupled with the projected market capitalization, Van-Petersen has given a price estimate of $100,000 for each Bitcoin. (See also: What is Bitcoin Mining?)

Recently, the overall market capitalization for cryptocurrencies crossed the $100 billion mark, primarily driven by Bitcoin and Ethereum. The surge in Ethereums price beyond $300 has taken it past $110 billion in less than a week. (See also: Bitcoin Price Hits New All-Time High, Overall Market Cap Crosses $100 Billion)

Note:Van-Petersen's views are not the official view of Saxo Bank.

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Bitcoin's Price Could Cross $100000 in 10 Years - Investopedia

The Future Of Bitcoin Conference Unveils Speaker Lineup And Agenda – CoinJournal (blog)

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

The Future of Bitcoin, a conference taking place on June 30 and July 01, 2017, in the Netherlands infamous Arnhem Bitcoin City, has unveiled its speaker lineup and agenda for the two-day event.

Conference speakers come from Russia, Poland, France, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, China, Canada, the US and Argentina and represent the global Bitcoin community. They will tackle some of the most pressing challenges in the Bitcoin space and present new and exciting projects.

Speakers include Jihan Wu, the co-founder of Bitmain and founder of 8btc.com, who will deliver a keynote presentation titled Why Bitcoin needs Multiple Implementations.

Ryan X. Charles, a prominent Bitcoin influencer who has worked for the likes of BitPay, BitGo and Reddit, will speak about Yours, his latest venture. Yours technology is based on payment channels, but unlike Lightning Network, is independent on SegWit and works on Bitcoin today.

Bitgos software engineering team lead Jameson Lopp will discuss coopetition in his presentation titled The Benefits of Coopetition in Adversarial Environments. Jameson is the creator of Statoshi, a fork of Bitcoin Core that analyzes statistics of Bitcoin nodes. He is also the founder of Mensas Bitcoin Special Interest Group, as well as the founder of the Triangle Bitcoin & Business meetup.

John Swingle, an attorney who focuses his practice on patent law as well as other areas of intellectual property law, will speak about cryptocurrencies and the overhyped smart contract in his presentation titled Smart Contracts vs. Dumb Money.

Juan Garavaglia will present the Bitprim Project, a new implementation of the Bitcoin protocol. Based on Libbitcoin, Bitprim is built with a modular architecture with a messaging platform to let modules be 100% independent. Based in Argentina, Bitprim has a team of 7 developers working full time on the open source implementation.

Rob Mitchell, the host of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency-focused podcast The Bitcoin Game, will be the master of ceremonies during the conference. Mitchell has interviewed many well-known Bitcoin personalities including Roger Ver, Charlie Shrem, and Jeff Garzik.

The Future of Bitcoin Conference 2017 is a two-day event consisting of presentations, panels, discussions and social events aimed at bringing together Bitcoin developers, researchers and enthusiasts to discuss the future of the network.

The conference will take place in Arnhem, the Netherlands, a city that rose to fame in 2014 when it became of the second Dutch city, following the Hague, to host a Bitcoin Boulevard. Today, over 100 merchants in Arnhem accept the digital currency.

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The Future Of Bitcoin Conference Unveils Speaker Lineup And Agenda - CoinJournal (blog)

Comets receive grand welcome from hundreds of supporters – YourGV.com

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

The Virginia 5A State Runner-Up Halifax County High School baseball team received a warm return home Saturday night from its trip from Fairfax where it had played in the VHSL state tournament championship game earlier in the day.

A crowd estimated at between 300 and 400 family members, friends and well-wishers from the community gathered in the bus parking lot at Halifax County High School, erupting into applause as the Comets team bus arrived and continuing as players and coaches one-by-one stepped off the team bus.

Once off the bus, Comets players gathered and hoisted the state runner-up trophy to a round of applause from those in the gathering.

I very much appreciate the people coming out and welcoming our players back home, said Comets Head Coach Kenneth Day.

All of this is for these kids, and they deserve it. We very much appreciate the support the players families have given us this season, and we thank them for everything they have done to support the players and our baseball program.

I cant say thank you enough to the people and the businesses in the community that have supported us this year and in years past, Day added.

It takes the effort of everybody to make our program a success.

The Comets had a police escort from the Halifax County line on Route 360 all the way to Halifax County High School. Deputies with the Halifax County Sheriffs Office met the bus just after it crossed into Halifax County, and with one police cruiser in front and another behind, escorted the team to the South Boston Town limits.

There, South Boston Police joined in, and after traveling a short distance up Hamilton Boulevard, a fire truck from the South Boston Fire Department pulled up in front of the bus for the ride to Halifax County High School.

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Comets receive grand welcome from hundreds of supporters - YourGV.com

Comets fall in marathon 14-inning state title game | Prep Sports … – YourGV.com

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

Halifax County High School faced Briar Woods High School in the VHSL 5A State Tournament championship. Here are reports from the game.

2 p.m.: Briar Woods scored on a hit in bottom of 14th and won 5-4.

1:41 p.m.:The Falcons got a hit in the bottom of the 13th inning but Comets held. The score remains tied at 4-4 with the Comets coming to bat in the top of the 14th inning.

1:27 p.m.: The Falcons got runners on first and second base but Alex Lowery got a strikeout to end the inning. Game still tied 4-4 heading into the top of the 13th inning.This now becomes the longest playoff game a Comets team has ever been involved in.

1:17 p.m.:Comets fail to score in top of the 12th inning. Alex Lowery goes to the mound for the Comets to start the bottom of the 12th inning.

1:07 p.m.: The Comets got Holt Powell to third base but failed to score and the game remains tied at 4-4 heading into the top of the 12th inning.

12:51 p.m.: Falcons load the bases in the bottom of the 10th and a great catch by Comets second baseman Tyler Duffer of a fly ball ended the inning. The game continues now into the top of the 11th inning with the score still 4-4.

12:36 p.m.: Comets pitcher Drew Harlow made a great play to get the last out of the 9th inning after the ball ricocheted off of him and the game is still tied at 4-4 heading into the top of the 10th inning.

12:24 p.m.:The Comets had a good defensive inning in the bottom of the 8th and the game remains tiedat 4-4heading into the 9th inning.

12:09 p.m.: Comets end the inning on a strikeout from Drew Harlow but the game is tied 4-4 and heads into extra innings.

12:04 p.m.:Comets are in a jam. The Falcons have the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the 7th inning. Briar Woodshas tied game.

11:54 a.m.: Halifax is only 3 outs away now from the school's second ever state baseball title. Comets lead 4-2 heading into bottom of the last inning.

11:48 a.m.:Comets dodge a big bullet with big defensive plays from Dawson Watts at shortstop and Hunter Watts at first base after the Falcons got a double and still lead 4-2 heading into the final inning.

11:36 a.m.: Comets failed to score in the top of the 6th inning but they are just six outs away from the state title.

11:27 a.m.: Comets pitcher Carlton Redd records his fifth strikeout of the game as the Comets hold the Falcons scoreless for the fourth consecutive inning and still lead 4-2 heading into the top of the sixth inning.

11:22 a.m.: Comets got a leadoff single from reserve Shaun Perkins to lead off the top of the fifth inning but could not score. Comets still lead 4-2.

11:13 a.m.: The Comets held the Falcons at bay in the bottom of the fourth inning and continue to lead 4-2.

11:05 a.m.: Comets have exploded for 4 runs in the top of the fourth inning with the help of a 2-RBI hit by Josh Barker and two Falcons errors to take the lead at 4-2.

10:46 a.m.: Briar Woods High School continues to lead 2-0 after three innings. Comets centerfielder Brayden Moore made a great running overhead catch of a fly ball at the fence for the first out of the bottom of the third inning.

10:33 a.m.: Comets continue to trail 2-0 after two innings. HCHS has not yet had a hit. Pitcher Carlton Redd recorded two strikeouts in the bottom of the second inning.

10:18 a.m.: Comets trail 2-0 after first inning. Two hits by Briar Woods HS and a Comets error gave the Falcons the early lead.

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Comets fall in marathon 14-inning state title game | Prep Sports ... - YourGV.com

Comet Likely Didn’t Cause Bizarre ‘Wow!’ Signal (But Aliens Might Have) – Live Science

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

A color scan of the original computer printout of the "Wow!" signal as detected by the Big Ear Radio Observatory in 1977.

An astronomer thinks he's pinpointed the source of a mysterious radio signal from space: a passing comet that nobody knew about. But his colleagues said they're still skeptical of the explanation, noting that comets don't emit radio waves in the right way.

Antonio Paris, an astronomer at St. Petersburg College in Florida, recently published a paper in the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences saying the mysterious "Wow! signal," a truly bizarre radio signal detected almost 40 years ago, seems to match up with the location of a comet called 266P/Christensen that hadn't been cataloged at the time. (The comet was discovered more recently, in 2006. Originally, Paris' hypothesis was that a second comet might also be the culprit, one called P/2008 Y Gibbs.) Explanations for the Wow! signal have ranged from intermittent natural phenomena, to secret spy satellites, to, yes, aliens.

Others aren't so sure. "We do not believe the two-comets theory can explain the Wow! signal," Jerry Ehman, the astronomer who discovered the Wow! signal in 1977, told Live Science. [5 Times We Thought We Found Aliens]

The Wow! signal's name comes from just how striking and strange it was. The radio signal appeared on the night of Aug. 15, 1977, when it was picked up by the Big Ear radio telescope at The Ohio State University. It lasted 72 seconds. It was "loud" more intense than anything in the background sky that night. It was also a narrow-bandwidth signal; the range of frequencies it covered was small, similar to those of artificial signals. AM radio, for example, has channels that are only 10,000 cycles above or below the designated frequency on the dial. Further, the signal was at a frequency of about 1,420 megahertz (MHz), also called the 21-centimter line. That's the same frequency as radio waves emitted by neutral hydrogen gas in space. It's a region that is relatively free of noise from other objects, and one researchers involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence have been interested in for a long time because it could be used for interstellar transmissions.

The signal did not repeat, and subsequent attempts to find it proved fruitless. Ehman marked "Wow!" in red pen on a printout that shows the numbers representing the signal.

Back in 1977, the now-dismantled Big Ear telescope was looking for alien signals, in an early iteration of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. But no one expected to see anything like the Wow! signal, and the Big Ear telescope heard nothing like it again.

Without a repeat signal, it was impossible to tell what it was; even getting a precise location wasn't easy because the signal was short-lived. Ehman, now retired, told Live Science that, beyond a certain distance, it's hard to tell how far away a radio signal is coming from.

In his paper, Paris wrote that comets will, under certain conditions, emit radio waves from the gases that surround them as they zoom closer to the sun. According to the study, Comet 266P/Christensen was in about the right position on the right day in 1977. Paris first floated the idea in early 2016, and proposed a program of using radio telescopes to listen for the emission of such radio waves. [Face on a Comet: Ghostly Faces in Space]

The comet project had three phases. "The first phase was the hypothesis, which led to the second phase: Do comets emit 1,420 [MHz signals]? It appears yes, they do," Paris told Live Science.

In the third phase, set for 2018, Paris plans to explore the mechanisms of the emissions why comets should generate radio waves at that particular wavelength. Paris said little research has been done on the topic.

"There have been a handful of studies, but I suspect we are the first to specifically build a 10-meter radio telescope to specifically look at this type of solar system body," he said.

To see if a signal could have come from comets, Paris first used a radio telescope to look at the sky in the region of the Wow! signal. With this step, he wanted to see what the background looked like at the relevant frequency. He also checked two other comets to be sure that they did, in fact, emit radio signals at the 1,420-MHz frequency, and found that they did.

Then, in January, Paris directed the radio telescope to point at Comet 266P/Christensen as it passed through the region of the sky where the Wow! signal was seen. (Comet 266P/Christensen has an orbital period of about 6.65 years, and its apparent location in the sky will vary depending on where Earth is in its own orbit around the sun. The comet passed near, but not exactly, where the Wow! signal was about 2 degrees north of the Wow! signal location.

Yet several astronomers, including Ehman, think Paris is wrong about the comet. Ehman looked at Paris' study with Robert Dixon, who directs the radio observatory at The Ohio State University (Big Ear was destroyed in 1997). Two big issues are that the signal didn't repeat, and it appeared for such a short time. Ehman noted that the Big Ear telescope had two "feed horns," each of which provides a slightly different field of view for a radio telescope. [5 Huge Misconceptions about Aliens]

"We should have seen the source come through twice in about 3 minutes: one response lasting 72 seconds and a second response for 72 seconds following within about a minute and a half," Ehman told Live Science. "We didn't see the second one."

The only way that can happen, he said, is if the signal was cut off abruptly. A comet wouldn't produce that kind of signal, because the gases that surround them cover large, diffuse areas. Nor would the comet have escaped from the radio telescope's field of view that fast.

But Ehman isn't convinced it's aliens, either. There are many phenomena that show sudden appearances and disappearances of radio signals, including fast radio bursts (FRBs), which are mysterious radio bursts with hotly-debated astrophysical origins that generate irregular signals that last only milliseconds. If the the Big Ear picked up only the tail end of such an emission, the data could look similar to the Wow! signal, Ehman speculated.

"The issue with the feed horns is something no one can explain, including me," Paris said. "There is some data out there to suggest the issue is at the telescope end and not the phenomenon itself." So it's possible that the signal could have been caused by a glitch in the Big Ear telescope.

The other issue is the frequency of transmission. Paris said he has shown that comets can emit in that range, but Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, is skeptical. Shostak used to study emissions from neutral hydrogen in the 1,420-MHz range, and is less sure the emission would look right. Comets may not generate enough hydrogen to make a bright enough signal like Wow!.

"I don't think anyone ever found such emission from comets," Shostak told Live Science.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Comet Likely Didn't Cause Bizarre 'Wow!' Signal (But Aliens Might Have) - Live Science

Comets cool the competition at Hotspurs tourney – Belleville Intelligencer

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

The Tris Belford Realty Group U16 girls Belleville Comets played it cool at the 2017 Nepean Hotspurs Friendship soccer tournament last weekend in Ottawa.

Comets complied a perfect 4-and-0 slate, including a 1-0 win over the Russell Raiders in the gold medal match. Heidi LaCosta netted the tournament-winning goal.

Earlier, Comets overpowered OSU Power 7-1 on goals by LaCosta, with four, Anna Noronha, Peyton Barnabi and Morgan Hawley. In a 3-1 win over Ottawa City Blue, local snipers were Hawley, LaCosta and Noronha. Victoria Lippitt posted the clean sheet for Belleville in a scoreless draw with the West Ottawa Warriors.

Meanwhile, Comets continued to spread the message of the dangers of unanchored soccer goalposts at the tournament, which is fast becoming a trademark of their 2017 season. Together with competitors from other clubs at the Hotspurs tourney, Comets players marked goalposts with checkered tape in honour of #anchored4garrett.

Garrett Mills of Napanee was killed on May 12 when an unsecured soccer net collapsed on him while he was hanging out with friends at a local soccer field. He was 15.

Since then, Mills' father Dave Mills (a Quinte Broadcasting radio personality known as Buzz Collins) told Postmedia Network: I will make every effort in the days, weeks, months and years to come to ensure that this death was not in vain. It didn't have to happen.

Mills is working to raise awareness of the dangers of unanchored soccer goalposts and why they need to be secured at all times.

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Comets cool the competition at Hotspurs tourney - Belleville Intelligencer

Meteor Showers and Shooting Stars: Formation, Facts and Discovery – Space.com

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

This image was taken during the 1999 Leonid meteor storm as part of NASA's Leonid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (Leonid MAC). The image was captured with a 28 mm camera.

Meteor showers occur when dust or particles from asteroids or comets enter Earth's atmosphere at very high speed. When they hit the atmosphere, meteors rub against air particles and create friction, heating the meteors. The heat vaporizes most meteors, creating what we call shooting stars.

While there are stray bits of stuff hitting Earth from all directions, there also are regularly timed "meteor showers" when astronomers can make better predictions about how many meteors will hit the Earth, and from what direction. The key difference is that meteor showers occur when the Earth plows into the trail of particles left behind by a comet or asteroid. Depending on where the trail of particles falls in a particular year, meteor showers can be more or less intense.

Astronomers sometimes even find new meteor showers, such as the case of the Camelopardalids in 2014. Initial predictions put the shower at up to 200 meteors per hour, but in reality, it ended up being a quiet shower for amateur astronomers. The shower became active after thedebris trail of Comet 209P/LINEARintersected with Earth. (The debris trail of comets can shift because of the influence of Jupiter, or other reasons.)

Most meteors become visible at around 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) up. Some large meteors splatter, causing a brighter flash called a fireball, which can often be seen during the day and heard up to 30 miles (48 km) away. On average, meteors can speed through the atmosphere at about 30,000 mph (48,280 kph) and reach temperatures of about 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,648 degrees Celsius).

Most meteors are very small, some as tiny as a grain of sand, so they disintegrate in the air. Larger ones that reach the Earth's surface are calledmeteoritesand are rare.

Whether an object breaks apart depends on its composition, speed and angle of entry. A faster meteor at an oblique angle (slanting rather than straight-on) suffers greater stress. Meteors made of iron withstand the stress better than those of stone. Even an iron meteor will usually break up as the atmosphere becomes denser, around 5 to 7 miles up.

When meteorites do hit the ground, their speed is roughly half what it was upon entry, and they blast out craters 12 to 20 times their size. Craters on Earth form much as they would on the moon or any rocky planet. Smaller objects create bowl-shaped craters. Larger impacts cause a rebound that creates a central peak; slipping along the rim forms terraces. The largest impacts form basins in which multiple rebounds form several inner peaks.

Large meteors can explode above the surface, causing widespread damage from the blast and ensuing fire. This happened in 1908 over Siberia, in what's called theTunguska event.On June 30, 1908, across hundreds of miles, witnesses saw a ball of fire streak through the sky, suggesting the meteor entered the atmosphere at an oblique angle. It exploded, sending out hot winds and loud noises and shook the ground enough to break windows in nearby villages. Small particles blown into the atmosphere lit the night sky for several days. No meteorite was ever found, and for years many scientists thought the devastation was caused by a comet. Now, the prevailing theory holds that a meteor exploded just above the surface.

A similar event occurred overChelyabinsk, Russia, when a 17-meter rock exploded 12 to 15 miles above the Earth's surface on Feb. 15, 2013, damaging buildings and injuring more than 1,000 people. According to astatementby Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario in Canada, "The energy of the resulting explosion exceeded 470 kilotons of TNT" 30 to 40 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II.

Although the Russian event brought into focus the possible danger Earth could suffer from space rocks, most meteors don't cause nearly as much damage. Still, NASA and other entities keep careful track of all asteroids visible from Earth, and are actively engaged in discovering as many asteroids as possible especially the ones that are larger and would pose more of a (theoretical) threat to Earth. Asteroid orbits are plotted and tracked to see if they will intersect with Earth in the future. While no imminently threatening object has been found, NASA continues the search and posts the results publicly on theSmall Body Database Browser.

This view of comet Halley's nucleus was obtained by the Halley Multicolour Camera (HMC) on board the Giotto spacecraft, as it passed within 600 km of the comet nucleus on March 13, 1986.

In ancient times, objects in the night sky conjured superstition and were associated with gods and religion. But misunderstandings about meteors lasted longer than they did about most other celestial objects.

Meteorites (the pieces that make it to Earth) were long ago thought to be cast down as gifts from angels. Others thought the gods were displaying their anger. As late as the 17th century, many believed they fell from thunderstorms (they were nicknamed "thunderstones"). Many scientists were skeptical that stones could fall from thecloudsorthe heavens, and often they simply didn't believe the accounts of people who claimed to have seen such things.

In 1807, a fireball exploded over Connecticut, and several meteorites rained down. By then the first handful of asteroids had been discovered, and a new theory emerged suggesting meteorites were broken bits off asteroids or other planets. (A theory that still holds.)

The largest meteorite recovered in the United States fell in a wheat field in southern Nebraska in 1948. Witnesses saw a giant fireball in the afternoon that some said was brighter than the sun. The meteorite was found buried 10 feet deep in the ground. It weighed 2,360 pounds.

The most famous meteorite crater in the United States is misnamed Meteor Crater. It's in Arizona, and it's huge. The rim rises 150 feet from the surrounding plain, and the hole is 600 feet deep and nearly a mile wide. It was the first crater that was proven to be caused by a meteorite impact, which occurred between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago.

Meteors are often seen falling from the sky alone one here, one there. But there are certain times in a year when dozens or even hundreds of meteors per hour will light up the sky, seemingly coming from one part of the sky, radiating in all directions, and falling toward Earth one after the other.

There are several periodic meteor showers thatastronomers and amateur observerswait for every year. Meteor showers are named after the constellations from where the shower appears to be coming from. For example, the Orionids appear to originate from the mighty Orion constellation, while Perseid meteors seem to be coming from the Perseus constellation.

Leonids:The brightest and most impressive is theLeonid meteor shower, which can produce a meteor storm that showers the sky with thousands of meteors per minute at its peak. In fact, the term "meteor shower" was coined after astronomers' observed one of Leonids' most impressive displays in 1833. The Leonids occur every November, but the shower's most beautiful display happens at intervals of about 33 years, with the last one lighting Earth's sky in 2002; it is not expected to be repeated until 2028. [Amazing Leonid Meteor Shower Photos]

Perseids:Another shower that is worth keeping awake for is thePerseid meteor shower, which is associated with thecomet Swift-Tuttle, which takes 133 years to orbit the sun. Earth passes through the comet's orbit during the month of August every year. It is not as active as the Leonids, but it is the most widely watched meteor shower of the year, peaking on Aug. 12 with more than 60 meteors per minute.

Orionids:TheOrionid meteor showerproduces meteors fromHalley's comet, which orbits the sun every 75 to 76 years. The Orionid shower happens every October and can last for a week, treating patient observers to a show of 50 to 70 shooting stars per hour at its peak. [Orionid Meteor Shower Sparks Bright Fireballs (Video)]

Quadrantids:TheQuadrantid meteor showercomes from the debris of an asteroid called 2003 EH1, which some astronomers think was part of a comet that broke apart centuries ago. The debris enters Earth's atmosphere in early January and offers astronomers and other observers a brief show. [Spectacular Quadrantid Meteor Photos]

Richard Hay sends this image of a Quadrantid meteor and says: "My wife and I ventured out into the frigid 26-degree Florida night this morning to catch the shower with our own eyes, and [were] rewarded with about 20 or so bright Quadrantids over a 90 minute period."

Geminids:Like the Quadrantids, theGeminid meteor showeralso came from dust particles of an asteroid, this time a near-earth asteroid called 3200 Phaeton. Meteor showers are mostly from comets, so having an asteroid as parents make the Quadrantids and Geminids different from other meteor showers. The Geminids happen in December and spray up to 40 meteors per hour out of the Gemini constellation at its peak.

Other meteor showers to watch out for are theEta Aquarids, also remnants of Halley's comet, in May;and theLyrids, which have been chronicled for more than 2,000 years, in late April.

People living in the Northern Hemisphere are in the best position to observe the most beautiful meteor showers. For example, North America is right below the region of the sky where the January Quadrantids shower appears.

A bright moon can dim the prospect of seeing a good meteor shower, drowning out all but the brightest meteors. Local light pollution dampens prospects, too, so the best place to view a meteor shower is from out in a rural location.

Most meteor showers are best viewed in the pre-dawn hours, when the part of Earth you are standing on is facing the direction of Earth's orbit. It's like bugs hitting a car's windshield. In the late evening hours, on the other hand, the meteors are less frequent loosely akin to bugs hitting a car's rear bumper.

Meteor showers can be seen at different times of the year depending on when Earth is going to pass through the comet's or asteroid's path. Some meteor showers happen annually; others only appear over a period of several years, while some of the best shows meteor storms happen just once or twice in a lifetime.

Weather can also hamper a good view of meteor showers. A clear sky is a gift to night gazers, which is why meteor showers during the summer are more anticipated than those that fall in the winter months.

Additional reporting by Nola Taylor Redd and Elizabeth Howell, Space.com contributors

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Meteor Showers and Shooting Stars: Formation, Facts and Discovery - Space.com

Exploring high cholesterol’s link with psoriasis – Medical Xpress

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

June 12, 2017 by Kevin Mccullough Space-filling model of the Cholesterol molecule. Credit: RedAndr/Wikipedia

A new Northwestern Medicine study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation has demonstrated how a specific class of immune cells represent a previously unknown link between high cholesterol and the development of symptoms characteristic of psoriasis.

Scientists have long known that patients with psoriasisan inflammatory disease that causes itchy, dry and red skinoften have high cholesterol levels, also known as hyperlipidemia. Up until now, however, the cause of this association has been poorly understood.

In the current study, Chyung-Ru Wang, PhD, professor of Microbiology-Immunology, and her colleagues created a strain of mice that contain a category of immune cells called self-lipid reactive T-cells, and also have higher-than-normal amounts of cholesterol in the blood.

"To our surprise, these mice spontaneously developed skin lesions, which were caused by the activation of self-lipid reactive T-cells only under conditions of hyperlipidemia. The skin disease closely matched the symptoms and progression of psoriasis in humans," Wang said.

The findings, according to the authors, may represent an important link between the presence of high cholesterol and the development of psoriasis, a connection that has not previously been explained.

In a separate experiment, Wang and her team examined blood samples from human patients with a psoriasis diagnosis, and found that the levels of those same self-lipid reactive T-cells were elevated in those patients, compared to those without psoriasis.

Taken together, the scientists say the findings of the study are important because they may point to why hyperlipidemia might be linked to the onset of some autoimmune diseases, like psoriasis. Identifying and targeting the antigens that provoke the T-cells in question may represent a future avenue for developing treatments for psoriasis and other hyperlipidemia-associated inflammatory diseases.

Explore further: Psoriasis may up risk of melanoma, hematologic cancer

More information: Sreya Bagchi et al. CD1b-autoreactive T cells contribute to hyperlipidemia-induced skin inflammation in mice, Journal of Clinical Investigation (2017). DOI: 10.1172/JCI92217

(HealthDay)Patients with psoriasis may have a higher risk of melanoma and hematologic cancers than the general population, according to a study published in the April issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

The fact that men are overrepresented in psoriasis registers and consume more psoriasis care have long led researchers to believe that the common skin disease disproportionally affects men. A unique study with 5,438 Swedish ...

Psoriasis sufferers may face a higher risk of developing abdominal aortic aneurysms, according to new research in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, an American Heart Association journal.

Different types of dendritic cells in human skin have assorted functions in the early and more advanced stages of psoriasis report researchers in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine. The scientists suggest that new strategies ...

Psoriasis is a common, long-lasting disease that causes itchy or sore patches of thick, red skin with silvery scales. Environmental contaminants can trigger psoriasis and other autoimmune disorders, and it is thought that ...

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the skin and cardiovascular risk factors, including hypertension, are more prevalent among patients with psoriasis compared to those patients without. Previous studies suggest ...

Building on insights from an HIV vaccine regimen in humans that had partial success during a phase 3 clinical trial in Thailand, a Duke-led research team used a more-is-better approach in monkeys that appeared to improve ...

Globally, an estimated 71 million people are living with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV). Over decades of infection, chronic HCV infection results in progressive damage to the liver and an increased risk for end stage liver ...

Five percent of women in the US territories who were infected with the Zika virus while pregnant had fetus or babies with defects, including microcephaly, government health data said Thursday.

It was long thought that gastric ulcers and other digestive woes were brought about by stress. But in 2005, clinical fellow Barry J. Marshall and pathologist J. Robin Warren were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ...

Being depressed may have little impact on flare ups for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), researchers have found.

Chronic liver diseases rank as the 12th cause of death worldwide and many of these disorders are associated with unhealthy lifestyles. Conversely, a healthier lifestyle can help prevent or reverse liver disease. Liver-related ...

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About – Go Curry Cracker! – Retire Early. Travel the World.

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

Go to school. Get good grades. Get a good job. Buy a house. Work for 30+ years. Be a good consumer. Retire on a golf course.

For many, these are the ingredients for success. But life has more to offer those willing to change the recipe.

By living in a small apartment in an old building, walking and biking instead of owning a car, and preparing most of our meals in our own kitchen, we were able to save a large percentage of our income. Instead of buying things and services, we learned new skills that reduced our expenses even further. By learning to invest, we turned those savings into a respectable income stream. Now still in our 30s, instead of 2 weeks of vacation a year, we have 52.

We are Jeremy and Winnie. Together we are Go Curry Cracker, a rallying cry we earned on our honeymoon hiking trip. This blog shares our journey.

Winnie is from Taiwan and is the Go Curry Cracker resident photographer. After working in high tech, she found her real love making magic happen behind the camera and in the kitchen. Now she travels the world in search of new flavors and images.

Jeremy is from the United States and is the Go Curry Cracker blog writer. His love of learning and adventure make permanent travel the ideal lifestyle.

Want to know more? Contact us!

Also be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram!

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About - Go Curry Cracker! - Retire Early. Travel the World.

Ukraine hails visa-free travel to European Union – BBC News

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

BBC News

Ukraine hails visa-free travel to European Union
BBC News
Ukrainians have celebrated the introduction of visa-free travel to the European Union with special events. President Petro Poroshenko hailed the "fall of the paper curtain" at a gathering in the capital Kiev. He also opened a symbolic visa-free door to ...
Ukrainians jubilant on first day of visa-free EU travelTRT World
Ukrainians cheer on first day of visa-free EU travelGuardian (blog)
Ukraine marks 1st day of visa-free Schengen zone travelAnadolu Agency

all 57 news articles »

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Ukraine hails visa-free travel to European Union - BBC News

InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort wins 4 World Travel Awards – VnExpress International

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

The InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort brought home four prestigious titles at World Travel Awards, marking its fourth consecutive triumph, on the occasion of its fifth anniversary.

At the gala ceremony in Shanghai on June 4, the InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort brought home four prestigious titles.

At the gala ceremony in Shanghai on June 4, it was awarded Asia's Leading Luxury Resort 2017, Vietnam's Leading Resort 2017, Asia's Leading Fine Dining Hotel Restaurant 2017: La Maison 1888 Restaurant, and Asia's Leading Luxury Hotel Villa 2017: Sun Peninsula Residence Villa.

"This recognition is a result of the thoughtful and world-class services and experiences that we deliver to our guests every day. It also reflects the fantastic vision of our owners who built the most impressive resort in Asia, Juan Losada, General Manager of the InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort, said.

The past five years have been fantastic for everyone involved and associated with us and we look forward to an even more bright future, Losada added.

The iconic InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort has redefined the definition of luxury in Da Nang and Vietnam over the past years.

These awards reaffirm the resort teams commitment to excellence, which they have demonstrated ever since the first ribbon cutting ceremony was held on June 1, 2012.

Through the years, the iconic InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort has redefined the definition of luxury in Da Nang as well as Vietnam, and amassed numerous international awards.

The Sun Peninsula Residence has also been recognized as Asias Leading Luxury Hotel Villa 2017 for extraordinary design and excellent service. Nestled in a secluded area for ultimate privacy, each villa spans up to approximately 1,000 square meters and features views of the private bay from all directions.

The Sun Peninsula Residence has also been recognized as Asias Leading Luxury Hotel Villa 2017 for extraordinary design and excellent service.

Each unit includes two private pools and a large reception area as well as a fully equipped kitchen, making it perfect for both relaxation and entertainment. Each deluxe bedroom comes with an expansive bathroom with two vanity areas, an enormous designer marble bathtub and an outdoor shower with the mythical Monkey Mountain as the backdrop.

The World Travel Awards were launched in 1993 to acknowledge excellence in the travel and tourism industry. Currently in its 24th year, it has been heralded as the "travel industry's equivalent to the Oscars" by The Wall Street Journal. The awards are decided based on votes by the public and travel professionals worldwide.

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InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort wins 4 World Travel Awards - VnExpress International

Seeking Spirituality – New Delhi Times

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

By Dr. Pramila Srivastava

In modern times, seeking spirituality is an extraordinary phenomenon with the given splurge of books in stores on various mystical practices. The many contradictory perspectives pose a dilemma for todays seeker: What to believe? The question becomes all the more complicated with an influx of media and them broadcasting the number of spreading religious gurus and their ethics, adding another question: Whom to follow? This becomes all the more complex with us believing everything that we hear, read, and see as the gospel truth. When in such a situation, we must keep a genuine sense of inquiry: How will this teaching affect me and others? Is it leading me to greater kindness and understanding? Am I reaching a state of higher peace and freedom?

We need to understand that not all journeys to spiritual enlightenment are as exotic as Elizabeth GilbertsEat, Pray, Loveexploration or Buddhas quest from dis-attachment to tree. Initial enthusiasm causes us to practice and follow all. But, we need to realize that each of these undertakings, teachings of books, maps, and beliefs, are a mere signpost pointing towards what someone received. In order to make spiritual practice come alive for oneself, we must discover within ourselves our own way of becoming conscious, to live a life of the spirit. Acting to be spiritual is not becoming spiritual. We try and seek an outer form of perfection, which we believe is leading us to spirituality. However, in doing so we are merely acting spiritual. It is our very search for perfection outside us that causes our suffering, said Buddha. One should never seek perfection, for a very perfect moment or thing too will change or lose its shape moments later. Therefore, it is the freedom of the heart that we seek and which should seek us for its the real spiritual experience.

Liberation arises when we are able to deal with non-perfection without anxiety. The world is not supposed to be perfect according to our ideas. People come and go with ideas to change and perfect the world, yet liberation is rarely found in doing so. Whether we seek illumination in a community, through different states, or in our everyday lives, we will never come to it for we seek perfection. Spiritual enlightenment arises when we are able to see ourselves, the world around and the beings within with same compassion and honesty.

There are several questions which become important for a person seeking spirituality: What ideas do we hold of ourselves, and of others? Are these images/ideas who we really are? Is this our true nature? Realising these or nearing to solve these questions aid in spiritual awakening too. Liberation comes not from trying to improve oneself body or personality. Instead it is a process in which we discover a different way of seeing the world, rather than viewing things with our usual images, ideas and perspectives. This leads us to a radical way of being where we learn to see with the heart, which loves, rather than with the mind, which compares and defines. So, in order to achieve this one needs to let go of oneself, indulge in knowing more and more, aspire wisdom, challenge your body and soul to grow through meditation and yoga, broaden ones vision. Letting yourself to be free to know everything and be curious about everything. When you empower yourself to explore outside of your comfort zone and take action to experience new things, you find yourself on an eternal exploration a journey led by spiritual breadcrumbs that guides you to another enlightening experience, and then another.

Finally, the only rule to seeking ones spirituality is that you read all, see all, hear all, but make your own rules to enlightenment. It cant be the same for all. Discover things that serve your soul, make your spirituality sing, make you feel liberated, and follow them. Listen to yourself, listen to your soul. Free your consciousness, and most essentially, remain open to all, judgemental of none, and soak every experience that life throws at you in the way of your spiritual journey.

Photo Credit:Shutterstock

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Seeking Spirituality - New Delhi Times

Search for spirituality – Daily Pioneer

Posted on June 12, 2017 by Danzig

Monday, 12 June 2017 | Aakriti Narang

Nelofar Currimbhoy shares with us her inspirations, hopes and future plans for her second novel titled Eyes of the Healer. By Aakriti Narang

Being the daughter of a woman, who has been the pioneer in the herbal cosmetic industry and has been a subject of business studies at Harvard, people expected Nelofar Currimbhoy to follow her inheritance. Daughter of Shahnaz Husain, she has added more products to her international portfolio, but apart from excavating ancient Ayurvedic formulations to be marketed to the world, she is also a writer. And as with all writers, she drew from her own reservoir of immediate memories for her debut, which was a biography on Shahnaz Hussain. She has now released her second novel titled Eyes of the Healer.

Talking about her new book, she says, Its hard to judge your own piece of work. I get so deeply involved with my writing that its hard to trust my own perspective. This book is for readers who are experimental in their reading habits. It portrays the spiritual journey of Govinda, a young man who aspires to reach a higher level of consciousness and after his tapasya receives the gift of healing. Yet, when he is at the epitome of godliness, he is struck by the love of a woman and loses his powers. So, this is also an intense love story that redefines the fruition of the man-woman relationship. It shows the struggle between passion and commitment.

In response to well-known writer Ashwin Sanghis comment about Eyes of the Healer as being woven like fine tapestry, Currimbhoy feels it is the best compliment her work can get. Speaking of what inspired her to write the novel, Currimbhoy tells us, We all speak of inspirational writing, Eyes of the Healer is truly an inspired piece of work for me. I did not write it with the idea of publishing it so it has both purity and innocence. Nothing held me back and there were no considerations other than that of my own creative fulfilment. I have been inspired by the Buddhist philosophy of peace and harmony. Perhaps my close association with The Dalai Lamas sister Jetsun Pema and my work with the Tibetan community could have been an influence.

Identification with the characters portrayed in any narrative is one way in which readers connect to the storyline. Whatever technique the author chooses to employ, some literary device should be used. Otherwise the readers interest will not be maintained. Likewise, Currimbhoy believes that a contemporary audience will be able to relate to Govinda, the protagonists internal struggle. She says, Human emotions are eternal and so are human situations. There was love when Omar Khayyam wrote the Rubaiyat poems and there is love today. We were seeking then and we are still searching for answers today. Is there a God? Is there an energy that we can reach? I believe that todays audience is less religious and more spiritual than ever. The meditative quality and purity of a work like my book with its ability to explore the possibilities of the conscious mind and its gamut of human emotions will connect with anyone who has lived through lifes challenges. Govinda is a rebellious young man who leaves his home to find a greater purpose to life. Any young man choosing his bliss could relate to him.

How many of us find time to reflect upon the actions we did and the words we said on a particular day? Are we even able to complete all that is required of us in the time that is available? Its tough. Imagine what it must be like to seclude yourself for writing despite running renowned companies. On balancing writing with work, Nelofar admits Its very limiting and detrimental to any company for its leaders to seclude themselves in the limited work of running their business. My view of business is that it has to be crafted like a piece of art. The wider my vision, the more I will achieve for my company. As for schedules and appointments, I feel that when you are passionate about something, you will make it happen. I do give up a lot of socialising and dashing around town after work for the sake of writing. Having a book published can be compared to a little atom that soon enough appears at a book shelf in a library somewhere and the sense of achievement this thought brings with it allows me to give up all the glitterati events in the world.

There is a marked difference between writing a biography and a fictional work. Currimbhoy doesnt feel the same way. Flame (Husains biography) was a very personal experience; it flowed freely without the burden of creating a structure or storyline. The story was pre-written by my mother and somewhere the story of her life merged with mine. I saw her in wonder as a child and then worked with her through every process of the evolution of the company. I remember filling the first jars of creams and sticking labels on them. So Flame was not just what I saw but what I experienced too. One of my favourite lines from the book is Let me walk you through the first salon, while the paint still smelt fresh. Honestly, I was deeply passionate about both works. So I do see a similarity in the way I approached them; they both evolved freely and with very little effort and with a lot of commitment and passion for the writing.

All this writing was done with the backdrop of Currimbhoys passion for beauty. Rather than her becoming interested in beauty, I think beauty became interested in me. Indeed my mother involved me in her work from the time I was still in faded jeans. I got married at 19 and lived four houses away from the first salon for many years. It was indeed my mothers destiny which was so strong and enigmatic that it flowed through my life too. So now I hold and protect the future with all my heart and work long hours at the company. What would I want my epitaph to say is She came and she stayed in her living words, shares Currimbhoy.

As for the future, she is looking forward to staging the narrative as a play. The book launch in May had Kabir Bedi reading some of his favourite lines and Currimbhoy used the opportunity to create a dance sequence with two chapters read out with music. Currimbhoy says she would love to take it to an international audience. At present, it is being read by a theatre producer of a show in New York and I am hoping it finds a path that will take it to a larger audience.

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