Category Archives: Progress

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump salutes as he arrives at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, on Monday. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus first summit with US President Donald Trump probably wont revolutionize the Middle East. But with America reeling from its disruptive new leader, and Israel recovering from the nightmare of extremists clashing with police officers at Amona, there may be an opportunity for a reset.

After eleven years as prime minister, Netanyahu should start taking some risks, to push Israelis and Palestinians beyond the status quo. The despicable violence at Amona demonstrates the dangers of kowtowing to a shrill, aggressive minority. There is no excuse for attacking Israeli security officers these hoodlums should be punished severely. Netanyahu should reduce the absurd million- shekel-per-family bribe he paid Amonas residents to leave, which didnt even buy him peace. Some of these funds should be redirected to compensate every security officer who participated in the eviction doubling the share for the 46 wounded officers. Every Knesset member who respects democracy should endorse a law demanding such adjustments; the settler movement must learn that their violent extremists hurt their cause.

By (finally) confronting the fanatic settlers, Netanyahu could strengthen his credibility for a second step: reviving the two-state solution by reimagining it. He should help Israelis accept four realities. First, right-wing Israelis must realize that the Palestinians exist; their national aspirations must be met somehow. Second, a Palestinian state already exists in many ways the Palestinian Authority controls territories which even the most ideological settlers never enter because Israeli law prevents them.

Third, left-wing Israelis must learn that contiguity is passe. In an age of missiles and instant communication, for a Palestinian people still deeply tribal and even more deeply divided between Hamasistan in Gaza and the PLOs West Bank kleptocracy, it is time to start thinking Hawaii or Singapore. Palestinians can fulfill their national aspirations through an archipelago of non-contiguous territorial centers, building on the Singaporean model of the thriving city-state. And fourth, culture counts; Palestinians must end incitement, delegitimization, terrorism and rule by dictatorship they even torture their own people! while nurturing a democratic culture of mutuality, accountability, non-violence, civil society.

The Israeli Left must first accept the last two propositions.

If extremists with what we could call their faultanalogiphilia, addiction to faulty, inflammatory analogies start yelling Bantustans and rationalizing Palestinian terrorism as justified given the occupation, this challenging plan will die at childbirth. Israelis must reconsider their encrusted positions which sustain an unsustainable status quo. Palapologists (i.e. Palestinian apologists) who claim Israelis would never accept such compromises should remember that the Jews accepted the 1947 UN Partition Plan, because half a loaf their clich was better than none.

After the Israeli debate, the conversation can go global to the Americans and President Trump; to Israels newly-recruited anti-Iranian allies the Saudis and the Egyptians (thank you Barack Obama); then, finally, to the Palestinians.

Abandoning contiguity will correct two mistakes Israelis and the Oslo peace processors keep making. The dynamics since the 1990s keep undermining moderates and boosting extremists. By disengaging from Gaza unilaterally, Ariel Sharon deprived PA President Mahmoud Abbas of any credibility for being less fanatic than Hamas and received no concessions or any sense of responsibility from the PA. Hamas declared victory, claiming that terrorism pushed out the Zionists. Similarly, Netanyahu should state explicitly: the reduced amount of land Israel is offering, compared to Ehud Baraks and Ehud Olmerts more sweeping proposals, is punishment for Palestinian incitement, terrorism and rejectionism.

Peace will only come when the reasonable Palestinian majority silences the murderous Palestinian extremists who usually dominate. Triggering a Palestinian backlash against the Palestinian fanatics for costing them land might reestablish the proper equation. Palestinians must learn: peaceful, reasonable compromises yield positive results; hateful and vicious attacks, verbal or physical, cost them land.

Beyond this, Israels security needs need addressing. The John Kerry-era conversation about the military presence Israel requires in the Jordan Valley should be revisited.

Beyond that, every passenger on every plane taking off and landing in Israel must be confident that no Palestinian with an RPG is waiting on some withdrawn-from Israeli high point overlooking Ben-Gurion Airport to shoot down the jet. Israel must also guarantee that the Palestinians dont use a renewed peace process and more autonomy to return to the rule-by-gangs that emerged in Yasser Arafats terrorist state. Back then, these criminals terrorized their fellow Palestinians indiscriminately while attacking their Jewish neighbors brazenly. Their crimes spilled over into a wave of car thefts in Jerusalem, Kfar Saba and other towns abutting the open, non-security- barriered borders. Palestinian thieves knew they only needed a few minutes to reach their territory and a virtual free pass.

In short, Israelis and Palestinians must reexamine assumptions, learn some Oslo lessons, and start adjusting to new realities. Trumps unnerving leadership-by-chaos might be useful here. The Palestinians perpetuating their reputation as the worlds brattiest nationalist movement are whining that the Trump people dont even bother to respond to us. Good. Obamas indulgent responsiveness toward them only escalated their demands. Its time to give the Palestinians terrorist dictatorship-in-formation tough love and the Israelis democratic state some love love. The Saudis and Egyptians are also fed up with Palestinian tantrums and want a recalibrated Middle East.

We know in the Middle East how to hunker down in our usual trenches; its time for new leadership, new thinking and new openness, among Israelis and Palestinians, the leaders and the led.

The writer, professor of history at McGill University and a visiting professor at the Ruderman Program at Haifa University, is the author of The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s, published by St. Martins Press. His next book will update Arthur Hertzbergs The Zionist Idea. Follow on Twitter @GilTroy.

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President Barack Obama delivers remarks during a BET event on the South Lawn of the White House on Oct. 21 in Washington.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The era of Barack Obama is over. Eight years of liberal governance yielding a surprisingly comprehensive list of achievements. A stimulus program that stanched the bleeding of the Great Recession and set the stage for an extended period of job growth and rapid innovation in key sectors of the economy. A bailout of the automotive industry that rescued millions of jobs and saved an entire region from economic ruin. A health reform law that, despite its flaws and problems, patched critical gaps in the U.S. health care system and extended coverage to millions of Americans. A financial reform law that established strict new requirements for banks and made consumer financial protection a key priority of the federal government. And an ambitious plan to reduce carbon emissions and spare the world from the worst consequences of global climate change. Within each of these, you could find smaller programs that brought outsize impact, seemingly modest initiatives that, if they happened under any other Democratic president, would be praised as major achievements.

Jamelle Bouie isSlates chief political correspondent.

Or at least, thats the argument New York magazines Jonathan Chait makes in his early retrospective on the Obama presidency, Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail. And in the wake of recent eventsthe election of Donald Trump, his inauguration, and his rapid move to implement an ethno-nationalist, plutocratic agendaits almost a comforting argument. As Chait writes, Barack Obamas presidency represented one of those great bursts. It was a vision and incarnation of an American future. His enemies rage against and long to restore a past of rigid social hierarchy or a threadbare state that yields to the economically powerful. But he, not they, represents the values of the youngest Americans and the world they will one day inhabit.

There is no doubt that some portion of Obamas presidency will endure. Republicans are just now, for example, beginning to see the massive political challenge involved in repealing the Affordable Care Act and upending the health care system as it presently exists. But Chait, in his optimism, understates the force of backlash, of the fierce reaction that always meets progress and often overtakes it, both as it exists and as it can exist. And his confidence that Obamas legacy will survive gives short shrift to how backlash isnt just a bump on the road to a better future. It is a lived experience, one that can consume entire liveswhole generationsbefore the arc of the universe begins to move back toward progress.

Whats missing from Chaits analysis, put simply, is a sense of tragedy. In that hes not too different from Obama himself, whose soaring invocations of a more perfect union often understated the costs of backlash, even as he acknowledged the possibility. Given his place in the landscape of political journalism, however, its no surprise Chait makes the same omission. Writing from first the New Republic and later New York magazine, Chait has long been a strong defender of the Obama administration and Obama-style liberalism, not just from the right, but from the left as well. Wary of the dogmatism (and increasingly illiberalism) that now defines movement conservatism, Chait also critiques what he sees as the same when it emerges on the left (or more precisely, to his left).

You could see all of thishis affinity for Obama and support of mainstream liberalism, his optimistic view of the present course of American life, and his wariness toward left-wing critiquesin his 2014 exchange with the Atlantic magazines Ta-Nehisi Coates that ranged over topics including welfare reform, the New Republics racial history, the notion of a culture of poverty, and the question of racial optimism. In that debate, which he recapitulates in somewhat veiled form at the beginning of Audacity, he endorses Obamas view of racial progress against Coates more skeptical and circumspect position. It is one thing to notice the persistence of racism, quite another to interpret the history of black America as mainly one of continuity rather than mainly one ofprogress, wrote Chait, a line echoed in the book, as he contends that Obama made substantive progress on advancing racial equality. The growing awareness of racism among liberals during his presidency gave new force and prestige to a belief that racism was endemic not only to [Americas] history but its very character, he observes. When liberals bring up the history of American race relations, they usually emphasize how little has changed, rather than how much.

Audacity is a work of triumphalism, hardly diminished by the outcome of the election.

Chaits self-positioning in the ecosystem of American politics isnt mindless contrarianism. It comes from a sincere belief that liberals (and the left more broadly) are too stubbornly fatalistic to see that Democratic presidents, and Obama in particular, make real headway on their goals and priorities, despite inevitable obstacles, setbacks, and failures. The American state of the present day has a dramatically more progressive cast than it did a half century ago, and it had a more progressive cast a half century ago than it did fifty years before, and on and on. Yet the progressives who produced these victories have lived them as deflating failures. They have made the same errors of perception again and again, writes Chait.

Audacity is his attempt to correct this error. To show progressives that their pessimism and fatalism is unfounded, and to show thatpace their view of the presentObama was a success. A huge one. Obama presented a new vision of America, to the world and to itself. And he had, to a degree hardly anybody recognized at the time, made his vision of a new America real, writes Chait. But heres where the problems begin. Its not that Chait doesnt have a pointalthough, this point may have been stronger had Hillary Clinton prevailed in the presidential contestbut that he overcorrects, understating the real political and policy failures that marked Obamas tenure. He fails to tackle the more sophisticated critiques of the administration, from both the left and the right, typically aiming his counterarguments at Obamas weakest critics instead.

And so, on the recession and housing crash, Chait spends his time dueling with tendentious and partisan opponents like Amity Shlaes and Charles Krauthammerwho slammed any stimulus as unnecessary and harmfulrather than critics like journalist David Dayen, who argues that the administration dropped the ball on housing relief in a way that prolonged economic pain, undermined the recovery, and contributed to the discontent that nearly derailed Obamas presidency at several points, and may yet derail his legacy.

You could lodge a similar complaint about Chaits own treatment of heath care reform in this book. For as much as the Affordable Care Act has been a successand Chait details all the ways that is truehe gives short shift to glaring problems like inadequate subsidies (premiums and deductibles are still too high for many millions of Americans) and the absence of actual universal coverage. Chait is correct to argue that all major social programs are inadequate at the start (Social Security was threadbare and designed to appease Southern segregationists in the Roosevelt coalition), but that doesnt erase the impact of what that means in the moment for actual people.

This gets to the general problem with triumphalist narratives, and Chaits brand of triumphalism in particular. A teleological framing of history tends to discount what it actually means to live through and experience setbacks. The eight-year administration of Ulysses S. Grant saw genuine progress for black Americans. They secured voting rights and won federal protection from racist vigilantes; they elected leaders to the House and Senate, and built thriving communities for themselves. This was dismantled in fairly swift fashion by a backlash of conservative politics and while vigilantism. One way to look at this is to say that, in the long run, Grants legacyand that of those black Americanssurvived. The story since that period has been one of slow progress built on those gains and experiences. But the other way to describe it is as a long twilight, where black Americans struggled under the weight of oppression until circumstances and events allowed them to recover and reassert earlier gains. Yes, there was progress, but at the cost of generations of pain and suffering.

Chaits triumphalism, his teleological view of American history, discounts what it means to experience that twilight. Put in more concrete terms, the fact that Obamas accomplishments will likely endurethe fact that Donald Trump cannot blot them from the recordwill not console the Americans who see family deported, who see children killed by unaccountable police officers, who see the richest Americans siphoning the nations wealth for themselves. Even if we recover from the policies of the Trump administrationeven if a new liberal era emerges in responseit wont change what ordinary people suffered through; it wont restore the loss.

Audacity is a work of triumphalism, hardly diminished by the outcome of the presidential election. And in its confident defense of the mainstream liberal consensus, it fits comfortably into Chaits oeuvre as a writer and a thinker. Which is to say it suffers from the same overconfidence that led those same liberalsObama includedto discount the threat of Donald Trump. Committed to a teleology of progress, albeit open to the reality of historical irony, this liberalism lacks a visceral sense of the tragic. That sense of tragedythat sense that those inevitable reversals engender real pain for real peopleis vital. It puts confidence in its proper context, revealing thateven if we are right about the direction of the worldwe cannot forget the suffering that comes in those zigs and zags of history. Perhaps, if liberals like Chaitor even myselfwere more attuned to that possibility of profound loss, then maybe we would have better anticipated the present moment and all the pain it promises.

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Read the rest of the pieces in the Slate Book Review.

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The Cost of Progress - Slate Magazine

By William Haupt III | Haupts Take

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen. (Ronald Reagan)

In the dog days of summer during the 60s, many northern Americans crossed the Mason-Dixon Line to help put an end to inequality for Americans of all races, cultures, and religions. Many did not know why they went. Maybe it was to listen to Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and others or just for the camaraderie. But reflecting back 50 years we know it was right.

For over 40 years, America was the benefactor of the Civil Rights Movement. We witnessed the battle of James Meredith entering the University of Mississippi. Our black and white brothers and sisters were killed and beaten as the chaos spread throughout the South. But we put an end to segregation and maltreatment for all minorities and all underclasses. This was not a black thing, a white thing, it was the right thing to do.

Itll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. For the times they are a-changin. (Bob Dylan)

The history of civil rights in the twentieth-century in the US is inseparable from the history of the Great Migration from the end of World War I through the 1970s. Ethnic groups such as African Americans, religious minorities and others chose to relocate to the North and West to escape the pervasive system of legalized racism and social indignation.

While we often associate the Great Migration with the decades around the two World Wars, many more relocated to other regions of the US after 1940 than before. Between 1940 and 1980, five million Americans moved to the urban North and West, double the number with the first wave of migration from 1915 to 1940. By 1980, trans-migratory residents made up 35 percent of their populace.

Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. (Ronald Reagan)

The relocation of Americans from all classes of society with unique cultures helped blend the America we once knew in the last decade. Drawn by employment opportunities and the desire to escape de jure stereo-typed segregation in their under-cultured cities, towns and counties, they moved for social and economic improvement to escape local brands of inequities and other types of social exclusion.

United we stand, divided we fall.

Neighborhoods, schools and workplaces changed to accommodate this new melting pot of cultural trans-migration. Equal treatment and full participation in civic life, better wages and social integration dismantled many of the old stereo-type mores their ancestors had to endure for decades. People of all ethnic cultures benefited as America grew closer together as a nation rather than a country of isolated sub-cultures.

United we stand, divided we fall. (Aesop)

America took great strides to overcome the rituals of ethnic, cultural and social segregation. We had accomplished what our founders had hoped for when they created a more perfect union of free men. But of course like all good things, something happens and they come to an end. And that end was the beginning of a fast track trend to moving backwards by an up young man who promised to bring complete and total homogeneity to our nation.

Yet he excelled in leading out nation into its past transgressions, culturally, socially, and ethically, to former days before America had learned to dismiss this demeanor. He destroyed the learning experience and societal development that it took 40 years to accomplish.

The Obama years have devastated our American culture. (Joel Page)

Under the current president, we have seen Americans of every social ethnic class pitted against each other: Young against old; black against white; straight against gay; and urbanites against the police. President Obama has presided over a fictional War on Women. He made more Americans despise each other than ever.

This brings back memories of the days of community organizers like Sal Alinsky. This is the game plan he put forth in his book Rules for Radicals. Obama rushed to the microphone to disparage the Cambridge police, whom he said acted stupidly when they were only trying to protect their community. When an incident in Florida took place and a young man was killed he took the opportunity to tell all of America If I had a son he would look like Treyvon Martin.

He exploited every incident that happened on his watch to cleverly remind America there was a great cleavage between minorities and whites. He has used every opportunity to disparage all of the good that we have done in the last five decades to promote similitude in our nation.

The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimination, is still part of our DNA. (Barack Obama)

The Obama years embraced eight years of decadence and perversion that brought cultural and ethnic doom to this country. This has proven that the promises of progressive politicians mean nothing. This makes one wonder how we ever survived the Obama years without more strife and trouble than we experienced in our communities and townships.

This has been liberal, social, and cultural micromanagement at its best, or perhaps worst. Ripping a nation apart by racial, ethnic, and gender strife is a key ingredient in the progressive equation to control society and stuff the progressive agenda down the esophagus of every American. This enables them to control free markets, free enterprise and all public and private institutions in our nation and gives them total control over our lives.

To say weve actually made significant progress over the last 50 years isnt as true as it sounds. (Obama)

Welfare is way up under Obama. Jobs with decent salaries are way down. The only thing that prospered under Obama is the largest growth in government since FDR. He nationalized college tuition, our banks, and our healthcare. He has created an unrelenting and ever-growing under-class of cultural dependents on government support.

America, the beautiful.

There is no telling how much worse this would have gotten if Hillary Clinton had been elected. She had promised to double down on every failed program that Obama had set forth. And she too had done her very best to keep the ethnic, cultural, and societal divisions between Americans alive and well to improve her chances of being elected.

America is lucky Donald Trump had a message they wanted to hear. (Raymond Castro)

Ronald Reagan said, We cant help everyone, but everyone can help someone. To reverse this trend, we must support the policies of our new president and bring back opportunities for everyone who wants them. We must take the social abnormalities and traditions that Obama and his regime created and toss them into the junk heap of history.

We must reform liberal schooling and prevent liberal media from promoting the decay of the young and nuclear family. We must stop this cultural atrophy and putridity of our great nation and this adulteration of our social and cultural traditions.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.)

It will not be an easy task to wean people off of the government udder that they have been nursing on for so many years, but it has run out of milk to feed them. To promote and rebuild racial, ethnic and social congruity we must encourage everyone to reap the harvest and the rewards of our free market capitalism.

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. (Ronald Reagan)

We have a president who owes nobody any favors except to return the ones America gave him. Donald Trump said his top 6 issues are: Smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation, stop illegal immigration, rebuild our military, and bring back traditional values.

The road to social and cultural equality is not paved with the good intentions of spreading the wealth and misery, but by offering everyone a chance to capture their share of the American dream. (James Moore)

This article was written by a contributor from Franklin Centers independent network of writers, bloggers, and citizen journalists.

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Haupt's Take: It took eight years to destroy 50 years of progress - Watchdog.org

Approaching a week until Virginias first baseball game, Brian OConnor is closer to answers for the 16th-ranked Cavaliers biggest questions.

When will UVa decide on its weekend rotation? Soon.

What day will Adam Haseley move from center field to the mound? Sunday.

Who are the other starting options? Daniel Lynch, Evan Sperling, Derek Casey and Noah Murdock.

And, as a bonus, whats the confidence level in this mostly unproven staff? High.

OConnor will officially begin his 14th season as Virginias coach on Feb. 17 against Liberty in Charleston, South Carolina. Unlike past years, theres no certain ace to throw on that afternoon. Such a role will have to develop over the next few months, as is the case with many of the pitching jobs in 2017.

For now, though, the competition has been great, OConnor said Tuesday at Davenport Field. This last weekend in the scrimmages I thought we started to turn the corner a little bit. Theres a lot of guys that are throwing the ball really well, throwing strikes.

Haseley, a junior left-hander with 11 career wins and an ERA of 1.86, is the most polished of the bunch. But hes also an everyday outfielder with a career .275 batting average, seven home runs and 56 RBI.

The plan is for Haseley to play his position twice a weekend and then begin the third game of every series as a pitcher.

As for Haseleys rotation mates, OConnor will likely make that announcement early next week.

The candidate pool is intriguing.

Lynch, a sophomore lefty, is coming off a trying freshman season that included six weekend starts, but also bouts with sickness and injury. He went 1-3 with a 5.49 ERA.

Coming out of the gate last year, he pitched a great ballgame opening week for us, OConnor said, nodding to Lynchs five shutout innings and nine strikeouts against Appalachian State on Feb. 19. And he had a tough time sustaining it for a lot of different reasons. Strength level is one, and then he got sick and things like that. He had some back issues and some different things that made it tough for him.

But I still think he gained some valuable experience. He is way more improved now. Hes stronger, hes more confident. Hes throwing the ball more aggressively. I really like what I see.

Sperling has been with the program for two years, but is still seeking his first pitch in a Cavalier uniform. The 6-foot-6, 215-pounder had Tommy John surgery before touching Grounds and then went through two knee surgeries while redshirting last spring.

He joins Casey, now 21 months removed from Tommy John, as talented options with limited college rsums. Casey, a redshirt sophomore with a career 4-1 record and 3.06 ERA, hasnt pitched in a game since April 2015.

Theyve been around here for a year or two, and theyve learned, OConnor said. So they are a year wiser and things like that.

Derek Casey did pitch half a season for us. So they know whats going on, they know whats expected. Even though they havent been in a whole lot of situations, they have been there and have witnessed it.

But I use the word uncertainty. I think the talent is there, I think the skill level is there. They just havent had to do it yet.

Sperling told reporters last week he feels stronger than before.

It feels great, feels like youre part of the team again, Sperling said. You kind of feel isolated when youre hurt and you cant do much, but I feel good and I can contribute a lot.

Murdock, a 6-8 freshman righty from the Richmond area, was selected by the Washington Nationals in the 38th round of last Junes MLB Draft. Initially, OConnor said, Murdock could be a mid-week starter or come out of the bullpen, can be a swing guy for us.

Inexperience at starter is going to expected to be blended by veterans out of the bullpen. OConnor mentioned senior Alec Bettinger, juniors Jack Roberts, Bennett Sousa and Tommy Doyle (closer) as key pieces to potential mound success in the seasons early months.

I think theres real value in the first part of the season where you have guys coming out of your bullpen who have experience, OConnor said. It gives you a good feeling. Early in the season, these guys [starters] arent going to go out and throw seven or eight innings. So whos going to come in?

OK, youve played five innings, youre tied, youre up a run or youre down a run, whos going to come in to throw the next two or three innings? Thats critical.

Andrew Ramspacher covers UVa football, men's basketball and baseball for The Daily Progress and Cavalier Insider. Contact him at (434) 978-7250, aramspacher@dailyprogress.com or on Twitter @ARamspacher.

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Cavaliers' pitching rotation a work in progress - The Daily Progress

Deutsche Bundesbank has made progress developing a blockchain-based settlement infrastructure, but the system is not yet market ready.

Carl-Ludwig Thiele, a member of the Deutsche Bundesbank executive board, offered an update on the banks progress speaking at the G20 conference in Wiesbaden. His comments, Digitizing finance, financial inclusion and financial literacy, are available on the banks website.

Thiele noted the bank develops and operates large financial market infrastructures in line with technological advances. The bank needs to be aware of the potential benefits and risks of this technology early on.

Working with Deutsche Brse, the bank has developed a preliminary prototype for a blockchain-based settlement that has the following capabilities:

The projects goal is to learn the following: How the technology works, How reliable and secure blockchain-based transactions are, What factors impact the costs of blockchain-based transactions, How effective and efficient blockchain-based processes are, How current processes can be improved with blockchain technology.

Improving process efficiency is an overriding goal. A shared data pool across all entities concerned should enable standardizing and simplifying some of the more complex transaction monitoring processes.

A shared data pool combined with flexible access rights would, for example, provide the conditions whereby relevant regulatory reporting and internal audit requirements are addressed with less effort and are more securely designed.

Deutsche Bundesbank chose a concept based on a Hyperledger blockchain. The top considerations were: A closed or permissioned blockchain network, in which only authorized users can transact on the network. Responsibility and confidentiality. Future financial transactions will be governed by current standards in these two key areas. Hence, every transaction is encrypted, in addition to the transacting parties identities.

Also read: Industry report: blockchain technology will save banks billions

The study indicates blockchain technology can be adapted meet current financial system needs and requirements. And while the prototype works, further development for mass use presents challenges.

The test application allows for simulating large-volume delivery-versus-payment securities transactions.

The joint project has developed an elementary, though functional, blockchain-based application catering to the financial sectors basic requirements.

The bank is presently unable to know if the application can allow for mass use or whether this it is a viable option in terms of costs.

With this as our starting point, we aim to develop a technically more sophisticated prototype, capable of providing information on technical performance and thus allowing comparison with our present settlement infrastructure, Thiele said.

Image from Wikimedia.

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Deutsche Bundesbank Cites Progress With Blockchain-Based Settlement - CryptoCoinsNews

Since taking over as coordinator two seasons ago, Keith Butler has had a vision of how he wants the Steelers to play defense.

It was on display in 2016.

On Nov. 20 at Cleveland, the Steelers turned a four-man rush out of their five-defensive backs sub-package into a sack and a forced fumble by linebacker Ryan Shazier that was recovered in the end zone by defensive tackle Javon Hargrave.

On Jan. 22 at New England, another four-man rush out of the nickel resulted in a Hargrave sack of quarterback Tom Brady and a subsequent punt.

There were many such examples throughout the season, particularly during the nine-game winning streak that delivered the Steelers from 4-5 to the AFC Championship Game.

But there werent enough of them against the Patriots.

We werent tight enough in coverage, head coach Mike Tomlin assessed after New Englands 36-17 victory denied the Steelers a berth in Super Bowl LI. We didnt apply enough consistent pressure to the quarterback.

The Steelers had demonstrated the ability to stick with receivers and assault pockets previously.

The next step will be to do so more consistently in 2017.

But the progress made by the defense in 2016 provided a foundation upon which to continue to build.

Early in the season the Steelers struggled with basics such as tackling and being in the right gap, and with mental aspects of the game such as not trying to do too much individually and compromising the scheme.

But improvement was evident in all of those areas as the season progressed despite losing defensive end Cam Heyward for the season in a 35-30 loss to Dallas on Nov. 13.

James Harrison started at right outside linebacker, Sean Davis started at strong safety and outside linebacker Bud Dupree made his 2017 debut the following week in Cleveland.

Soon thereafter, a lineup that had included Artie Burns starting at cornerback since Nov. 6 at Baltimore solidified and the defense sprouted teeth.

The Steelers amassed eight sacks on Nov. 20 in Cleveland. They picked off a pair of passes and came up with a couple of goal-line stands on Nov. 24 at Indianapolis. They held the Bills No. 1 rushing attack to 67 yards on the ground on Dec. 11 at Buffalo.

They were a different defense, reflected by their final regular-season rankings of No. 12 in total defense, No. 13 in rushing defense and No. 16 in passing defense.

The Steelers had been No. 21 in total defense in 2015 and No. 18 in 2014.

Projections for 2017 included Heywards return; Burns, Davis and Hargrave coming back as second-year pros rather than rookie starters; Shazier building upon a season that saw him emerge as the only player in the NFL with at least three sacks (three-and-a-half), three interceptions (three) and three forced fumbles (three); and linebacker Lawrence Timmons potentially playing next season as one of four players in Steelers history with at least 30 career sacks and at least 10 career interceptions (Joey Porter, Greg Lloyd and Mike Merriweather are the others).

Timmons will become an unrestricted free agent on March 9, as will Harrison.

The goal of the defense, no matter the eventual configuration, will be what its been since Butler took over in 2015.

Its always the same formula, Butler said before the Patriots game. We smash the run, try to put them in position to throw the ball and try to put pressure on Brady.

Theyll try to do so more often next season.

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Progress apparent on defense - Pittsburgh Steelers - Steelers.com

WASHINGTON

Greece, which has been struggling for years with high debts and painful rates of unemployment, is making progress toward reducing its massive budget problems and restoring economic growth, the International Monetary Fund said Monday.

But the IMF said the country's debts remain unsustainable over the long term.

The IMF predicts Greece's economy will reach long-run growth of just under 1 percent a year, unimpressive but an improvement on years when the economy was shrinking. And Greece will meet the IMF's target by reporting primary annual budget surpluses - which do not include interest payments - equal to 1.5 percent of economic output.

Since the financial crisis left it buried in debt and unable to issue bonds in financial markets, Greece has relied on international bailouts. Its eurozone creditors have forced it to make painful budget cuts that caused a deep recession. Unemployment is 23 percent. Most IMF directors said Greece doesn't need any more austerity. But they said the country should reduce pension payments and make more people pay taxes to raise money to help the poor and cut overall tax rates.

The country's debt is unsustainable at around 180 percent of gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, the IMF said. Most IMF directors say the country will probably need debt relief to pay its bills over the long term.

Greece is under pressure to conclude its latest bailout negotiations in time for a scheduled Feb. 20 meeting of eurozone finance ministers. That would allow the country to join the European Central Bank's bond-buying program, which would boost market confidence and make it easier for Greece to return to the bond market later this year.

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IMF: Greece's Debts are Still Unsustainable, Despite Progress - Voice of America

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WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- The SHARE Food Cooperative of Winston-Salem is making progress with plans to bring a co-op grocery store to one of the citys food deserts.

A now-vacant 8,000+-square-foot building has the attention of project leaders.

The building in the West Salem Shopping Center was a grocery store at one time, making it an ideal space for what SHARE hopes to do.

The vision is to establish some food markets in some food deserts, project coordinator Rev. Gary R. Williams said.Fresh food to people at a reasonable cost.

Eventually, SHARE would like to have multiple locations to address the numerous food deserts in the city, but for now, its focusing on the Peters Creek Parkway location.

We said, Why dont we find an area where we wont have to do so much work on the area itself, but be able to set up the co-op and [allow people] to access it right away and then we would use it as a model to take to these other areas, said Rev. Willard Bass, co-founding project developer.

They should build one right here, or put one here, resident Aundra Thweatt said.

The goal is to create a model similar to the Renaissance Co-op in Greensboro, but the group will need city funding to move forward with the vision.

To meet the operational, administrative and consulting needs of the project, SHARE would need an estimated total investment of $100,000 from the city.

However, in the short term, SHARE will ask the city at an upcoming council meeting to consider providing $21,000 for a feasibility study.

The study will allow SHARE to determine if this location is best suited to address all of the co-ops needs.

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Progress being made on possible grocery store co-op in Winston-Salem - myfox8.com

Team Ninja's SoulsGaiden-like marries the best of Dark Souls and Ninja Gaiden with a little Bloodborne stirred in.

In case you missed the memo, FromSoftware is done making Dark Souls games. Unless studio president Hidetaka Miyazaki changes his mind, next month's Ringed City DLC is not only Dark Souls 3's final expansion, it's the last piece of Dark Souls content ever.

Rather than leave that bloodstain to dry, Nioh pays homage to FromSoftware's modern classic while driving the genre forward at breakneck speed.

Developed by Team Ninja, Nioh evokes Ninja Gaiden and Dark Souls with a little Bloodborne thrown in for good measure. The basics will be familiar to anyone who's at least dabbled in a Souls game. You'll creep through dozens of areas painted in shades of grim and bleak, fighting enemies using a bevy of weapons, resting at shrines that both heal you and reset enemies and traps, spending amrita instead of souls to upgrade attributes.

Instead of playing it safe and conforming to a winning pedigree, Nioh builds on FromSoftware's ideas by injecting them with the raw speed of its 3D Ninja Gaiden series. Every weapon has a light and heavy attack, but your character can switch between low, mid, and high styles on the fly, effectively giving you six basic strikes.

Besides amrita, you earn skill points that you can spend on skills unique to each weapon class. Specializing in kusarigama (a wicked sickle-and-chain combo) afforded me access to skills like a kick that drains enemy stamina, a flurry of strikes that chews through life meters, and a throat slice that deals massive damage to winded enemies who neglected their stamina.

Minding your stamina, known as ki, is paramount in Nioh, but Team Ninja put a twist on the mechanic. Every time you finish an attack, you'll notice a blue glow surrounding your character. Tap R1 at the right time and you'll recoup all the ki you expended in a flash. Performing a ki pulse is reminiscent of getting hit in Bloodborne and being able to reclaim lost hit points by counterattacking quickly, but you always regain at least a smidgeon of ki even if your timing is off, so you won't feel punished if you prefer defense over aggression.

Ki regeneration has the added benefit of dispelling portals of dark energy that spring up around certain enemies and bosses. You can fight in those pools, but you'll regenerate ki at a snail's pace while inside them, and the rate of regeneration usually means the difference between success and respawning at the nearest shrine.

All of this boils down to layered and rewarding combat. You're never hurting for ways to dispatch enemies, and the staggering amount of options at your fingertips encourages you to switch styles and strategies depending on who or what you're fighting.

You almost have to. Dark Souls let you get away with picking off enemies one at a time while their buddies stood gaping at the growing pile of corpses lying at their feet. Nioh's mobs know when their friends are dying. Sniping with your bow or rifle gives you enough time to kill one, maybe two before the rest of the pack is on their feet and stampeding toward you.

Nioh's two biggest departures from Dark Souls lie in how you explore its world and digest its story. Instead of reporting back to a hub after killing bosses or exploring vast and interconnected environments, Team Ninja went with more traditional levels. The notion of selecting missions at a map screen may seem jarring to players accustomed to world design that communicates story, but every individual level of Nioh I've played has been deftly interwoven and dense with nooks, crannies, and side routes.

I was surprised by how much I appreciated having a minimap as I played. The map itself is bare bones; it exists only to point you toward your main objective. You can ignore the marker and explore at your leisure; when you're ready to move forward, you'll know which way to go.

Instead of creating your own character and customizing every pixel down to the shape of your eyebrows, you play as a characterWilliam, who's based on a real samurai of the same name, minus all the supernatural elements. And get this: William talks. Cutscenes are sparsely used to move things along, but I was able to skip them without missing any gameplay beats, yet engaging enough that players interested in a more traditional narrative will enjoy them.

To call Nioh a copycat would be doing it a disservice. Combat is tight and layered with options, levels are gorgeously rendered and ooze atmosphere, and the story is entertaining enough to keep me interested yet can still be set aside when I'm more interested in perfecting my ki pulses.

If, like me, you've sunk thousands of hours into Souls games and were concerned that the genre would dry up after Dark Souls 3's conclusion, you owe it to yourself to immerse yourself in Nioh's samurai-fantasy world.

This review-in-progress is based on a PlayStation 4 disc provided by the publisher. Nioh will be available exclusively for PlayStation 4 for $59.99 on February 7. Refer to the Shacknews Nioh guide hub for tips on solving levels and honing your skills in combat.

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Nioh Review-in-Progress: FromSoftware's Formula Evolved - Shacknews

All work on the Gateway Arch grounds renovation project is expected to be finished by late this year, CityArchRiver officials said Monday.

Kiener Plaza west of the Old Courthouse will reopen in May, CityArchRiver spokesman Ryan McClure said. A more precise date for the reopening of the Museum of Westward Expansion this year is expected to be known next month, McClure said.

Much of the work remaining on Kiener Plaza is landscaping.

"You'll see a lot of planting in the next few months," McClure said.

The $380 million Arch project will finish about two years behind schedule.The project began in 2013 and originally was to finish in 2015.

Visitors can begin going to the top of the Arch again sometime in late March, using the south tram. The north tram will reopen by the end of April, officials said.

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Kiener Plaza reopening in May; Gateway Arch renovations continue progress - STLtoday.com