The lives of most African children are snuffed out before they can even begin to grow. Their futures grow dim with each passing day as Africa’s gardens slip away. Why can’t these precious seeds grow and prosper? Aren’t they just as important as a flower garden or a vegetable garden?

5% off Authentic Diamonds.

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[Nile Post] Filmmakers have contributed Shs 57,600,000 to Parliament to support the Parliamentary Forum in revising the National Culture Policy.

[New Times] Tanzania's music superstars Diamond Platnumz and Zuhura Othman Soud, commonly known as Zuchu, have brought their relationship to an end after three years dating.

[Leadership] Nigeria's youngest female lawmaker, Hon Rukayat Shittu, representing Owode Onire constituency at the Kwara State House of Assembly has traveled to France for the Organisation of Parliamentary Work programme.

[Nile Post] At a press conference, UPPA president Sam Ibanda Mugabi strongly criticised the decision, underscoring the importance of independent media coverage free from interference.

Catégorie - HOMMES » Genre - Pop

Meet William and Jane, two of the treasures at the Mission. Taken from Walking Humbly: The Holiness of the Poor, by St. John the Compassionate Mission.

Dragons scrum-half Rhodri Williams is recalled by Wales head coach Warren Gatland more than 10 years since his last Test cap.

Head coach Luke Williams hopes a change of ownership at Swansea City will mean a "very exciting" future for the Championship club.

Luke Williams wants Swansea City to open contract talks with Josh Key after comparing the right-back to a young Gareth Bale.

Lock Jeremy Williams says Australia have come back down to earth after beating England and are fully focused on facing Wales on Sunday.

Bear Scotland says it is aware of complaints about congestion around improvements to a cycleway.

Alliance pays tribute to its "ground-breaking" and "trailblazing" former assembly member, Anna Lo.

Pop star Robbie Williams will perform at Bath's Royal Crescent in June next year.

BBC Radio WM listeners share their memories and thoughts following the stars death.

Wolves compare Jason Forrest recalls the grounds reaction to Liam's first half time gig.

Pop Idol's Mark offered a young Liam Payne advice on how to deal with the pop industry.

Eoghan was a contestant on the same series Liam and recalls their time together.

The article describes the integrated adoption of Fedora Commons and MediaMosa for managing a digital repository. The integration was experimented along with the development of a cooperative project, Sapienza Digital Library (SDL). The functionalities of the two applications were exploited to built a weaving factory, useful for archiving, preserving and disseminating of multi-format and multi-protocol audio video contents, in different fruition contexts. The integration was unleashed by means of both repository-to-repository interaction, and mapping of video Content Model's disseminators to MediaMosa's Restful services. The outcomes of this integration will lead to a more flexible management of the dissemination services, as well as to economize the overproduction of different dissemination formats.

Wales scrum-half Tomos Williams is ruled out of the Autumn Nations Series match against Australia on Sunday.

BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will hold a vote of confidence in parliament on Dec. 16, a source told Reuters on Tuesday, a move that would pave the way for snap elections following the collapse of his three-way governing coalition.

More to follow

La Salle star Kevin Quiambao will play for Gilas Pilipinas in the second window of the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers despite his ongoing UAAP Season 87 stint.

Jacob Arabo gifted Salman Khan a watch worth millions featuring 714 diamonds and an exclusive design.

Princess Diana would have ensured her sons would have a back to fall on during times of rift.

The former Princess of Wales wanted Prince William and Prince Harry to make amends amid their disagreements.

The BBC's former royal correspondent, Jennie Bond, told OK! Magazine: "I...

Prince William has reportedly put forward a set of strict conditions for peace talks with Prince Harry upon Kate Middleton’s persistence.

According to Heat Magazine, the Duke of Sussex has been making attempts to reconcile with the Prince of Wales but Meghan Markle is trying to...

Kate Middleton, Prince William issue statement as they make special announcement

Kate Middleton and Prince William issued a statement to make an exciting announcement after confirming that the Princess of Wales will host her fourth Together at Christmas Carol Service.

The Prince...

Prince William marks the start of something new with Kate Middleton

Prince William’s shift into a new era of his life has just been brought to light.

A conversation surrounding this happened on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive, with reporter Bronte Coy and broadcaster Sarah...

Pirate Parties: This past weekend, elections were held in Luxembourg and the Czech Republic. The Pirate Party of Luxembourg tripled their support and entered the Luxembourg Parliament with two MPs, and in the Czech Republic, the Pirate Party increased their support further – now receiving a full 17% in Prague.

With 6.45% of the votes of the final tally, the Luxembourg Pirate Party is entering its national Parliament, being the fifth Pirate Party to enter a national or supranational legislature (after Sweden, Germany, Iceland, and the Czech Republic). This may not seem like much, but it is a very big deal, for reasons I’ll elaborate on later. A big congratulations to Sven Clement and Marc Goergen, new Members of Parliament for Luxembourg!

Further, the Czech Republic has had municipal elections, and the Czech Pirate Party showed a full 17.1% support in Prague, the Czech capital, making the Pirates the second biggest party with a very narrow gap to the first place (at 17.9%). This may or may not translate to votes for the Czech national legislature, but is nevertheless the highest score recorded so far for a Pirate Party election day. I understand the Czech Pirates have as many as 275 (two hundred and seventy-five!) newly-elected members of city councils, up from 21 (twenty-one). Well done, well done indeed!

For people in a winner-takes-all system, like the UK or United States, this may sound like a mediocre result. In those countries, there are usually only two parties, and the loser with 49% of the vote gets nothing. However, most of Europe have so-called proportional systems, where 5% of the nationwide votes gives you 5% of the national legislation seats. In these systems, the parties elected to Parliament negotiate between themselves to find a ruling majority coalition of 51%+ of the seats, trying to negotiate common positions between parties that are reasonably close to each other in policy. This usually requires a few weeks of intense negotiations between the elections and the presentation of a successfully negotiated majority coalition.

Further, it could reasonable be asked what kind of difference the Czech Republic or Luxembourg could possibly make on their own in the global information repression. The answer is, a whole lot. The key here is realizing that one country is sufficient to break the global repression of information; the repression is completely dependent on every single country keeping watertight doors. If one single country decides to allow the free movement of culture and knowledge, then all such distribution will immediately be based there. The copyright industry lobby in other countries will protest, quite loudly, but there’s not really anything they can do about it.

And since the problem from a policymaking standpoint has been that the industry-age era politicians consider the Internet-related policy areas completely peripheral in the first place, conceding those policy areas will be seen as very cheap price to bind those votes to a majority coalition.

“One country is sufficient to break the global repression of information.”

A relevant comparison is how Canada has now legalized cannabis at the country level, following many state-level initiatives here and there in the world, and at once, the floodgates are open. Not just for the illegal distribution networks, but more importantly, for legalization everywhere else. As a German politician dryly said today, “what’s possible in Canada is also possible in Germany”, proposing that cannabis should be legalized outright in Germany. I would imagine the tone is similar in most places — or, importantly, many enough places.

The Luxembourg and Prague coalition talks have just started, with an outcome typically expected in a few weeks.

Inter Miami's Lionel Messi reacts during the Major League Soccer Eastern Conference semifinal second leg between against Atlanta United FC at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on November 9, 2024. — AFP

Lionel Messi has long dreamed of winning the Major League Soccer Cup...

The Miami sideline was loaded with talent this past weekend. Michael Irvin was there, just like he's been all season no matter where the game is. Ray Lewis did his trademark dance. Edgerrin James, Jessie Armstead, Bryant McKinnie, Rohan Marley,Bernie Kosar and Clinton Portis all showed up as well.

Prince William went on an early-morning nature walk near South Africa's Table Mountain on Tuesday to promote the work of conservation rangers in a unique urban national park.

MASS Diamond Monthly Membership

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Description: To receive Gold, Gold Plus, Diamond, or Titanium membership you must first apply and be accepted to the program and then purchase the 'Home Study System' for 3 payments of $499 USD (30 days apart). With your Home Study System you receive 3 free months of Gold Membership. *Do not purchase any MASS products without first applying to become a member at:?https://www.musicacademysuccess.com/apply/
If you purchase memberships without having your application approved, you will not be allowed to join the program.

Diamond monthly coaching members receive:

DIAMOND MEMBERSHIP (Includes all Gold and Gold Plus level benefits also, listed below)

A. Live monthly Gold and bi-monthly Gold Plus member group coaching call where you can ask me questions about your business.

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C. CDs of the call of the month.

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E. Special MASS members only monthly newsletter and special reports mailed to your home.

F. Chance to compete in the MASS School of the Year contest and win $1,000 in cash and a full day consultation visit with Marty Fort.

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J. Get an even more reduced rate for annual conference registrations.

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M.? Closed Diamond Facebook page just for Diamond members to discuss advanced topics.

N.? Wholesale printing and shipping pricing of the MASS manuals as they are updated for as long as you are a current member.

The MASS Gold, Gold +, Diamond & Titanium membership fees are non refundable.

Ghana's Supreme Court restored the ruling party's majority in the parliament on Tuesday ahead of the Dec. 7 election, with an order that the speaker's declaration of four seats as vacant was unconstitutional.

Miami quarterback and Heisman Trophy contender Cam Ward has another milestone on his resume.

Britain's Prince William has described the past year as "brutal" following cancer diagnoses for his wife and father. "Honestly, it's been dreadful," he said.

Netflix is teasing the upcoming fourth season of The Witcher, with Liam Hemsworth taking over the lead role.

The post Toss A Coin: First Look At Liam Hemsworth’s Witcher first appeared on SciFi Stream.

The veteran actor will play the new show's main villain, according to reports.

The post Paul Giamatti Cast In Major Starfleet Academy Role first appeared on SciFi Stream.

One of the main outputs of EU BON will be the establishment of an European Biodiversity Portal based on data collected and compiled from a variety of sources including earth observations but also observations and monitoring data from (local) sites. One of the main points of this portal is to serve as a substantial building block of a global biodiversity portal planned by the Group of Earth Observations project GEO BON.

But how will this portal be useful to stakeholders on a more local level - for example for people involved in questions connected to biodiversity across European regions? What will be the real benefits of it for biodiversity monitoring and conservation? Just a couple of weeks after the Third EU BON Stakeholder Round Table in Granada, Spain, Mr Clint Alibrandi from REDIAM (Environment and Water Agency in Andalusia) gives us his views on these questions.

Picture:  Excursion to Sierra Nevada.; Credit: Katrin Vohland

Q: REDIAM shares a mission with EU BON in its attempt to collect, standardize and distribute available biodiversity data. What will be the expected benefits and challenges in the process of making this type of datasets available for society and environmental policy?

A: Among the responsibilities of the Regional Environmental Government of Andalusia are promoting Social Environmental Awareness, Managing a vast, diverse and very complex territory, Control and Mitigate any threats posed to the fragile ecosystems present in our region as well as all the responsibilities derived from the management and planning of the existing natural resources.

Considering these facts, it is necessary to be able to account for the best environmental information available. Since the early 80’s the Regional Environmental Government of Andalusia has been working on its Environmental Information System with the purpose of generating, compiling, standardizing and analyzing Environmental Information covering topics such as Climate, Water, Air Quality and Biodiversity by means of ICTs. This the REDIAM. The name comes from the Spanish Acronym "REd De Información AMbiental de Andalucía" which means the Environmental Information Network of Andalusia. It serves as a Unified Regional Environmental Information Registry.

From this effort, the information obtained by the REDIAM is made publicly available to be then employed in Decision Making processes and Management Planning on behalf of the Administrations, for Dissemination and Awareness as well as for Research purposes.

As such, it is of vital importance for the REDIAM to be able to account for updated and verifiable Information and Data Sources and this is what we consider to be the most important benefit on behalf of EU BON, as it will offer the possibility to have a higher level reference covering a larger perspective, allowing stakeholders, be it either from a local, regional or national level, to consult or work with data, tools and have reference to relevant policies concerning Biodiversity on the European scale in order to be able to better transpose them to a more local context.

Yet the greatest challenge we believe that EU BON might come to face is the fact that the different contexts that exist over the whole European territory make it very difficult to tailor tools and information formats which can cover the different priorities or needs that exist in the diverse makeup of stakeholders that exist from a local, regional and national perspective. The same can most probably apply to the feedback, queries or requests made to EU BON on behalf of the stakeholder and user community. It is never easy to reach a common base level and from the regional perspective, REDIAM has faced the same type of situations.

Q: What type of stakeholders do you hope to engage through your network - who is using your data and for what purposes?

A: The stakeholders which are currently engaged with the REDIAM consist in Universities, Research Centres, Public Bodies, Local Administrations, Private Companies just to name a few examples. There are over 150 organizations which are partners of the REDIAM, they provide relevant Environmental Information to the REDIAM and are responsible for updating the information.

And as can be expected,the information provided is as diverse as the makeup of stakeholders that are part of the REDIAM, with the following formats being made available: Cartography, Satellites Images, Databases, Reports, Statistics, Applications, Management Plans and Programmes, Orthophotos, Indicators, Studies.

Additionally the REDIAM offers the user community different alternatives in order to access the previously indicated information. The REDIAM Channel is a web portal with a Catalogue and Information Search System, OGC Services, Query and Viewer tools, Downloader. The user community is able to access its information and services. This community consists in Citizens, Universities, Public Administrations and Companies from the Public and Private Sector.

Q: Where do you see the cross section between REDIAM’s work and EU BON - what are the products from EU BON and other European projects that would be helpful for the work that you are doing?

A: The REDIAM has great interest in the following issues and we believe that EU BON would be up to the task of providing solutions and/or guidelines on how to be able to proceed to solve them:

• The elaboration of a common tool for the description and localization of species throughout the European Territory. This can prove a very useful service for Environmental Impact Assessments by providing a more complete view on different species distribution on determined area.
• Defining a standardized list of species which contains the taxonomically correct name for each one of them. EU BON could serve as a base reference to set guidelines for standardizing the taxonomical classification of species.
• Support and guidance in defining specific biodiversity indicators as proposed by EUROSTAT, a methodological and assessment guide of some sort.

Q: In your opinion what are the three greatest benefits of a European level biodiversity portal?

A: 1) Offering an opportunity of Standardizing and Harmonizing Biodiversity related information. We all speak the same "language" when referring to Biodiversity, but it is necessary that we all be able to follow the same "rules" as well. This is the first and most important pillar we believe that a European level Biodiversity portal can bring into play.

2) It would allow for and facilitate a widespread exchange of information amongst stakeholders throughout the whole European Territory.

3) And finally, it would allow a common analysis on a European level which would provide a general assessment on how different efforts and policies are effective, value which is the real status of Biodiversity and/or specific species independently from the limit of administrative or country borders.

About REDIAM:

The Environmental Information Network REDIAM has onboard experts from the Regional Ministry of Environment in Andalusia and its Water and Environmental Agency. With a team expertise ranging from local to regional and European level and from technical know-how to regional and thematic assessment, the main aim of the network is to integrate all spatially-referenced biodiversity data produced in Andalusia. Raw data are used to generate knowledge and improve its distribution, making it accessible and comprehensible for the general public.

On the 1st of April, between 9:30 and 16:30, the BiodiversityKnowledge project organises a conference where outcomes will be presented and widely discussed with policy makers, science and other stakeholders at the European parliament in Brussels. As final result, BiodiversityKnowledge will present a stakeholder’s document outlining a recommended design on how such a Network of Knowledge could operate and produce added value.

EU BON will be also presented at the confernce as one of the knowledge providers of the Network of Knowledge.

To counteract biodiversity loss, efforts have considerably increased over the past years to strengthen the science-policy-society interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services. There is indeed an active landscape of projects, institutions, organisations and individuals in Europe involved in this interface, all aiming to improve the knowledge flow so that decisions at different policy levels (from European, to national and local levels) are based on the best available knowledge.

With the 7th Environmental Action Programme and the start of Horizon2020 and its focus on innovative solutions for society, the need for more concerted activities in this context become even more important.

In this context, BiodiversityKnowledge (FP7 KNEU), an EU-funded coordination action has been set up to help to map, mobilise and organise this landscape focusing on the knowledge holders’ community. For this the project has been developing and testing a prototype Network of Knowledge since 2011 with more than 300 active participations of representatives of the biodiversity and ecosystems services knowledge community. Stakeholders involved ranged from practitioners and researchers to policy-makers.

Please find the conference agenda attached below.

The incomplete ‘incidental music’ for Alceste, conducted with liveliness and sensitivity.

Williams also talks Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, and Trey Anastasio in advance of her shows in Medford, Portland, and Providence.

The post Lucinda in the sky with diamonds: Lucinda Williams announces Beatles covers album ahead of New England shows appeared first on Boston.com.

"After today, I don't know how you don't walk away and just feel better about that quarterback position in there with Drake Maye."

The post Former Patriot Ted Johnson explained why Drake Maye is preferable to ‘mopey’ Caleb Williams appeared first on Boston.com.

The SFIA’s well-known executive director has retired. We were fortunate to speak with him as he exited his role.

Arlington, VA — The Mine Safety and Health Administration is “actively working” toward publishing a proposed rule on respirable crystalline silica, agency administrator Chris Williamson said Oct. 20.

Physical access to critical resources and sensitive areas such as data centers and storage areas for narcotics or nuclear materials needs to be protected 24/7. In the past, manual process management was sufficient. Today, the access rules are much more complicated.