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Dear All, firstly this is an amazing resourceful site - ive had great help and advice so thanks everyone.
The point of the post, I have an oldish AP tank with white plastic reels. I do find these very fiddley to load with 120 film in a changing bag plust the tank leaks on inversion, so i think really need to invest in a new system.
I'd really like to use stainless steel reels as people seem to favour them. Can anyone recommend a systerm to purchase? Ideally i'd like the capacity to be able to process two 120 films at once.
Thanks in advance

subset: commoncrawl


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Egypt Islamist leader sharply denounces army chief
CAIRO The Muslim Brotherhood's leader made an unusually harsh attack on Egypt's military chief on Thursday, saying his ouster of President Mohammed Morsi was worse than destroying the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine.
The analogy appeared aimed at whipping up religious sentiments among Morsi's Islamist supporters on the eve of mass rallies called for by Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi as a show of support for planned action by the military and the police to stop "violence and terrorism."
El-Sissi's call was widely interpreted by both sides as a prelude to a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists who have been camped out for about a month at sit-ins in Cairo and elsewhere calling for Morsi's return.
That has hiked fears of a violent confrontation. Islamists also plan pro-Morsi rallies on Friday, raising the possibility of street clashes with their opponents as has happened repeatedly in recent weeks.
In a boost to el-Sissi, the Obama administration plans to tell lawmakers Thursday that it won't declare Egypt's government overthrow a coup, U.S. officials said. That determination allows the United States to continue providing $1.5 billion in annual military and economic aid to the Arab world's most populous country.
William Burns, the State Department's No. 2 official, will hold closed-doors briefings with members of the House and Senate on the subject, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly ahead of the private meetings.
Ahead of Friday's rallies, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the U.S was "concerned by any rhetoric that inflames tensions and could possible lead to violence." He urged Egyptian security forces to exercise "maximum restraint" and prevent clashes between opposing demonstrators.
But there is also widespread confusion over the military's real intentions. El-Sissi's move to show the extent of pro-military sentiment could also be aimed at pressuring the Islamists to roll back their demand for Morsi's reinstatement.
Divisions between the two sides grew even more entrenched. The youth group behind the wave of protests that led to the July 3 military coup against Morsi threw its support behind el-Sissi's call, urging Egyptians to participate in Friday's demonstrations.
"Whoever wants to genuinely complete the revolution must be out in the squares and in all the provinces," said Mahmoud Badr, spokesman for Tamarod, or Rebel in Arabic.
In a new statement Thursday, the military sought to explain its intentions, suggesting that its aim was not a direct confrontation with Morsi's supporters but an iron fist against any sign of violence that opponents have blamed on the pro-Morsi camp.
Military spokesman Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said el-Sissi's call was "not a threat to any specific political group." He said the military respects peaceful protests but that any sign of violence or terrorism will be "dealt with decisively and with force."
He said a national reconciliation conference and a system of transitional justice, called for by interim military-backed President Adly Mansour, are the only way out of Egypt's situation.
Clashes have frequently erupted between pro-Morsi protesters and authorities or Morsi opponents. At the same time, attacks by Islamic militants in the Sinai Peninsula have surged since the president's ouster.


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MOBILE, Ala. (AP) The news conference promoting the GoDaddy.com Bowl was a coach-free zone.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) Morgan Burke wants Purdue back in the Rose Bowl, and he's willing to put his money on Darrell Hazell to get there.
CLEVELAND (AP) Darrell Hazell is expected to leave Kent State to coach Purdue, according to reports.
LEWISBURG, Pa. (AP) Mike Muscala tallied 27 points, three assists and two blocks as Bucknell beat Kent State 76-60 Tuesday night and improved to 8-1 for the first time since 2005-06.
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) No. 25 Kent State will meet Arkansas State in the GoDaddy.com Bowl in the first bowl appearance in 40 years for the Golden Flashes.


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Stella Artois takes triple-filtered action onto the train
By Sara Kimberley, campaignlive.co.uk, Tuesday, 15 February 2011 11:11AM
Stella Artois goes full steam ahead to promote its 4% lager in the latest ad by Mother.
The "triple train" ad is the fourth instalment of Stella Artois 'Triple Filtered, Smooth Escapades' campaign.
It features a man walking through a train in search of a beautiful woman in the first class carriage and is set in the French Riviera of the 60s. The man takes on different guises from people he bumps into as he walks through the train.
It was created by Mother London and directed by Agustin Alberdi from production company Stink.
The campaign will span TV, outdoor, VOD, cinema and press.
James Watson, marketing director for Stella Artois Western Europe, said: "This latest instalment of our triple filtered, smooth escapades campaign is the fourth in the series and probably our best yet.
"Consumers love it, we'll be supporting it big, and we really believe it will help drive brand preference and the continued success of Stella Artois 4% across both the on and off trade."
This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk
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Recipes: Rozanne Gold's Beetroot Yogurt
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
3 medium-large beets (no stems), about 1 pound
1 small clove fresh garlic
1/2 cup plain yogurt
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Using a vegetable peeler, peel beets. Salt lightly. Wrap in large pouch of foil and tightly seal at the top. Place on baking sheet. Roast 1-1/2 hours. Remove from oven and let cool. Cut beets into large chunks. Place in food process and process until coarsely pureed. Add peeled garlic and yogurt and process 5 seconds. Season with salt and pepper. Chill. Makes 2 cup
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Comments [1]
No need to peel the beets before roasting, which is a messy business. Roast as per the recipe, then let cool enough to handle. The peels will slip right off.
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Road Closures Near 801 Broadway Parking Garage
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Read inspiring stories, news and updates about the Institute's patient care, research, special education, professional training, and community programs.
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Resource Finder at Kennedy Krieger Institute
A free resource that provides access to information and support for individuals and families living with developmental disabilities.
Center for Neurodevelopmental & Imaging Research
Researchers in the Center for Neurodevelopmental and Imaging Research use both structural and functional imaging techniques and experimental neurobehavioral paradigms to better understand the neurologic basis of developmental disorders. Testing paradigms include IQ assessment, computer game testing, motor testing and paper and pencil testing. Our research is funded by grants from the National Institute of Health and the Autism Speaks Foundation. We hope that by learning more about the relationship between the brain and behavior, our research can help improve diagnosis and treatment of children with developmental disorders.
Visit the Center for Neurodevelopmental and Imaging Research website to learn more about our research.


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Applications are now open for the Communicating Science 2015 Workshop (http://comscicon.com/apply-comscicon15), to be held in Cambridge, MA on June 18-20th, 2015. Graduate students at US institutions in all fields of science and engineering are encouraged to apply. The application will close on March 1st. Acceptance to the workshop is competitive; attendance of the workshop is free and travel support will be provided to accepted applicants. Participants will build the communication skills that scientists and other technical professionals need to express complex ideas to their peers, experts in other fields, and the general public.
There will be panel discussions on the following topics:
In addition to these discussions, ample time is allotted for interacting with the experts and with attendees from throughout the country to discuss science communication and develop science outreach collaborations. Workshop participants will produce an original piece of science writing and receive feedback from workshop attendees and professional science communicators, including journalists, authors, public policy advocates, educators, and more.
Can Be Taken for Credit or Certificate
This seminar course is targeted to graduate students (as well as postdocs or others) who supervise student researchers participating in extensive research and development projects spanning the STEM fields (including natural and social sciences). Participants draw on their own mentoring experiences, eight group discussions, and modest guided exercises, to develop a more purposeful and goal-oriented approach to research mentoring that can improve outcomes for themselves, student training, and the quality of research.
Topics Include: Developing a mentoring philosophy, establishing a workable mentoring and research plan, assessing student needs and performance, mentors as guides to careers, mentoring research ethics, managing lab interactions (and problems), and mentoring communication of research.
Instructor: Dr. Michael Kinnison (email@example.com ; 581-2575)
Format: 8 meetings with discussion and guided exercises
Meeting time: A 1.5 hour period to be arranged with participants
Credit Option: 1 credit Pass/Fail (may substitute for thesis credit in some cases*)
Certificate of Completion: Awarded for successful completion of the course
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor and concurrent (or recent) supervision of actual student research experience.
The UMaine Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers will be hosting, along with the UMaine Career Center, a Resume Building Workshop on November 12 from 5-6PM in the Career Center (Memorial Union). Click here for more information.
The Graduate School Thesis Consultant's, Dottie & Crystal will be holding a Thesis Workshop on Tuesday, November 18th from 4-6pm in 48 Stodder Hall for thesis students who have questions about formatting.
A free workshop on writing and publishing successfully will be held on Thursday, November 6 from 3-4p.m. in 48 Stodder Hall with Dr. Robert Milardo.
Dr. John McMichael '71 will be on campus on October 31st at 10AM to give a talk on "Resonant Molecular Signaling from Theory to Pratice Development and Commercialization of a New Pharmaceutical Product" at Foster Innovation Center. Dr. McMichael will describe the development of a new product, SLO, intended for the treatment of Arthrofibrosis, a condition that involves the formation of scar tissue following many surgical procedures. Light Refreshments will be available.
The University of Maine Graduate School is hosting a Graduate and Professional Programs Open House from 4-6 p.m. on October 29 in 42 Stodder Hall for those interested in pursuing graduate education at UMaine. Doctorate degrees are available in 30 areas of study and the master's degree may be earned in more than 75 areas, ranging from the arts, sciences and engineering to professional degrees in the fields of business, education, nursing, communication sciences and disorders, global policy, and social work. The event will include refreshments and raffle giveaways.
On Tuesday, October 7th, The University of Maine awarded Howard Reiche, Jr. a Master of Professional Studies in Biochemistry after more than 60 years. 85-year old Reiche found out after finishing all of the work for the master's that he needed just one more undergraduate prerequisite course in order to complete the degree in the early 1950's. "At the time, I was 21, married, with no money and the draft hanging over my head," says Reiche. "Spending another year at UMaine to take one undergraduate course was out of the question. But it's been on my bucket list all this time."
The University of Maine, Orono, Maine 04469
(207) 581-3291
A Member of the University of Maine System


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Slim Crystal Glamour
Gold Rubber
Style number 6011890846
Flip-flops by Havaianas
These embellished Havaianas sandals will add a little sparkle to your summer look. This is a slimmer fit and features a crystal on the strap and a shimmering gold colourway.
- - Rubber upper
- - Rubber sole
About Havaianas
When Havaianas launched in 1962, they were the first style of flip-flops to be made from rubber and have since become a symbol of Brazil. The iconic brand is loved for its range of brightly coloured and printed flip-flops that reflect the country's style, attitude and tropical climate.
- NEW: Click & Collect - FREE (2 - 5 working days)
- FREE UK standard delivery on full priced products. Excluding selected shoe laces & shoe care
- Standard UK and Northern Ireland - £3.50 (2 - 5 working days)
- Next Day UK and Northern Ireland (Available on selected items) - £5.00 (Order before 5pm Monday to Thursday for next working day delivery.) BANK HOLIDAY UPDATE- order by 1pm Saturday 2nd May for delivery Tuesday 5th May
- Republic of Ireland - £5 (5 - 7 working days)
- France/Germany/Italy/Spain - £5.00 (5 - 7 working days)
- Rest of European Union - £15 (7 - 10 working days)
- Australia - £12 (7 - 10 working days)
- Rest of World - £25 (7 - 10 working days)
Not happy with a purchase? No problem. You can return to our warehouse, via Collect+ or to one of our UK stores within 28 days of purchase.
Footwear should be unworn and in its original packaging. Your refund will then be processed back to your original method of payment.Click here for more information on returns.


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Pauly D hoped to spend the holidays with his daughter, but a source exclusively tells RadarOnline.com the child's mother refused to cooperate.
Unable to secure a court date before the holidays, Pauly hoped Amanda Markert, an ex-Hooters waitress with whom he had a fling in summer 2012, would still let him see their daughter Amabella for Christmas — but she allegedly nixed the planned visitation.
"The two were set to meet up around Christmas, but Amanda stood him up," the source revealed to Radar.
"He had all of Amabella's Christmas gifts, so he was really upset."
PHOTOS: She's Already Fist Pumping! Meet DJ Pauly D's Love Child Amabella
The source added, "Pauly has been trying to set up a second meeting, but Amanda and her attorney keep denying the visits. He didn't want to get the courts involved, but she's given him no choice."
The pair are expected to meet in court later in January.
"Pauly hopes the judge will mandate custody time," the source added.
As Radar previously reported, Pauly has filed for full-custody.
PHOTOS: Face Time With Pauly D
Needless to say, it has been very frustrating for the new dad; Radar caught up with Pauly at a charity event on Nov. 21 — 15 days after he met Amabella for the first time.
"We're working on the second visitation now. I really want to see Amabella in time for the holidays," Pauly told Radar in an exclusive interview.
"I want to see her as much as possible, but it's a process."


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20 comments found
just purchased, really like the feel of it! very light and easygoing gonna rate after i dig through it, thx
Very nice theme! I would pray you created a full WP theme of of this one. There are virtually no themes in existence that have a style like this. It's always "corporate" or some other theme. Hope you will consider, I think it might sell quite well!
Cheers! Tom
Thanks Tom!
first I plan to make few updates to my theme. I have some ideas about portfiolio and blog. And after that I will consider creating WP version.
Thanks for responding, looking forward to it!
Very much a n00b in this… Need help installing it on wordpress 3.4.1 says style.css is missing?
Flurity is a Site Template, not WordPress Theme
I'm looking for a nice, clean layout for my documentary company's site. This looks to fit the bill perfectly. However, I have a few questions about it before I make my decision:
How customizable is this layout (background, font, sections)? Is it possible to link video (Vimeo, YouTube) to the 'Portfolio' section, instead of photos? How easy would it be to stream photos from Flickr to a 'Photos' section? Can this template be used for Tumblr, Wordpress, or even Dreamweaver?
Sorry if any of this has been touched on somewhere I've missed. Thanks in advance, and again, very nice template.
Thanks for questions!
1. I use two different fonts, one for body another is for heading. You can change them easily in css
2. Every section is fully customizable. You can set separate fullscreen image for every section or use semitransparent PNGs to create effect like in preview, where section has blue color and few smaller PNG images create clouds and overlay each other.
3. I use prettyPhoto plugin in portfolio, so you can easily link thumbnail image in portfolio with vimeo / youtube video, like for sixth thumb.
4. This template does not have plugin to fetch images from flickr but if you know how to do this you can add such plugin
5. This is site template, not WP theme. So it should be installed on its own. The changes you will have to do using Dreamweaver or other HTML editor.
loving the layout thus far. you're a godsend.
just a quick question. is there a way to disable mouse scrolling on the site with fancy scroll? like i want the body of each page to be scrollable (content in the windows) but no scroll on the background pages (basically i only want the pages to be changeable if you click the page links on the left)
thanks again for an amazing template A+++
What you mean under mouse scrolling when you say "is there a way to disable mouse scrolling on the site with fancy scroll?" Fancyscroll plugin is responsible for page scroll when you click on menu links as well as it animates background images in sections. If you don't need background animations then just remove fancyscroll-background divs from index.html
i apologize i wasn't clear enough with my question. what i meant was i want the page to only scroll to the different sections (home, about, portfolio, etc etc) when you click on the links on the left. but when you scroll manually with the mouse, currently, it allows you to scroll to all the pages. i want to disable mouse scrolling, so that the only way to transition from page to page is to actually click the links on the left. sorry for not being more specific, thank you!
This doesn't seem to work with 480×320 (iPhone in landscape). Am I missing something?
I don't have iPhone so cannot check this. But I checked on HTC in landscape mode and everything looks right. Could you tell me what exactly is wrong?
i have just tried to used the template in a 810 px iframe to use inside Facebook.
but it doesnt show the menu, is there anything i can do to make the template work in a 810 px iframe?
I created test document with 810px iframe and I see flurity works ok. But with this width, navigation had switched to top horizontal. If you could me give a link to the facebook page, maybe I would be able to find what's wrong.
good job, but I find it difficult to change template. I did not find or change the logo loading (I have changed logo. gif and. png and nothing) Adding a page is quite complex, I'm not happened. I am not come to add a button with a link <button class = "blue" ... Can you help me please?
Yes, sure! Please contact me with all questions that you have, using mail form on my profile page, and I will explain how to change certain elements in my template. Thank you!
Was just about to purchase, when suddenly-!
Navigation breaks on iPad (1 and 2) and becomes unresponsive to touch after the page loads and you click a link in it. It becomes responsive again once you switch from landscape to portrait (or vice versa depending on which mode you were in on initial load), but then is again unresponsive once you click a link in the nav.
Otherwise, great theme. That's the only thing keeping me from purchasing…
PS: The theme preview is what I tested…haven't actually bought the theme yet, but I figured if the preview doesn't work, then…???
Recently one client that bought my Flurity template mentioned the problem on iPad which he figured was related to the <meta> tag that prevents scaling. He modified it slightly and that made it working properly. I just found his mention and updated site preview. Please check it now!
I tried to remove the blog section but now everything that came after it is not showing. Isn't it possible to remove some sections?
Yes, it's possible to add/remove sections. But if you do this you need to shift all other sections following it up or down by adjusting "top" position of every section in style.css, to remove a gap. Please read documentation about how to add sections to get better understanding how it works.
this theme is so slow loading, scrolling in iPad2, iPhone4s. do you have any idea?
Yes, I know. It's because every single background image (like the clouds in preview) is animated. Less images and their smaller size will make scroll smoother, but if you use high resolution images it will be slow.
Hi there, I'm wondering how the blog section works. Do we have to write every single post on a html file? Do the comments really work and will I be notified every time someone posts a comment? And will Google index each post page like if it was a wordpress blog? Thanks very much.
Thanks for questions! Flurity template has simple php script called comments.php that writes and then pulls comments from mysql. This script associates every comment with its post. Unfortunately you won't be notified if someone posts a new comment, but you can modify comments.php to send email if this happens quite easily. Also all blog posts you will have to create manually (explained in documentation) in html editor, because it's html template and it doesn't have CMS. And lastly I dont' think google will be able to index every blog post separately.
Hi, I love your theme is very clean! I have a problem with the portfolio, you can see it in your example. When you click on a work, this is linked to the next work. Do you know how to fix it? thank you very much!
Hi, for illustration purposes I prepared only 2 works. As you can see when you click on 1, 3, 5 portfolio items they open first work. And when you click on 2, 4, 6 they open another work.
Sorry and thank you very much, must be a typo mistake!
I love this theme, it brings me alive whenever I work on it. I was adding extra items to the clouds, like you did with balloons, now what I really want to do is have a fixed background image that the clouds float in front of, is it hard to do?
Thanks! That's easy. What you need to do is open css/style.css and find every section by ID, like portfolio section with #portfolio ID
#portfolio { top: 2000px; background: #108ad7; }
then instead of background: #108ad7; which is blue color add your background image
background: #fff url(../images/portfolio-back.jpg) no-repeat fixed;
Also you can add one image for all sections. To do this remove "background: #108ad7;" from every particular section and add fixed background to body
body { background: #fff url(../images/portfolio-back.jpg) no-repeat fixed; }
Oh this is going to be really wonderful! What about if I set the page background #108ad7, make all the sections transparent, would I be able to place a background that stays still while the sections scroll past in front?
yes, I meant that. You can remove background #108ad7 in every section, what will make them transparent. And then add background image to <body> and make it fixed, like in my examples above.
Oh I'm in heaven this is amazing! Best Template EVER!
Great and thanks! Good luck!


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Politics, current affairs and riffs and reflections on the news.
"The Nation for decades has covered Cuba in a way that few publications have done or dared," I told The New York Times in June, ahead of the magazine's first-ever educational trip to the island. Even as Washington's position on the embargo remains frozen in time, remarkable changes are taking place in Cuba, from a new law that opens the country up to foreign investment to the paladares—private, in-home restaurants that are catering to increasing numbers of tourists and an emerging Cuban middle class. Behind the work of Cuban National Center for Sex Education Director Mariela Castro—President Raúl Castro's daughter—Cuba is considering legalizing same-sex marriage, subsidizing sex-change operations and banning discrimination based on sexuality at the workplace.
The US embargo against Cuba has been in place for more than fifty years, and it remains in place thanks in large part to anti-Castro reactionaries in Congress, most notably Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). But as the right-leaning US Chamber of Commerce continues to oppose the embargo, and as "people-to-people" trips (like The Nation's) facilitate cultural exchange by bringing in Americans on education-based excursions and facilitating more informed dialogue about policy, it is increasingly apparent that our Cold War policy is leaving us—and not the Cubans—out in the cold.
In the report that follows, Anna Theofilopoulou—who participated in The Nation's first-ever people-to-people education trip—describes what she discovered. Though the island is saddled with "dire economic problems," Theofilopoulou nevertheless found encouraging developments in healthcare and in the economy. Cuba's infant-mortality rate is lower than ours, for example, and in indicators like Uneven Economic Development, Poverty, and Economic Decline, the separation between Cuba and the United States is narrower than you might imagine. Theofilopoulou also debunks some of the worn-out fallacies about Cuba that many Americans still believe in (including the notion that democratization of the island is impossible as long as Castro remains in power).
Meanwhile, at The Nation, we plan to continue these educational trips in to 2015 and beyond.
* * *
The Nation Magazine had its first ever educational exchange trip to Cuba, under the people-to-people educational outreach program allowed by the State Department. The program has been expanded by President Obama. I was fortunate to participate in the trip which included meeting with individuals representing the government, the media, non-governmental organizations, the Catholic Church and some private citizens. We also enjoyed some of Cuba's amazing culture.
In the US, Cuba is mostly known for the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, the break of relations with the US and subsequent embargo, the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation, the Cuba missile crisis, the Mariel refugees and Brothers to the Rescue debacles, the Elián González incident and Fidel Castro's relationship with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. Also that Fidel Castro, after running Cuba for fifty years, appointed his brother Raúl initially to replace him temporarily and eventually to become president of Cuba.
One of our interlocutors, Rafael Hernandez, publisher of the political quarterly Temas, enumerated thirteen erroneous assumptions in the US about Cuba.
1. Since Raúl Castro became president, there has been no political change.
2. Raúl is the end of the line; once he goes, there will be no succession.
3. The military is the key institution in Cuba.
4. Dissent is prohibited and punished.
5. Political opposition groups are the democratic alternative in Cuba.
6. National political mediation is led by the Catholic Church.
7. As long as one party remains in power, no democratization is possible.
8. Cubans know nothing about the rest of the world.
9. Most youth want to leave Cuba.
10. Average monthly income in Cuba is $20.00
11. Cuban émigrés are exiles.
12. US-Cuban policy is driven by the Cuban-American lobby.
13. The Cuban-American political elite is changing as the second generation comes of age.
It is hard to say how much such assumptions contribute to the embargo which continues. There has been some tweaking here and there to deal with humanitarian issues after Cuba faced a food crisis when the former Soviet Union stopped subsidizing its economy two decades ago; also, after lobbying by Cuban Americans, remittances to relatives in Cuba and exchange of family visits are now allowed.
While aware that Fidel Castro overthrew a particularly corrupt and noxious regime and installed a socialist system which, for all its limitations, provided all Cubans with education, and medical health and covered everybody's basic needs, I have been skeptical of a system that allows somebody to stay in power for fifty years and then pass the presidency to his brother.
But, having heard and read the impressions of friends and professional colleagues who had traveled and lived there, I wanted to see Cuba for myself and meet Cubans in their own country. I was also curious to see a country that has remained in a sort of time capsule because of the embargo.
After a week in Havana, with an one-day excursion to the Bay of Pigs and visits to Ernest Hemingway's house and to an urban farm in the outskirts of Havana, I found Cuba an intriguing and fascinating country which I want to understand better. I left it with two over-riding thoughts.
One is a desire to return and see more of Cuba, visit its cities and country side, and meet and talk to more of its people. The second is wondering what is the US hoping to accomplish with the continuation of the fifty-year-old embargo?
What is the purpose of continuing with this futile exercise, the main contribution of which seems to be keeping 11 million people financially miserable? Does anybody in the US government, other than the most ardent ideologues, really believe that through the embargo the US will achieve "regime change" in Cuba or that the political system will change into a neo-liberal democracy?
Politics and the society
Like other interlocutors, Rafael Hernandez refuted the above-mentioned assumptions held in the United States. He pointed to the shrinking of the public sector under Raúl Castro, the growth of the private sector and downsizing of the military. Specifically, small private business are spreading, government employment has been reduced and continues to decrease, the food distribution system is being restructured. This process started in the '90s, has accelerated since 2007.
He pointed out that Miguel Diaz-Canel, the vice president who will replace Raúl Castro, is a reformer, planning to continue with the changes. Despite what is believed in the United States, his views on key issues are known in Cuba.
Cubans are encouraged to express their views and even their complaints, they are polled regularly about what needs to improve and they are not hesitant to express their opinions. They are encouraged to participate in the policy making process and they are listened to. He claimed that Cuba has democracy and freedom but they are defined differently.
The Catholic Church, is one voice among many and stressed that propaganda that Cuba is a communist godless society, is completely unfounded. Through their education system, and the support that Cuba enjoys by just about every country, except the US, Cubans are among the most knowledgeable people about the rest of the world.
With the exception of some professions deemed essential for the country, young Cubans can and many of them have left. In fact, brain drain is a serious issue for Cuba as young people who never knew the previous system do not have the same commitment to the revolution as the previous generations and are not content with Cuba's isolation by the US. He called the assumption that the average Cuban income is $20 per month absurd. Cuban émigrés are welcome to return, as long as they do not try to overturn the government.
Mr. Hernandez was also critical of policies in Cuba and identified seven key challenges for the Cuban socialist system with suggestions how to deal with them. (1) There has been a four-fold increase in inequality and poverty after the start of the crisis in the early '90s; currently, 20 percent of Cubans live in poverty and 53 percent of houses are bad or very bad; (2) The hyper-centralization and weak rule of law result in low political participation. (3) The state and bureaucracy are over-extended; (4) There is corruption; (5) Demographic imbalance is a problem; Cubans over 60 comprise 26 percent of the population while the birth rate is the lowest in Latin America; the annual migration to the US is 35,000; (6) the media are controlled by the government, he called the syndrome "officialism"; (7) last but not least, the US embargo perpetuates the seize mentality.
He proposed to deal with the challenges as follows: decentralize the government, give more power to local authorities and more autonomy to state enterprises, expand the non-state sector, encourage self-employment, shrink the size and power of the bureaucracy and enforce the rule of law.
The Economy
At the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy at Havana University we heard about the opening of the economy and the movement toward rationalizing it, the acceptance of foreign direct investment and joint ventures mainly in tourism, the permission and encouragement of small private enterprise in some 150 sectors and the coming monetary reform.
Cuba was forced to re-evaluate and rationalize its economic model when the Soviet Union collapsed and Soviet subsidies ended. There was a 33 percent contraction of the economy; Cuba lost close to 50 percent of its fuel; the average weight of Cubans went down by at least one kilo; the low birth rate increased, (although later reversed). This economic restructuring continues gaining force under Raúl Castro. It includes laying off state workers; expanding the non-state workforce; allowing Cubans to buy and sell homes and vehicles; distributing land that was previously idle; empowering firms and local governments; experimenting with business models such as co-ops. Wondering around Havana, one sees examples of these changes.
Most significant, the government decided to change their approach and are moving towards decreased social spending, which includes decreasing the number of items that Cubans buy with their ratio book with the intent of eventually eliminating it. Key to all this, is the plan to abolish the dual currency (the convertible peso and the regular Cuban peso) which makes life unaffordable for the average Cuban. However, the government knows that this will cause inflation to rise at first. It will make life even harder for the 20 percent of Cubans living in poverty, especially elderly without families to provide for them although there are programs mainly by non-governmental organizations helping them.
Cuba still faces dire economic problems. With the opening of the tourist sector, the one booming part of the economy, large discrepancies in income and standards of living are being created. Cubans who work in tourism or have relatives in Miami sending money, are better off than the average professional working for the government. Our guide had studied law, had worked in the Foreign Service but became a tourist guide in order to make a reasonable living. A doorman in a restaurant who was a child psychologist by day, was forced into a night job to supplement his income. A young veterinarian taxi driver had abandoned her profession because the money that she was earning in a government run clinic was so little she and her colleagues had to depend on gifts by those bringing their animals.
While Cuba seems a natural place for agriculture to provide for its own people and even export, problems persist. There was destruction of arable land due to large scale farming during the time of the Soviet subsidies, although this land is slowly being reclaimed, as told by the Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation for Sustainable Development and the Environment. Citrus fruit, a natural for the climate as Florida demonstrates, is not cultivated in large scare because it is not deemed profitable for foreign exchange. In fact, cultivation of vegetable and fruit is still very small and in the one local fresh food market in Havana that we visited, we saw prices almost comparable to those in New York's Union Square market. Meat or even chicken are rare and expensive for the average Cuban, although provided in excessive and wasteful quantities for tourists. Killing one's own domestic cattle, is not allowed and permits are required to do so. This results in people finding ways to go over the system, as recounted anecdotally by our guide. Cuba imports 80 percent of its food and even more absurdly, the US accounts for 60 percent of it, paid in cash dollars, ostensibly for humanitarian reasons.
Havana is one of the most beautiful historical cities in this hemisphere, with magnificent old (and for the most part dilapidated) colonial buildings that seem to be reaching the end of their life simultaneously. Seeing the city upon arrival and walking around old Havana, I was struck by its beauty.
A meeting and exchange with the renown architect and urban planner Miguel Coyula about the city of Havana, its history, the reasons about its current sad state and what is required to maintain and renovate its buildings, was telling. Follow-up meetings with representatives of the City Historian and at the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy clarified the combination of internal policies and financial constraints that have contributed to the deterioration of the majority of buildings.
While home ownership is high, thanks to housing subsidies, laws requiring apartment owners to maintain their own apartments but absolving them of responsibility from maintenance of common areas, have resulted in the buildings' overall deterioration. The average house is seventy-five years old, maintenance subsidies are non-existent, therefore even working professionals find home repair simply too costly. Residents have been very innovative to meet basic housing needs and one sees shanty towns built at the top of buildings or the courtyards of colonial houses and balconies used for different purposes to the original ones. A program of renovation started in the eighties has been proceeding slowly.
More worrisome are the consequences of recently enacted laws allowing Cubans to buy their own houses, which they do for the most part with remittances from relatives in Florida. This is resulting in many of the historical buildings to be purchased by Cuban Americans who will quite likely demolish them, due to their state of disrepair, and will replace them with large glass towers as has been the case in many cities the world over.
The meeting with Gail Reed, founder and executive director of the Medical Educational Cooperation with Cuba, (MEDDIC), was instructive. MEDDIC is a nonprofit organization created in 1997 to enhance cooperation among the United States, Cuba and international health communities aiming at better health outcomes and equity.
With emphasis on medical training and healthcare for everybody, Cuba is among the countries with the best healthcare indicators in the world. It has one of the highest doctor-patient ratios in the world at 6·7 doctors per 1000 people. Life expectancy is 78 years, just behind the USA. The infant mortality rate is 4·7 per 1000 livebirths, lower than in the US at 5·9.
The priority of access to healthcare for all was spearheaded by young doctors and medical school students and put into practice by the government. Before entering into any other specialty, every medical school graduate does family medicine which is at the core of community based primary healthcare, key to the overall improvement in healthcare. The program of doctor and nurse for each community was started in the 1980s and helped the country deal with the "special period" after the break with the Soviet Union. A disruption at that time was resolved by giving a bigger role to nurses.
The investment in biotech continues, Cuba has meningitis B vaccine since 1989 and has developed a treatment for advanced diabetic foot ulcers. Developed by Cuba and registered in more than fifteen other countries, it has reduced relative risk of amputation in Cuba by 69 percent. According to Reed, who has written a comprehensive study of the embargo's effect on Cuban health, the US has rejected Cuba's offer of this treatment ignoring the mutual benefits.
Currently there are 6,000 doctors in the pipeline. Cuba provides scholarships to doctors from Latin American countries such as Honduras, Haiti. One of Cuba's key exports are doctors sent free to poor countries around the world in the past. This was changed under Raúl Castro, with countries that can afford it paying Cuba and the money channeled into the health system.
Foreign Relations
The meeting with Josefina Vidal, the Director of North American Department, at the Foreign Ministry, focused exclusively on US-Cuba relations, the impact of the embargo on the economy and even other sectors of the society and the current state of affairs between the two countries. The importance of the relations with the US has resulted in a restructuring in the Foreign Ministry to have the department focus exclusively on US-Cuban relations. The impasse with the US currently concerns the detention on lengthy prison terms by the US of the Cuban Five (currently three) on espionage charges and by Cuba of Alan Gross, a sub-contractor of the USAID serving a fifteen-year prison term on accusations that he secretly imported banned electronic equipment to Cuba. The impasse remains even though there are discussions and cooperation with the US on technical issues such as drug trafficking, immigration and oil spill response.
The absurdity of the US insistence on maintaining the embargo and having only an Interest Section office in Havana, became more obvious when we were told that there are 140 embassies of states and international organizations in Havana. There are 64,000 Cubans working in ninety-four countries and 13,000 foreign students studying in Cuba (mainly medicine). Cuba together with Norway have been assisting and hosting the talks of the Colombian government with the rebels. Countries such as Brazil, and some members of the EU, are assisting Cuba to restructure its economy. China and South Korea are taking early advantage of economic opportunities.
Josephina Vidal pointed to two Cuban American politicians who are the most implacable enemies of the Cuban government and strong supporters of the embargo; House member Ileana Ross-Rehtigen of Florida and Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, currently chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Despite the commonly held views about Cuba by most politicians and the media, in the US, Cuba is changing although not fast enough for some. While continuing with the socialist model, it is reforming its economy, expanding its burgeoning private sector and somewhat opening its political system, although so far there has been no attempt to change the one-party system. Travel restrictions on ordinary citizens have been eased but political opponents are still monitored and harassed by the government which uses the embargo as a pretext claiming (sometimes correctly) that US intelligence agencies are trying to undermine the state.
And despite continuous US effort to destabilize Cuba (see recent efforts by USAID to generate mobs through Twitter) impressively Cuba ranks 107 to the US 159 in theFragile States Index created by the Fund for Peace and published by Foreign Policy for the past ten years. Finland ranks the highest at 178 and South Sudan the lowest at 1.
The index puts countries into perspective by providing an annual snapshot of their vitality and stability and ranking them accordingly, using certain ;indicators[i] which it computes to a total. Based on this index, the United States ranks a total of 35.4 to Cuba's 70.8 with Finland the most stable with a total of 18.7 and South Sudan the most fragile with a total of 112.9.
Not surprisingly, some indicators for Cuba and the US show wide differences, with the US scoring better on Human Flight & Brain Drain, State Legitimacy, Human Rights, Security Apparatus and External Intervention. However in three other key indicators, such as Group Grievances, Uneven Economic Development, Poverty and Economic Decline, the ranking is very close.
For Cuba, some of these rankings, such as state legitimacy, human rights, and security apparatus are clearly due to the heavy handedness of the Cuban political system; while those for human flight and external intervention can only be attributed to the US embargo. On the other hand, seeing Cuba's relative good rankings and relative progress in group grievances, uneven development and poverty and economic decline, an unbiased observer would only attribute those to its political model.
Looking at these and other indicators, after having experienced Cuba first hand, I have been wondering why Washington refuses to engage with Cuba and work together to mutual benefit. Because of the embargo, the United States remains uninvolved in the opening of its economy that Cuba has put into play in recent years and misses out on mutual business and other opportunities in a society which is overall positively disposed toward the States, just ninety miles off its shores.
Do US policy makers understand or care to understand that by continuing the embargo they provide an easy excuse to the Cuban government to hide its own mistakes and inefficiencies? Isn't it time for the US to engage in some self-examination regarding this particular policy and change it?
Anna Theofilopoulou specialized on political and economic development issues—including the Middle East, the conflict over Western Sahara, Decolonization and the impact of trade and foreign investment on developing countries—while working in the United Nations. Currently, she works as a political analyst/writer covering North Africa and asylum policy in the US.
Read Next: Time for evolution in US Cuba policy
Editor's Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel's column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina's column here.
False equivalence in the media—giving equal weight to unsupported or even discredited claims for the sake of appearing impartial—is not unusual. But a major media organization taking meaningful steps to do something about it is.
Earlier this month, the BBC's governing body issued a report assessing the BBC's impartiality in covering scientific topics. When it comes to an issue like climate change, the report concluded, not all viewpoints share the same amount of scientific substance. Giving equal time and weight to a wide range of arguments without regard to their credibility risks creating a "false balance" in the public debate.
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This is a lesson for all media on both sides of the Atlantic—and not just when it comes to science coverage. There are many sides to almost every story, but that doesn't mean they are automatically equal.
Unfortunately, too much of the media has become increasingly fixated on finding "balance," even if it means presenting fiction on par with fact. If media outlets wanted to present an accurate account of the climate change "debate," for instance, they would have to follow comedian John Oliver's lead and host a "statistically representative" face-off with three climate change deniers up against ninety-seven scientists armed with proof. Instead, they contort themselves to find "balance," and we're left with segments like "Is the climate change threat exaggerated?"—presented on the always reliable Fox News—which promised to "weigh the evidence on both sides of the divisive topic." It's no wonder that only 60 percent of Americans know that most scientists agree that global warming is occurring—and almost 30 percent aren't sure if there is any scientific consensus.
Read the full text of Katrina's column here.
Read Next: No water for Motown—why Detroit is denying its citizens this basic human right.
When Netroots Nation convenes its 9th annual conference in Detroit this month, I hope that attendees arrive pre-hydrated. Because despite living at the hub of the largest group of freshwater lakes on the planet—taken together, the Great Lakes represent more than one-fifth of the world's surface freshwater—Detroit residents are running out of running water. They're also running into city and state bureaucracies that, alarmingly, don't seem to care.
In March, when the winter freeze finally began to thaw, Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD), the city's public utility, announced that it would resume shutting off water to delinquent customers, at a rate of 1,500 to 3,000 per week. As a result, some 40 percent of DWSD customers will lose their water supply by the end of the summer; 70,000 of these customers are residential, which means that 200,000 to 300,000 Detroiters could be directly affected. This is, to be sure, a public health crisis.
The city would have an easier time explaining itself if it were being at all consistent in its treatment of delinquent customers. In a New York Times op-ed, journalist Anna Clark noted that Joe Louis Arena, home of the National Hockey League's Red Wings, was $82,255 in arrears on its water bill as of last April; Ford Field, where the NFL's Detroit Lions play, owes more than $55,000; and city-owned golf courses owe more than $400,000. No date has been set to give these commercial customers their shut-off notices. Meanwhile, Clark writes, "the city is going after any customers who are more than sixty days late and owe at least $150."
In a Los Angeles Times op-ed that (sadly) compares Detroit to Donetsk, Michael Hiltzik writes bitterly that in Ukraine, "[W]arring pro- and anti-Russian forces are using basic necessities of life, such as water, as weapons against the civilian population….The same thing is happening in Detroit, where city officials have subjected the civilian population to mass shutoffs of water for past-due bills, then placed bureaucratic obstacles in the way getting service restored." And it's service, mind you, that's seen a 119 percent rate increase over the last ten years, including an 8.7 percent uptick approved by the city council just last month.
The average monthly water bill for a family of four in Detroit is nearly double the national average. Chris Hayes reported on MSNBC that, though the E.P.A. recommends that families spend no more than 2.5 percent of their pretax income on water and sewage, some residents of Detroit pay 20 percent of their pretax income for these services. Those who can't pay face a shutoff—and a stigmatizing blue slash of paint in front of their houses, signifying that they are, in fact, waterless.
On June 18, four advocacy groups—Detroit People's Water Board, the Blue Planet Project, Food & Water Watch, and the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization—submitted to the United Nations a report documenting the situation. In response this week, UN experts condemned DWSD, noting, "Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights." Catarina de Albuquerque, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation and Senior Legal Adviser at the Prosecutor General's Office, continued, "Disconnections due to non-payment are only permissible if it can be shown that the resident is able to pay but is not paying. In other words, when there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections."
And as if depriving people of a basic human right isn't outrageous enough, the byzantine legal and financial machinations behind the city's actions are truly galling. The details, as described in Counterpunch by Detroit lawyer Tom Stephens, are dizzying—even the oversimplified Godfather analogy that he uses to analogize the city's shady dealings requires a careful parsing—but they boil down to the simple premise that Motown values its financial-institution creditors more than its own citizens. It's but another example of the 1 Percent's preferences taking precedence over the Ninety-nine's necessities. Indeed, many believe that DWSD's strong-arm tactics are part of a larger plan to make the utility more attractive to private investors.
One of emergency city manager Kevyn Orr's first acts was to sign off on the hiring of his former employer, Jones Day, as the law firm supervising the city's bankruptcy—"despite the fact," Mark Binelli wrote in The New York Times last year, "that Jones Day already represents some of the very banks holding said debt, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America." (Experts estimate that Detroit's bill for Jones Day's services will be around $100 million.) None of this is, of course, evidence of cronyism, but if it walks like a duck…
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As part of the Netroots Nation conference, National Nurses United (The union is also active in the Robin Hood Tax movement) is holding a march and rally on Friday, July 18, to condemn Detroit's shut-off program as a violation of human rights. If you're attending Netroots Nation, I encourage you to participate in the action, which begins at 12:30 pm outside the Cobo Center in Downtown Detroit.
"There is," writes author and activist Jane Jacobs in the introduction to The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), "a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served." She could have been describing the Chapter 9 bankruptcy restructuring of Detroit. As Michigan's brahmins work to appropriate and repurpose every last penny, they're strangling and humiliating Detroit's most valuable asset—that is, Detroiters themselves.
Read Next: John Nichols against austerity in Detroit—"Water Is a Basic Human Right."
Editor's Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel's column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina's column here.
Last Monday, President Obama defied Republican threats to file suit against him for his use of executive orders. "If House Republicans are really concerned about me taking too many executive actions," the president said, "the best solution to that is passing bills. Pass a bill, solve a problem."
Republican obstruction is so extreme that House Speaker John Boehner can't even get what he wants done, much less what the country needs. House Republicans have blocked countless jobs plans, stonewalled immigration reform, stopped a hike in the minimum wage and prevented emergency unemployment benefits from even getting a vote.
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So Obama has begun to act—often belatedly and timidly in his supporters' view. He has tempered deportation of the "dreamers," kids born in the United States to undocumented immigrants, and promises more action on immigration. He has ordered that the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act not be enforced against gay couples. He has issued a bevy of minor common sense measures on gun control (like making it harder for the mentally ill to get a permit). His push for executive action on climate change will have real impact. And recently, he lifted the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10 an hour, shaming Republican obstruction of this long overdue measure.
Republicans are simply drinking the Kool-Aid if they think they can make Obama's initiatives an issue in the fall elections. Americans want action, not more dysfunction.
Read the full text of Katrina's column here.
Read Next: Dear Democrats, economic inequality is not an act of God.
"Inequality" is out as a White House talking point, The Washington Post reported on July 4. "Opportunity" is in. This is a problem. It's just wrongheaded to believe that we face a binary choice: reform an unequal system or help the middle class.
By implying that there is a disconnect between inequality and opportunity, (many, not all) Democrats ignore the fact that opportunity cannot be provided as long as the economic and financial system is so unequal. Some, like Senator Elizabeth Warren, intuitively understand this. After all, she first came to Washington to battle a system that has long been rigged against the middle class, where working families' voices get overpowered by well-funded lobbyists who hold elected officials by the pocket. By creating an artificial division between inequality and opportunity, we turn a blind eye to this rampant unfairness that helped the 1 percent ascend to their economic perches in the first place.
We also accept the built-in unfairness of the system as, simply, the way things are. Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, labels this flawed way of thinking "passive-voice populism." We assume that the ups and downs of the American middle class are as natural and as out-of-our-hands as the ebb and flow of the tides: economic inequality as an act of god. But, Borosage writes, "inequality didn't just happen to us. It wasn't inevitable. Just as the broad middle class was constructed brick by brick after World War II, the decline of that middle class was constructed policy-by-policy, step-by-step over the last three decades." Or, as Warren Buffett famously said in 2011, "[T]here's been class warfare going on for the last twenty years, and my class has won. We're the ones that have gotten our tax rates reduced dramatically."
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If we want to really create "opportunity" within our system, then we need to change the system. We need more than, as Borosage wrote today, "rhetorical pablum about lifting the middle class." A solution, he continues, "will involve taking on the rigged game and changing the rules. And that inevitably will require curbing Wall Street, taxing the wealthy and making vital public investments, closing the tax havens and dodges of the multinationals, requiring the Federal Reserve to favor a full employment economy for workers rather than an austerity regime for bankers, and much more."
On May 1, Senator Warren (D-MA) wrote in a prescriptive CNN op-ed, "We can repair the cracks in the middle class. We can strengthen our foundations and make sure that all of our children have a fighting chance. But it means changing who Washington works for—and doesn't."
It means providing opportunity by addressing inequality—at the same time.
Read Next: On this Fourth of July, meet your unpatriotic corporations
Years ago, I noticed that America's major drugstore chains tend to utilize the same corporate color scheme. Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid—all patriotic in red, white, and blue. Even regional chains take their identity cues from Old Glory. But this July 4, American corporations—including one drugstore chain, in one recent example—are using tax loopholes to act in the most unpatriotic of ways.
Walgreens, The New York Times reported, is looking to relocate from Illinois to Switzerland, in the process merging with a Swiss corporation and reincorporating itself as a foreign entity. It is, bluntly, an old-fashioned tax dodge, aimed at trimming eleven percentage points off the company's corporate tax rate. Americans for Tax Fairness estimates that the move will cost US taxpayers more than $4 billion over the next five years. Using a procedure called "inversion," an American company can reincorporate itself overseas as long as its domestic (US) owners retain no more than 80 percent of its stock. Walgreens, after merging with European drugstore chain Alliance Boots (itself a loophole-exploiter, having moved from the UK to Switzerland itself in order to lower its tax bill), will meet the criteria and legally become a Swiss corporation.
As the Times reported last fall, inversion is increasingly popular among American corporations. California chip maker Applied Materials merged with a Japanese competitor, Tokyo Electron, and the New York advertising group Omnicom merged with the French Publicis Groupe, to name two of the 20 inversions completed since April 2012. Applied Materials will save about $100 million in taxes each year, Omnicom $80 million.
There are few acts more unpatriotic than siphoning your tax dollars away from Uncle Sam and into your own pocket. Decreased tax revenue leads to yet more cuts in our social safety net, which is already ragged enough to begin with. According to Americans for Tax Fairness, Walgreens $4 billion-plus dodge could be used to fund 1.5 years of prescriptions for the entire VA veterans population; 639,000 people covered under Medicaid; or 3.5 million children under the Children's Health Insurance Program. Perhaps Walgreens corporate greed isn't surprising, as recent events have shown just how little America's corporate class actually cares about veterans, Medicaid, and the uninsured
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But it's still enraging. Walgreens earns nearly one-quarter of its $72 billion in annual revenue from…Medicaid and Medicare disbursements; that is, directly from the government—or taxpayers like you and me. Though his eye was more on outsourcing labor than on tax-dodging, Ralph Nader in 2012 wrote of the blatant anti-American practices of US corporations, "The bosses of these companies believe they can have it both ways—getting all the benefits of their native country while shipping whole industries and jobs to communist and fascist regimes abroad that keep their workers in serf-like conditions."
With inversion, companies like Walgreens are also trying to have it both ways: reap the revenue from America's enormous consumer base and public-health moneys, then save a bundle by stiffing the government on their fair share of the bill. This Fourth of July, remember that patriotism means more than red, white, and blue, more than the flag. It means taking responsibility for and stewardship over our shared home.
Read Next: How New York real estate became a dumping ground for the world's dirty money
Editor's Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel's column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina's column here.
Shortly after 11 pm on June 24, the media declared six-term Republican Senator Thad Cochran the winner of Mississippi's hard-fought Republican runoff primary. The reason, the pundits quickly concluded, was an unprecedented surge in black Democrats—some 13,000 or more—crossing over to support Cochran over his virulently anti-government Tea Party opponent, Chris McDaniel. "It should send a message," retired school principal Ned Tolliver said. "It shows that we have the power to elect who we want to elect when the time is right."
Around the time the polls closed, a very different view of Mississippi was playing out on PBS, in the form of a documentary called Freedom Summer. Grippingly recounting the 1964 effort that brought more than 700 college students—primarily white Northerners—to register black voters in Mississippi, the film is part of a flood of fiftieth-anniversary commemorations, from conferences to children's books. In grim and grainy black-and-white footage, interspersed with interviews from the heroic Americans who risked beatings and firebombings and even death, these tributes remind us of the long road to African-Americans having the power to elect who they want to elect and celebrate those who made it possible.
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And there is much to celebrate. Mississippi—where only 28,000 blacks were registered to vote in 1963—now boasts more black elected officials than any other state, including the recently reelected first black mayor of Philadelphia, the site of the brutal murders of three civil rights workers. The "WHITES" and "COLORED" signs have long since come down. A black man sits in the Oval Office.
Read the full text of Katrina's column here.
Read Next: Why the Mississippi Republican winner should thank Freedom Summer fifty years later.
This Sunday, Katrina vanden Heuvel appeared on ABC's This Week and challenged Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, on Iraq and American foreign policy. Vanden Heuvel called Kristol one of the "architects of catastrophe that have cost this country trillions of dollars, thousands of lives." She added, "This country should not go back to war. We don't need armchair warriors, and if you feel so strongly, you should, with all due respect, enlist in the Iraqi Army."
—Victoria Ford
Editor's Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel's column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina's column here.
As Iraq blows up (again) and tensions rise in the Ukraine and in the South China Sea, the United States' debate is focused on military intervention. Neoconservatives, having learned nothing from the debacle they caused in Iraq, indict the president for not intervening in Syria and for leaving Iraq. Liberal interventionists, having learned nothing from the calamities now visited on Libya, call for modulated bombing in both. The beleaguered administration sends planes to the Baltic states and Poland, ships to Asia, token troops to Baghdad, sustains hundreds of bases around the globe and is accused of withdrawing from the world. Commentators fret over whether the war-weariness of the American people will keep the "indispensable nation" from doing what must be done.
When you have a hammer, as the adage goes, everything looks like a nail. The United States' hammer is the most sophisticated military in the world—and nails appear in infinite variety across the globe.
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Virtually absent from the debate is any awareness of how much the United States' commitment to police the world detracts from dealing with the real security needs of its people and the globe. Last week, Richard Trumka, president of the AFLCIO, delivered a short address that reminded us of what is being lost in the muscle flexing.
Read the full text of Katrina's column here.
Take Action: Tell President Obama: No Military Intervention in Iraq
Read Next: How many times do neocons get to be wrong about Iraq before we stop listening?
In President Obama's own words, too many American workplaces resemble scenes from Mad Men. Many employers' attitudes toward family-friendly reforms seem to stem from the same unenlightened era—that is, at least, until they see the bottom-line results that these reforms can inspire. For a nation that claims to value family, the United States has an abysmal record on family-friendly workplace policies. Without access to maternity and paternity leave, affordable childcare and paid sick leave, working parents have almost no flexibility to balance the needs of their families with the requirements of their jobs. In short, when it comes to family-friendly labor policies, America is, indeed, exceptional—exceptionally backward.
Take paid sick days. As I've written previously, more than 40 million Americans, mostly low-income workers, lack access to paid sick leave. No matter how ill they are, they must clock in—and they could lose their jobs if they stay home to care for a sick child or aging parent. Meanwhile, childcare remains prohibitively expensive, and the United States has yet to enact universal pre-K, all of which leave even middle-class working parents with few affordable options for their little ones.
Paid sick days are overwhelmingly popular across ideological lines. Ninety-six percent of Democrats, 87 percent of independents and 73 percent of Republicans support the policy. Moreover, this popularity is supported by the data. Five years after the 2004 implementation of California's Paid Family Leave program, for example, employers reported a neutral or positive affect on employee productivity, profitability and turnover. New Jersey's program saved businesses money by improving employee retention, decreasing turnover and boosting productivity. Also, it's simply common sense. The chief lobbyist against the paid sick leave bill in San Francisco told Businessweek that, among various workplace reforms, paid sick leave offers "the best public policy for the least cost. Do you want your server coughing over your food?"
Then there's maternity and paternity leave. Today, around 2 million men stay at home to raise their children. Beyond that, even the masses of men who aren't primary caregivers are increasingly involved in the details of childrearing. But while men are more hands-on than ever before, they are nevertheless experiencing more conflict between their work and family roles than they did thirty years ago.
Under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, many, but not all, employees are allowed to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave for things like illness and the birth of a child, without the risk of losing their jobs. However, up to 40 percent of workers do not meet the law's strict eligibility requirements. The United States is the only Western country that does not mandate paid maternity leave—and just 14 percent of employers offer paid leave for new fathers. Moreover, while new mothers physically have no choice but to take at least some time off—even at the risk of losing pay or even their jobs—one study found that 86 percent of working fathers would not use paternity leave unless they were paid at least 70 percent of their salaries. The same study revealed that fathers generally take a meager two weeks off from work after the birth of a new child.
Many business groups complain that offering flexibility to their employees will hurt the bottom line, but this is short-sighted. As the data in California and New Jersey show, workplace flexibility makes economic sense, and it allows companies to attract and retain talent. In fact, cities that have implemented paid leave have seen improved worker morale, increased productivity, and small and large business growth.
But businesses can't act alone. That's why on June 9, the White House convened a group of fathers, researchers and business leaders—including New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy, who missed Opening Day this season to be present for the birth of his son—to discuss the challenges working dads face. The event was a precursor to the White House Working Families Summit on June 23, which is bringing together parents, employers and elected officials to discuss how to make the workplace more fair for working families. While Murphy, who is taking paternity leave, may be the exception to the rule, high-profile fathers like him can help elevate the issue and generate support for smart, sane policies.
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There's no shortage of ideas. Cities and states across the country—Mayor Bill de Blasio's New York City, in particular—are enacting laws like paid sick leave and universal pre-K. Several bills are in fact circulating at the federal level, including the FAMILY Act, sponsored by Democrats Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (CT). The bill would provide partial income for up to twelve weeks of leave for new parents and to care for a sick family member or a worker's own medical condition. And research from Demos shows that President Obama could help 8 million workers—70 percent of whom are women—by issuing an executive order to raise the minimum wage for employees working for federal contractors. It's a good start, but it's still a long way from where we need to go.
While Republicans traffic in the self-righteous language of family values, they have, without a hint of irony, long opposed pro-family policies like paid maternity leave and affordable childcare. And as long as workplace flexibility is seen as a women's issue, it will continue to be easy for them to obstruct progress. But now, as more fathers—including those, like MLB's Daniel Murphy, engaged in those most American of pursuits—struggle to balance the competing demands of work and family, the political winds may shift in favor of humane, commonsense workplace flexibility laws for all Americans. That's how we can really translate "family values" into valuing families.
Read Next: When will we stop asking neocons what to do in Iraq?


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Syria: Car bomb kills 17 in Aleppo
AMMAN, Jordan A car bomb ripped through Syria's largest city of Aleppo on Sunday, killing at least 17 people and wounding 40 in one of the main battlegrounds of the country's civil war, state-run media said.
State-run TV aired footage of fire trucks trying to extinguish the blaze and rescue workers digging through mounds of rubble. Aleppo's governor, Mohammed Wahid Akkad, was quoted by Syria's official news agency, SANA, as saying 17 dead were civilians.
The fight for Aleppo, a city of 3 million that was once a bastion of support for President Bashar Assad, is critical for both the regime and the opposition. Its fall would give the opposition a major strategic victory with a stronghold in the north near the Turkish border. A rebel defeat, at the very least, would buy Assad more time.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. SANA blamed terrorists, the term the regime uses for rebels. Opposition activists could not immediately be reached comment.
Al-Qaida-style suicide bombings have become increasingly common in Syria, and Western officials say there is little doubt that Islamist extremists, some associated with the terror network, have made inroads in Syria as instability has spread. But the main fighting force looking to oust Assad is the Free Syrian Army, a group made up largely of defected Syrian soldiers.
Earlier Sunday, a Jordanian militant leader linked to al-Qaida warned that his extremist group will launch "deadly attacks" in neighboring Syria to topple Assad, as Damascus lashed out at France for backing Syrian rebels.
In a speech delivered to a crowd protesting outside the prime minister's office in Amman, Mohammad al-Shalabi, better known as Abu Sayyaf, told Assad that "our fighters are coming to get you."
Abu Sayyaf is the head of the Salafi Jihadi group, which produced several al-Qaida linked militants who fought U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 10 years. They are also blamed for the 2002 assassination of US aid worker Laurence Foley outside his Amman home.
The militant leader was himself convicted in 2004 of plotting attacks on Jordanian air bases hosting American trainers, but served his term and was released last year.
Militants linked to al-Qaida, many from Iraq but also reportedly several from Jordan, are believed to have made inroads among Syrian rebels as the civil war their intensifies.
The warning came hours after Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi criticized France, saying its growing support for the opposition does nothing but undermine the mission of the new U.N. envoy tasked with brokering a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
France, Syria's one-time colonial ruler, has been one of the most outspoken Western critics of the Assad regime, and announced earlier this month that it has begun sending direct aid and money to five rebel-held Syrian cities as part of its intensified efforts to weaken Assad. It was the first such move by a Western power amid mounting calls for the international community to do more to prevent bloodshed.
Makdessi said France suffers from "schizophrenia" in its approach to the country's conflict.


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Finally, an easy—and delicious—way to fix those split ends.
15 Gorgeous Beauty Buys Under $25
Cameron Diaz's hair tends to look excellent (save for that infamous There's Something About Mary scene), and this sleek-but-relaxed style is no different. A center part allows bangs to shape the face.
Uneven short layers are perfect for those looking to define their face. And a bob like Julianne's is easy to style in the midst of the morning rush.


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China Computed Radiography (CR) Market Assessment and Outlook 2012-2015
- Language: English
- 58 Pages
- Published: July 2012
- Region: China
The analysts forecast the Computed Radiography (CR) and Digital Radiography (DR) market in the US to grow at a CAGR of 2.62 percent over the period 2012-2016. One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the increase in technological innovations. The CR and DR market in the US has also been witnessing an increasing use of CR in mammography. However, intense competition among vendors could pose a challenge to the growth of this market.
The report, the CR and DR Market in the US 2012-2016, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the CR and DR market in the US landscape and its growth prospects in the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.
The key vendors dominating this space include Agfa HealthCare NV, Carestream Health Inc., Fujifilm Holdings Corp., Konica Minolta Holdings Inc., and Philips Healthcare Ltd.
The other vendors mentioned in the report are Canon U.S.A. Inc., Del Medical Inc., GE Healthcare Ltd., iCRco Inc., Radlink Inc., Shimadzu Corp., Siemens Healthcare, Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc., and Viztek LLC.
Key questions answered in this report:
- What will the market size be in 2016 and what will be the growth rate?
- What are key market trends?
- What is driving this market?
- What are the challenges to market growth?
- Who are the key vendors in this market space?
- What are the market opportunities and threats faced by key vendors?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of these key vendors?
You can request one free hour of our analyst's time when you purchase this market report. Details provided within the report.
The report is also available as part of our annual subscription offer. Please get in touch with our customer service team in order to find out more. SHOW LESS READ MORE >
01. Executive Summary
02. List of Abbreviations
03. Introduction
04. Market Research Methodology
Market Research Process
Research Design
Research Methodology
05. Scope of the Report
Market Overview
Product Offerings
06. Market Landscape
06.1 CR and DR Market in the US
Market Size and Forecast
06.2 Market Segmentation
06.3 CR Market in the US
Market Size and Forecast
06.4 DR Market in the US
Market Size and Forecast
06.5 Five Forces Analysis
07. Vendor Landscape
Product Portfolio Matrix
08. Buying Criteria
09. Market Growth Drivers
10. Drivers and their Impact
11. Market Challenges
12. Impact of Drivers and Challenges
13. Market Trends
14. Key Vendor Analysis
14.1 Agfa HealthCare NV
Business Overview
Key Information
SWOT Analysis
14.2 Carestream Health Inc.
Business Overview
Key Information
SWOT Analysis
14.3 Fujifilm Holdings Corp.
Business Overview
Key Information
SWOT Analysis
14.4 Konica Minolta Holdings Inc.
Business Overview
Key Information
SWOT Analysis
14.5 Philips Healthcare
Business Overview
Key Information
SWOT Analysis
15. Other Reports in this Series
List of Exhibits:
Exhibit 1: Market Research Methodology
Exhibit 2: CR and DR Market in the US 2012-2016 (US$ million)
Exhibit 3: CR and DR Market in the US
Exhibit 4: CR and DR Market in the US 2012 (in percentage)
Exhibit 5: CR Market in the US 2012-2016 (US$ million)
Exhibit 6: DR Market in the US 2012-2016 (US$ million)
Exhibit 7: Business Segmentation of Agfa HealthCare
Exhibit 8: Business Segmentation of Carestream Health Inc.
Exhibit 9: Business Segmentation of Fujifilm Holdings Corp.
Exhibit 10: Business Segmentation of Konica Minolta Holdings Inc.
Exhibit 11: Business Segmentation of Philips Healthcare
Commenting on the report, an analyst from the team said: "There has been an increase in the use of CR in the diagnosis of medical conditions in women, especially in mammography. Mammography is the examination of a human breast with the help of ionizing radiation for the early detection of breast cancer. The imaging of dense breast tissue or implants through CR produces high-quality digital images. High resolution, moderate productivity, and dose performance are essential for mammography, and they can be easily achieved through CR. Moreover, CR systems cost three times less than DR systems, so they are preferred to DR systems for carrying out mammography examinations."
According to the report, one of the key drivers in this market is the rapid technological developments in CR and DR systems, resulting in better images.
Further, the report states that one of the key challenges in this market is the intense competition among the vendors in the US. This intense competition is resulting in increased pricing pressure, thus affecting the profit margins of major companies operating in the market.
The report also includes a discussion of the other vendors operating in this market. The other vendors in the market are Canon USA Inc., Del Medical Inc., GE Healthcare Ltd., iCRco Inc., and Radlink Inc.
The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.
- Agfa HealthCare NV
- Canon U.S.A. Inc.
- Carestream Health Inc.
- Del Medical Inc.
- Fujifilm Holdings Corp.
- GE Healthcare Ltd.
- iCRco Inc.
- Konica Minolta Holdings Inc.
- Philips Healthcare Ltd.
- Radlink Inc.
- Shimadzu Corp.
- Siemens Healthcare
- Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc.
- Viztek LLC.


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Outdoor Events
Celebrating 60 Years!
Enjoy 300 artists and a fun festival atmosphere at the oceanfront during Father's Day Weekend. The Boardwalk Art Show and Festival is one of the oldest and best outdoor fine art shows on the Eastern Seaboard. Produced by the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, it is ranked as one of the top 15 fine art shows in the country by Sunshine Artist Magazine. This four-day festival features fine art, great shopping, and live entertainment for the entire family.
The jewel of the show is the Boardwalk Beach Club, an 80' tented space along the boardwalk for individuals who want to celebrate a special day. Beach Club guests enjoy valet parking, open bar, unparalled lunch service by Steinhilber's, lovely shaded seating, private bathrooms and beautiful views of the ocean. At the Artist Awards Party, there will be live music by More Perfect Jones Bluegrass.
2015 Art Show Hours:Thursday, June 18th noon-6pmFriday, June 19th 10am-6pmSaturday, June 20th 10am-6pmSunday, June 21st 10am-6pm
Proceeds from this event directly support MOCA and help fulfill the mission to provide thought-provoking,contemporary art exhibitions and children's art education programs.
Join us for a live broadcast of the The Belmont Stakes as American Pharoah goes for the prestigious Triple Crown! Hosted at EQUI-KIDS' facility, featuring sponsor suites throughout the indoor riding arena, all you can eat BBQ, a silent auction and race raffle, casino tables, beer and wine, and a fantastic performance by the band Karnivale, the Belmont Bash is the place to be!
The annual Virginia Covered Bridge Festival will be hosted in Woolwine, Virginia between Jacks Creek and Bob White Covered Bridges. In 2007 Patrick County was named the official state location for the Virginia Covered Bridge Festival.
Virginia Covered Bridge Festival is always the third Saturday in June... commencing at 10 am, ending at 4 pm. Events at sites adjacent to Jacks Creek Bridge and Bob White Bridge will include; live music at both locations, a variety of 4 bands at Jacks Creek Covered Bridge site, and 4 traditional bands at the Bob White Covered Bridge site; a 5-K Run; horse and wagon rides; Cruise-In of antique and unique vehicles; a "duck" race in the river; arts, craft, and food vendors; activities for children including petting zoo and inflatable bouncer; free admission and free available parking. The festival is hosted by the Woolwine Ruritans, Woolwine VFD, and Smith River Rescue Squad, and manned by community volunteers, and is held for the purpose of showcasing Woolwine's heritage.
With only seven public Covered Bridges in the state of Virginia, Woolwine proudly celebrates two of those historic Covered Bridges within a mile of each other.....travel between the Covered Bridges in a horse-drawn wagon and enjoy the beautiful Virginia scenery!
Experience the distinctive wines, cider, mead and beer of Southwest Virginia. Not only will you get to taste, you'll get to meet and hear the stories of the wines and their makers. Join us Sat, June 13, 2015 from 1- 5 p.m. at Heartwood in Abingdon, VA.
TicketsTickets for this family-friendly events can be purchased online or in person at Heartwood. Your Southwest Virginia Wine Festival ticket includes the tastings, a souvenir wine glass, and light hors d'oeuvres. In addition to the tastings, we will have wine-related artisan demos from our 'Round the Mountain Artisans.
Climb on the mobile climbing wall, kayak the South River, marvel at the high flying BMX stunt show, register for giveaways, and enjoy great food and fun for the whole family. If you want to take full advantage of this beautiful region's many adventure sports opportunities or just want to try something new and exciting, then mark XtremeFest of the Blue Ridge on your calendar. There will be plenty of opportunity to participate, try, and buy.
Jeff Alt, a talented speaker and award-winning author of A Walk for Sunshine, enjoys sharing his 2,160 mile Appalachian Trail adventures with Shenandoah National Park visitors. Jeff uses humor and adventure in a story telling format. His presentations involve music, slides, and personal narration. Alt, an expert hiker, has been on Discovery Channel.com and many more. Alt's new book, Get Your Kids Hiking: How to Start Them Young and Keep it Fun, is inspiring families to literally, take a hike. Held in the Great Room at Big Meadows Lodge. Free.
Come join us for the 12th riding of the epic Big Pencil to Big Walker METRIC Charity Ride on Saturday, June 20, 2015. Beginning in downtown Wytheville, the ride heads out through the pastoral southwest Virginia counties of Wythe and Bland, with one, two or three climbs of Big Walker Mountain.Offers 3 routes:Metric Century+ (66 miles - 6,100' climb)36-mile (2,300' climb)24-mile (1,200' climb)The first 100 registrants receive a custom-designed cycling jersey!


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Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5 Free Edition
Panda Cloud Antivirus 1.5 Free Edition : Correctly Connected As its name implies, Panda Cloud Antivirus relies on the cloud for full protection. If you try to launch a scan when not correctly connected to the Internet it warns you should connect for best results.
4 / 14
Bottom Line
This free antivirus solution minimizes its impact on your system by using the cloud for malware detection, and its simple user interface is easy on the eyes. In testing, it didn't completely handle every detected threat, but it's still a reasonable choice if you're looking for a free solution.
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(Rio de Janeiro) - Police officers in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo routinely resort to lethal force, often committing extrajudicial executions and exacerbating violence in both states, Human Rights Watch said in a report [2] released today.
The 122-page report, "Lethal Force: Police Violence and Public Security in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo [2]," examined 51 cases in which police appeared to have executed alleged criminal suspects and then reported the victims had died in shootouts while resisting arrest.
Rio and São Paulo police together kill more than 1,000 people every year in such alleged confrontations. While some of these "resistance" killings by police are legitimate acts of self-defense, many others are extrajudicial executions, the report found.
"Extrajudicial killing of criminal suspects is not the answer to violent crime," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "The residents of Rio and São Paulo need more effective policing, not more violence from the police."
Unlawful police killings undercut legitimate efforts in both states to curb criminal violence, much of which is carried out by heavily armed gangs. In Rio, these gangs are largely responsible for one of the highest homicide rates in the hemisphere. In São Paulo, despite a drop in homicides over the past decade, gang violence also poses a major threat.
Human Rights Watch obtained credible evidence in 51 "resistance" cases that contradicted police officers' claims that victims died in a shootout. For example, in 33 cases, forensic evidence was at odds with the official version of what took place - including 17 cases in which autopsy reports show that police shot their victims at point blank range. The 51 cases do not represent the totality of potential extrajudicial killings, but are indicative of a much broader problem, the report concluded.
The report also draws upon extensive interviews with more than 40 criminal justice officials, including top prosecutors who view extrajudicial executions by the police as a major problem in both states.
Official government statistics support the prosecutors' assessment that the problem is widespread:
The high number of police killings is all the more dramatic when viewed alongside the comparatively low numbers of non-fatal injuries of civilians by police and of police fatalities.
"Police officers are permitted to use lethal force as a last resort to protect themselves or others," Vivanco said. "But the notion that these police killings are committed in self-defense, or justified by high crime rates, does not hold up under scrutiny."
In addition to the many "resistance" killings each year by police on duty, officers kill hundreds more while off-duty, often when they are acting as members of militias in Rio and death squads in São Paulo.
Police officers responsible for unlawful killings in Rio and São Paulo are rarely brought to justice. The principal cause of this chronic failure to hold police to account for murder, the report found, is that the criminal justice systems in both states currently rely almost entirely on police investigators to resolve these cases.
Human Rights Watch found that police officers frequently take steps to cover up the true nature of "resistance" killings. And police investigators often fail to take necessary steps to determine what has taken place, helping to ensure that criminal responsibility cannot be established and that those responsible remain unaccountable.
"So long as they are left to police themselves these executions will continue unchecked, and legitimate efforts to curb violence in both states will suffer," Vivanco said.
The report provides recommendations to Rio and São Paulo authorities for curbing police violence and improving law enforcement. The central recommendation is the creation of specialized units within state prosecutors' offices to investigate "resistance" killings and ensure that officers responsible for extrajudicial executions are brought to justice.
The report also details measures that state and federal authorities should take to maximize the effectiveness of these special units. These include:
[1] http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/12/08/brazil-curb-police-violence-rio-s-o-paolo
[2] http://www.hrw.org/node/87020


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Remote RDP
5,000 - 10,000 downloadsAdd this app to your lists
+ By Yongtao Wang
Remote RDP can not run multiple RDP sessions for now. Please use our HTML5 version (on Firefox Beta) for that, which also supports RemoteApp and iPad.
World's first Remote Desktop mobile client which supports TLS(SSL) encryption and audio recording(Enterpise version):
Touchpad mode deprecated,use better on-scr mouse instead
1. Support Windows 2000 Server, Windows XP Professional, MCE 2005, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista Business or Ultimate, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 Professional, Business or Ultimate, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8 and Windows 2012.
2. World's first NON-MS RDP client which supports TLS(SSL) encryption (RDP over SSL). Enterprise Version only.
3. World's first mobile RDP client which support bidirectional audio. Recording only available in Enterprise Version.
4. Support RDP 7.
5. Support both Admin mode and Application mode.
6. Support session auto-reconnect.
7. Copy/Paste text between local and remote
8. Attach you SD Card to remote computer as a disk, you can download/upload files.
9. Bring sound to your phone.Supports Alaw, Mulaw(ULaw), Adpcm, GSM6.10 etc audio encodings.
10. VOIP level bandwidth usage. 70%-90% less compared with other NON-MS RDP clients (PC or mobile) when playing audio.
Customizable shortcut keys, Export/import you data to SD Card.
11. zoom in /out, zoom buttons like the one in browser
Smart move detecting, flip/fast move for scrolling the screen, normal/slow move(Tap, pause, move) for moving/dragging remote windows.
Smart tap detecting, normal/short tap for left click, long tap for right click.
12. Smart input cursor detecting, show/hide software keyboard automatically.
13. Smart cursor movement (can move mouse cursor more steps when you move scroll ball fast).
14. Mouse wheel support
15. zoom in/out, support pinch zoom
16. 128 bit and TLS (SSL) encryption.
17. Connection manager.
18. Fully international keyboard support, can deliver whatever you can type
19. Small but with much more features, only 143 KB.
20. Optimized for tablet, external mouse and keyboard, support custom resolutions, also support touchpad mode.
21. Free to all software updates and upgrades.
22. Free technical support, will gladly answer all your questions about the application via e-mail
23. World's first RDP client which support touch remoting (Windows 8 and 2012)
24. RemoteFX support
RDP library for Android is also available for OEM and customization.
Tags: rdp, baixar rdp, rdp tls, remote rdp, how to connect the remote rdp enterprise app to the computer, ms rdp, msrdp, rdesktop, remote desktop client 2.7.0, rdp source.
4.3.15 Fixed a remoteapp resizing issue and login dialog not displayed issue under enhanced encryption.
4.3.12 fixed crash issue on specific devices
4.3.11 fixed mouse cursor moving issue on specific devices, better RemtoeApp and USB keyboard support.
4.3.10 fixed must entering password issue introduced in 4.3.9
4.3.9 supports 15 languages, fixed a right click issue
4.3.6 fixed backspace key issue on SwiftKey, Bulgarian translation etc.
Try our HTML5 RDP on any devices: www.remotespark.com
Some lists where this application appears: Remote control apps, my list.
(70 stars)
Purchased the Remote RDP standard. I can connect successfully to linux desktop through xrdp in my linux box, unfortunately I could not play any sound in my android device. I did download the payed version because of sound support.
(70 stars)
We have Oblio Tablet Mint 7 , we couldnt install Remote Rdp with the direct link or from Android market. We want to buy and install.
(70 stars)
Great app!
(70 stars)
I've you're looking to rdp to your pc with full control with tons of extra features and amazing keyboard choices, then you cannot make the mistake of using any other app besides this. I did and spent money on all possible apps :( but this is the only one which meets my expectations. No other aap allows you to use external keyboard and full Swift key support. !! The Dev is extremely helpful and ve
(70 stars)
It's supposed to be excellent App but this version is started as locked screen which previously it is not. You have to press LockScr twice to unlock.
(70 stars)
(70 stars)
Works great so I bought it. Works fine then found that it does not support credssp. That's why a 3 star. Support credssp then I would give 5 star.


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I just found this website: http://www.drivers-republic.com/
I am pretty sure that it looks the same as one of them WP themes here but couldn'T find it. I remember it having the top five (connect, subscribe) buttons.
Any ideas?
Found it! Its Black Aperture theme modified. I hope the website owner is a buyer
it's Black Aperture
edit: You beat me to it
with thousands of themes sold, why would not expect to see many sites out there using the themes from TF? whether they are legit or not would be really hard to tell because you do not know if the web guy bought the theme. I would hope so, they are pretty reasonably priced.
I'm surprised that you don't run across more of them like this, where have all the bought themes disappeared to?
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