Source: International IDEA
Refugees have the potential to make an impact on the political life of both their host countries and their countries of origin, as they often maintain transnational links with their homelands while at the same time becoming part of their host society.
Drawing on individual perspectives of Congolese refugees in South Africa, this case study explores the formal and non-formal political participation of refugees and asylum seekers in their host country and the ways in which they are able to participate in peacebuilding and democracy-building in their countries of origin.
Among the formal mechanisms for political participation, the case study explores issues of access to citizenship in the host country, electoral rights in both the host country and countries of origin, and membership or other forms of support to political parties. In addition, it examines non-formal mechanisms for political participation, including refugees’ participation in consultative bodies, civil society organizations, protests and grassroots initiatives, and other means of transnational political activism.
This case study is part of the Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Democracy project and has informed the development of a longer report, Political Participation of Refugees: Bridging the Gaps, published by International IDEA in 2018.
Download South Africa report from International IDEA: https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/political-participation-refugees-case-congolese-refugees-south-africa?lang=en
Provided that they meet the criteria, refugees can access the right to vote by following the relevant procedures to become a South African Citizen (Chennells 2015). According to section 7 of the Refugee Act, refugees can apply for a permanent residence permit after five years of continuous residence in South Africa from the date they were granted asylum, provided that they have certification from the SCRA. This certification confirms that, based on several mitigating factors, including the continuing negative political and security situation in their country of origin, the applicant is likely to remain a refugee for an indefinite period. This certification in many ways entitles refugees to local integration as a durable solution.
The regulations contained within the Refugee Act give the SCRA discretion to grant certification at the same time as refugee status is granted. The regulations also make the possibility of certification a key consideration in the decision to renew the refugee permit every two years. When initiated by the applicant, an application for certification must be submitted to the RRO where the refugee initially applied for asylum. Once issued, the certification can be used to apply for permanent residence. Once they have been certified and their permanent residence application has been successful, a person can only apply for naturalization once they have held a Permanent Residence Permit for 10 years, and fulfilled other criteria as specified in the Citizenship Act (1995). Acquiring citizenship by naturalization is considered a privilege not a legal right. The minister may therefore refuse an application even if the applicant meets the criteria (Isaacson 2008). A less researched phenomenon, however, is that some male refugees are marrying South African women as a way to gain citizenship and enhance their chances of integration into South Africa (Kenge 2017: 6)
In a presentation to parliament, the DHA reported that 2,104 new applications for certification were filed in 2015, and 2,237 applications had been considered, including pending submissions from previous years (Parliamentary Monitoring Group 2016). Of the applications considered, 684 were granted and 681 denied. Some applications resulted in the withdrawal of refugee status.


Spain and the World
Spain and the World is the name of an anarchist publication initiated in response to the Spanish Civil War and the struggles of the CNT-FAI carrying analysis of events as they unfolded. In Britain, the Freedom Paper had begun to peter-out. Thomas Keell had attempted to close the paper down as a reflection of the poor state of the British anarchist movement. Though there was a brief dispute which resulted in two rival 'Freedoms' both had run their course by the early 30's. The fortnightly publication, Spain and the World had been started by Dr Galasso and Vernon Richards in 1936 to compete with News Chronicle and New Statesman who were supportive of Soviet policy in Spain. "After the first issue, Spain and the World became a Freedom Press publication, with Tom Keell and Lilian Wolfe" according to Rooum. The paper would go on to revive the fortunes of the Freedom paper with input from important activists like Marie-Louise Berneri and Frank Leech.
- Ward, Colin (4 February 2002). "Obituary: Vernon Richards". The Guardian. London.
- Rooum, Donald. "Freedom, Freedom Press and Freedom Bookshop A short history of Freedom Press" (PDF).
- Becker, Heiner (1986). Freedom: a Hundred Years, October 1886 to October 1986. London: Freedom Press. ISBN 0-900384-35-2.
- Meltzer, Albert (1996). I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels. Edinburgh, Scotland: San Francisco, CA. ISBN 1873176937.


The facilities industry currently is undergoing a significant transformation triggered by building information modeling (BIM). This transformation has only begun, yet it is being embraced throughout the building design and construction industry because it provides significant opportunities for both practitioners and stakeholders.
At the buildingSMART alliance, which operates within the National Institute of Building Sciences, BIM is defined as “a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. As such, it serves as a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life cycle from inception onward.” To ensure that collected information can be used by stakeholders throughout a project’s life cycle, the alliance is developing the National BIM Standard to standardize building information models and the data collection process, with the intent of creating best practices that enhance the flow of information between interested parties. The intial version of the document is available online at buildingsmartalliance.org/nbims.
All building projects start with data collection, and often this data ends up being inaccurate because of time and funding constraints. More importantly, some information in existing facilities, such as the exact location of power and piping, is hidden and would require destructive investigation, such as drywall removal, to collect. Plus, much of the information changes. Some data, including that concerning the building structure, does not change as often as does the location of people, furniture, or material stored inside the facility. However, whether the changes occur over decades or by the minute, or because of expansion, contraction, or procurement, most of them require some planning. The key to effective information capturing is to ensure plans include a spatial component that uses BIM as the repository for change management information.
Building structures using software first allows them to be fully analyzed so problems can be resolved before physical construction begins. Using BIM can reduce inefficiencies and deliver a significantly higher-quality facility more quickly—it allows more activities to be accomplished in parallel and reduces the amount of re-work needed in the field. This concept holds true for both new and existing facilities. For example, if insurance adjusters, emergency responders, and building security consultants or designers are brought in during a project’s beginning phase, future risks may be minimized or eliminated.
Managing the Big Picture In terms of overall U.S. energy consumption, it is estimated that the facilities sector is responsible for 41 percent of energy use. While the public has focused on transportation, examining energy use and its impact on national security should cause a shift in focus toward facilities. This shift undoubtably will bring greater attention to the integration of all facility-related issues. To make this change a positive one, the facilities and infrastructure industry needs to put in place a comprehensive plan and set of standards. Minimizing energy consumption needs a life-cycle solution, not merely a look at initial costs, and BIM will play an extremely important role in the changing of objectives.
Using BIM can help sustainable efforts be analyzed in an integrative approach. It allows the project team to address life-cycle costing; energy-use optimization; the use of raw materials; creation of zero-carbon-footprint facilities; improvement of worker safety; and the reduction of litigation by reducing risk.
BIM improves the data-collection process. It’s how information is dealt with after it is collected that is the real issue. During construction, most information is collected during the initial realization of a facility. Once construction is complete, each repair or remodeling project goes through a mini data-collection process similar to the original project. The problem in these cases is that the building owner typically does not keep the information in a usable form, as could be done with BIM. Previously, there were no means or reasons to store massive amounts of facility information. Today, however, a 1.5-TB hard drive costs under $100.
Data can be stored across multiple locations or consolidated in one location. Many facility portfolio owners now are in a position to benefit from BIM by establishing infrastructure operations centers. These centers can oversee network operations and security, information assurance, physical security, system functionality, videoconferencing functionality, and physical plant operations. A single center potentially could manage an organization’s entire portfolio. The primary benefit of this is to ensure mission or functional readiness. Any issue that slows the productivity of a facility has a huge impact on an organization’s profitability. Having accurate information is beneficial during normal operating conditions and priceless during an emergency. By having an operations center, not only would people be trained to react to potential events, but these people might be able to prevent problems or minimize their impact to life and property. Having a spatial aspect to the capability through BIM, as well as having accurate information about everything in the facility’s building information model, would reduce costs for maintenance and any post-occupancy projects.
BIM is not limited to individual buildings, and entire communities can be designed and assessed en masse. It is not as much of a reach for municipalities to require a building information model for facilities as it was in the past, since a growing number of contractors develop models for their own use. After the turnover of a facility, this model may be of value to others. An open standard tool that can be used by all vendors, called the Onuma Planning System (OPS), is being demonstrated through sessions called BIM Storms in several cities worldwide including Los Angeles; New Orleans; Alexandria, Va; and London. This tool uses “cloud computing,” a form of document creation and management where files are kept online for several individuals to access, like Google Docs, instead of being housed on an individual hard drive to deliver vast amounts of data to multiple stakeholders.
Sustaining the Information Obviously, one of the main issues surrounding the value of the information is how to keep it accurate. The facilities and infrastructure industries have a long history of inaccurate information; often the first step of any project performed in a building includes extensive data collection and validation. Whether a facility is about to undergo remodeling or receive preventative maintenance, someone first has to measure the existing conditions or, at a minimum, write down the model number for a piece of equipment. If BIM is the primary receptacle for the facility’s information, only minimal validation would be required; hypothetically, in some cases 40 percent of a project’s cost could be eliminated. If facility managers multiply that savings by the number of projects they oversee in a given year, it becomes clear that the amounts could be staggering.
Today, nearly all information is created electronically. Sadly, the industry has a habit of turning this electronic information into printed documents. A paper document loses a significant amount of the embedded intelligence, so it is of much less value than the electronic version, and also is less likely to be used to sustain a central model. At best, it is filed away. At worst, it finds its way into the trash. However, if people come to rely on the electronic information contained in BIM, and that information is accessible for multiple uses, the organization will be more likely to ensure it is maintained.
Of course, sustaining information in BIM will require a change in how people work and a reallocation of business resources. This cannot be something that is done only in case of an emergency. Now is the time to implement BIM in your organization. It is not an overnight solution; it takes years. But you can start small and expand. There is no right answer other than to not throw away any more information.
Tools to support interoperability using international and national open standards are in place and gaining functionality. As with any software tool, continual improvements are being made. In the past, many of the initial BIM efforts were heavy on visualization, but models are now becoming much more information-rich.
Organizations like the buildingSMART alliance have networking groups to help with the transformation. You can look under the resources tab at buildingsmartalliance.org to see if there is an interest group in your area. If not, consider setting one up. Guidelines are provided online and coordinators are always willing to help.
There are a number of books and articles written to support BIM implementation. Recognize that change will be required in the ways you do business to take advantage of new opportunities afforded by BIM software. The biggest mistake you can make is to try to insert this new technology into the way you already do business.
Of course, for this concept to be repeatable, efficient, and effective, standards need to be developed. In working toward creating a national standard, the buildingSMART alliance is assembling teams to identify best business practices and data structures. For help developing the standard BIM model views, or to intiate the development of a BIM model view project, both of which would be open to any company, visit buildingsmartalliance.org.
Dana K. “Deke” smith is the executive director of the buildingSMART alliance at the National Institute of Building Sciences in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.


SOS - Save Our Seabirds!
The world faces a petrel crisis! Petrels and other seabirds are under threat around the world from various causes including being caught by fishing vessels and habitat loss. But the biggest threat to them comes from predators introduced to their island breeding sites. Once they would have bred in countless numbers on islands across the Pacific (including mainland New Zealand), but as people spread across the Pacific, they introduced rats and other predators (sometimes accidentally, sometimes deliberately) to islands, where they have wiped out petrels, other seabirds, and endemic land birds. Sadly, few unspoilt safe havens remain.
Now you can help fight back!
Henderson Island, situated in the tropical pacific mid-way between New Zealand and Ecuador, is a vitally important seabird island under threat from pacific rats. The UK charity, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) mounted a rat eradication in 2011. Unfortunately, a few rats survived. While reduced rat numbers have allowed the threatened birds have been able to breed successfully for the first time in many years, only a successful rat eradication will ensure the long term future of the island's ecology. Details here and video of the 2011 operation.
The RSPB is committed to continuing the effort to eradicate rats, and in 2015 is sending a team of scientists to conduct research on the dietary preferences and habits of Henderson island's rats to ensure that a future eradication is successful.
In 2010 I helped raise money for the eradication. This year I am once again helping to raise money to help this important project.
An anonymous donor has offered to match any money raised, so your donation will go twice as far!
Why is it so important?
Quite simply, it is a chance to put right an environmental wrong the human race should take responsibility for. Unlike most conservation work, or indeed any charitable cause, which are on-going and never ending (just holding back the tide, winning battles but never the war), this project will provide lasting benefits for thousands, if not millions of years into the future.
Henderson Island can become a haven for breeding seabirds, or, if we fail, it will become an island devoid of all bird life. The breeding population of petrels used to be millions. Now it is just thousands. With your help, it could be millions again. If the eradication does not go ahead there will soon be none (prior to the first eradication attempt, 95% of petrel chicks were eaten by rats within days of hatching). Several other seabird species, and the four endemic land birds will likely go the same way.
Who am I?
My name is Andy Maloney, I am a veterinary surgeon who lives in Wellington, New Zealand, and I am passionate about protecting the wildlife and wild places of our beautiful planet.
What have I done?
I successfully cycled an electric bike from the pest-free 'mainland island' of Zealandia (in the heart of Wellington), to the pest free island reserve of Tiritiri Matangi Island (north of Auckland), between the 9th and 19th of November, in often atrocious weather conditions. It was challenging and fun, and I spoke to many people about the Henderson Island project (and even met two people who had been there!)
To find out more, see my posts about the journey on Facebook.
Please sponsor me! (Its not too late!)
The money donated through this site is channeled via Forest and Bird, who will pass the money on to the RSPB. Please note that money donated can be claimed against your tax, or the tax credit donated to Forest and Bird for their excellent work protecting the nature of New Zealand.
All donations will be matched by an anonymous donor, so its double the bang for your buck!
Photos of Henderson lorikeet and Murphy's petrels: Tara Proud


The CoML is compiling a massive database of both past discoveries and new finds that now has more than five million records. In the past year alone, investigators added information about 13,000 species not previously included in the database. Researchers also discovered 106 new species of fish, bringing the total of marine fish species to 15,482. Census scientists expect that there may be in excess of 4,000 fish species that are as yet undiscovered and hope to gather data about them in the project's remaining six years. Still, the bulk of ocean life is comprised of microbes (see image), which account for more than 90 percent of the marine biomass.
The researchers also teamed up with some well-known species, such as tuna, sharks and sea turtles, to learn more about uncharted regions of the ocean. By labeling more than 1,500 animal observers with electronic tags, they were able to create a map of marine highways, revealing much information about critical habitats and migratory paths. But even as scientists gather more information about sea life, the census also points out how much more there is to learn. Analysis of the current data shows that near-surface records make up 95 percent of all observations of ocean life now available. What is more, less than 0.1 percent of study results come from the bottom half of the water column. CoML participants hope to shift the balance in the coming years. Notes Grassle, We're finding these doughnut-shaped pockets of life, 10 kilometers in diameter, thousands of meters below us.


Many thanks to Boldmethod for sharing… Source: Boldmethod
Seeing a sunset or sunrise from the cockpit is a view you’ll never forget. Here’s why they’re so stunning and full of color.
First, A Quick Review Of Sunlight
Sunlight, or visible light, can be thought of as a wave and a part of the electromagnetic spectrum. When the spectrum is split up, you see all the colors as a rainbow. Each visible color has a different wavelength along the spectrum. Blue light has the shortest wavelength at 300 nanometers. Red light has the longest at 700 nanometers. As visible light passes through the Earth’s atmosphere, small particles in the air can scatter shorter wavelengths more efficiently, like what you see on the left side of the diagram below.
During the day, blue light is the primary wavelength that’s scattered in the atmosphere, and only a portion of the blue light is scattered. But when the sun is low in the sky during sunrise or sunset, all of that changes.
“Scattering” Causes Colorful Sunsets
According to Steve Ackerman, a Meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, “because the sun is low on the horizon, sunlight passes through more air at sunset and sunrise than during the day, when the sun is higher in the sky. More atmosphere means more molecules to scatter the violet and blue light away from your eyes. If the path is long enough, all of the blue and violet light scatters out of your line of sight. The other colors continue on their way to your eyes. This is why sunsets are often yellow, orange, and red.”
Red has the longest wavelength of any visible light, which is why the sun may appear red when setting directly on the horizon. The light has passed through the most atmosphere possible before reaching your eyes.
Why Are Some Sunsets More Colorful Than Others?
According to National Geographic, you may see more vibrant sunsets based on the seasons. In the east, fall and winter create incredible sunsets because the air tends to be dryer and cleaner for the path of sunlight. Pollution tends to mute and muddy the colors of sunsets because large particles in the lower atmosphere tend to have that effect. And in general, places with a lot of haze have less dramatic sunsets.
Why Sunsets Look So Great From The Air
When you’re flying through layers during climb or descent, you’ll find the best sunsets where the sun is clearly visible between multiple layers of clouds. When sunlight is sandwiched between cloud layers, it bounces off the clouds, further intensifying the sunset. That’s why sunsets often times seem more spectacular from the air. On top of that, cloud layers can create dramatic shadows on the ground, or on other cloud layers.
Where have you seen the best sunsets or sunrises? Tell us in the comments below.
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This phrase will help you solve every trig problem; SOH CAH TOA
S=sin = O (opposite length)/H (hypotenuse)
C=cos = A (adjacent length)/H (hypotenuse)
T= tan = O (opposite length)/A (adjacent length)
Its better if you learn then just get answers, especially when your problems are fairly easy and very important to know.
So to help you start, lets do the first one.
The triangle is a 30, 60, 90 triangle where you are given the hypothesis is 1.
So using the 60 degree angle, you can say cos(60)=y/1, because cos(X)=a/h ^^^^^ABOVE^^^^
you can do the same thing to solve for x; the sin(60)= x/1, because sin(X)=O/h; ^^^^ABOVE^^^^
So you know, in a 30 60 90 triangle, the short leg (opp. the 60) is x(sqrt3)/2, the hypothesis is 2x, and the long leg (opp. the 30) is x.
Now that you know how to do them, you can do the rest by simply following the SOHCAHTOA phrase, and just PLUGGIN AND CHUGGIN BABY!


Early Head Start Home Based Program
What is the Early Head Start Home Based Program?
The Early Head Start Home Based Program is a comprehensive program designed to meet the needs of low income families of children from birth to age three and pregnant women. Early Head Start is aimed at enhancing the development of infant and toddlers while strengthening families.
- To enhance the development of infant and toddlers towards achieving school readiness
- To Promote healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women
- To promote parents role as the child’s first teacher
- To help parents achieve self sufficiency
The Early Head Start Home Based Program enhances children’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development, assists pregnant women prenatal and post care, supports parents efforts to fulfill their parental roles, and assists parents in moving toward self-sufficiency. Our program services include fathers and primary caregivers.
[tabs style=”framed” nav=”tabs_above” height=”false” tab_1=”More Info” tab_2=”Calendar/Events” tab_3=”Brochures” tab_4=”Press Releases” tab_5=”Annual Reports” tab_6=”Contact”]
[toggle title=”Who do we serve?”]
Early Head Start Home Based Program serves:
- Children birth to age 3 years old
- Expectant Mothers
- Foster Children
- Homeless Families
- Children with Disabilities
You Must Reside in Trenton!
[toggle title=”Our Curriculum”]
Our Evidence Based curriculum identifies goals in all areas of development:
- Social – To help children feel comfortable learning in their own home environment and how to make friends, and be a part of a social group.
- Emotional – To help parents and newborns form healthy attachments. To help children experience pride and self- confidence, develop independence and self-control, and have a positive attitude toward life.
- Cognitive – To help children become confident learners by letting them try out their own ideas and experience success, and by helping them acquire learning skills such as the ability to solve problems, ask questions, and use words to describe their ideas, observations, and feelings.
- Physical – To help children increase their large and small muscle skills and feel confident about what their bodies can do with planned activities by Home Visitors or during socialization sessions.
[toggle title=”Community Resources”]
We provide comprehensive In Home Family Support to our families, while connecting them to essential community resources and providing:
- Health Education, medical and dental services
- Interactive family activities
- Behavioral health support
- Nutrition education
- Fatherhood support
- Monthly socialization activities
- Job Trainings and Career choices
- Transportation provided
[toggle title=”Who Can Refer?”]
- Self Referral
- Prenatal Clinics and Hospitals
- Community Providers
- Local county and State government
- School Personnel
- Homeless Shelters
- Other social service and child care agencies
- Early Head Start Home Based Program Annual Report 2012-2013
- Early Head Start Home Program Annual Report 2011-2012
Isaac Dorsey Executive Director of Head Start/Early Head Start
(609) 695-6274, Ext. 136
For enrollment inquiries, contact Zachary Berliner at email@example.com or 609-695-6274 x140.


The Myopia Epidemic
Shortsightedness is reaching epidemic proportions in many parts of the world.
East Asia has been gripped by an unprecedented rise in myopia. 50 years ago, 10 -20% of the population had myopia, now the figure is closer to 90% amongst teenagers and young adults. In Seoul, the figure is a massive 96.5% of 19 year old men that are short sighted.
Other parts of the world have also seen a dramatic increase in the condition, which now affects around half of young adults in the United States and Europe — double the prevalence of half a century ago. By some estimates, one-third of the world's population — 2.5 billion people — could be affected by short-sightedness by the end of this decade. “We are going down the path of having a myopia epidemic,” says Padmaja Sankaridurg, head of the myopia programme at the Brien Holden Vision Institute in Sydney, Australia.
This threat has prompted a rise in research to try to understand the causes of the disorder — and scientists are beginning to find answers. They are challenging old ideas that myopia is the domain of the bookish child and are instead coalescing around a new notion: that spending too long indoors is placing children at risk. “We're really trying to give this message now that children need to spend more time outside,” says Kathryn Rose, head of orthoptics at the University of Technology, Sydney.
For years, myopia was associated with close work - that idea had arisen more than 400 years ago, when the German astronomer and optics expert Johannes Kepler blamed his own short-sightedness on all his study. The idea took root; by the nineteenth century, some leading ophthalmologists were recommending that pupils use headrests to prevent them from poring too closely over their books.
Researchers have consistently documented a strong association between measures of education and the prevalence of myopia. In the 1990s, for example, they found that teenage boys in Israel who attended schools known as Yeshivas (where they spent their days studying religious texts) had much higher rates of myopia than did students who spent less time at their books4. On a biological level, it seemed plausible that sustained close work could alter growth of the eyeball as it tries to accommodate the incoming light and focus close-up images squarely on the retina.
Attractive though the idea was, it did not hold up. In the early 2000s, when researchers started to look at specific behaviours, such as books read per week or hours spent reading or using a computer, none seemed to be a major contributor to myopia risk5. But another factor did. In 2007, Donald Mutti and his colleagues at the Ohio State University College of Optometry in Columbus reported the results of a study that tracked more than 500 eight- and nine-year-olds in California who started out with healthy vision.
The team examined how the children spent their days, and “sort of as an afterthought at the time, we asked about sports and outdoorsy stuff”, says Mutti.
It was a good thing they did. After five years, one in five of the children had developed myopia, and the only environmental factor that was strongly associated with risk was time spent outdoors. “We thought it was an odd finding,” recalls Mutti, “but it just kept coming up as we did the analyses.” A year later, Rose and her colleagues arrived at much the same conclusion in Australia. After studying more than 4,000 children at Sydney primary and secondary schools for three years, they found that children who spent less time outside were at greater risk of developing myopia.
Rose's team tried to eliminate any other explanations for this link — for example, that children outdoors were engaged in more physical activity and that this was having the beneficial effect. But time engaged in indoor sports had no such protective association; and time outdoors did, whether children had played sports, attended picnics or simply read on the beach. And children who spent more time outside were not necessarily spending less time with books, screens and close work. “We had these children who were doing both activities at very high levels and they didn't become myopic,” says Rose. Close work might still have some effect, but what seemed to matter most was the eye's exposure to bright light.
The leading hypothesis is that light stimulates the release of dopamine in the retina, and this neurotransmitter in turn blocks the elongation of the eye during development.
Based on epidemiological studies, Ian Morgan, a myopia researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, estimates that children need to spend around three hours per day under light levels of at least 10,000 lux to be protected against myopia. This is about the level experienced by someone under a shady tree, wearing sunglasses, on a bright summer day. (An overcast day can provide less than 10,000 lux and a well-lit office or classroom is usually no more than 500 lux.) Three or more hours of daily outdoor time is already the norm for children in Morgan's native Australia, where only around 30% of 17-year-olds are myopic. But in many parts of the world — including the United States, Europe and East Asia — children are often outside for only one or two hours.
To test these theories some experiments were done. At a school in southern Taiwan, where teachers were asked to send children outside for all 80 minutes of their daily break time instead of giving them the choice to stay inside. After one year, doctors had diagnosed myopia in 8% of the children, compared with 18% at a nearby school.
The question was then asked ' How do we mandate that children at school spend significantly more time outdoors than they do now?' The idea was piloted in China of teaching kids in classrooms made entirely of glass. This neatly sidesteps the problems where it is too difficult to spend a lot of time outdoors - it could simply be too hot, or too cold.
Research is ongoing - light boxes in the classroom have been suggested, that deliver up to 10 000 lux illumination is one possibility.
More than a century ago, Henry Edward Juler, a renowned British eye surgeon, offered similar advice. In 1904, he wrote in A Handbook of Ophthalmic Science and Practice that when “the myopia had become stationary, change of air — a sea voyage if possible — should be prescribed”. As Wildsoet points out: “We've taken a hundred years to go back to what people were intuitively thinking was the case.”


THE immune cells that attack the brains and nerves of people with multiple sclerosis could be turned into a weapon against the disease.
This month sees the beginning of a trial of a personalised vaccine for MS, designed to rein in and destroy the renegade white blood cells that attack myelin cells lining the brain and nerves of patients.
To make the vaccine, PharmaFrontiers of Woodlands, Texas, takes blood from an MS patient and extracts a sample of these renegade cells. The cells are then multiplied and weakened with radiation before being re-injected into the patient, whose immune system will then recognise them as damaged and attack them, sometimes wiping them out completely, according to the results of earlier trials. The immune system will also attack healthy renegade cells, which have the same markers on their surface. In one trial of 15 people with MS the rate of new flare-ups ...
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Congratulations - You have just landed a new job as a Data Scientist 😀! In your first month, you need to start analyzing tons of data. But before you start unlocking insights and predicting future trends, you need to access these data in order to explore it. Yikes! Did you wish you just started predicting future trends right away? Smiles, You are not Doctor Fate!
These tons of data can vary greatly in form and they are commonly seen in a tabular structure, where we have rows (also known as records, observations etc) and columns (also known as features, variables, fields etc) - like in 1.md below:
Data in .csv and .xlsx files have a tabular-like structure and in order to work efficiently with this kind of data in Python, we need to use the Pandas package. In Pandas, there is a data structure that can handle tabular-like structure of data - this data structure is called the DataFrame. Look at 2.md below to see the DataFrame version of the 1.md:
In 2.md, you can see a similar structure like in 1.md - we also have rows and columns - each row has a unique row label - NG, CA, BR, CH, FR. The columns also have labels - country, capital, population_millions. So, how do you put this data in a DataFrame to start exploring? Also for you to explore it well, what are the different ways to access the data in this DataFrame? Cheers! You are about to start your journey on becoming a Pandas Pundit!
You are given tons of data in a CSV file as seen below in 3.csv:
First of all, to get the data in 3.csv into a DataFrame, look at 4.py below:
which returns the DataFrame in 5.txt below:
Now that we have our data in a DataFrame, it is time to access it. There are several ways to access or select or index or subset or slice data in DataFrames - Data can be accessed via:
- square brackets: [ ]
- loc: label-based
- iloc: position-based
- at: label-based
- iat: position-based
Let’s see how you can access data in columns only, rows only and both rows and columns from the Dataframe in 5.txt using the 5 ways above:
Let's look at column access and row access using :
1.1: Column Access:
We have single column access and multiple column access.
1.1.1: single column access:
To access data in the Country column in 5.txt above, for example, we do:
In 7.txt above, the dtype (datatype) of the what is returned is an object. The type of object returned can be known using:
In 8.py above, it is a pandas Series object. A pandas series is a 1D (1-Dimensional array) that can be labelled just like the DataFrame, a series has row labels/indexes. So, with this, it shows that a collection of series creates a DataFrame.
This series object returned can also be accessed using the square brackets. For example, to grab the value Nigeria in 7.txt above, see 9.py below:
Also, note that I can use the dot notation as seen in lines 19-20 above. Use the dot notation when the column name does not contain any special characters or spaces and is not a keyword in python.
However, if you want a DataFrame returned and not a series - use double square brackets as seen in 10.py below:
1.1.2: multiple column access:
To access more than one column in 5.txt, we do:
1.2: Row Access:
The only way of accessing rows in a DataFrame using the square brackets way is by specifying a slice on the row. Specifying a slicing index takes the form - start:stop:step/stride
Indices are either numeric which is the default or labelled. Let's dive deeper below:
1.2.1: default numeric indices:
Given [x:y:z] as a slicing index, it means count in increments of z starting at x inclusive, up to y exclusive - for numeric indexes, the stop index is always exclusive.
Take a look at this figure below:
In the figure above, the direction in which my rows are returned is determined by the sign of the step/stride i.e z, given [x:y:z].
- If the step/stride is positive, start from the specified index position of the DataFrame and go the downward/forward direction when returning rows*.
- If it is negative, start from the specified index position of the DataFrame and move upwards/backwards when returning rows.
Given [:y:-z] as a slicing index, start from the last row in the DataFrame and go backwards/upwards but If [:y:z] is given, start from the first row in the DataFrame and go forward/downward.
In the forward/downward or in the backward/upward direction, the start index should always come before the stop index else no rows will be returned.
Let us take a look below at how positive and negative strides works:
126.96.36.199: positive step(s)/stride(s) :
In 13.py, lines 3-9 above, we use the default numeric index. It has this structure start:stop:[step or stride] - [step or stride] in square brackets means it is optional. Given countries[1:3], 1 is the start while 3 is the stop. When the step or stride is not specified like it is the case here, it has a default value of 1.
In 13.py, lines 11-18 above - given countries[2:] - note that the stop index is omitted i.e the explicit end index position is omitted. countries[2:] returns rows starting with the row with index position 2 till the last row in the DataFrame inclusive as seen above. : is a universal slice. If its left-endpoint (start) is omitted then the rows returned starts from the very first row in the DataFrame but if the right-endpoint is omitted, the row returned is till the very last row in the DataFrame inclusive.
In 13.py, lines 20-27 above - given countries[:3] - note that the start index is omitted i.e the explicit start index position is omitted.
countries[:3] returns rows starting with the first row till the row with index position 2 inclusive - remember that a numeric stop index is exclusive: so, the row at index position 3 is not returned as seen above.
In 13.py, lines 29-38 above, given countries[:] - note that both the start and stop indices are omitted i.e the explicit start and stop indices positions are omitted. countries[:] returns rows starting from the start of the row till the last row inclusive i.e it returns every row.
In 13.py, line 40-47 above, given countries[::2], using the formula above, this means counts in increment/steps/strides of 2 starting from the first row up to the last row inclusive i.e it returns every 2nd row. So, this is how it works - it return rows
- starting from the first row which has index 0,
- add steps of 2 i.e index 0 + 2 = index 2; then index 2 + 2 = index 4
- so, we have rows with index positions 0, 2, 4 returned
In 13.py, lines 49-54 above, given countries[-1:] - note the
following below -
- the DataFrame, countries, has rows labelled NG, CA, BR, CH, FR. These rows also have default numeric indices which can be positive 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or negative -5, -4, -3, -2, -1.
- countries[-1:] is the same as countries[-1::1] - so we start from the last row and go downwards - downwards since the step/stride is positive
- this returns only the last row because there is no other row downwards
In 13.py, lines 56-64 above, given countries[:-1] - it returns rows
starting from the first row but excludes the last row.
In 13.py, lines 66-72 above, given countries[-2:] - it returns rows starting from the last but one row till the last row inclusive.
In 13.py, lines 74-81 above, given countries[:-2] - it returns rows
starting from the first row till it includes the row before last but one
In 13.py, lines 83-88 above, given countries[-1:-1] - it returns
an empty DataFrame - starts from the last row but excludes the last
Row, hence nothing is returned.
188.8.131.52: negative step(s)/stride(s) :
With negative steps, rows get returned backwards. Let us see some examples in 14.py below:
In 14.py, lines 3-8 above, given countries[3:-4:-1] - note the following below:
- the stride/step is negative, so rows get returned backwards/upwards - when you look at the tabular-like structure in 5.txt above, we start getting rows from the end depending on the specified index and then go upwards/backwards i.e from the row with label CH and then move upwards.
- the stop has a negative value of -4 which is the row labelled CA. So, this row and the ones after it is not be included in the rows returned
- hence we have just two rows labelled CH and BR returned.
In 14.py, lines 11-17 above, given countries[4:-4:-2] - note the following below:
- the stride/step is negative and in steps of 2
- so we return rows starting from index position 4, then go upwards/backwards i.e from row with label FR and then move upwards/backwards but excludes row with index position 4 with all other rows after it too.
In 14.py, lines 19-24 above, given countries[0: -1: -1], it returns an
empty DataFrame. Here is why:
- Since the step/stride is negative we start at 0 and then go upwards or backwards - but it seems the stop index comes before the start index - so this cannot work, hence an empty DataFrame is returned
1.2.1: Labelled indexes:
With labelled indexes, it also takes the form start:stop:step/stride. But here are some things to take note of below:
- The stop label is inclusive, unlike numeric indices where the stop index is exclusive.
- Pairing labelled and numeric indices in the start or stop indices are not allowed e.g countries[‘NG’: 4] would give an error
- The step/stride is still numeric and can also be positive or negative
- and of course, all rules that go with having positive or negative step/stride applies here too.
Let’s see some examples in 15.py below:
In 15.py, lines 3-10 above, given countries[‘CA’:’CH’], we can see that the rows returned includes the row with the label CH which is the stop index label specified.
In 15.py, lines 12-20 above, given countries[:’CH’], the rows returned starts from the first row in the DataFrame till it includes the row labelled CH.
In 15.py, lines 22-30 above, given countries[‘CA’:], the rows returned starts from the row labelled ‘CA’ in the DataFrame till it includes the last row.
In 15.py, lines 32-39 above, given countries[‘NG’::2], the rows returned -
- starts from the row labelled ‘NG’ in the DataFrame
- add steps of 2 - index NG has a default index position of 0, so 0 + 2 = index 2 which is the row labelled BR; then index 2 + 2 = index 4, which is the row labelled FR
- so, we have rows labelled NG, BR, FR which have default numeric index positions 0, 2, 4 returned.
In 15.py, lines 41-49 above, given countries[:‘CA’:-1], the rows
- starts from the last row labelled FR in the dataframe
- add steps of -1 :
- index FR has a default negative index position of -1, so -1 + -1 = index -2 which is the row labelled CH
- then index -2 + (-1) = index -3, which is the row labelled BR
- then index -3 + (-1) = index -4, which is the row labelled CA
- so, we have rows labelled FR, CH, BR, CA which have default numeric index positions -1, -2, -3, -4 returned.
Using square brackets, [ ] has its limitations like the ability to select several rows and columns at the same time. So, let's jump into loc and iloc to see its awesomeness!
2.1: Row Access:
By default, loc accesses rows. Loc is label-based, so I just need to specify the row label. Let us see some examples in 16.py below:
In 16.py, lines 3-16 above, given countries.loc[‘FR’] or countries.loc[[‘FR’]], the row with label FR returns a series or dataframe respectively.
In 16.py, lines 18-25 above, given countries.loc[[‘CA’, ‘BR’, ‘CH’]], the rows with labels listed in the square brackets are returned
2.2: Row and Column Access:
We can simultaneously access rows and columns using loc. It takes the form countries.loc[row, column]. Let us see some examples below in 17.py:
In 17.py, lines 3-10 above, given countries.loc[['CA', 'BR', 'CH'], ['Country',
'Capital']] - we specify a list of row labels and also a list of column labels we want to be returned.
In 17.py, lines 12-50 above, we can see slices can also be specified. Everything we have seen so far in relation to positive or negative steps/strides also applies here as seen in the examples given.
2.3: Column Access:
We can also select the specific columns we need while we select all rows as seen below in 18.py:
Just like loc, iloc is row-based by default. The difference is that iloc is position-based. let's see some examples in 19.py below:
19.py above gives the iloc version of the examples given for loc for row access, row and column access and column access. As I earlier said, the only difference is that iloc is position-based while loc is label-based.
Kindly note that ix, which is also a way to accessing data in a DataFrame, is deprecated in favour of loc and iloc, so it is not advisable to use it the ix indexer.
at is label-based like loc but it is used only to access a single value in a DataFrame. Unlike loc, which can not just get a single value but also several values as we have seen above.
See some examples below in 20.py:
iat is position-based like iloc but also accesses a single value like at. See some examples below in 21.py:
Now, let's summarize the key points together:
- Accessing data using indices takes the form, [start:stop:step]
- Numeric stop indices are exclusive
- Label stop indices are inclusive
- A step can be positive or negative - When it is positive, start at the specified index then go downwards/forward but when it is negative, start at the specified index then go upwards/backwards.
- Given [:y:-z] as a slicing index, start from the last row in the DataFrame and go backwards/upwards.
- Given [:y:z] is given, start from the first row in the DataFrame and go forward/downward*.
- loc - label-based
- iloc - position-based
- at - label-based but returns a single value
- iat - position-based but returns a single value
Wowww! That was so much to take in. But you are on your way in becoming a Pandas Pundit! Stay tuned on this series for my next article on Filtering Data in Dataframes! Have an amazing and fulfilled week ahead!


The red poppy had been used in this way since 1918 when Moina Michael of the US YWCA wore a red poppy at the YWCA Overseas War Secretaries’ Conference in November that year. When the Royal British Legion was formed 90 years ago this year the red poppy was adopted by them also.
The poppy has always had an association with death and sleep. The opium poppy in particular having special significance due to its various drug derivatives. The opium-based morphine is named after the Greek god of dreams, Morpheus. In lgbt culture the cult film “The Wizard of Oz” has the 4 lead characters succumbing to the sleep-inducing properties of a red poppy field.
It can be argued that symbolism of remembrance with the poppy only began in 1918. Other plants have remembrance associated with them, most notably rosemary.
There was no definitive list of flowers and their symbolic meaning until 1727 when Aubrey de la Mottraye published an account of his travels in
where the “language of flowers” was well established. This language became popular in Victorian England through the letters of another Turkey traveller – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Turkey
Born into the Pierrepont family of Nottingham Lady Mary formed a relationship in her young years with Ann Wortley. Through Ann’s brother Edward many letters expressing undying love were exchanged between the two girls. Mary was heart-broken when Anne died at the age of 21. Mary’s father then planned to marry her off to an Irish aristocrat called Clotworthy Skeffington, but wisely Mary did her best to avoid this by eloping with Ann’s brother Edward.
Edward Wortley became Ambassador to
in 1717 and Lady Mary travelled with him and wrote about her experiences, including hearing about the language of flowers. Her published letters made her famous and her ideas became popular among the upper classes of society. By the Victorian period there was a huge “dictionary” of flower meanings. Turkey
Over the years the language has changed and adapted to fit the times. The symbol of the red poppy is a good example. From its original meaning of sleep and death it is now almost entirely associated with remembrance.
Going through some of the many lists of flowers and their meanings that are around today here is a short list of other Flowers of Remembrance.


The kind of conservation agriculture that works in the United States isn’t necessarily a good fit elsewhere in the world, research finds.
Because of its success in the US and other countries, conservation agriculture, or CA, has been widely promoted as a way for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to increase yields while also making those yields more resilient to changing climate conditions.
The new research, however, finds that the benefits of CA are not consistent around the world.
“The farming technique—which consists of low or no tillage of fields, leaving crop cover in place after harvest, and rotating grains and legumes—has been extremely successful in the US, Canada, and other industrialized nations. In fact, the vast majority of crop acreage in these countries is now farmed using conservation agriculture,” says Jeffrey Michler, an assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Arizona.
“It also has a number of climate-smart properties, including reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced fertilizer use, and improved resilience of yields to rainfall shocks stemming from climate change,” Michler says.
The efforts of groups such as the African Conservation Tillage Network were initially successful. In 2008, 40 percent of smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe used CA to grow five main crops—maize, sorghum, millet, groundnut, and cowpea. But by 2018, a majority of farmers had abandoned the practice, with only 17 percent still using CA.
“It takes a long time to realize these benefits,” Michler says, explaining that it takes several years for CA to positively affect yields by rebuilding the organic matter in the soil. “But we thought maybe we could show that there is a resilience story—that we can say yes, in a typical year, you might have lower yields, but in a bad rainfall year you’ll have higher yields, and that might be a reason to adopt CA.”
To that end, the researchers studied four years’ worth of farm production data from Zimbabwe. The data covered 4,171 plots from 729 households. Researchers used the data to estimate how crop yields responded during periods of high and low rainfall shocks.
The team found that during years of average rainfall, farmers who used CA techniques did not benefit from increased crop yields, and in some cases, actually experienced yield losses compared to conventional practices.
During years with extremely low rainfall, yields increased.
“You have to have a really bad rainfall season—once in 10 years bad—for CA to really give you strong benefits. It can’t just be a little bad, it has to be a lot bad,” Michler says.
“So are you going to do this thing that for seven or eight years gives you slightly lower yields, but on the eighth year, you’ll get the higher yields? Probably not. If you’re a poor farmer in Africa, you’re not going to wait several years to get positive returns. You’re just worried about getting through this year.”
While the study shows that the advertised increases in yield did not materialize for Zimbabwe farmers, the benefits of CA as a climate-smart agricultural technology are apparent, Michler says.
“We’re trying to make farmers in Africa simultaneously more productive, but also more climate-smart,” says Michler, who conducted the research as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois.
“CA looked like a way that we could do that, but it’s a technology that doesn’t lend itself to small, unmechanized farms, and therefore it’s not helping these farmers. It’s not delivering the benefits.”
“I think the technology is sound,” he adds of conservation agriculture techniques. “What failed was our ability to adapt the technology to small farmers in Africa in such a way that it makes it profitable for them and has positive spillovers on the environment. If we want them to use these climate-smart technologies, we’re going to have to find a climate-smart technology that still helps farmers make a living.”
The study appears in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
Source: Stacy Pigott for the University of Arizona


So you’re interested to know the facts about self esteem? Not just any facts but reliable and interesting facts that will inform you and help you understand the issue in greater depth? Did you know that as much as 85% of people in the world have suffered from low self esteem, this is according to Dr. Joe Rubino. There are many negative effects of low self esteem including depression, poor body image, lack of confidence and social fears, but what are the numbers behind all these explanations? let’s take a look.
What statistics are there on the Self esteem of Girls?
70% of girls do not consider themselves good enough in some way compared to others. It might be body image, academic success at school or college or in relationships. It is a fairly well know fact that girls, on average, have lower self esteem than boys at the same age. Also, body image is more important for girls it appears, although still a factor for males.
Self Esteem Statistics for Women
One very interesting statistic from the National Report on Self Esteem, (2008):
98% of women feel that they have to look a certain way and feel pressure as a result of this.
90% of eating disorders occur in women. (National Association for Self Esteem)
The first statistic shows how much pressure appears to be on women these days as the media, both online and offline bombards women with images of how they should look. Women do feel pressurised to improve how they look and feel. It starts when girls are in their teens and can lead to a whole host of problems with body image and mental health issues stemming from the need to look a certain way.
We all have seen the horrible consequences of eating disorders and maybe we have even experienced knowing someone who has an eating disorder. Often women will go to extreme lengths to lose weight and to imitate what they see as the perfect example of how a woman should look. In effect, this is self torture and self denial on a grand scale. Not only is an eating disorder a threat to health but it indicates mental health issues which need treatment. At the heart of this problem is poor levels of self esteem.
Self esteem Facts for Men
Men are judged less for their appearance than women are. However body image is also quite important for men, though less so than for women. With men the concern about body image relates to being attractive to women, (Bradley University, 2021), and seeming young and healthy as men assume this is what women want. For example, men may strive to build muscle or an athletic physique in order to attract women. They may assume that if they are not tall, fit and slim, they are not attractive. For men, going bald is a considerable problem because they consider this as an indication of age and slow down in the body.
Again, as with women, issues with body image can cause men to suffer from depression, anxiety, social isolation and low self esteem.
One illustration of how body image affects young people is given in the results of this survey which showed that for the young males tested 90% of them exercised to build up muscle. As well as working out, approximately 35% also took protein supplements which could affect health according to the research.
However, the focus of men on muscle-building seems to have changed nowadays and we see an increase in male cosmetic surgery and products sold with the aim of helping men to look better. According to this article on the Healthline website, between 1997 and 2018 male cosmetic surgery has increase approximately 325%.
What affects the Self Esteem of Young People?
One problem which unfortunately seems to be growing is cyberbullying. Teenagers and young people in general spend a lot of time online these days. In particular, social media accounts for a large slice of this time online. According to Digital Information World, young people between 16 and 24 spend the most time on social media (3 hours per day). This is three times more than older people between 50 and 64. There is much evidence that connects social media with low self esteem and negative thinking.
Cyberbullying covers many things but can affect as many as 1 in 4 young girls and 18% of boys (according to this study carried out on more than 8,000 young people in Quebec). The effects of cyberbullying include low self esteem, depression, anxiety and even suicidal thoughts. It can be quite terrifying for a young person and may involve threats online or even bribery. While teaching in Cambridge at a college a few years ago I heard horrible accounts of cyberbullying involving threats to shame a girl in front of her friends and family with private material including photos. The victim feared that the photos and other material would be put online for all to see.
Of course cyberbullying can be much less serious but nonetheless may have a damaging affect on a young person’s self esteem and mental health.
Another potential cause of self esteem in young people is obesity. There is a connection between the two and some evidence that obesity in childhood causes low self esteem (Wang et al., 2009).
Another important factor in low self-esteem is relationships. If you are not careful, they may affect how you feel about yourself – check out how your relationships may be destroying your self-esteem here.
General Self Esteem Facts and Statistics
Here’s a very interesting statistic:
According to Sheryl Sandberg, in her book Lean In (2013), a piece of research carried out by Hewlett Packard found that, whereas men applied for jobs that they were only 60% qualified for, women would not apply for such jobs unless they felt they were 100% qualified for. This research has since been discredited but still the point is valid. It is reinforced by a survey from Linkedin (2013), which basically indicates that women do not apply for jobs that are above their current position as often as men do.
Did you know that your level of self esteem can change hourly and may swing from high to low during the day? Many research papers I’ve read explain that it is not so much your category of self esteem that matters most, but your consistency of self esteem. So what you really want is to be stable in terms of how you think about yourself and not constantly feeling positive sometimes and negative at other times.
One highly important fact to remember about self esteem is that you might think that if feedback you get from others such as teachers, colleagues, family or friends is positive your self esteem should be high and if you get negative feedback your self esteem will be low. While there is some truth in this assumption, the fact is that those with low self esteem will tend to ignore positive feedback. Even worse, if you receive negative feedback it may contribute to this low level of self confidence and self-worth.
I hope that this page has helped you understand self esteem much more deeply and this is useful to you. If you would like a way out of low self esteem then the best thing to do is to try self-hypnosis downloads. It comes with my own personal recommendation and I have actually used it to help myself.
- Bradley University. (2021). Male Body Image. https://www.bradley.edu/sites/bodyproject/male-body-image-m-vs-f/men-struggle-w-bi/
- Cénat, J. M., Hébert, M., Blais, M., Lavoie, F., Guerrier, M., & Derivois, D. (2014). Cyberbullying, psychological distress and self-esteem among youth in Quebec schools. Journal of affective disorders, 169, 7-9.
- Digital Information World. (2019). How Much Time Do You Spend on Social Media? https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2019/01/how-much-time-do-people-spend-social-media-infographic.html
- Eisenberg, M.E., Wall, M., Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2012). Muscle-enhancing Behaviors Among Adolescent Girls and Boys. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2012/11/14/peds.2012-0095.full.pdf
- LinkedIn Gender Insights Report. (2013). https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/talent-solutions-lodestone/body/pdf/Gender-Insights-Report.pdf
- Wang, F., Wild, T. C., Kipp, W., Kuhle, S., & Veugelers, P. J. (2009). The influence of childhood obesity on the development of self-esteem. Health Rep, 20(2), 21-27.


Aboriginal women are over-represented among murder victims in Canada and, alarmingly, their presence in those statistics is only growing, according to a report from the RCMP.
The report, called a “national operational overview on missing and murdered aboriginal women,” identified 1,181 missing and murdered aboriginal women between 1980 and 2012. The new figure outpaces previous numbers based on research conducted by aboriginal women’s organizations. Aboriginal women represent approximately 4.3 per cent of Canada’s female population, but on average 16 per cent of female homicide victims and 11.3 per cent of missing women over the period studied.
However, as the rate of female homicide victims has steadily decreased over the last 30 years, the rate for aboriginal women has remained steady. In 2012, aboriginal women represented 23 per cent of female homicide victims, compared to 8 per cent in 1984.
Of the 1,181 cases, 225 remain unsolved, including 105 missing persons cases and 120 homicides. The RCMP noted solve rates were roughly the same for aboriginal and non-aboriginal women at just under 90 per cent.
“We knew intuitively that the numbers were higher…but I would say that personally I was surprised by the overall number,” said Dep. Comm. Janice Armstrong at a press conference in Winnipeg Friday morning.
In all cases of female murder victims, the perpetrator is overwhelmingly likely to be a male who knows the victim, but there were some differences identified between aboriginal and non-aboriginal cases. Aboriginal women were more likely to be killed by an acquaintance than a spouse and were more likely to have a history of violence with the offender.
There were also different vulnerabilities identified, which the RCMP said is not victim-blaming, but the reality of social and economic circumstances. Aboriginal female murder victims were more likely than non-aboriginal women to be unemployed, have a history of illegal activities and to have consumed an intoxicant before their murder. They were also younger, on average.
A small number of both aboriginal and non-aboriginal victims were found to have worked in the sex trade and the solve rate for these cases is lower, at 60 per cent for aboriginal victims.
The RCMP said they have shared their findings with The National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains and that the new data will aid them in future crime reduction strategies.
Other findings from the report:
– Women represented 32 per cent of all murder victims in the study and of those 6,551 victims, 16 per cent were aboriginal.
– Aboriginal women are three times more likely to be a victim of violence than non-aboriginal women.
– Aboriginal women are most likely to be killed by a physical beating (32 per cent) followed by stabbing (31 per cent), shooting (16 per cent) or strangulation, suffocation or drowning (13 per cent).
– Offenders in these murder cases were most likely to be acquaintances (30 per cent) followed by spouses (29 per cent), family members (23 percent), other intimate relationships (10 per cent) or strangers (8 per cent).
– The aboriginal female homicide rate per 100,000 population dropped from 7.60 to 4.45 between 1996 and 2011.
– The proportion of aboriginal female homicide victims varied across the country over the 32-year study period. In Saskatchewan, aboriginal women were 55 per cent of all female murder victims, compared to 6 per cent in Ontario.
You can read the whole report below or by clicking here.


Why can you put a can of frozen concentrate juice in the microwave? The metal doesn’t spark or burn.
The microwaves in a microwave oven consist of electric and magnetic fields. Since electric fields push on electric charges, microwaves cause electric currents to flow through any metal objects they encounter. These movements of current don’t necessarily cause any problems in a microwave oven. In fact, metal objects only cause trouble in the microwave oven when they are so thin or narrow that they can’t tolerate the electric currents that flow through them or when they have such sharp ends that electric charges leap off them as sparks. A thin object like a twist-tie can’t tolerate the currents and becomes very hot. Its sharp ends also allow charges to leap out into the air as sparks. But the thick, rounded end of a juice concentrate can easily tolerates the currents sent through it by the microwaves and doesn’t have the sharp ends needed to send charges into the air as sparks. It doesn’t present any problem for the microwave oven.


What are the government policies for children’s content?
The regulatory history of commercial broadcasting in Australia has always had three competing interests:
- a commercial imperative to reward shareholders
- a cultural imperative to reflect the multicultural nature of Australia’s population and promote Australians’ cultural identity
- an industry imperative to foster support for local production.
Under the Australian Content Standard 2016 and the Children’s Television Standards 2009 (the Standards), commercial television broadcasters are obliged to broadcast a minimum number of hours of television specifically targeted at children under the age of 14 (C programs) and pre-school children (P programs) during specific times of day. The C and P programs are different from material produced for a family audience and are created specifically to meet children’s needs and interests at different stages of their development. There are also restrictions on what products and services may be advertised during these times (for example, no alcohol advertising and no advertising during P programs).
There are also quotas for Australian-made content that apply generally to the commercial broadcasters.
There is a general obligation on subscription television broadcasters to spend 10 per cent of their expenditure on drama channels on local Australian content. Most of this content is for adults.
There are no specific obligations on the ABC to broadcast local children’s content. However, the ABC does broadcast some local children’s content on ABC3. There are no specific obligations on SBS or on SVOD services to show or commission Australian content.
Why have the quotas?
At the time the Broadcasting Services Act was passed, the Parliament noted it intended commercial television broadcasters to broadcast Australian content which:
- reflects the multicultural nature of Australia’s population
- promotes Australians’ cultural identity
- facilitates the development of the local production industry.
A strong regulatory environment for commercial broadcasters is seen as important because of the power of the television medium reaching nearly all Australian households for free and as a quid pro quo for access to the spectrum: a public good. There are also other regulatory protections for these businesses such as no competition from new commercial television licensees and prioritised access to valuable sports rights through the Government’s Anti-Siphoning List.
Australians on average watch 21 hours of broadcast TV a week and watch 3.42 hours a week of catch up TV. Some of this content should be age appropriate and provided specifically for children to help their development, learning and entertainment.
What is the problem?
The obligations to broadcast children’s content worked well when there was a single linear channel. However, when commercial broadcasters were provided access to more spectrum and multi-channels in 2013, the broadcasters were allowed to acquit their children’s content quotas across their channels. Without delay, the broadcasters shifted their children’s content to a multi-channel.
As children’s content became isolated on a multi-channel, and with little if any promotion and marketing invested in by the networks, audience and advertising on these programs have declined and commercial broadcasters have begun to question their obligations. However, while the first run numbers may be in decline, children’s content has a lengthy currency with strong second and third run audiences.
Commercial broadcasters currently have restrictions around the way they can advertise on children’s content and point to SVOD services like Netflix and say that they aren’t regulated to provide content, which they say is unfair.
ABC and SBS do not have content quotas and their budgets have been cut by the government and the ABC is reducing its expenditure on Children’s content. This means while the ABC does show a lot of children’s content now, this is no guarantee that it will show children’s content in the future.
What is at risk?
It is likely that the Government will review the Standards this year. We hold fears that this Government will tilt the balance too far in favour of the commercial television broadcasters to the detriment of our children and local production. If the current obligations are removed they cannot be re-introduced because of Australia’s free trade agreement with the United States.
With no Australian children’s content on commercial television, it will rob children of the opportunity to be educated and entertained and see children like themselves on these key broadcast services. It will diminish the diversity of content available for children and devastate the local production industry for children’s content.
How can the problem be fixed?
The problem is a tough one to fix so keeping the quotas for commercial broadcasters is preferable to any removal of the quotas without any careful replacement policy.
Fixing the problem could be as easy as keeping the current quotas and requiring greater promotion and marketing and flexibility of children’s programming across a range of a content platforms including broadcast. Obligations could also be extended to SVOD services, the ABC and SBS to invest in local children’s content.
Other options include a children’s television fund, which could be set up to which all the broadcasters might contribute. There might also be an app for children’s content.
How big is the Australian children’s content industry?
In 2014/15, there were 13 Australian children television productions with budgets totaling $95m. Also in 2014/15, the commercial television broadcasters spent nearly $30m on Australian children’s content.
What can you do?
You can write to your local member asking his or her help to save children’s content.


The Bold Fenian Men: History Ireland December 20, 2008Posted by Garibaldy in History, Irish History.
Who were the Fenians, the Irish Republican Brotherhood? Dangerous dynamite-obsessed neanderthals, the first international terrorists? Beardy picnicking day-trippers for whom political activity was mostly an excuse for socialising? Anti-aristocratic democratic secular republicans? At bottom, just another branch of Catholic nationalism? Innovative political agitators who broke the back of landlordism and gave Parnellism its strength? Diehards mostly isolated from the people, as illustrated by 1916? Some, or even all, of the above?
These are some of the issues raised by the current, and most interesting, edition of History Ireland, due to the 150th anniversary of the founding of the IRB. As well as an introduction by Fearghal McGarry and James McConnel, the commissioning editors, the magazine includes articles on the historiography of the Fenians, the relationship between the Fenians and Young Irelanders, the Fenians in Canada, the Ladies’ Committees of the IRB, Cardinal Cullen and the Fenians, the Manchester Martyrs, land league posters (including some fascinating visually striking ones), bomb-making in Brooklyn, and Fenians in the French Foreign Legion. While initially I was going to talk about each article, this close to Christmas I lack the inclination to write something so long, and I suspect most readers have no desire desire to read it. Instead then, I am going to discuss what the Feniansmight have represented, with reference to their Proclamation of the Irish Republic, and some of the articles in History Ireland (the text of the Proclamation is in the magazine).
From the Irish People of the World (1867)
We have suffered centuries of outrage, enforced poverty, and bitter misery. Our rights and liberties have been trampled on by an alien aristocracy, who treating us as foes, usurped our lands, and drew away from our unfortunate country all material riches. The real owners of the soil were removed to make room for cattle, and driven across the ocean to seek the means of living, and the political rights denied to them at home, while our men of thought and action were condemned to loss of life and liberty. But we never lost the memory and hope of a national existence. We appealed in vain to the reason and sense of justice of the dominant powers.
Our mildest remonstrances were met with sneers and contempt. Our appeals to arms were always unsuccessful.
Today, having no honourable alternative left, we again appeal to force as our last resource. We accept the conditions of appeal, manfully deeming it better to die in the struggle for freedom than to continue an existence of utter serfdom.
All men are born with equal rights, and in associating to protect one another and share public burdens, justice demands that such associations should rest upon a basis which maintains equality instead of destroying it.
We therefore declare that, unable longer to endure the curse of Monarchical Government, we aim at founding a Republic based on universal suffrage, which shall secure to all the intrinsic value of their labour.
The soil of Ireland, at present in the possession of an oligarchy, belongs to us, the Irish people, and to us it must be restored.
We declare, also, in favour of absolute liberty of conscience, and complete separation of Church and State.
We appeal to the Highest Tribunal for evidence of the justness of our cause. History bears testimony to the integrity of our sufferings, and we declare, in the face of our brethren, that we intend no war against the people of England—our war is against the aristocratic locusts, whether English or Irish, who have eaten the verdure of our fields—against the aristocratic leeches who drain alike our fields and theirs.
Republicans of the entire world, our cause is your cause. Our enemy is your enemy. Let your hearts be with us. As for you, workmen of England, it is not only your hearts we wish, but your arms.
Remember the starvation and degradation brought to your firesides by the oppression of labour. Remember the past, look well to the future, and avenge yourselves by giving liberty to your children in the coming struggle for human liberty.
Herewith we proclaim the Irish Republic
The Provisional Government
Stirring stuff indeed. And, it must be said from the off, not a hint of national chauvinism nor religious bigotry. The Irish people – it is clear from this Proclamation – for the IRB are the people of Ireland who are not aristocrats and landowners. As well as foreshadowing Connolly’s definition of the Irish people as effectively the rural and urban working class and their allies, it also echoed the revolutionary principles of 1789, when the French people was defined by the revolutionaries as those who contributed to the economy through productive activity.
The claim of equal rights for all, the rejection of monarchy, the stress on the separation of Church and State, even the structure of a secret society all place the Fenians firmly within a European democratic republican tradition. And an international one, with an appeal to republicans everywhere (although most likely this practically meant America). Whereas the Jacobins remained fundamentally bourgeois republicans, the Fenian Proclamation calls upon international workingmen’s solidarity in its disavowal of a war on the English people and its appeal to English workers. This suggests that those Irish socialists who have sought to stress the links between some Fenians and the First International have not been stretching a point as much as some would like to think. From this document, then, it seems fairly clear that the Fenianshave little in common with the Catholic nationalism that came to shape much of the politics of twentieth-century Ireland, and that they instead represent an Irish variant of an international militantly secular post-Jacobin republican tradition. Certainly Cardinal Cullen thought so, hence his remark that “eternity is not long enough, nor hell hot enough” to punish them. Owen McGee’s recent book The IRB makes a very strong case for seeing the Fenians in this way.
However, the story is not so simple. Although we can place the official ideology of the movement in this tradition, and the New Departure and Land War led by ex-Fenians like Michael Davitt in this radical popular republican tradition, it becomes more problematic when we remember that men like Eoin O’Duffy were also members of the IRB, as was a great deal of those around Michael Collins during the Tan War, and subsequently a lot of the early Free State Army officer class. Perhaps we ought then to see a gap between the early Fenians and those who joined forty or fifty years later. It is entirely possible that by then, the ideals of the majority of the members of the movement had changed. Certainly, as Matthew Kelly’s account of the historiography in History Ireland points out, Fenianism was sometimes used to describe the spirit of the Irish nation, and the IRB men of the Celtic Revival period were much more interested in the cultural aspects of nationhood than their predecessors.
Or, perhaps the official ideology of the organisation had never really represented the views of a great deal of its members anyway. Vincent Comerford nearly 30 years ago posited the idea that the Fenians represented “Patriotism as Pastime”. In other words, they were a manifestation of the mania for associations in the UK that sprang up in the mid and late-Victorian era – Association Football, the GAA, and other sporting organisations, as well as social gatherings such as “Fenian picnics”, and the glamour and excitment, and sense of belonging and comradeship, that belonging to a secret society brought to young men from the lower classes in rural and urban Ireland. In other words, there were plenty of reasons short of militant republicanism that would entice someone into joining the IRB. But, on the other hand, as Fearghal McGarry’s study of Eoin O’Duffy shows, joining bodies like the Gaelic League could lead to joining the IRB.
The IRB may have asserted their separatist principles in arms, but this was not the only tactic that Fenians adopted. Possibly as an outworking of the socially-aware republicanism represented in the Proclamation, much of the leadership of the Land War and subsequent land agitation came from current and ex-Fenians. Matthew Kelly’s The Fenian Ideal and Irish Nationalism details not only the Fenian involvement in the Land War, and their alliance with Parnell in the early 1880s, but also how the Fenians were key to the political strategy of the Parnellites after the split – what he calls the Redmonite/Fenian nexus, opening up a very interesting line of argument, and one that can help rewrite the history of the events that led to 1916. Fergus Campbell’s Land and Revolution shows in great detail how the IRB (and then the Volunteers and IRA) was involved in land agitation in the west. Again, the Fenians emerge as a disparate body, with different attitudes in different places at different times.
History Ireland, and the works cited above, deal not only with the organisational history of Fenianism, but with the popularity of Fenian principles. While Kelly states in History Ireland that McGee has perhaps exaggerated the extent to which the Fenians were democratic republican purists. he himself argues that the ideas that made up Fenianismwere much more popular than the organisation itself, and that the strength (or sometimes weakness) of the organisation and of the Irish Parliamentary Party has led historians to underestimate the extent to which there existed a strong body of separatist opinion in Ireland, for which Home Rule was the bare minimum, and not the final aim. To understand separatist and republicanism, therefore, we must look beyond the IRB itself to its rival organisations, and broader public opinion.
What then of the Fenians and unionism? Were they simply locked at the end of the day into a Catholic nationalist framework? Kelly points out that Fenian newspapers warned the Ulster unionists in the period before the First World War that they would fight to keep them, what Kelly calls “separatist tough love”. While it is true that the Fenians sought to secure independence for the entire island, they cannot be shoehorned into a Catholic nationalist framework, as some historians have tried to do with people like Peadar O’Donnell in the 1920s and 1930s. And in fairness, few have tried. That said, clearly, especially at the very end of the nineteenthand in the early twentieth century, the IRB did contain some old fashioned Irish nationalists.
The IRB that emerges from the pages of History Ireland then is a complex beast. Although some of those involved in the Fenian tradition were inspired by terrorist ideals, others were not, and it is a step too far to call it a terrorist organisation. Speaking for myself, I am inclined to agree most with McGee’s picture of the organisation, as socially-radical, secular republican revolutionary democrats, part of a wider European tradition with its roots in the French Revolution, though I recognise that this does not describe all Fenians at all times. This could of course be me seeing what I want to see. The Fenians lurk large in my own political views because of the success of the New Departure and its influence on republicanism in the 1960s. For others, they might represent the disaster of militarism and conspiracy. Given that the books of McGee, McGarry, Campbell, and Kelly are available in paperback, perhaps some CLR readers will be inspired to give or get them for Christmas.


“Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” –George Washington
Some statements are in the realm of the obvious. Here’s one for you. “Schools remain the most important venue for teaching our kids who we are.” Yes, one would think so, and that is why every parent should be concerned about what goes on in the classroom. The statement comes from a third-grade text in Texas where a battle is brewing with history revisionists who are seeking to stamp out America’s Chistian history. Here’s an insightful article from the Wall Street Journal by Stephanie Simon.
The fight over school curriculum in Texas, recently focused on biology, has entered a new arena, with a brewing debate over how much faith belongs in American history classrooms.
The Texas Board of Education, which recently approved new science standards that made room for creationist critiques of evolution, is revising the state’s social studies curriculum. In early recommendations from outside experts appointed by the board, a divide has opened over how central religious theology should be to the teaching of history.
Three reviewers, appointed by social conservatives, have recommended revamping the K-12 curriculum to emphasize the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history. Two of them want to remove or de-emphasize references to several historical figures who have become liberal icons, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall.
“We’re in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American history is right at the heart of it,” said Rev. Peter Marshall, a Christian minister and one of the reviewers appointed by the conservative camp.
Three other reviewers, all selected by politically moderate or liberal members of the board, recommended less-sweeping changes to the existing curriculum. But one suggested including more diverse role models, especially Latinos, in teaching materials. “We have tended to exclude or marginalize the role of Hispanic and Native American participants in the state’s history,” said Jesús F. de la Teja, chairman of the history department at Texas State University.
Social studies teachers from Texas are meeting this summer to write new standards. They can accept, reject or modify the six reviewers’ suggestions, all of which were made individually. The teachers’ recommendations are sent to the 15-member board of education, a conservative-dominated body that has authority to revise standards.
The three reviewers appointed by the moderate and liberal board members are all professors of history or education at Texas universities, including Mr. de la Teja, a former state historian. The reviewers appointed by conservatives include two who run conservative Christian organizations: David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, a group that promotes America’s Christian heritage; and Rev. Marshall, who preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane Katrina were God’s judgments on the nation’s sexual immorality. The third is Daniel Dreisbach, a professor of public affairs at American University.
The conservative reviewers say they believe that children must learn that America’s founding principles are biblical. For instance, they say the separation of powers set forth in the Constitution stems from a scriptural understanding of man’s fall and inherent sinfulness, or “radical depravity,” which means he can be governed only by an intricate system of checks and balances.
The curriculum, they say, should clearly present Christianity as an overall force for good — and a key reason for American exceptionalism, the notion that the country stands above and apart.
“America is a special place and we need to be sure we communicate that to our children,” said Don McLeroy, a leading conservative on the board. “The foundational principles of our country are very biblical…. That needs to come out in the textbooks.”
But the emphasis on Christianity as a driving force is disputed by some historians, who focus on the economic motivation of many colonists and the fractured views of religion among the Founding Fathers. “There appears to me too much politics in some of this,” said Lybeth Hodges, a professor of history at Texas Woman’s University and another of the curriculum reviewers.
Some outside observers argue that curriculum analysts should be trained academics. “It’s important to have trained historians establishing the framework,” said David Vigilante, associate director of the National Center for History in the Schools at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The conservative Christian reviewers, in turn, are skeptical of the professional historians’ emphasis on multiculturalism, views stated most forcefully by Mr. de la Teja but echoed by Ms. Hodges. Reaching for examples of achievement by different racial and ethnic groups is divisive, Mr. Barton said, and distorts history.
The standards that the school board eventually settles on won’t dictate day-to-day lesson plans; that is up to individual teachers. But they will offer clear guidelines for educators — and also for publishers.
Nearly every state has its own curriculum standards, and there are scores of social studies texts to choose from at most grade levels, so what happens in Texas won’t necessarily affect other states. But the Texas market is huge, so most big publishers aggressively seek approval from the board, in some cases adopting the majority’s editing suggestions nearly verbatim.
While the battle in Texas is just heating up, the tug-of-war over how to present history dates back nearly 150 years, said Jonathan Zimmerman, a New York University professor of education. A single paragraph in a third-grade text might seem insignificant. But it is a powerful symbol, he said, “because schools remain the most important venue for teaching our kids who we are.” (The Culture Wars’ New Front by Stephanie Simon)
“You do well to wish to learn our arts and our ways of life and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are.” –George Washington