#american in abidjan

[american-in-abidjan]

Goodbye Crew :( So happy to see my group one last time. Driving to the airport with them was so bitter sweet. We hugged over and over again and made promises to see each other again. They truly made my time so fantastic, and I'm sure none of us will forget the past few months. Abidjan can be amazing and it doesn't matter when you are you are, you can always have an intensely exhilarating time if you're with the right people. Love you guys!

[sweetsmellosuccess]

Sundance 2021: Day 5

Films: 4 Best Film of the Day(s): Judas and the Black Messiah

Prisoners of the Ghostland: For years now, Nicolas Cage has found projects that allow him  —  at this point, encourage him  —  to indulge his innermost acting Id. Never particularly one for thespian discipline before (with a few notable exceptions), he’s been freed of these petty restraints in favor of further and further unhinged “performances” that consist of his hyperbolic, twisted up line-readings and little more. For this film, he’s teamed up with Japanese gonzo auteur Sion Sono in a bizarre, cultural mash-up that includes western, samurai, comic book noir, and sci-fi all colliding together in a tedious heap. Playing largely without rules does allow for an exploration of creative impulses, but without narrative drive, or stakes of any real kind (beyond Cage’s character’s testicles  —  don’t ask), the film drowns itself in nonsensical, self-conscious oddities, with everyone seemingly taking the direction to “act weird!” until it all bleeds together. Even Cage’s various Cagisms (“Tes-ti-CAAAAL!”) get lost to the cacophony. Be careful what you wish for, Nic.

Cusp: The specific physical details change and evolve a bit, but much of the thrust of the American coming-of-age doc remains as fixed as a mountain range. Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt’s film, about a trio of teen friends growing up in small-town Texas over the course of a long summer, hits many of the usual sorts of points: With not much else to do, the kids amuse themselves with endless smoking, boozing, and drugging (and, this being Texas, an alarming amount of playing with firearms), get into and out of relationships they think might be love before they aren’t, and disagree vehemently with their parents, and the choices they’ve made in their lives. Still, Autumn, Brittney, and Aaloni each have their own burdens to carry  —  Autumn and Brittney are both abuse survivors, Aaloni’s father seems callous and harsh to all of his children to the point that they all hate him  —  and the intimacy with which Hill and Bethencourt’s camera captures their struggles and experiences is refreshingly candid, especially in the day of the endless social media montage. The young women are caught somewhere between child and adult, but unavoidably hurtling forward, an understanding we are all forced into accepting, but hasn’t yet hit them. “I’m sixteen,” one of them says near the end, “I have forever to go.”

Night of the Kings: On the evening of a blood-red moon at the MACA prison deep in the heart of the jungle in the Ivory Coast, a new, young inmate (Bakary Koné), having just been named “Roman” by the reigning Dangoro, Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu), is forced to tell a story to the rest of the inmates as an entertainment. As soon as he has finished, he’s been warned, he will be put to death. Ivory Coast director Philippe Lacote, who grew up in the city of Abidjan, where Roman’s story takes place, has created a sort of recrafting of Arabian Nights, with Roman as its Scheherazade. The thing is, as Roman begins to stammer out his story, attempting to elongate it as much as possible in order to stay alive, the inmates make it a fully interactive affair, jumping in to demonstrate the action Roman describes, breaking into songs glorifying the characters he creates, and responding favorably or unfavorably to every detail as he lays it out to them. In this way, Roman’s halting, confusing story  —  which changes time frames, and details as Roman rethinks them  —  becomes a collective experience of the entire prison, even as Lass (Abdoul Karim Konaté), a rival to the ailing Blackbeard, plans his overthrow. Ironically, Roman’s story might not rise up to the mythic elements he keeps trying to interject, but the film’s story  —  with its colorful cast of descriptive-name characters (Half-Mad, Razor Blade, Sexy, Petrol), magic realism components, and multilayered intrigue, plays like its own sort of myth.

Judas and the Black Messiah: It’s maybe one person out of 100 who would actually act in the best interest of everybody else instead of themselves. Which means there are about 99 who would look out for themselves, if push came to shove. Shaka King’s shattering film about Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the charismatic chairman of the Chicago sect of the Black Panther party in the late ‘60s, and William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), the man who would betray him to the FBI, is a testament to this most egregious human principle  —  memorialized, as the film’s title strongly asserts, in the Bible  —  and one of the confounding bedrocks of human civilization. Hampton was a young man when he became the chairman of his chapter, and his successes immediately grabbed the attention of J. Edgar Hoover (here played by Martin Sheen), who was obsessed with the idea that the Civil Rights movement had inlaid ties with the communists. Putting pressure on his Chicago office to diffuse Hampton, agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) brings in O’Neal, recently busted for impersonating a Fed, and offers him a chance at his freedom, but at the cost of playing snitch on “Chairman Fred.” King, who co-wrote the screenplay, boils to story down to its essence without getting needlessly choked in the details. We see Hampton’s savvy, and his ability to connect with people of any creed or color  —  easily, the most frightening element of his program to the FBI was the so-called “Rainbow Coalition” that banded together the Panthers with black street gangs, but also Puerto Rican groups, and, shockingly, all-white coalitions, all untied under the rubric of being poor and abused by Chicago’s notoriously corrupt and racist police department —  but also, his absolute belief in keeping political power in the hands of the people, not the government. King’s film features absolutely blazing performances from its two male leads, in addition to a strong turn by Dominique Fishback, as Hampton’s wife, Deborah Johnson, and a strong, driving narrative focus that keeps the line taut, even if you know exactly what’s coming. King manages to portray Hampton in purely human terms, grounded in the reality of the struggle, and avoids needlessly deifying him in the process. It’s true, O’Neal, though the primary protagonist, remains more unexplored  —  this isn’t The Killing of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, exactly  —  but Stanfield gives enough breadth to the performance to keep the film properly balanced. It’s shatteringly good.

Sundance goes mostly virtual for this year’s edition, sparing filmgoers the altitude, long waits, standing lines, and panicked eating binges  —  but also, these things and more that make the festival so damn endearing. In any event, Sundance via living room is still a hell of a lot better than no Sundance. A daily report.

[templetuesday]

CONSTRUCTION ROUNDUP: 8 September 2020

Here is a full update on the status of temple construction throughout the world. Future news roundups will only feature construction updates since the last roundup post unless otherwise noted.

SCHEDULED TEMPLE DEDICATIONS

All temple open house and dedications which were scheduled to occur since the Church closed all temples due to the COVID-19 pandemic have been postponed until large public gatherings are deemed safe by local governmental authorities. There are currently no temple dedications currently scheduled. The following temples are completed or nearing completion and awaiting dedication:

Rio de Janiero Brazil Temple

Construction has been completed for the Rio de Janiero Brazil Temple. The open house and dedication were originally scheduled to occur in the spring of 2020 but were postponed. The Rio de Janiero Brazil Temple was announced by President Thomas S. Monson during the April 2013 General Conference. There are currently seven dedicated temples in Brazil, with three additional temples in various stages of development. (Photo from churchofjesuschrist.org)

Winnipeg Manitoba Temple

Construction is nearing completion for the Winnipeg Manitoba Temple. The open house and dedication were originally scheduled to occur in the fall of 2020 but have since been postponed. The Winnipeg Manitoba Temple was announced by President Thomas S. Monson during the April 2011 General Conference. It will be the first temple in Manitoba and the ninth temple in Canada. (Photo from churchofjesuschrist.org)

SCHEDULED TEMPLE REDEDICATIONS

All temple rededications which were scheduled to occur since the Church closed all temples due to the COVID-19 pandemic have been postponed until large public gatherings are deemed safe by local governmental authorities. There are currently no temple rededications currently scheduled. The following temple renovation has been completed and the temple is now awaiting rededication:

Washington DC Temple

The Washington DC Temple  has been closed since 29 September 2017 for extensive renovations to the interior and exterior. It was originally scheduled for rededication in late 2020. The Washington DC Temple was the 16th temple in the Church and the first temple built in both the eastern United States and the state of Maryland. (Photo by Stephanie Williams Payne from churchofjesuschristtemples.org)   

TEMPLES UNDER RENOVATION

The following additional temples are currently under renovation:

Columbus Ohio Temple

Hamilton New Zealand Temple

Hong Kong China Temple

Mesa Arizona Temple

St. George Utah Temple

Salt Lake Temple

Tokyo Japan Temple

SCHEDULED TEMPLE RENOVATIONS

There are no additional temples scheduled for renovation at this time.

TEMPLE GROUNDBREAKINGS

San Pedro Sula Honduras Temple

The Church broke ground for the San Pedro Sula Honduras Temple on Saturday, 5 September 2020. Elder José Bernardo Hernández , an Area Seventy originally from San Pedro Sula, presided over the groundbreaking ceremony. Attendance at the temple site was limited to a small number of area Church leaders, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The San Pedro Sula Honduras Temple was announced by President Russell M. Nelson during the April 2019 General Conference. When completed, it will be the second temple in Honduras. (Photos from churchofjesuschrist.org)

Orem Utah Temple

The Church broke ground for the Orem Utah Temple on Saturday, 5 September 2020. Elder Craig C. Christensen, president of the Utah Area, presided over the groundbreaking ceremony. Attendance at the temple site was limited to a small number of area Church leaders, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Orem Utah Temple was announced by President Russell M. Nelson during the October 2019 General Conference. When completed, it will be the 22nd temple in Utah and the sixth temple in Utah County, Utah. (Photos from churchofjesuschrist.org)

SCHEDULED TEMPLE GROUNDBREAKINGS

The following temples are scheduled for groundbreaking ceremonies to be held in the upcoming weeks. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, attendance at the temple sites for the groundbreaking will be by invitation only, but the proceedings will be broadcast to select meetinghouses in the respective temple districts.

Brasília Brazil Temple

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Brasília Brazil Temple will be held on Saturday, 26 September 2020. Elder Adilson de Paula Parrella, president of the Brazil Area, will preside at the ceremony. The Brasília Brazil Temple was announced by President Thomas S. Monson during the April 2017 General Conference. There are currently seven dedicated temples in Brazil, with another awaiting dedication and two more in various stages of construction. (Photo from churchofjesuschrist.org)

Taylorsville Utah Temple

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Taylorsville Utah Temple will be held in October 2020, with the exact date yet to be annouced. Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will preside at the ceremony. The Taylorsville Utah Temple was announced by President Russell M. Nelson during the October 2019 General Conference. When completed, the Taylorsville Utah Temple will be the 23rd temple built in Utah and the fifth temple built in the Salt Lake Valley. (Photo from churchofjesuschrist.org)

Salta Argentina Temple

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Salta Argentina Temple will be held on Friday, 9 October 2020. Elder Benjamín De Hoyos, president of the South America South Area, will preside at the ceremony. The Salta Argentina Temple was announced by President Russell M. Nelson during the April 2018 General Conference. When completed, the Salta Argentina Temple will be the third temple built in Argentina. (Photo from churchofjesuschrist.org)

Bentonville Arkansas Temple

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Bentonville Arkansas Temple will be held in November 2020, with the exact date yet to be announced. Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will preside over the ceremony remotely, with video and photos to be released to the public following the event. The Bentonville Arkansas Temple was announced by President Russell M. Nelson during the October 2019 General Conference and will be the first temple built in Arkansas. (Photo from churchofjesuschrist.org)

McAllen Texas Temple

The groundbreaking ceremony for the McAllen Texas Temple will be held in November 2020, with the exact date yet to be announced. Elder Art Rascon, an Area Seventy, will preside over the ceremony. The McAllen Texas Temple was announced by President Russell M. Nelson during the October 2019 General Conference and will be the fifth temple built in Texas. (Photo from churchofjesuschrist.org)

Red Cliffs Utah Temple

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Red Cliffs Utah Temple will be held in November 2020, with the exact date yet to be announced. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will preside over the ceremony. The Red Cliffs Utah Temple was originally announced as the Washington County Utah Temple by President Russell M. Nelson during the October 2019 General Conference. It was the 20th temple to be announced for Utah and will be the second temple built in Washington County, Utah. (Photo from churchofjesuschrist.org)

TEMPLES UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The following additional temples are currently under construction, with no completion or dedication dates announced:

Abidjan Côte d’Ivoire Temple

Belém Brazil Temple

Feather River California Temple

Layton Utah Temple

Pocatello Idaho Temple

Praia Cabo Verde Temple

Quito Ecuador Temple

Richmond Virginia Temple

San Juan Puerto Rico Temple

Saratoga Springs Utah Temple

Urdaneta Philippines Temple

Yigo Guam Temple

TEMPLES WITH ANNOUNCED SITES

Sites have been announced for the following temples, with groundbreaking plans to be announced at a later date:

Bengaluru India Temple

Cobán Guatemala Temple

Davao Philippines Temple

Mendoza Argentina Temple

Moses Lake Washington Temple

Neiafu Tonga Temple

Okinawa Japan Temple

Pago Pago American Samoa Temple

Phnom Penh Cambodia Temple

Syracuse Utah Temple

Tooele Valley Utah Temple

TEMPLES AWAITING SITE ANNOUNCEMENT

The following temples have been announced, with additional details yet to be released:

Antofagasta Chile Temple

Bacolod Philippines Temple

Bahía Blanca Argentina Temple

Benin City Nigeria Temple

Budapest Hungary Temple

Cagayan de Oro Philippines Temple

Dubai United Arab Emirates Temple

Freetown Sierra Leone Temple

Harare Zimbabwe Temple

Lagos Nigeria Temple

Lubumbashi Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple

Managua Nicaragua Temple

Nairobi Kenya Temple

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple

Port Moresby Papua New Guinea Temple

Russia Temple

Salvador Brazi Templel

Shanghai China Temple

Tallahassee Florida Temple

[justforbooks]

Mory Kanté obituary

Singer and songwriter whose 1980s hit Yéké Yéké was Africa’s first million-selling single

Mory Kanté, who has died aged 70 from untreated health problems, was a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and one of west Africa’s most versatile and commercially successful musical pioneers.

A national hero in Guinea, Kanté came from a jali or griot family of hereditary musicians and historians, and became known as the “electric griot” for his fusion of contemporary styles with traditional west African influences. His best known song, Yéké Yéké, was recorded in 1987 and became the first African single to sell over a million copies - as well as being the first international dance floor hit to feature the kora, the ancient west African harp.

Kanté played an amplified version of the instrument, which was matched against a stomping bass line, brass, drums, and a female chorus joining in with his distinctive, high-pitched vocals for the exuberant and catchy hook line. Yéké Yéké was No 1 in the pop charts in Spain and the Netherlands, and a Top 5 hit in Germany, Switzerland and France. It made three entries in the UK charts, reaching the Top 30 in 1988 and 1995 and then again, as a remix version, in 1996. The remix appeared on the soundtrack of the Danny Boyle film The Beach (2000).

Yéké Yéké made Kanté an international celebrity, just as African music was gaining new audiences in the west thanks to the growing interest in world music. But he was already well known across west Africa as lead singer with one of the region’s finest groups, the Rail Band. And as Lucy Duran, professor of music at SOAS, University of London, put it: “He was steeped in tradition.”

He was always destined to be a musician. Born in Albadarya, south-eastern Guinea, he was one of the youngest of 38 children. His father, El Hadj Djelifodé Kanté, was a local griot leader, while his mother, Fatoumata Kamissoko, was from a distinguished Malian griot family. Mory was taught to play the balafon, the African xylophone, attended a local French school and at 15 was sent to Bamako, the Malian capital, to live with his aunt, Manamba Kamissoko, a singer and griot. Here he continued his griot education while also listening to western and Cuban music and working as balafonist, guitarist and singer for the Apollos, a band much in demand at wedding festivals.

His musical skills came to the notice of one of Bamako’s most popular and adventurous groups, the Rail Band, who were employed by the National Railways of Mali to play at the Buffet Hotel De La Gare, next to Bamako railway station, where they performed anything from Cuban-influenced songs and French pop to ancient griot songs arranged for modern instruments. Salif Keita was their star vocalist, and Kanté was hired to play the balafon and guitar – though he also taught himself to play the kora and would occasionally take the microphone to remind audiences that Salif was not the only great vocalist on stage.

In 1973, Keita quit to join a rival band, Les Ambassadeurs, and Kanté took over as lead singer. The Rail Band became celebrities across west Africa, touring in Nigeria and the Ivory Coast while expanding their musical range to include funk and Afrobeat, and recording classic songs that ranged from Soundiata, a tribute to the founder of the Mandingo empire and Sinsimba, a tribute to Fela Kuti.

After leaving the Rail Band (who had been on strike demanding their salaries as state employees), Kanté moved to Abidjan, capital of the Ivory Coast, where he found that “people were crazy for modern music on traditional instruments”. He started a small band in which he sang and played kora, backed by other traditional instruments including balafon and djembe hand drums as he reworked salsa and western dance songs.

He had a residency at a fashionable city restaurant, where he was heard by Gerard Chess, director of the American label Eboni that specialised in disco and funk. His first solo album Courougnegne was released in 1981 and mixed in Los Angeles, where he had a “dream” meeting with Stevie Wonder.

Kanté wanted international success, and in 1984 he moved to Paris, where he eventually achieved his goal. His album À Paris (1984) included an early version of Yéké Yéké, and the next, 10 Cola Nuts (1986), was co-produced by Bruce Springsteen’s original keyboard player David Sancious and was nominated for the French Victoires De la Musique award, but it was not until Akwaba Beach (1987) that he became a major star. This was the best-selling album that included the hit version of Yéké Yéké, and its success was followed by high-profile events including a concert attended by tens of thousands in Central Park, New York, on French Bastille Day, 14 July 1990.

Always smartly dressed in white, Kanté became an African crossover celebrity with the status of a rock star – though his high-energy shows often included a traditional song as a reminder of his griot roots. And having discovered a winning formula he stuck with it. His 1990 album Touma achieved gold status in France, and was followed by Nongo Village (1993), Tatebola (1996) and Tamala (Le Voyageur) (2001) which included Nin Kadi, an easy-going collaboration with the English R&B singer Shola Ama.

In 2004 Kanté dramatically changed direction with Sabou, an all-acoustic album that included no keyboards or electro-percussion but provided an impressive reminder of his instrumental skills, not just on kora but on balafon, acoustic guitar and percussion. His soaring vocals and sense of urgency made this a classic set – and it would be his last for eight years.

He had homes in both Paris and in the Guinean capital, Conakry, where he had plans for an ambitious cultural institute and had already built a studio where he recorded part of his final album La Guinéenne.

In 2019 he was “guest vocalist” on an album by Las Maravillas de Mali, celebrating the music of a Cuban-influenced Malian band from the early 1970s, and appeared at a concert with this new version of the group at the London Barbican. He was still in excellent voice – and was of course wearing white.

He is survived by his wife, Sira Kouyate, and their seven children, Kebe, Tenin, Kader, Fatim, Zeynab and Marian (twins), and Mohammed, and by children from an earlier marriage.

• Mory Kanté, musician, singer and songwriter, born 29 March 1950; died 22 May 2020

© 2020 Guardian News

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[sciencespies]

Mail Handlers Used to Poke Holes in Envelopes to Battle Germs and Viruses

https://sciencespies.com/nature/mail-handlers-used-to-poke-holes-in-envelopes-to-battle-germs-and-viruses/

Mail Handlers Used to Poke Holes in Envelopes to Battle Germs and Viruses

Since the dawn of written communications, missives sent by card or letter have been the source of both joy and pain for recipients. During times of epidemics, however, the mail is viewed with extra wariness.

“The mail is something you welcome in times of normalcy, but just like any other kind of outside influence, it’s something that has been subjected to suspicion when there are times of strife, and when there’s an epidemic,” says Lynn Heidelbaugh, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum. Recipients worry whether the mail might bring contagion, “purely because it may have arrived from elsewhere and that elsewhere has been reporting infectious disease,” she says.

That’s as true today as it was in the late 19th century, when—before sanitizing sprays and disinfectant wipes—American post offices responded to persistent yellow fever epidemics with perforating paddles used in the fumigation of the mail.

In the collections of the National Postal Museum and on display in the William H. Gross Stamp Gallery one such paddle that was used by the Board of Health in Montgomery, Alabama, looks more like a diabolical hairbrush than a public health safety tool. The perforating paddle was used like a hammer to poke numerous holes in envelopes in order to allow the contents to get a full measure of fumigation, the second step in sanitizing the mail.

Using the paddle, mail carriers perforated the letters and dispersed them on wire netting shelves in a railway car, where fumes from sulfur in iron kettles fumigated the envelopes.

(National Postal Museum)

Some time after the 1899 Montgomery, Alabama, yellow fever outbreak, when the cause of the illness was finally attributed to Aedes aegypti, an illustration of a mosquito was added to the back of the paddle.

(National Postal Museum)

The mosquito drawing is accompanied by a verse: “Bacillus Horriblius/Multa Dentura/ (Yellow Fever Germ)/Reduced 500 Diam.”

(National Postal Museum)

Yellow fever was a dreaded disease. Although many people contracted a mild form, about half of those infected died of the illness. There were at least 35 outbreaks in the United States between 1702 and 1800, and annual outbreaks took place from 1800 to 1879. As late as the 1890s, no one knew where the contagion came from or how it spread. The Marine Hospital Service, precursor to the U.S. Public Health Service, hypothesized in 1898 that yellow fever was spread by fomites, or materials such as bedding, clothing and other objects touched by someone with the disease. That led to concern that contaminants could arrive on letters sent in the mail.

Use of the paddles followed by fumigation with gasses like sulfur dioxide or formalin was widespread by the late 19th century. The practice proved both reassuring and annoying. “Your very kind letter—came here—punched as full of holes as your Donax sieve, and smelling of hellfire and brimstone—let a clean letter come from the pure of the Green Mountains and the cursed fools at the fumigating station seize it, punch it so that it is almost illegible, then pump an unbearable stink into it,” General F.E. Spinner, a former U.S. Treasurer, wrote to a Vermont friend in 1887.

The Smithsonian’s paddle is likely from 1899, says Heidelbaugh, when yellow fever was finally on the wane, with just a few mild outbreaks in New Orleans, and the Mississippi cities of Vicksburg, Natchez and Gulfport.

As late as the 1890s, no one knew where yellow fever came from or how it spread; the culprit turn out to be Aedes aegypti, which transmitted the virus that caused the illness.

(Joao Paulo Burini, Getty Images)

The paddle has a drawing of a mosquito on the back side; added some time after 1900 when Major Walter Reed, an Army surgeon, proved that mosquitos transmitted the virus that caused yellow fever. Handwritten above the mosquito is a peculiar verse: “Bacillus Horribilus/Multi Dentura, (Yellow Fever germ),” which is neither the correct name for the pathogen, nor the correct identification, since it is actually a virus, as Reed showed.

Yellow fever, a flavivirus, has parallels to SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID. There are still no effective treatments for yellow fever. For many, especially in tropical Africa, South and Central America, where it is endemic, the main way to avoid it is behavioral: taking steps to minimize exposure to mosquitos. But unlike with SARS-CoV-2, there is a yellow fever vaccine.

Although it did not likely change anything, the postal service continued to perforate and fumigate mail into the early 1900s, “probably due to custom and public demand,” writes Emmet F. Pearson and Wyndham Miles in a 1980 article on U.S. mail disinfecting practices over the years.

Disinfection had been practiced for hundreds of years, starting in Europe in the 1300s and eventually was adopted in the New World, including by the American colonies. In the U.S., perforation, fumigation and often, quarantine, have been used to respond to scarlet fever, diphtheria, influenza, typhoid, tuberculosis, leprosy, poliomyelitis, cholera, smallpox and most recently, anthrax. Mail has been gassed in rail cars, baked in ovens and irradiated.

Sanitizing was not necessarily an illogical response. Mail handlers have been sickened with smallpox, which is particularly virulent and can live on many surfaces and even be revived from a dormant state. Reports in the medical literature in 1901 traced two separate smallpox outbreaks to recipients of letters from areas where smallpox was endemic at the time.

And then there were the anthrax attacks in 2001. At least five envelopes full of anthrax spores were mailed to politicians and the media. Twenty-two people contracted anthrax, five of whom died, including two postal workers at the Brentwood post office in Maryland. Thirty-five postal facilities and commercial mailrooms were contaminated, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

United States Army officer and medical expert Walter Reed (above c. 1880) proved the connection between yellow fever and mosquitos.

(Bettman, Getty Images)

The Postal Service soon began irradiating mail sent to zip codes in Washington D.C. associated with federal government agencies, and still does. The irradiated mail is aired out for a few days before it is sent on to the recipients. Sometimes that mail might arrive in a plastic bag noting that it had been sanitized—akin to the old days when mail would be given a special stamp letting the recipient know it had been fumigated.

In response to the novel coronavirus, the USPS has instituted procedures to clean its mail facilities and retail operations and to ensure that postal workers and carriers wear face coverings and maintain appropriate distances from each other and customers. But it is not sanitizing the mail, says USPS spokesman David Partenheimer. “The (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recognizes that while it may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads,” the USPS says.

But plenty of Americans are again worried about fomites, including whether mail and packages can bring the virus into their house. A National Institutes of Health-sponsored study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in mid-March ramped up anxieties. The researchers found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could survive up to 24 hours on cardboard. However, it was at a greatly reduced level of infectivity. And, the authors advised caution on interpreting their cardboard finding, saying that there was a ton of variation in the experiment that caused statistical “noise.”

Since that time, only one other study has shed any light on how the virus acts on various surfaces. The study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, was reassuring in terms of the mail, finding that “no infectious virus could be recovered from printing and tissue papers” after three hours. But it took up to four days for infectious particles to disappear from paper money.

Fear of the mail is palpable. Cell biologist and virologist Carolyn Machamer says she received several hundred emails from around the world after she weighed in on the New England Journal study for a Johns Hopkins University website. Some correspondents “were afraid to even open a box that was shipped from China,” says Machamer, a Hopkins professor who has studied coronaviruses for decades.

A health worker administers a yellow fever vaccine to a woman on August 27, 2008 on a roadside in Koumassi, a poor quartier of Abidjan after a case was discovered of yellow fever.

(KAMBOU SIA/AFP via Getty Images)

People should not be concerned, she says. SARS-CoV-2 “is very short lived on porous surfaces,” such as cardboard and paper. Once outside the body, the virus is easily rendered non-infectious, because its fragile lipid envelope can be damaged or destroyed with alcohol, soap or ultraviolet light, she says. “The guts of the virus, the genome and the protein wrapping it will be exposed,” which renders it unable to reproduce, she says.

Jodie Dionne-Odom, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at University of Alabama, Birmingham, says she, too, has been inundated with questions about whether the mail is safe. The studies so far suggest the virus persists on surfaces and can be a route of transmission. But, she says, “you have to ask, does the presence of virus actually mean infectivity.”

Adds Dionne-Odom: “Just because you can detect virus on a surface doesn’t mean it could actually infect you if you then put your hand to your mouth.”

If the mail was carrying infection, it likely would have been exposed by now, says Dionne-Odom. “We haven’t seen a big outbreak in mail carriers in any country,” she says.

Both she and Machamer say that it’s an unlikely route of transmission. A mail carrier or delivery person would have to cough or sneeze on the item, expel enough virus to be infectious, then have it remain wet for long enough so that when someone touched it, and then touched their nose, mouth, or eyes, they could be infected.

“Opening your mail is a low-risk activity,” says Dionne-Odom. “There’s potentially even zero risk, but we have to have those studies,” she says.

Machamer doesn’t worry about her mail. “If people are concerned, they should not bring it into their house right away,” she says, suggesting that 24 hours would be more than sufficient to kill the virus.

Dionne-Odom agrees. If someone can lower their level of worry by cleaning cardboard or segregating mail, there’s no harm, she says. “I just don’t want you to think that is where the virus is likely to come from,” she says. “It’s more likely to come from the person coming into your house.”

#Nature

[parkersanspeter]

La Cathédrale de Notre Dame de la Paix Sunday 9:30am Mass *Mass times on the website are incorrect

[molomama-blog]

How to Choose Ivory Coast Evisa

https://ru.ivisa.com/ivory-coast-e-visa

The Bizarre Secret of Ivory Coast Evisa In spite of the instability, Ivory Coast is the world's biggest exporter of cocoa beans and its citizens enjoy a comparatively high degree of income, in contrast to other nations in the area.  Vietnamese visas are comparatively straightforward to apply.  A trip to Vanuatu first to find conditions at first hand is strongly suggested.

Rented accommodation is likewise very pricey.  The water, on the flip side, ought to be avoided if it's tap.  Yamoussoukro is the country's political capital while Abidjan is its economic capital and the biggest city.

You don't need to be a Member to come to a HU meeting, access the site, the HUBB or maybe to obtain the e-zine.  An appointment code is then going to be issued.  The very first step is to find out when you fulfill the minimal requirements, after which you will want to gather all the needed documentation and data so as to make an on-line profile.

Adhering to the program, you will get an e-visa authorization number.  To begin the application procedure, you will need to visit the Snedai website, which you are able to find here.  It is important that you provide every bit of information requested in the application form, otherwise the application is going to be rejected.

When you sign your DS-160 electronically, you're certifying that the entire information inside it's true and correct.  More info on whether you may have to pay reciprocity fees might be found on travel.state.gov.  Fees must be settled on the SNEDAI site.

Top Ivory Coast Evisa Choices Post-Kiobel, the precise contours of this requirement stay unclear.   You're permitted to modify the appointment date thrice in a minimum of 24 hours before the fixed date, or cancel it within two days.  For 31-90 days, you'll also need to complete the very first schedule form.

Based on the kind of visa you require, the objective of entry to Vietnam, the duration of stay, the amount of visits, the cost will be different.   There are a number of ways to increase your CRS score as a way to enhance your odds of success in the application process, ie.  If granted, you're going to be in a position to live and work in the nation for the remainder of your life with no need to acquire additional permission, unless exceptional circumstances lead to your Permanent Residency being revoked.

The True Meaning of Ivory Coast Evisa Citizens of the usa is now able to apply to have a tourist visa online. Visas for China The first thing you would like to need to prepare for creating your transfer to China is to receive a visa.  The quicker you desire a visa, the more elaborate the price tag is.

Most countries can currently gain from VOA, making the visa application really easy.  If you are aware of how to submit an application for a Vietnamese visa, you will discover extremely simple measures.  You must make an application for a new visa on the following visit.

Nationals of some countries do not require a visa to go to Ivory Coast.  The cost of getting a Vietnamese visa isn't significant.  If you wish to stay more than 15 days in Vietnam, you'll need visa.

You should also think about checking with your transport provider or travel company to be sure your passport and other travel documents satisfy their requirements.  It is presently being taken to a landfill website. Permanent residents cannot register to vote.

Assuming your design is currently mobile ready.  If you are really injured, emergency care might not be available or might not meet US standards.   All you have to do is locate the route that's ideal for you.

| The bigger cities have international hotels, and you may discover a hotel for all budgets.  The rural regions, but do not offer you too many choices.  There's additionally a public Zoo.

Aside from the exception stated above, Visitors aren't permitted to participate in any business or employment.  There is a superb selection of hotel accommodations in Abidjan.  Taxis can be found in main cities, but are inclined to be in bad mechanical condition.

The nation's economy is merely among the most developed in sub-Saharan Africa.  Vietnamese visas are comparatively straightforward to apply.  A trip to Vanuatu first to find conditions at first hand is strongly suggested.

It isn't merely the state that has to act.  The water, on the flip side, ought to be avoided if it's tap.  There's an internet taxi booking service run by Africab, whose service is becoming more and more common.

Get the Scoop on Ivory Coast Evisa Before You're Too Late Citizens of the usa is now able to apply to have a tourist visa online. Visas for China The first thing you would like to need to prepare for creating your transfer to China is to receive a visa.  The quicker you desire a visa, the more elaborate the price tag is.

Most countries can currently gain from VOA, making the visa application really easy.  You will need to make an application for a completely new visa.  You must make an application for a new visa on the following visit.

As an extra bonus, you are going to receive an extra 600 points to grow your CRS score, which will provide you with a leg up in the Express Entry draws and pretty much guarantees you will get an ITA for permanent residency.  The cost of getting a Vietnamese visa isn't significant.  If you wish to stay more than 15 days in Vietnam, you'll need visa.

The Hidden Treasure of Ivory Coast Evisa A large Ivorian cell phone provider now provides the song for a ring tone free of charge.  Lots of people drown annually.  Tons of individuals drown annually.

Based on the kind of visa you require, the objective of entry to Vietnam, the duration of stay, the amount of visits, the cost will be different.  Remember that these requirements can change quickly and might differ based on your precise circumstance.  If granted, you're going to be in a position to live and work in the nation for the remainder of your life with no need to acquire additional permission, unless exceptional circumstances lead to your Permanent Residency being revoked.

You are then going to be required to finish your Canadian Visa Application within 60 days of getting your letter and the procedure will take about 4-6 months to be processed.  The whole procedure is handled online and it really is quite fast and uncomplicated.  Western African food is dominated by various types of stews.

For a lot of cases the present application is undeniably functional only after authentication.  If applying for a business visa, you'll need to supply a business letter and the documents mentioned in the aforementioned paragraph.  It is important that you provide every bit of information requested in the application form, otherwise the application is going to be rejected.

When you sign your DS-160 electronically, you're certifying that the entire information inside it's true and correct.   More info on whether you may have to pay reciprocity fees might be found on travel.state.gov.  Instructions on the best way to take part in this completely free webinar.

| There are a lot of visa alternatives available for those who wish to migrate permanently to Australia and who have the essential skills and qualifications.  The whole procedure is handled online and it really is quite fast and uncomplicated.  Western African food is dominated by various types of stews.

Funerals are central to a lot of ethnic groups.  After preparation is done, you submit and await the results.   Share this information with friends and family.

When you sign your DS-160 electronically, you're certifying that the entire information inside it's true and correct.  Charge cards are accepted just in top-end establishments.  Instructions on the best way to take part in this completely free webinar.

You might also be requested to demonstrate your visa or other documentation enabling you to legally put in your destination at any moment in your trip.  It is presently being taken to a landfill website. In any situation it's imperative that you contact the Chicago consulate directly to find out which consular services they give.

Assuming your design is currently mobile ready.  If you are really injured, emergency care might not be available or might not meet US standards.   Follow basic security tips.

But What About Ivory Coast Evisa? Throughout that moment, the population is predicted to grow from 26,171,750 to 51,375,178.  The nation produces more cocoa than every other place on the planet.  You must show evidence of your sufficient ties to your residence country.

You might have to scour your application on a cell screen to be certain that the experience is consistent and frustration free for your intended users.  There are a number of ways to increase your CRS score as a way to enhance your odds of success in the application process, ie.  Another issue to know about is carjacking and it's helpful to bear this in mind as carjackers have a tendency to attack at stoplights.

Ivory Coast Evisa - Overview In spite of the instability, Ivory Coast is the world's biggest exporter of cocoa beans and its citizens enjoy a comparatively high degree of income, in contrast to other nations in the area.  Vietnamese visas are comparatively straightforward to apply.  When you enter the nation, it's best in case you have US dollars since they're more common and can be exchanged easily.

Ivory Coast isn't among the safest nations in the Earth, or in Africa for that issue.  The West African American Embassy is situated in Abidjan.  Many drownings occur every year.

New Questions About Ivory Coast Evisa Citizens of the usa is now able to apply to have a tourist visa online. For these countries there isn't any need to purchase your visa beforehand.  As a result, if you're likely to put in an application for a Vietnamese visa, it is far better ask for a minimum of 10 days before departure to prevent unexpected risks.

It's not clear whether both incidents are linked.  At the current time, Ivory Coast citizens can submit an application for a Vietnamese visa by applying straight to the Vietnamese embassy or applying for a web-based visa.  If your place doesn't have a Vietnamese embassy or consulate, you should submit an application for an internet visa.

As an extra bonus, you are going to receive an extra 600 points to grow your CRS score, which will provide you with a leg up in the Express Entry draws and pretty much guarantees you will get an ITA for permanent residency.  All nationalities are qualified for the eVisa and the application only requires a couple of minutes.  If you wish to stay more than 15 days in Vietnam, you'll need visa.

[kvjff-blog]

Joshua Ojonuba

Professor Robert Lunday

ENGL 1301

10 October 2019

The Beautiful Game

Two sprained wrists, at least four ankle sprains, couple of cuts and at least a dozen splinters: those are just some of my injuries over the last six or so years of playing competitive soccer. My injuries are on the minor side as many others suffer worse injuries that often require surgeries and months of physical therapy. Professional soccer is played by approximately two hundred and fifty million players in over two hundred countries and dependencies all around the world, making it the world's most popular sport. This does not include the millions more who play for fun, in semi pro clubs, and in amateur leagues all across the world. It would be almost impossible to imagine the amount of injuries they sustain as well as the extent of them. Seeing as the consequences and pain are so substantial, the question as to why so many people like myself play and get influenced by this sport on such a grand scale. The answer is: I don’t know, I don’t think anyone know to be fair. We all just play no matter the cost; the game is all. I remember reading an article about Ada Hegerberg, who is regarded as one of if not the best women’s soccer players alive. In the article she was asked why she even played since she had opted to sit out the women’s world cup for her country. She responded, "Playing football can be damn harsh, but every day is a fight.” reading this the first time I thought to myself, if it is as harsh as you say why not just quit playing? As I look back now I am able reflect on her statement, and I realize that we are similar. Never once while I played did I think about quitting, through the many injuries, through the long draining practices, through the failures and let downs, I fought through. Like Ada and many others I kept on going necessarily because I wanted to but more so because I had to; quitting never seemed like an option as least not one that crossed my mind.

Soccer has been a major factor in my life probably ever since I was a little baby especially after experiencing the major soccer atmosphere in Lagos, Nigeria, where I was born and raised. In fact my earliest memory of the sport was maybe in 2006 during the world cup. It was the qualification stages against Angola, and Nigeria desperately needed a win to qualify for the most famous and prestigious tournament in all of sporting history. When I was a kid in Nigeria, power outages were extremely common as Nigeria was and still is going through a power supply crisis. So it came as no surprise when suddenly in the middle of the game there was a power outage. Because this was an everyday occurrence we had a phase for it - “down nepa”, and when the lights would come back up we would yell “up nepa”. I had never witnessed a sense of community like I saw that day. As soon as the power went out, we immediately rushed out to the industrial generator out back like we always do. After about five minutes of tussling with the generator, struggling, trying to get it started, there was finally a spark visible through the window of the back room. By this time there had been a crowd formed behind us, seemingly the entire neighborhood was behind us cheering at the sight of light. Apparently we were the only household with enough gasoline to power their generator. “Ta lo fe wo ball”, my aunt said in her native Yoruba; she was asking who was ready to watch some ball or football. Which brings me to the question of why it’s called soccer in the U.S.A instead of football like it is everywhere else in the world, it’s like Americans always have to one up everyone else; anyway, I digress. Seeing as we were the only household with power and our TV was definitely not big enough for the magnitude of people that had now gathered expecting a game of soccer. Luckily one of the families in the neighborhood had a flat screen which in retrospect could not have been very big but it was definitely bigger than anything we or anyone within maybe the next three miles did. With our always reliable generator and the newly found TV, we were all ready to witness Nigeria do us proud and make it to the world cup for another year in a row. Even though the rest of the game was boring and disappointing with Nigeria losing one to zero to an admittedly much stronger and experienced squad in Angola, the moment of community and coming together is what makes it a memorable. Year after year, game after game, support poured in from all over the neighborhood. Nigeria vs. Ghana, Nigeria vs. Argentina, Nigeria vs. Brazil, Nigeria vs. Mexico, every lost seemly just as enjoyable as a win. These are the memories that I’ll keep forever, the memories of love, joy, peace and innocence during a time that would otherwise be considered bad or at the very least not ideal.

There is a famous quote that I along with numerous other soccer fans have heard that goes “you play soccer anywhere, you play soccer everywhere” the phase actually says “football” but for the purposes of this we’ll say soccer. The game is simple, right? Score and do not get scored on. The Truth is: yes, it is simple; but the difficult part is what’s left unsaid, the little things that make the game just so beautiful. The buildup, the passionate moments, the joy, the rivalries; these are all things that every fan and player all across the world can relate to. They have been numerous stories of soccer saving communities and bringing people together because as they say no matter how you’re raised or what culture you subscribe to, just like people are people soccer is soccer always. I remember reading a story about one of my favorite soccer players ever, Didier Drogba; unfortunately people from Africa are used to hearing stories of and even experiencing war or civil unrest. Even with him being from the Ivory Coast, where they had gone through extreme civil unrest, he was always representing his home country. "Come to Abidjan, Alex. You will not be disappointed.” he was quoted as saying to a reporter asking about his native country.   Civil war had been happening for five years in the ivory coast when, right after leading his nation to the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany back in October 2005, he picked up a microphone given to him by a reporter in the dressing room and, surrounded by his team-mates, he fell to his knees live on national television. He begged both fighting sides to lay down their guns and, within a week, his wish had been granted. "It was just something I did instinctively," he said. "All the players hated what was happening to our country and reaching the World Cup was the perfect emotional wave on which to ride." Didier Drogba proved exactly what I have been saying about the power and passion soccer brings into the lives of its fans. In front of everyone in the world and his native people, he got on his knees and pleaded for peace. I can’t think of any other sports that could possibly do that, five years of deadly civil war, ended just like that. As a fellow African watching this unfold on TV, this further inspired me as well as other young African kids to play.

In 2011, when I moved to Houston, I went from merely watching soccer being played to actually playing it. Besides the occasional after school sessions of just the kicking of a peeled over leathery ball, I was never able to fully experience the true essence of the sport. Because not only was it hard to find a suitable environment to play but finding a ball was also almost always impossible as well. Going into middle school I knew that although we did not have a proper team I wanted to be a soccer player, if not professional (I knew at this point I surely could not be a professional player) then at least I could be competitive within the local club or school scene. After I somehow survived three long years in middle school without a sport to play it was finally high school and I would get a chance to play. Quotes like Tony Adams’ - “Play for the name on the front of the shirt, and they will remember the name on the back” played back over and over in my head. At the time it almost seemed like making my high school JV b team was at all comparable to the years of years he spent on top of the sport.

Who is Tony Adams, you may ask? Well my dear, dear reader, Tony Adams is without a doubt the best captain arsenal football club has ever seen in all its 133 years of being a top tier team.  He was not only one of the reasons I became an arsenal fan but he influenced almost every part of my soccer career. I found myself studying almost everything he did in his prime, looking to emulate even the slightest bit of success from his greatness. I guess looking back now I think it’s clear to me that I desperately wanted to become someone better than I was. Someone more confident, more secure, maybe even just someone different than I was. I essentially tried copying every aspect of his playing style, even incorporating his celebrations as well. If I’m being honest I still sometimes have that feeling of wanting to be someone else other than myself, although not as much as I used to. Honestly I believe playing competitively really forced me to legitimately discover who I was and be comfortable as myself. That being one of many reasons why I would recommend everyone participating in some kind of sport or physical activity. Not to mention the atmosphere and relationships I created along the way.

I find that there is a certain unique sense of community with soccer that just isn’t present in any other activity on the planet, or at least not one I have participated in. Now I do not claim to be some sort of super athletic multi-sport champion but I have played my share of sports and been in quite a few communities. I have played basketball and football, been involved in concert band, art club and even science club. In my humble opinion, in terms of love and support expressed in each community they all pale in comparison to this beautiful beautiful game. In fact the only good comparison that I’ve found seems to be within the jujutsu and kickboxing community which oddly enough is less violence orientated as you would think by just taking a glance in. predictably I have been enjoying the martial arts mainly for the community to the point where it has begun to be almost a religion like soccer was and still is.

Soccer or football (as it’s more commonly called in other countries) is of course a way of life in almost every country all over the world, but more than that I would say it is a religion of sorts. The U.S. is one of the very few places soccer is not hallowed so it is perfectly understandable that some people do not understand the extent of the love people have for this sport. This is the part where I would try drawing a connection to another sport, American football or baseball maybe? Truth is I would hesitate to compare soccer worldwide to any sport as a matter of fact, not just popular American sports. In my experience American football and baseball defiantly have an extremely loyal fan base, but the fans are naturally fickle at times even sometimes changing and switching over between teams. However soccer fans, real soccer fans at least, are often born into their respective team and stay loyal all the way till death. Just like any other religion switching over to another religion (or club in this case) is highly frowned upon and potentially even dangerous. Like most all religions throughout the history mankind, intense rivalries are an ever present theme usually dependent on proximity to the rival club as well as any minor disagreements that may or may not have occur somewhere buried deep in the history of both clubs. As an arsenal fan, of course I despise our rival club, the Tottenham Hotspur, although I will admitted that there are a couple of Tottenham players I enjoy watching and sometimes even root for. I think the first time I ever thought of soccer as like a religion was when I randomly ran into a you tube video comparing Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, two players widely considered two of the best to ever play. The video creator spends the beginning portion of the video comparing both their stats for the past 12 years as well as their respected following. He then goes on for what seemed like eternity talking about sportsmanship and how well they have both individually represented the sport. Finally, at the end of the video, he comes up with the conclusion that although the two players are absolutely the best to ever lace up their boots and step onto the field, Messi is the greatest. In his words, “Messi in all his glory is the God of football, with Ronaldo sharing his glory as Jesus or Muhammad”. This seems to have stuck in my subconscious, only revealing itself now after a couple of years after going mainly unnoticed by me at the time.

Before I started writing this memoir I would have never thought that I had this much to say about soccer especially since it is not as much a part of my life as it’s been in the past. I guess in a lot of ways I have changed and evolve into what I would consider a better, more self-actualized version of myself. With that being said, I think it makes sense that soccer isn’t as important to me; it has served its purpose in my life and I’m sure it will continue to. I am forever grateful to this beautiful game and all the wonderful memoirs it brought into my life.      

 Afterword.

The honest truth is at the beginning of this memoir I was not really going to try as hard as I maybe could have. I was procrastinating, only waiting till the last minute to finish each installments that was due. I think I was thinking about it just as a class project I just had to get done instead of an interest project. After the turning in the first installment of this memoir and getting back the feedback, I began using my free time to write and combine the texts. It is amazing how much I've retained over my many years of playing and watching soccer. it was really interesting bringing back the memories and ideas I had lodged somewhere in my mind. I think by actually caring about this project and the subject, I was able to not only dive deeper but also articulate better.    

[tuwipuyi-blog]

Incredible Facts About Ivory Coast E Visa

https://fr.ivisa.com/ivory-coast-e-visa

E Visa system is getting popular as it's simple to get, although it's valid for shorter days.  Our MARA registered Migration Agents are here to assist you with every facet of the migration procedure, from finding the proper visa for your distinctive circumstances to ensuring your application is decision ready'.  Migration and visa applications can be a difficult experience.

What You Need to Know About Ivory Coast E Visa The price of several of our Polar Voyages will exceed the capped amount covered by standard insurance premiums and you'll have to pay an extra premium to cover the entire value of your journey.  When you order, make sure you let them know whether you would like to get the intestines.   The roasting time is dependent upon the essence of the cashew and is judged dependent on experience.

When it has to do with the Ivory Coast's cuisine, there's nothing from the ordinary.  Your physician can administer the essential vaccinations for your journey.  There isn't any way to take care of your diamond like a pure diamond.

The nation's economy is simply among the most developed in sub-Saharan Africa.  The nation consists of four natural regions.  All travelers over 9 months old has to be vaccinated to enter the nation.

A E Visitor Visa is necessary for folks who would like to come to Australia to travel or visit friends and family members.  Concierge Team members have years of expertise and can produce the elaborate simple for you.   Georgia is filled with a few of the world's most gorgeous lakes.

The Canadian pre-approval system is just required for TRV-exempt individuals trying to enter Canada by air to go to on a short-term basis.  The Americans in Abidjan are considered to be safe.  You will note this embassy will have the ability to supply you with consular assistance if you require assistance whilst in the Ivory Coast.

| The price of several of our Polar Voyages will exceed the capped amount covered by standard insurance premiums and you'll have to pay an extra premium to cover the entire value of your journey.  When you order, make sure you let them know whether you would like to get the intestines.   The roasting time is dependent upon the essence of the cashew and is judged dependent on experience.

Be smart once you are traveling on foot.  If you wish to add some flavor to your dating life, take a look at my post on the ideal internet dating sites in Africa.  There isn't any way to take care of your diamond like a pure diamond.

Before you leave for the Ivory Coast, you should be aware that a visit to your principal care physician is necessary.  If you keep beyond the 90 visa-free days you are going to be ordered to appear in front of a judge before you are able to leave Morocco.  Being a large country you will need to prioritize what destinations and attractions you would like to visit.

A E Visitor Visa is necessary for folks who would like to come to Australia to travel or visit friends and family members.   Concierge Team members have years of expertise and can produce the elaborate simple for you.  Georgia is filled with a few of the world's most gorgeous lakes.

If applying for a business visa, you'll have to supply a business letter together with the documents mentioned in the above mentioned paragraph.  The application and payment has to be completed and confirmed before it's processed and find the outcome for Ivorian citizens.  The whole procedure is handled online and it really is quite fast and effortless.

You should also think about checking with your transport provider or travel company to be sure your passport and other travel documents satisfy their requirements.  There's no label or stamp which will be attached to your passport.  In the instance of necessary, Ivorian nationals could possibly be asked to complement documents to support the info verification approach.

How to Get Started with Ivory Coast E Visa? It's possible to submit an application for a visa online.  You don't require a visa to travel whether the intention behind the visit is tourism.  You have to get an Ivory Coast visa to be able to travel there.

The biometric visa demands the occurrence of the applicant.  If you need to mail your passport, take care not to use regular mail.  A valid passport is needed.

Cambodia offers more ease in receiving a visa.  A visitor who wants to pay a visit to the Kingdom of Morocco for tourism may need a tourist visa based on their nationality.  Given that the Tanzania visa on arrival can lead to more complications, it is normal for visitors traveling for touristic purposes to make an application for the Tanzania eVisa before departure.

You might also be qualified for the totally Free Explore Transfer.  If you intend to stay for at least 30 days you must put in an application for a permit within 15 days through the Immigration Office.

The Tried and True Method for Ivory Coast E Visa in Step by Step Detail After you get your e-Visa via e-mail, you are likely to be able to visit the Ivorian territory.  When you enter the nation, it's best in case you have US dollars since they're more common and can be exchanged easily.  It might also be required when entering the nation.

| Before you leave for the Ivory Coast, you should be aware that a visit to your principal care physician is necessary.  If you keep beyond the 90 visa-free days you are going to be ordered to appear in front of a judge before you are able to leave Morocco.  All travelers over 9 months old has to be vaccinated to enter the nation.

A E Visitor Visa is necessary for folks who would like to come to Australia to travel or visit friends and family members.  Among the states of the e-visa is that must arrive via the worldwide airport at Abidjan.  Medical and repatriation insurance policy cover isn't mandatory for UK residents that are travelling on trips in the United Kingdom.

What You Should Do to Find Out About Ivory Coast E Visa Before You're Left Behind Seats are somewhat uncomfortable.  Read more information for what travel insurance is necessary.

You should also think about checking with your transport provider or travel company to be sure your passport and other travel documents satisfy their requirements.  Please be aware, that only the quick stay visa is going to be processed by our system. It's now more convenient to create your request online, to fill the shape and to create the payment with a charge card and to receive in a couple of hours your electronic visa tourism.

It's possible to submit an application for a visa online.  If you hold a short-term travel document a visa is needed.  Though some may require that you receive a visa on arrival, others are completely with no visa.

[lboogie1906]

Cynthia Helena Shepard Perry (née Norton; born November 11, 1928) is an educator and diplomat. She served as Ambassador to Sierra Leone and Burundi and as American Executive Director of the African Development Bank. Throughout her career, she promoted racially and gender equality, international cooperation, and African economic development. She won a scholarship to Indiana State University and completed a BA in political science from the university in 1968. In 1968 she joined the University of Massachusetts' Center for International Education to study for a doctorate in education, which she completed in 1972. For her doctoral degree, she proposed to improve race relations by developing African Studies curricula for public schools. She had never been to Africa, so she recruited over 30 former Peace Corps volunteers who had served in Africa to develop and test African Studies curricula using their firsthand experience and the latest research into African American history and effective education. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan appointed her chief of the Education and Human Resources Division in the Africa Bureau of the United States Agency for International Development. She was responsible for establishing policies and educational programs for the 43 Sub-Saharan nations receiving US assistance at the time. In 1986, Pres. Reagan appointed her Ambassador to Sierra Leone; she held this position until 1990 when President George H.W. Bush appointed her Ambassador to Burundi. During this time she served as Honorary Counsel General for Senegal. In 1993, she returned to her position at Texas Southern University and in 1996 she moved to Texas Woman’s University as regent. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed her US Executive Director of the African Development Bank in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and Tunis, Tunisia. She held this position until her retirement in 2007. She returned to Houston, where she continues to support education and development in Africa. In 1998, she published her memoir, All Things Being Equal: One Woman's Journey. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck0cTDUrCm8/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[american-in-abidjan]

"Taxi!"

In a city where there is no metro and foreigners are highly encouraged to not take public transportation, taxis are the primary mode of transportation across the city. The orange cabs that flood the streets of Abidjan are safe (from personal experience) and government regulated. Here are some tips I’ve gathered: · Cabs of other colors (yellow, blue, etc) are neighborhood specific and follow fixed routes. Really not recommended; · Negotiate, because 9 times out of 10 the price they initially quote to go anywhere is way too high; · During rush hours, or when it’s raining, prices and cabs are in short supply, you’ll pay maybe 500 – 1000 more; · If your taxi gets pulled over for a traffic violation, be prepared to wait. If you driver asks fro you to pay his ticket (usually 1000 FCFA) he will take it out of your fare to even it out; · If you get pulled over because you’re a foreigner, don’t pay a bribe unless you’re clearly breaking a rule. Never give more than 2000 FCFA for a bribe; · Another option for those who aren’t looking to haggle in French or broken English is the African versions of Uber: Africab and TaxiJet. Here’s a list of prices that I’ve paid for cabs to give you a sort of price guide: Plateau to Deux Plateau: 1500 FCFA Plateau to Riviera 3: 2000 FCFA Riviera 3 to Gobelé: 2000 FCFA Riviera 3 to Bassam: 10,000 FCFA Plateau to Attoban: 2000 FCFA Plateau to Zone 4: 1000 FCFA

[deepartnature]

How War in Ukraine Roiled Russia’s ‘Coolest Company’

“What a difference a war makes. Just a few months ago, Yandex stood out as a rare Russian business success story, having mushroomed from a small start-up into a tech colossus that not only dominated search and ride-hailing across Russia, but boasted a growing global reach. A Yandex app could hail a taxi in far-flung cities like Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Oslo, Norway; or Tashkent, Uzbekistan; and the company delivered groceries in London, Paris and Tel Aviv. Fifty experimental Yandex robots trundled across the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus, bringing Grubhub food orders to students — with plans to expand to some 250 American campuses. ...”

NY Times

Aljazeera: What’s next for Ukraine after the fall of Luhansk? (Video)

NY Times: Three War Scenarios

Reuters: Russia will focus on Ukraine's Donetsk region after taking Luhansk, regional governor says

A man walks in the rubble near damaged buildings, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine in this still image obtained from a social media video released on July 2, 2022. 

[pragati16]

The 10 exceptional towns to stay in round the arena

These are the first-rate locations to live within the world, in line with The Economist Intelligence Unit’s international Liveability Index.

Vienna, Austria is the most livable city within the global, in keeping with The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2019 global Liveability Index. Each 12 months, this report analyzes one hundred forty cities around the world and charges them on a scale from one to one hundred, looking at over 30 elements in 5 essential classes: stability, fitness care, way of life and surroundings, education, and infrastructure  to decide the most (and least) livable cities. Cities in Australia and Canada dominate six of the pinnacle 10 spots, and a lot of those have made the listing year after year with continuously high rankings.

So, what do those rankings characterize? A rating of 100 conveys that the metropolis has perfect livability, whilst one approaches that the metropolis’s livability is intolerable. The types are weighted in a different way, too; balance debts for 25% of the total and considers the superiority of petty and violent crime, the hazard of terror, army warfare, or civil unrest, whilst health care, which debts for 20% of the total, assesses the supply and excellent of private and public health care, get entry to to over-the-counter drugs, and preferred health care indicators. Training counts for the least amount  just 10%  and considers the supply and high-quality of private training as well as public education indicators.

Read More : American Airlines

Infrastructure money owed for 20% of the total, taking into account things like public transport, housing, strength and water provisions, and extra. Finally, lifestyle and surroundings, which make up 25% of the full rating, covers a huge variety of things, along with levels of corruption, humidity and temperature, censorship, foods and drinks, and greater.

The index identifies towns with fluctuating ratings as properly, with the top 5 largest improvers and decliners. Multiplied balance and higher infrastructure (among different upgrades) have helped Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Hanoi, Vietnam; Kiev, Ukraine; and Belgrade, Serbia upward thrust up, whilst economic issues, crime, and battle make a contribution to the declining rankings of places like Detroit, america; Caracas, Venezuela; and Tripoli, Libya. (For a full breakdown of the kinds and rankings, visit The Economist Intelligence Unit internet site.)

These are the high-quality places to live in the global, in step with The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2019 global Liveability Index. Did your favored town make the pinnacle 10?

Coming in on the top spot with 99.1 out of 100, Vienna scored a great one hundred within the balance, fitness care, education, and infrastructure categories, and 96.3 for way of life and surroundings.

Melbourne formerly held the top spot for seven years earlier than being demoted to 2 in 2018’s survey, but the town still got ideal marks in fitness care, education, and infrastructure for an usual score of 98.4.

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Any other Australian town came in third area in the 2019 index, with a score of ninety eight.1. Like Melbourne, Sydney received best 100s in fitness care, schooling, and infrastructure.

Osaka is the maximum livable town in Asia, taking the fourth spot with an universal score of ninety seven.7. Osaka were given ideal scores for balance, health care, and schooling, with barely lower marks for tradition and environment and infrastructure.

 Read More : Copa Airlines

The first North American town on the list is Calgary, Canada, with an overall rating of 97.5. The city genuinely scored perfect 100s in everything except subculture and environment, for which the metropolis earned a 90.

[parkersanspeter]

Sunset over Abidjan

[nuadox]

7 African fintech startups to follow

- By Phil Siarri , Nuadox -

The fintech ecosystem is growing in Africa. Almost one third of funding raised by African startups in 2017 was in that specific sector (where just 17% of the population have banking accounts). Last year venture funding for African startups increased by 51% reaching $195 million, according to a report from Disrupt Africa. I have compiled a list of seven promising African startups offering cash management, lending, credit assessment, conversational agent, savings and payment services.

For the sake of simplicity, I have excluded companies with African representation that are not headquartered on the continent. 

Byte Money (South Africa)

http://www.bytemoney.co.za/

Byte Money is a cash receipting and allocation platform servicing Sub Saharan Africa (where liquid money is still king so to speak). It ensures that collection transactions are captured and reported on in real time, without human interference. Byte Money integrates with legacy admin system, aiming to reduce risk and increase profitability.

CinetPay (Ivory Coast)

https://cinetpay.com/

CinetPay is an Abidjan-based mobile money payment solution allowing e-commerce sites and e-services to receive secure payments. The company is a 2016 Founder Institute Graduate.

Click2Sure (South Africa)

http://www.click2sure.co.za/

Click2Sure is an insurtech platform which enables retailers, service providers, distributors and brokers to bolt on a selection of over 20 custom developed insurance products at the point of sale.

FinChatBot (South Africa)

https://finchatbot.com/

FinChatBot is a conversational agent framework dedicated to the financial services industry. It can be deployed across multiple channels including web and messaging apps.

Flexpay (Kenya)

https://www.flexpay.co.ke/

Flexpay aims to offer a secure, reliable financing management platform with flexible, installment payment options that make it easier for one’s customers to pay for products and services. Customers reserve or book products or services in advance and pay for them in flexible payments in a stipulated period of time through existing mobile money and bank transfer channels.

Numida (Uganda)

http://www.numida.co/

Numida is a digital financial services firm based in Kampala, Uganda. The company helps small businesses digitize their financial records helping them to make sound business decisions. The firm’s proprietary algorithm uses cash flow and financial management behavioral data gathered through the Numida app to determine an entrepreneurs credit-worthiness and issue unsecured loans.

Piggybank.ng (Nigeria)

https://www.piggybank.ng/

Piggybank.ng is a Lagos-based online savings platform. Users can choose to save small amounts periodically (daily, weekly or monthly) and restrict withdrawals until a set date or via piggybank's quarterly withdrawal dates.

I expect the funding momentum to continue both in larger economies (South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya) as well as in smaller nations on the continent where the “unbanked” and “underbanked” could translate into significant opportunities.

Read Also

11 Latin American fintech companies to watch

[rhythmofafrica-com]

Get to Know ‘AfroHouse’ at Rhythm of Afrika, a Diaspora Dance Party Here to Stay

OCTOBER 14, 2016 BY NICOLE DISSER

(Flyer via Rhythm of Afrika)

It’s rare when a music trend hits at all levels of the listener spectrum, but right now African music is resonating with everyone from pop junkies and passive, whatever’s-playing-at-the-club consumers to crate-diggers with eclectic collections and torrent combers with multiple hard drives devoted to the most obscure sounds they can find.

Drake’s hit song infused with Afropop beats, “One Dance,” was a collaboration with the Nigerian artist Wizkid. The blog Awesome Tapes From Africa has become a cultural phenomenon. And countless reissues, anthologies, even documentaries have appeared, offering a window into the rich histories of High Life, Afrobeat, Zamrock, Nigerian psych-rock of the ’70s, and the thriving punk and metal scenes of South Africa– you name it, really.

Admittedly the current trend– a reductive way of describing what’s really more like a movement, anyway– has been building for a while (Pitchforkcalled it back in 2008). And, yes, “African music” is a massive thing. It encompasses a whole universe of diverse sounds from across an entire continent, after all. But it works in this case because what we’re seeing is a cross-cultural, multi-genre trend that transcends pigeonholing based on tradition, instrumentation, and international borders.

STA7CK (pronounced “Stark”), or Mathieu K., a Cote d’Ivoire-born DJ/producer, is one artist at the forefront of it all, and he can attest to the upswing. “People are really picking up on it. If you pull up the hashtag #Afrobeat or #AfricanHouseMusic on Instagram now, you see people even in Europe dancing to it, people in Russia dancing to these songs,” he said. “It’s crazy. A few years ago you wouldn’t think this would be possible. Now they have Drake doing remixes with Davido, Wizkid.”

(Courtesy of Sta7ck, Rhythm of Afrika)

Mostly recently, he’s played host to Rhythm of Afrika, a monthly dance party that features a rotating cast of other DJs and producers working in a similar vein. The various iterations have gone down at Trans-Pecos and Williamsburg’s the Hangry Garden, and the next one’s happening tomorrow (Friday October 14) at Knockdown Center. This time around, STA7CK is sharing the bill with BLM (Brian Lee McCloud).

The party has been a success both on the ground and amongst critics, having earned a great deal of praise, including a recent shout-out from The New Yorker. The party’s also launched STA7CK’s career both as a musician blending House music with African sounds and, in some ways, a cultural ambassador.

“Things are changing now, people are starting to see these African creators now and African artists, African-American artists, Afro-Euro artists,” he explained.

Even during our conversation this week, STA7CK still seemed to be recovering from the shock of this mega-boost popular reception. But his own life reads like a recipe for the perfect DJ– Mathieu comes from a diverse cross-cultural background which can be traced from Abidjan to Paris, then the Bronx before the Rockaways, and now Bushwick, and has a deep and long-held passion for both West African traditional styles of music and new forms coming from the continent and the diaspora alike.

What STA7CK said he’s most excited about are the endless possibilities for cross-cultural exchange and innovation. Just look at grime music, a varied electronic/jungle genre that started out in East London in the early-aughts and counted influences from Afro-Caribbean and African music such as dancehall and reggae. Grime has grown from a UK phenomenon to an international one, with an active scene in South Africa, which has in turn started a whole new back-and-forth with African cultures.

“So the whole idea behind the event is that we cater to…” he paused. “We cater to everybody, you know?” he laughed.

But the cool thing about the influx of artists like STA7CK is that it’s not a free-for-all expression of globalization, or worse, cultural appropriation. Rhythm of Afrika, in addition to being a dance party, is a network of social media outlets that share content by and about “young Africans in New York City representing Africa and disrupting the stereotype.” Their Facebook calls itself, “A Page About Africa, Africans & The Diaspora* Told by Africans, not the media.”

“I was using Instagram a lot to promote the culture in Africa, because what I was seeing on TV and in the media, I really didn’t like what I was seeing,” STA7CK explained.

This gap between STA7CK’s own experience growing up in West Africa and what he saw and heard about the continent traces all the way back to his childhood after his family moved to Paris and then New York.

“I saw that a lot of Afro-Americans who were born here, they don’t really understand Africa like that,” he said. So when I was a 13-year-old kid, I was just trying to educate people. When I was hanging out with my friends, they’d say, ‘Oh, you live in teepees over there right?’ And I’m like, ‘Yo, we got cities over there! We have dance parties! We have music culture! We have comedy culture! We have everything just like here.’”

(Courtesy of STA7CK, Rhythm of Afrika)

Mathieu missed hanging out at his uncle’s record store back in Cote d’Ivoir, where, he recalled, “Every weekend, he would get new music– music from France, the Caribbean, a lot of traditional African music, so I would pick up that vibe.” But he found new music that he loved right here in New York. “I just grew into the whole hip-hop culture, I really loved R&B, the whole Afro-Caribbean culture, then I also had my cultural background— one of my visions was to put all these things together.”

After a few fits and starts, including founding a talent agency that failed, he decided to focus on his own music, as opposed to promoting that of others. Eventually DJ’ing small private events, including birthday parties, payed off.

He recalled one event where guests kept approaching him with requests that were along the lines of the more predictable dance music heard in clubs all over the city. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know that song.'” Eventually, he fulfilled some of the requests but compromised by blending it with his own style. “Once I finally gave in, the whole crowd went crazy,” STA7CK said. “I noticed that nobody was doing this kind of party, and I was like, Hey, I’m going to pull this African House together, I’m going to put Afrobeat together and traditional African music, and music of the diaspora.”

Now, STA7CK said: “DJs usually beg me for my setlist, I tell them, ‘That’s not how it works, you have to go dig some crates, bruh,'” said.

His protectiveness is understandable since Mathieu’s been preaching this stuff for years, praising West African performers and a vast array of music with firm roots in the continent only to fall on deaf ears. Even then, he kept at it. “Yes, I work 24/7,” he admitted.

Instead of wasting his energy calling out other performers for appropriation or bandwagoning, STA7CK is focusing on his own projects. Eventually, he said, he even wants to organize a “Burning Man in the jungle.” If they’re willing to go all the way out to the middle-of-nowhere hot-ass desert once a year and face tech bros and dust storms for debauchery, psychedelics, and maybe cool music (I’m not even sure, really), then a few would probably be willing to schlep it out to another kind of steamy locale to drown in AfroHouse music and drool on parrots.

Clearly, the scene created by STA7CK and other artists through Rhythm of Afrika is much more than a trend. While big pop names have recruited artists from the diaspora and picked up on the “nowness” of Afropop, Afrobeat, and now AfroHouse (and in some cases co-opted it) the hit songs they’re churning out haven’t overshadowed the more legit artists who have a real cultural interest and lasting devotion to these musical traditions.

(Courtesy of STA7CK, Rhythm of Afrika)

That’s partly owed to a Brooklyn/NYC music scene with outlets, venues, and individuals that are working for real inclusivity and true experimentation. People like STA7CK are ensuring that this “trend” is actually super resilient, and more so that it remains a two-way street. On the one hand, the unfamiliar get some excellent opportunities to learn about musical cultures different from their own in ways that go far deeper than simply owning a Witch record (guilty) and being “super into” Nigerian psychedelic rock right now (double guilt). On the other hand, Rhythm of Afrika acts as a platform for others to share their own culture and encourages the blending and collaboration of various musical styles, as opposed to building protective wall around them or outright stealing them.

This cross-cultural, cross-generational, boundary-less sort of exchange can only continue in STA7CK’s view, since he believes that the well of talent here is almost bottomless: “The more I play, the more like-minded dope, young New Yorkers I meet.”