Climate change: Current Warming 'Unparalleled' In 2,000 Years

The speed and extent of current global warming exceeds any similar event in the past 2,000 years, researchers say.

They show that famous historic events like the "Little Ice Age" don't compare with the scale of warming seen over the last century.

The research suggests that the current warming rate is higher than any observed previously.

The scientists say it shows many of the arguments used by climate sceptics are no longer valid.

When scientists have surveyed the climatic history of our world over the past centuries a number of key eras have stood out.

These ranged from the "Roman Warm Period", which ran from AD 250 to AD 400, and saw unusually warm weather across Europe, to the famed Little Ice Age, which saw temperatures drop for centuries from the 1300s.

- BBC

Maxim Dadashev Dies After Boxing Injuries

Russian boxer Maxim Dadashev has died at the age of 28 following injuries suffered in his IBF light-welterweight fight against Subriel Matias.

Dadashev was reportedly unable to walk to the dressing room after his bout was stopped by trainer Buddy McGirt at the end of the 11th round on Friday.

He was hospitalised with bleeding on the brain and underwent emergency surgery but failed to recover.

The Russian Boxing Federation says it has opened an investigation.

Secretary general Umar Kremlev suggested there was "some kind of violation", adding in a statement: "We lost Maxim Dadashev. He was our young prospect.

"We will fully support his family, including financially. We will complete the investigation into the circumstances surrounding this fight, we need to know the truth about what happened.

"This happens in any sport. I think some human factors intervened, there was some kind of violation."

USA-based Dadashev had won all of his previous 13 fights but had to absorb a barrage of punches from Puerto Rican Matias during the course of the fight in Maryland.

McGirt had said afterwards he "could not convince" his fighter to stop, but opted to throw in the towel when he saw him "getting hit with more and more clean shots as the fight went on".

The Russian Boxing Federation said that after the fight, Dadashev's condition worsened and doctors diagnosed a cerebral edema and a "difficult" surgery took place, but his heart stopped on Tuesday.

- BBC

BRITISH ARTISTS : ''AGAINST OIL MONEY''

ACCEPTING money from arms companies has long been unthinkable for most arts organisations in Europe. This year, taking money from the Sackler family, which has been linked to the opioid crisis, became taboo for many of them, too.

Now, artists and activists say oil and gas money should be added to that list.

One Friday, some weeks ago, 78 British artists including Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor and Sarah Lucas said they had called on the National Portrait Gallery in London to cut ties with BP saying its, ''role in furthering the climate crisis'' made accepting new sponsorship from the company unacceptable.

''We believe that, today, the loss of BP as a source of funding is a cost worth bearing,'' the artists said in an open letter to the museum.

BP acknowledges that climate change is a significant problem but is investing only 3 percent of its available capital in renewable energy, the letter said. This was a ''glaring contradiction'' between words and actions,'' the letter added.

BP's sponsorship of the museum's annual Portrait Award was ''lending credence to the company's misleading assurance that that it's doing all it can,'' the artist said.

The letter is only the latest protest in recent weeks against British art institutions that receive sponsorship from oil companies.

At the end of June, Mark Rylance, the Academy Award and Tony-winning actor, resigned from an  honorary position at the Royal Shakespeare Company because it accepted money from BP to subsidize tickets for young people.

''I do not wish to be associated with BP anymore than I would with an arms dealers,'' Mr. Rylance wrote in his resignation letter.

''Nor, I believe, would William  Shakespeare,'' he added. Mr. Rylance said in a telephone interview that he would not consider acting with the company until the sponsorship deal with BP was dropped.

The Royal Opera House in London has also faced calls to end BP's sponsorship of outdoor opera and ballet screenings.

Last week Extinction Rebellion, the climate change protest group, staged a small..... ''die-in'' outside the opera house, lying down on the sidewalk outside.

The audience who used its main entrance had to step over protesters to get into the night's performance of ''Carmen''.

The honor and serving of ''climate protests'', the world over, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Alex Marshall.

PODCASTING SESSIONS MOTHERHOOD

THERE ARE voyeuristic consolations to listening to mothers share their experience with a therapist.

Alexandra Sacks podcast, ''Motherhood Sessions'' debuted in April. It's constantly riveting, and I think it tells us something about media as well as about motherhood.

One recent report said that 90 million people have listened to a podcast in the last month, and I suspect one reason for this boom is that podcasts don't let themselves to social media's hostile scrutiny quite as easily as the written word does.

It usually takes more time to hate-listen to podcasts than to hate-read articles, and they're not easy to search, screen-shot or comment on. That let's people on podcasts be a little looser and more vulnerable.

And speaking honestly about the harder parts of parenthood - especially when you already feel culturally embattled - requires willingness to be vulnerable.

In a TED Talk last year, Sacks described how she 's heard again and again from women who think they're suffering from pastpartum depression because find the strain of caring for a newborn challenging, but who son't meet the clinical criteria.

She sought to popularize a term, "matrescence,'' for the hormone addled transitions of pregnancy and parenthood.

''Motherhood Sessions,'' which is produced by the podcasting company Gimlet Media, is in many ways a show about the the drama of matrescence. It's focus is the mother's experience, said Sacks : ''Not how to care for a child, how to care for a woman.'' It's that emphasis, she said, that make her podcasts a feminist project

In theory, the internet should have opened up a new world of candid conversation about parenthood, and in some ways it did, particularly in the aughts, when bloggers like Heather Armstrong of Dooce fame exposing the awkward and ugly parts of family life.

But the rise of social media mean that anyone who writes online about any aspect of maternal ambivalence risks a barrage of trolling or sneering condescension.

The honor and serving of the latest operational research on Podcasting and Motherhood continues. The World Students Society thanks author and researcher Michelle Goldberg.

IRISH NUN RECEIVES BENEDICT MEDAL

PAKISTAN/Karachi : Sister John Benchmans Conway, an Irish Nun who had spent most of her life teaching in Pakistan, will be decorated with the Benedict Medal by the St Mary's University, London, during a ceremony at the Westminster Cathedral.

The Benedict Medal is the highest honor of St Mary's University and it will be presented to Sr Benchmans by the Archbishop Westminster and Chancellor of St Mary's Cardinal Vincent Nicholas during the St Mary's summer graduation ceremony.

In 2012 while she was the principal of the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi, Sr. Benchmans was awarded the  Sitara-i-Quaid-i-Azam, one of the highest civil awards given by the president of Pakistan.

The award citation celebrated her ''constant adherence to the call of duty over a span of 59 years, which has made Sister Benchmans a living example to emulate.''

During her teaching career, Sr Benchmans taught and inspired thousands of students, among whom also happens  to be the late former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the renowned MIT astrophysicist Nergis Mavalvala who made significant contributions to the 2017  Nobel Prize for Physics winning research which resulted in the first observation of  gravitational waves.

Sr. Benchmans will become the fifth recipient, and the first woman, to be presented with the with the  Benedict Medal.

Speaking of the award Bishop Richard Moth, St Mary's Governing Body chair said :

''Sr Berchmans' dedication and commitment to the thousands of students she has taught is an inspiration to anyone committed to the vocation of teaching.

We are honored that we will be able to present her with the Benedict Medal during our Institute of Education's graduation ceremony.''

Former British Minister and a visiting professor at St Mary's University Baroness Sayeeda Warsi added :

''Sr Benchmans has given her wholehearted commitment to teaching. She has inspired generations of students who have gone to make significant contributions to society across a wide range of sectors.

''I had the privilege of visiting Sr Benchmans in Karachi and I saw her work and presence has created a lifetime of inter-faith understanding.''

Headline July 26, 2019/ '' 'LARKS-LIGHT -THE WORLD'S- LIGHT-HOUSE' ''

'' 'LARKS-LIGHT -THE WORLD'S- 

LIGHT-HOUSE' ''

THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY - the exclusive, eternal ownership of every student in the world, stops and rises to pay respects to its:

! First Honorary President, Ms Sajida Sultan Abbasi. !

This very brave Lady, and mother of a very unique class and distinction, has the singular honor of having four, yes, 4 of her very talented and smashingly good looking children, as the Founding  Members of The World Students Society :

Merium, Rabo, Haider and Aqsa.

The World Students Society gives her and the family a standing ovation. And prays for a happy and a contented future for all of them.

Incontinuation, say, in the Developing and Rising world of Proud Pakistan, around 100 million adults lack access to financial services. How many of them use mobile internet and social media apps and grasp the concept of cryptocurrency?

It is very, very difficult to imagine how Libra is going to be accessible for this excluded population.

Proud Pakistan : Women fare worse in access than men. According to GSMA, 327 million fewer women use mobile internet in low and middle-income countries.

Women in Pakistan are 45 percent less likely than men to own a mobile phone and 63 percent less likely use mobile internet.

Social norms are a significant barrier to women's access to smartphones, mobile internet and social media apps.

Inability to read and write and  low digital literacy also prevent women [and men] from using mobile phones for much beyond phone calls.

It is unlikely that there will be significant uptake of cryptocurrency - an obscure concept - amongst this population, many of whom are neither digitally ready nor financially literate. 

Another big barrier is mistrust of banks. According to Gallup, over a third of adults in Pakistan do not trust financial institutions.

Would they be more likely to trust Facebook - a company with a poor data privacy record and dozens scandals and lawsuits under its belt.

Finally, physical distance from the banks is a significant cause of financial exclusion. Branchless banking providers have made great progress with over 400,000 branches banking agents across Pakistan.

There is no reason to believe Libra would have greater reach and more success with this model than traditional mobile phone providers.

As of  now, Libra seems only to be catering to the tech-savvy people with bank accounts, who can buy the currency online.

Financial inclusion aside, could Libra be a boon for cryptocurrencies? An association of big corporations proposing a stable currency could bring the legitimacy this technology needs.

But here, too, Libra falls short. For purists, Libra betrays the spirit of cryptocurrency as it is not [yet]  decentralised.

Nakamoto's rationale in creating Bitcoin was to give power back to the people and remove their dependence on third parties.

With Libra, rather than trusting traditional financial institutions, we would now be asked to trust an elite group of corporations led  Mark Zuckerberg, a 'tech bro' notorious for breaching our trust.

From silver coins, to gold standard, to fiat currency, cryptocurrency may well be next step in the evolution of money.

Change is required in a financial system that does not work for the majority., but Libra is not the answer. Given how many of our daily interactions, Facebook already surveils, misuses and monetises, Libra poses a great threat.

If there is widespread adoption of Libra among Facebook's 2 billion users, it could make Facebook -and Zuckerberg - more powerful than any government or multilateral institution.

With respectful dedication to all Leaders, Grandparents, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers, and then, All Generations To Follow.

See Ya all on Facebook and prepare to register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter !E-WOW!, the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Libra & Larks '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless