Daily Archives: March 29, 2022

To start a Kirby and the Forgotten Landreview, it is crucial to acknowledge that Kirby games have never truly been in full 3D before. Outside of Kirbys Air Ride (a racing game) for the Gamecube and a party game on 3DS, the pink boys adventures have been 2D or 2.5D.

There has never been a basis to judge a Kirby game in three dimensions before and for good reason. His games have always been aimed for kids who are just getting to grips with 2D gameplay. Kirbys abilities reflected this with his floating which helped young gamers overcome platforming challenges.

The copy abilities didnt appear until his second game. How could HAL Labs translate the core pillars of Kirby into the third dimension? Find out in Kirby and the Forgotten Land review!

Kirby and the Forgotten LandDeveloper: HAL LabsPublisher: NintendoPlatforms: Nintendo SwitchRelease Date: March 25, 2022Players: 1-2Price: $59.99 USD

Nintendo has been on an open-world streak with the likes of Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild embracing vast sandboxes and nonlinear progression. It would have been easy to assumed that Kirby and the Forgotten Landwould follow suit when the first trailers revealed a vast, Earth-like post apocalyptic city.

Players are not getting an open-world Kirby game with Kirby and the Forgotten Land, but are actually getting something closer to Super Mario 3D World but with some Kirby flair to make it unique. Kirby and the Forgotten Landis level based, but unlike 3D World, players are exploring locations instead of dashing towards a goal line.

Each stage is handcrafted with unique assets and stuffed with scenic vistas and secret crannies that hold some esoteric collectible. You are not going to find levels made up of cubes and simple geometry where they feel like they were designed in an editor with limited resourced. There is nothing generic in Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

Much like any entry in this franchise, Kirby is more concerned with eating than getting involved with any drama. While on a stroll, while day dreaming about stuffing his face, pentagram shaped tears plunge Kirby and his entire world into some other plane of existence.

Upon emerging from the chaos, Kirby finds himself and all the denizens of Dreamland in a place that resembles Earth. The only thing for a insatiable puff ball to do is to save the captured Waddle Dees and help them set up a new home in this strange new land and hopefully enjoy some snacks along the way.

The Kirby games are no stranger to slipping in cosmic terror into the subtext of the scenarios. The Shiver Star stage in Kirby 64 was implied to be a post-human Earth during a new ice age. Kirby and the Forgotten Land continues this tradition by openly showing a very specific depiction of our world devoid of humanity that was possibly caused by ourselves.

Through out the visual design of the game there are constant reminders of humanitys extinction. Despite the upbeat tone and happy-go-lucky ambiance that permeate Kirby and the Forgotten Lands tone, there is no ignoring the delusion that something terrible has gone wrong.

The derelict amusement parks and resorts overtaken by growth carry a somberness that one would expect from a NieR title, not Nintendo. The barren English style metropolis is completely covered in snow, snuffing out any life that once was.

A kid playing Kirby and the Forgotten Landmight have most of these details wash over them and maybe some details might plant some seeds in the back of their minds. Adults who play this game will notice and the game will take on a different feeling than it would on a child who experiences this platformer.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land beautifully realizes a doomed world. The level of fidelity on display staggers with its incredibly dense scenery and color. Sometimes it resembles a 2010s era CGI movie during gameplay with the high range of stretching and squashing animation.

Materials and particle effects are very convincing and have a tangibility to them. Surfaces glisten when wet and Kirby can kick up a cartoony dust cloud that looks like cotton and it diffuses against light. There is no doubt that Kirby and the Forgotten Landis an appealing looking game, but it does come at a cost.

For all the visual panache that the boys at HAL Lab poured into the graphics, the Switchs specs just cant do it all and get the frame rate at 60FPS. While the game is locked at 30 and is perfectly playable, it is disappointing after experiencing Bowsers Fury and Yoshis Crafted World.

Kirby and the Forgotten Landgameplay is a linear 3D platformer with a fixed camera angle. As per usual, base Kirby is limited to running, jumping, sliding and his signature ability to inhale air and float like a balloon. In 2D, Kirby was able to fly through most stages by floating, but in 3D, HAL Lab scientists had to nerf this.

Floating is more akin to a means to save yourself from a bad jump. Kirby also has a hard limit to how long he can stay afloat now, yet it is still a generous amount of air-time. There is also a fixed height Kirby can maintain; he is not able to go as high as he can hold his breath.

This is a compromise that ultimately makes for a better experience in 3D. Platformers can be challenging and this middle ground offers enough leeway for kids to overcome most of the game but also has plenty of moments where the designers take the core gameplay to its absolute limit and much of it can be seen in the bonus levels or secret areas.

Kirbys copy abilities are back and while many could not be translated into 3D like the beam ability, almost everything is here and with upgrades. The fire breath ability now is also the fireball and when fully upgraded becomes that dragon form where Kirby gains a glide attack. Even the basic sword has Devil May Cry-like combos and juggling potential when fully upgraded.

The real head-liner of Kirby and the Forgotten Landis the mouthful mode, where the hero deep-throats a large human-made machine and uses it in some creative way. The wheel ability has been replaced by the Kirby-car and while it cant be taken in al stages, the few times it gets used, the game maximizes its potential in races and high speed platform challenges.

Truly, what makes Kirby and the Forgotten Landsuch a joy to play is its ingenious level design. The sheer variety of locations and gimmicks keeps the game feeling fresh and exciting all the way through to the end. Finding Waddle Dees to restore the town is rewarding and gaining access to more mini-games makes the overall experience feel like it has more value.

From fishing to serving Waddle Dees their lunch or partaking in some mortal combat at the arena, Kirby and the Forgotten Landoffers plenty of distractions. These adorable diversions are a great way to earn some extra coin in order for Kirby to try his luck at the gumball machine to get more figures.

Late into the game, the currency is handy for completionists to always have a means to dump money into something. Why? Because who doesnt want to see Kirby happily open a egg toy to find a bottlecap figure for his collection?

Even with its bleak undertones, Kirby and the Forgotten Landis an exceptional platformer that is wholesome and unbelievably polished. The local co-op feature is merely icing on the cake to further sweeten this all-you-can-eat desert buffet. It is highly replayable and varied with Kirbys copy abilities that change the gameplay in a profound way.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a copy provided by Nintendo. You can find additional information about Niche Gamers review/ethics policy here. Kirby and the Forgotten Landis now available for Nintendo Switch.

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Kirby and the Forgotten Land Review - Niche Gamer

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'The big question is what is happening in our body'

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Scientists have detected traces of micro plastics in human blood for the first time. Nearly 8 in 10 participants in a Dutch study were found to have plastic particles flowing through their bloodstream.

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The big question is what is happening in our body? asked professor Dick Vethaak, an ecotoxicologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in an interview with The Guardian. Are the particles retained in the body? Are they transported to certain organs, such as getting past the blood-brain barrier? And are these levels sufficiently high to trigger disease? We urgently need to fund further research so we can find out.

The effect this could have on organs is still unclear, but micro plastics have shown to harm red blood cells in lab studies.

Microplastics, tiny plastic particles less than 5mm, can be absorbed via food, water and the air. They have polluted much of the planet, from contaminating oceans and fresh snow to permeating plant roots and are present in the bodies of infants and placentas of pregnant women.

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Plastic particles are spewed by industrial runoff and from plastic products such bags, packaging and water bottles. They are also found in car tires and road markers as well as coffee cups and plastic face masks, and given off by clothing.

Previous studies have detected microplastic particles in human cells, where they were found to cause cell death, allergic reactions and harm cell walls.

The latest study found microplastic in the blood samples of 17 of the 22 adults tested. The blood contained multiple sources of plastic, with half of those tested carrying the PET plastics, a clear plastic used to make household products and water bottles. The second most widely found plastic was polystyrene (36 per cent), which is commonly known as styrofoam, followed by polyethylene (23 per cent), used for clear food wraps and plastic bags.

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The study adapted existing methods to detect micro plastics greater than 0.0007mm. Researchers collected samples using steel needles and glass tubes to avoid contamination and tested blank samples to determine background presence of micro plastics. The research was funded by Dutch National Organisation for Health Research and Development and the policy group Common Seas, which works to reduce plastic pollution.

Vethaak said more studies are underway to replicate and expand on the findings. He said the different concentrations in the sample could be explained by how soon after exposure the blood samples were taken, for example how recently a subject drank from a plastic coffee cup.

Avoiding micro particles could be a matter of avoiding a reliance on plastic bags and containersand cracking open a window. Research shows micro plastics remain suspended indoors depending on the airflow and are more concentrated in tighter living spaces.

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'They told me they were being molested,' says the mother, who let the 14-year-old and 16-year-old stay at her home

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Two teenaged girls, 14 and 16, have been arrested in Milwaukee, Wisconsin after they allegedly told a mother they were victims of human trafficking and then later abducted her baby.

The babys mother, Schatina Cureton, said the girls approached her at a store saying they needed help, Fox6 reported.

They told me they were being molested and that they were being human trafficked, and their mom was making them do things with her boyfriend, she told WISN 12 News.

She allowed them to stay at her place on Tuesday evening.

Cureton fell asleep. When she woke up, the girls were gone and her three-month-old son, Anthony L. Crudup Jr., was missing. Around 2 a.m., she called police. An Amber Alert was issued by 7:15 a.m. on Wednesday.

On Wednesday afternoon, following a lead, investigators found the baby unharmed in a Milwaukee home.

Two girls were arrested in connection with the Amber Alert. They are being held in juvenile detention.

Three men from the same home were arrested, although those charges were unrelated. The identities of the girls are protected because they are minors.

Although a motive was not made clear, a source told WISN 12 News that the 16-year-old girl thought her claims of sexual abuse would be taken seriously if she showed up with a baby.

It was just crazy. Why would you take my baby while I was sleeping? Cureton told Fox6. They couldve took my cellphone, they couldve took the games, the computer tablets anything but yall took my baby, like why?

Police have not confirmed a motive. Cureton said the teens should be held accountable.

I am so tired. I was just going crazy wondering I was just so worried about my baby, she told WISN 12 News. I didnt know what happened to him and what they did with him.

The charges of the teens are being referred to the Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office.

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Teen girls accused of abducting baby told mother they were human trafficking victims - National Post

The U.S. justifies wars of aggression in the name of human rights. The term has no meaning domestically either, as the people's needs are subordinated to those of the ruling class.

By Ajamu Baraka / Black Agenda Report

Images of burnt flesh from napalm bombs, wounded and dead soldiers, scenes of U.S. soldiers burning the simple huts of Vietnamese villages, eventually turned the public against the war in Vietnam and produced the dreaded affliction, from the ruling class point of view, known as the Vietnam syndrome. This collective Post Traumatic Stress Disorder made it impossible for the public to support any foreign military involvement for years.

It took the rulers almost three decades to finally cure the public of this affliction. But the rulers were careful.

The brutal reality of what the U.S. was doing in Afghanistan and Iraq was whitewashed. That is why the images now being brought to the public by the corporate media are so shocking. It has been more than two generations since the U.S. public was exposed to the horrific images of war.

In the 1960s the rulers inadvertently allowed themselves to be undermined by the new television technology that brought the awful reality of imperialist war into the homes of the public. Now, the ruling class operating through its corporate media propaganda arms has been effectively using Ukraine war propaganda, not to increase Anti-war sentiment but to stimulate support for more war!

Incredibly also, the propagandists are pushing a line that essentially says that in the name of freedom and supporting Ukraine, the U.S. public should shoulder the sacrifice of higher fuel and food prices. This is on top of the inflation that workers and consumers were already being subjected to coming out of the capitalist covid scandal that devastated millions of workers and the lower stratums of the petit bourgeoisie.

But the war, and now the unfair shouldering of all of the costs of the capitalist crisis of 2008 2009, and the impact of covid by the working classes in the U.S., amounts to a capitalist tax. It is levied by the oligarchy on workers to subsidize the defense of the interests of big capital and the conditions that have produced obscene profits, even in the midst of the covid crisis and now, the Ukraine war.

These policies are criminal. While the U.S. continues to pretend that it champions human rights around the world, the failure of the state to protect the fundamental human rights of the citizens and residents in the U.S. is obvious to all, but spoken about by the few, except theChinese government.

For those who might think that the Chinese criticism of the U.S. is only being driven by politics, and it might be, just a cursory, objective examination of the U.S. state policies over just the last few years reveals a shocking record of systematic human rights abuses that promise to become even more acute as a consequence of themanufacturedU.S./NATO war in Ukraine.

The Ongoing Human Rights Crisis

The U.S. working class, and Black working class in particular, never recovered from the economic crisis of 2008 before it was once again ravaged in 2020 with the global capitalist crisis exacerbated by covid. On the heels of those two shocks, today millions of workers are experiencing a permanent state of precarity with evictions, the continued loss of medical coverage, unaffordable housing and food costs, and a capitalist-initiated inflation. The rulers are operating under the belief that with the daily bombardment of war images, U.S. workers and the poor will embrace rising costs of gas and even more increases in the cost of food.

Doesnt the state have any responsibility to ensure that the economic human rights of the people are fulfilled? No, because liberal human rights practice separates fundamental human rights such as the right to health, food, housing, education, a means to subsist at an acceptable level of material culture, leisure, and life-long social security from democratic discourse on what constitutes the human rights responsibility of the state and the interests it must uphold in order to be legitimate.

The non-recognition of the indivisibility of human rights that values economic human rights to an equal level as civil and political rights, exposed the moral and political contradictions of the liberal human rights framework. The massive economic displacements with hunger, unemployment, and unnecessary deaths among the population in the United States, with a disproportionate rate of sickness and hospitalization among non-white workers and the poor in the U.S., were never condemned as violations of human rights.

War and Economic Deprivation the Systemic Contradictions of the Western colonial/capitalist Project.

The war being waged against global humanity by the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination is a hybrid war that utilizes all the tools it has at its disposal sanctions, mass incarceration, coups, drugs, disinformation, culture, subversion, murder, and direct military engagement to further white power. The Eurocentrism and White Lives Matters More Movement represented by the coverage of the war in Ukraine stripped away any pretense to the supposed liberal commitment to global humanity. The white-washing of the danger of the ultra-right and neo-Nazi elements in the Ukrainian military and state and the white ethno-nationalism that the conflict generated across the Western world demonstrated, once again, how racialism and the commitment to the fiction of white supremacy continues to trump class and class struggle and the ability to build a multi-national, class based anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist opposition in the North.

It is primarily workers from Russia, the Donbas and Ukraine who are dying. But as in the run-up to the first imperialist war in Europe, known as World War One, workers with the encouragement of their national bourgeoisies, are lining up behind their rulers to support the capitalist redivision taking place, a redivision that can only be completed by war as long as capitalism and capitalist competition continues. Yet, instead of progressives and radicals joining forces to resist the mobilization to war, they are finding creative ways to align themselves with the interests of their ruling classes in support of the colonial/capitalist project.

In the meantime, the people of Afghanistan are starving, with thousands of babies now dying of malnutrition because the U.S. stole their nations assets. Estimates suggest that unlessreversed, morepeople there will die from U.S./EU imposed sanctions than died during the twenty year long war. And the impact of the war in Ukraine with the loss of wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia resulting not only in rising food prices globally but in some places likeEast Africa, resulting in death from famine.

In the U.S. where we witness the most abysmal record of covid failure on the planet, the virus will continue to ravage the population, with a disproportionate number who get sick and die being the poorest and those furthest from whiteness.

The lackeys of capital playing the role of democratic representatives claim that there is no money to bring a modicum of relief to workers represented in the mildly reformist package known as Build Back Better. Yet, the Brown University Costs of War Project estimates that the wars waged by the United States in this century have cost$8 trillionand counting, with another $8 trillionthat will be spent over the next ten years on the military budget if costs remain constant from the $778 billion just allocated.

No rational human being desires war and conflict. The horrors of war that the public are finally being exposed to because it was brought to Europe again, the most violent continent on the planet, should call into question all of the brutal and unjustified wars that the U.S. and its flunkey allies waged throughout the global South over the last seventy years. Unfortunately, because of the hierarchy of the value of human beings, the images of war in Ukraine are not translating into a rejection of war, but instead a rejection of war in Europe and on white Europeans.

This means that the wars will continue and we must fight, often alone, because as Bob Marley said in his song War:

Until the philosophy

Which hold one race superior and another

Inferior

Is finally

And permanently

Discredited

And abandoned

Everywhere is war

Me say war

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S. based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the steering committee of the Black is Back Coalition.

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Ukraine: War and the Challenge of Human Rights in the U.S. and Beyond - Scheerpost.com

Global human rights in 2021: profit and power over people

Wealthy states colluded with corporate giants in 2021 to dupe people with empty slogans and false promises of a fair recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, in what amounts to one of the greatest betrayals of our times, said Amnesty International today, as it launched its annual assessment of human rights around the world.

Amnesty International Report 2021/22: The State of the World's Human Rights finds that these states, alongside corporate titans, have in fact driven deeper global inequality. It details root causes including noxious corporate greed and brutal national selfishness, as well as neglect of health and public infrastructure by governments around the world.

"2021 should have been a year of healing and recuperation.Instead, it became an incubator for deeper inequality and greater instability, a legacy caustic for years to come,"said Agns Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

"Leader after leader dangled promises to 'build back better' to address deep-seated inequalities that exacerbated the impact of the pandemic. Instead, they have performed a tragic fable of betrayal and greed in cahoots with corporate titans. Whilst this has played out around the world, the effects have been most damaging to the most marginalized communities, including those on the front lines of endemic poverty."

The rapid roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines appeared to be a scientific silver bullet, offering hope of an end to the pandemic for all.

However, despite enough production to fully vaccinate the world in 2021, by year's end less than 4% of those living in low-income countries had been fully vaccinated.

"At the G7, G20 and COP26 summits, grandstanding on a global stage, political and economic leaders paid lip service to policies that could generate a sea change in vaccine access, reverse under-investment in social protection, and tackle the impact of climate change. Heads of Big Pharma and Big Tech spun us lines about corporate responsibility. At this watershed movement, the stage was set for recovery, and genuine meaningful change for a more equal world," said Agns Callamard.

"However, they squandered the opportunity, reverting to type with policies and practice that drove further inequality. Members of the Rich Boys Club offered promises publicly that they reneged on privately."

Wealthy states such as EU member states, the UK and the USA stockpiled more doses than needed, whilst turning a blind eye as Big Pharma put profits ahead of people, refusing to share their technology to enable wider distribution of vaccines. In 2021, Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna projected eye-watering profits of up to US$54 billion yet supplied less than 2% of their vaccines to low-income countries.

Big Pharma were not the only corporate giants to undermine pandemic recovery for profit. Social media companies such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter provided fertile ground for Covid-19 misinformation, allowing vaccine hesitancy to flourish. Some political leaders also acted as super-spreaders of misinformation, breeding distrust and fear for their own political gain.

"Social media companies' allowed their lucrative algorithms to spread harmful misinformation about the pandemic, prioritizing the sensationalist and the discriminatory over truth," said Agns Callamard.

"The extent of their profiteering from that misinformation and the impact of that on the lives of millions mean those companies have a serious case to answer."

Whilst many countries in the Global South reaped the consequences of collusion between corporate giants and western governments, devastation was compounded by health systems and economic and social support crumbling under the weight of decades of neglect. Nowhere was this felt more clearly and cruelly than in Africa, which is why Amnesty International launches its report today from South Africa.

With less than 8% of the continent's population fully vaccinated by the end of 2021, it holds the lowest vaccination rate in the world, beleaguered by insufficient supplies provided to the COVAX facility, the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Trust and through bilateral donations. Populations have been left exposed as roll-out campaigns have faltered or failed in countries with already inadequate healthcare systems.

In South Africa, approximately 750,000 children had dropped out of school by May, over three times the pre-pandemic number. In Viet Nam women migrant workers were particularly impacted, reporting food insecurity and inability to meet other basic needs. In Venezuela, the pandemic worsened a pre-existing humanitarian emergency: 94.5% of the population was living in income poverty and 76.6% in extreme poverty.

"In many countries around the world, already marginalized people paid the highest cost for the deliberate policy choices of a privileged few. The right to health and to life were violated on a massive scale, millions were left struggling to make ends meet, many were made homeless, children were left out of education, poverty rose," said Agns Callamard.

"The global failure to build a global response to the pandemic also sowed the seeds of greater conflict and greater injustice. Rising poverty, food insecurity, and government instrumentalization of the pandemic to repress dissent and protests -- all were well planted in 2021, watered by vaccine nationalism and fertilized by greed of the richer countries."

In 2021, new and unresolved conflicts erupted or persisted in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Libya, Myanmar and Yemen, with warring parties violating international human rights and humanitarian law. In their wake, civilians were made collateral damage, millions were displaced, thousands killed, hundreds subjected to sexual violence, and already fragile healthcare and economic systems were brought to the brink.

The global failure to address these multiplying conflicts provoked greater instability and devastation. The ineffectiveness of international response to these crises was most evident with the paralysis at the UN Security Council. It failed to act on atrocities in Myanmar, human rights violations in Afghanistan, war crimes in Syria. This shameful inaction, continued paralysis of multilateral bodies and lack of accountability of powerful states helped pave the way for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which has flagrantly violated international law.

"In far too few instances did the needed international response come; in far too few cases were justice and accountability provided. Instead, conflict expanded. Extending over time, its impacts worsened. The numbers and diversity of intervening parties rose. New theatres of conflict opened. New weapons were tested. More deaths and injury were exacted. Life was cheapened. Global stability was brought to the brink," said Agns Callamard.

Global trends to stifle independent and critical voices gathered steam in 2021 as governments deployed a widening gamut of tools and tactics. Human rights defenders, NGOs, media outlets and opposition leaders were the targets of unlawful detention, torture and enforced disappearance, many under the smokescreen of the pandemic.

At least 67 countries introduced new laws in 2021 to restrict freedom of expression, association or assembly. In the USA, at least 36 states introduced more than 80 pieces of draft legislation limiting freedom of assembly, whilst the UK government proposed the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which would drastically curtail the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, including by expanding police powers.

Surreptitious digital technologies were further weaponized. In Russia, the government turned to facial recognition to undertake mass arrests of peaceful protesters. In China, the authorities ordered internet service providers to sever access to websites that "endangered national security", and blocked apps on which controversial topics such as Xinjiang and Hong Kong were discussed. In Cuba, Eswatini, Iran, Myanmar, Niger, Senegal, South Sudan and Sudan, authorities resorted to internet shutdowns and disruptions to prevent people from sharing information about repression and organizing in response.

"Instead of providing room for discussion and debate so sorely needed on how best to meet the challenges of 2021, many states redoubled efforts to muzzle critical voices," said Agns Callamard.

If in 2021 those in power lacked the ambition and imagination to tackle one of the gravest threats to humanity, the same cannot be said for the people they should have represented.

Protesters took to the streets in Colombia after the government decided to raise taxes even as people were struggling to feed their families during the pandemic. In Russia, opposition rallies went ahead in the face of mass arbitrary arrests and prosecutions. Indian farmersprotested new lawsthat they said would hurt their livelihood.

Youth and Indigenous activists around the world called out leaders for their failure to act on the climate crisis. Civil society organizations, including Amnesty International, successfully lobbied for the recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Innovative strategic litigation cases and criminal complaints were filed by NGOs against multinational companies including Nike, Patagonia and C&A for their complicity in forced labour in the Xinjiang region of China.

In a great example of cooperation, the Pegasus Project -- a collaboration of more than 80 journalists, with technical support from Amnesty International -- revealed that the spyware of Israel's NSO Group had been used against heads of state, activists and journalists in Azerbaijan, Hungary, Morocco, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia.

"Despite promises and pledges to the contrary, at almost every turn, leaders and corporations opted for a non-transformative path, choosing to entrench rather than overturn the systemic inequalities behind the pandemic. Yet, people the world over have made it abundantly clear that a more just world, grounded in human rights, is what they want," said Agns Callamard.

"The palpable and persistent resistance offered by people's movements the world over is a beacon of hope. Uncowed and undaunted, theirs is a clarion call for a more equal world. If governments won't build back better -- if they seemingly are intent on building back broken -- then we are left with little option. We must fight their every attempt to muzzle our voices and we must stand up to their every betrayal. It is why, in the coming weeks, we are launching a global campaign of solidarity with people's movements, a campaign demanding respect for the right to protest. We must build and harness global solidarity, even if our leaders won't."

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Amnesty International Report 2021/22: The state of the world's human rights [EN/AR] - World - ReliefWeb

The 1985 publication of Whitney Chadwicks Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement radically upended art historians understanding of surrealism. Though women had been part of the Surrealist entourage since its inception and were included in a number of exhibitions, their role tended to be circumscribed. The movements male founders regarded women as natural embodiments of the irrationality that they themselves laboriously strived to cultivate. Idolized as muses, women were sidelined as creators both by the male surrealists and by subsequent art historians. Chadwicks book changed all that by drawing attention to a raft of fascinating women associated with the Surrealist movement who are now recognized as remarkable innovators in their own right.

One of these in particular, Leonora Carrington, is having a moment now. Included in the Metropolitan Museums recent Surrealism Beyond Bordersitself a piece of ground-breaking revisionismshe has for some time been the subject of an academic cottage industry. Now Carrington has inspired both the name and the theme for the upcoming Venice Biennale. Director Cecilia Alemani has titled her edition The Milk of Dreams after a truly bizarre illustrated childrens book by Carrington featuring such anomalies as a sofa that swallows vitamins and grows legs and a boy whose head becomes a house.

From this and from Carringtons prodigious output of paintings, stories, plays, and novels, Alemani has distilled three concepts that will guide the Biennale: the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses; the relationship between individuals and technologies; the connection between bodies and the Earth. In other words, very current preoccupations with fluid identities, cyborgs and cybernetics, and ecology.

Cover of Leonora Carringtons Leche Del Sueo (The Milk of Dreams) (Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 2013).

Who was Carrington? Her work brims with dream symbolism, metamorphoses, mythical creatures, ritualistic acts, people morphing into animals, and animals morphing into people. Her egg tempera paintings are the offspring of Bosch and Brueghel by way of Celtic mythology, while her novels and stories evoke Kafka, Buuel, and Poe. A justly famous early painting, Self Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse) (1938), hints at her continuing appeal. It presents the artist as a wild creature, outfitted in riding breeches and framed by a mass of unruly black hair. She perches tensely on the edge of an upholstered chair alongside a lactating wild hyena. Both look to the viewer with expressions of wary intelligence. Hanging on the wall behind is a giant rocking horse whose posture mimics that of the white horse running free outside an open window.

This painting is a declaration of independence by a young woman who was raised to be a pampered society wife. Carrington was born in 1917 into a wealthy upper class British family. Her childhood home, Crookhey Hall, appears from photographs to be the kind of forbidding drafty manor that would work perfectly as the setting for a Gothic horror story. Carrington was expected by her textile tycoon father to marry well, but the rebellious young woman kept being expelled from Catholic boarding schools. She submitted reluctantly to being presented to the court of Edward V, but insisted on sitting on the sidelines reading a book. She later dramatized her resistance in a story titled The Debutante. The title character escapes her debutante ball by trading places with a ravenous hyena who passes for human by donning the face of the maid whom the animal has just eaten.

Carringtons parents reluctantly allowed her to study art in London where she met the much older Surrealist artist Max Ernst. He became her ticket to what would prove a hard won freedom. The two artists shared a rich creative life together, first in Paris and then in southern France where they fled to escape his angry wife. Though demanding and paternal, Ernst encouraged Carringtons interest in the occult and introduced her to a world of surrealist thinking and artists.

Leonora Carringtons in Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde at the Barbican Art Gallery. (Photo by John Phillips/Getty Images for Barbican Art Gallery)

One has a sense of the imaginative worlds they shared from their portraits of each other. In Bird Superior: Portrait of Max Ernst (1939) Carrington presents her lover as a Shamanic figure in a feather coat and merman tail who carries a lantern containing a white horse. Another horse, Carringtons symbol for herself, appears behind him frozen in ice. Interpretations of this work varysome critics have seen it as a cry against her formidable companions stifling presence, while others point out that Ernst resembles the Tarot character of the Hermit, seeker after wisdom. The frigid atmosphere of this painting contrasts sharply with Ernsts portrait of Carrington, Leonora in the Morning Light (1940). Here the wild haired beauty and her horse avatar are entangled in a lush jungle of vines, suggesting Ernsts perception of Carrington as an unschooled child of nature, or in his words, a bride of the wind.

Their idyll came to an end when the German-born Ernst was interned as a hostile alien at the outset of the Second World War. Carrington suffered a nervous breakdown and was involuntarily committed to a Spanish asylum whose horrors continued to haunt her throughout her life. En route to another asylum in South America, she escaped through a bathroom window, married a Mexican friend with diplomatic immunity, and eventually settled in Mexico City. There she divorced, remarried and became part of an expat group of surrealist artists. She lived there, with occasional forays to New York, for seven decades. She died in 2011 at the age of 94, one of the last of the original surrealists.

A view inside British-Mexican artist Leonora Carringtons house and studio in Mexico City, on May 24, 2021. Photo: Claudio Cruz/AFP via Getty Images.

After her split from Ernst, Carringtons closest intellectual comrades were women. Leonor Fini was a stalwart supporter during the dark days when Carrington was descending into madness. Later, in Mexico City, Remedios Varo was her fellow explorer into the realms of alchemy, the occult, and the Celtic mythology that Carringtons Irish mother and nanny had instilled in her as a child. These influences can all be seen in Carringtons pivotal 1947 work The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg). This haunting painting presents a colossal figure set in a Brueghel-like landscape populated by tiny figures and marine images. The Giantesss enormous body is shrouded in a white cape from which a flock of geese escape. It is topped with a tiny innocent face surrounded by a halo of golden wheat. The title references a pair of tiny hands that emerge from the cape and delicately shelter a small egg.

Possible readings of this painting are myriad. The egg, a recurring Carrington motif, suggests at once fertility, new life, and the egg-shaped vessels in which alchemists transmuted elements. The birds are emblems of freedom and migration. The Giantess herself evokes Robert Gravess White Goddess. Carrington described this book about mythology and poetry in pre-Christian nature-based matriarchies as the greatest revelation of my life. The painting suggests a paean to female power, alchemical mutability, and the worship of nature.

Leonora Carringtons The Giantess by Leonora Carrington during the media preview May 26, 2009 at the Christies Latin American Sale in New York. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

These were themes that Carrington continued to explore throughout the rest of her long career. Critics have invoked any number of esoteric systems to decipher the mysterious iconography in her work, including Celtic mythology, astrology, tarot, Jungian archetypes, and indigenous Mexican folk traditions. But in all cases Carrington put her own spin on these symbols, infusing them with a sense of feminine magic. Her paintings and writings ground the marvelous in womens everyday life. Many works are set in kitchens, bedrooms, and gardens. For Carrington, art and cooking both represented forms of alchemical transmutation. For example, a painting from 1975 titled Grandmother Moorheads Aromatic Kitchen is anything but a simple cooking demonstration. Three hooded crones cluster around a table laden with mysterious herbs and plants in the company of a giant goose and a horned goat. Other masked figures on the periphery engage in mysterious cooking-like rituals. Giant heads of garlic scattered within a magic circle double as spices and ingredients in protective spells.

As this painting suggests, in Carringtons work, women are sorceresses who must shield their magical powers from male interference. The Hearing Trumpet, her one full-length novel, also interweaves the magical and the everyday and concludes with a post-apocalyptic feminist utopia in which the heroine is reborn by being boiled in a cauldron. She and other survivors of a nuclear holocaust then seek the Goddess who has abandoned earth, noting, If the planet is to survive with organic life she must be induced to return, so that good will and love can once more prevail in the world.

All of which suggests why Alemani finds Carrington so relevant to contemporary dilemmas. Carrington embraced her kinship with the non-human world, rejected narrowly materialist definitions of knowledge, and already in the 1970s was sounding alarms about the fragility of the planet. And while other female surrealists were uncomfortable with the feminist label, she embraced it. Carrington famously remarked, Most of us, I hope are now aware that a woman should not have to demand Rights. The Rights were there from the beginning; they must be Taken Back Again, including the mysteries which were ours and which were violated, stolen, or destroyed.

A view of the Leonora Carrington exhibition Fantastische Frauen at Kunsthalle Schirn on February 12, 2020 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.(Photo by Hans-Georg Roth/Corbis via Getty Images)

Explorations of pre-historic matriarchal societies and Goddess mythologies were rampant among feminist artists of the 1970s as they sought alternatives to patriarchal genealogies of humankind. But feminist artists from later generations quashed such ideas, deeming them essentialist and ahistorical. They worried that a focus on women as healers, herbalists, and magicians came dangerously close to confirming the long-standing western dualism that assigned women to the realm of nature and men to the realm of culture.

Outside the art world, however, interest in such alternate cosmologies found a home in some quarters of science. The Gaia Hypothesis, first articulated in 1972 by chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis, takes its name from Gaia, the Greek Goddess who personifies the earth. Lovelock and Margulis propose that we regard the earth and its inhabitants not as separate entities, but as a single self-regulating system. In their scenario, organisms co-evolve with their environment. Using Gaia as a metaphor for a world that is entangled, interconnected, and interdependent, they refuse to separate the human from non-human, organic from inorganic, and species from other species.

Theorist Donna Haraway has extended the Gaian idea to the social sphere. She denounces binary thinking in favor of what she terms a post-human reality. This she describes as a complex system in which there are no firm boundaries between humans and animals or between human and machines. Such ideas echo recent developments in biology, evolutionary theory, genetics, and cybernetics that have undermined firm demarcations between genders, species, and human and artificial forms of intelligence. With her human/animal hybrids, magician priestesses and enchanted landscapes, Carrington helps us visualize such a reality.

Carringtons son Gabriel Wiesz Carrington is the keeper of his mothers legacy and has written extensively on her life. He suggests that we might think of her works as navigational tools with which to chart different imaginative possibilities. He has said, To forget the incredible ability of mental play is to die in a world that is increasingly difficult to inhabit, where false imagination has become a disease, the kind of imagining that only exists as a commodity, a lifeless nothing that pretends to be something we need Carrington encourages us to dream, and in dreaming, perhaps, to bring a new world into being.

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Who Was Leonora Carrington? The Untold Story of the Mystical Surrealist Whose Visions Shaped the 2022 Venice Biennale - artnet News

Viewpoint by Claudia Ituarte-Lima

Dr. Claudia Ituarte-Lima is a Professor at the Stockholm University & Raoul Wallenberg Institute on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law & School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia.

The Convention on Biological Diversitys resumed sessions of the twenty-fourth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 24) is taking place in Geneva March 14-29.

VANCOUVER, Canada (IDN) We are in a critical moment for the future of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. The last meetings prior to the adoption of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF) are taking place in Geneva now.

The ongoing negotiations will specify biodiversity-related commitments for the next ten years, and influence whether women and girls rights and agency are empowered in this framework.

Time has come to include a stand-alone target on equality for women and girls in the post-2020 GDF, as proposed by the CBD Women Caucus and UN Women and championed by Costa Rica and twelve other countries in ongoing Geneva meetings.

The current draft for such Target 22 proposes Ensuring women and girls equitable access and benefits from conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, as well as their informed and effective participation at all levels of policy and decision-making related to biodiversity.

Recent achievementswhich were not in place when the negotiations for post-2020 GBF startedcan now contribute to making the proposed Target 22 a reality. A major advance is the Human Rights Councils recognition of the right to a healthy environment (HRC Resolution 48/13), following decades of efforts not only by States but also by women, youth, indigenous peoples organizations.

Another key milestone is the Escaz Agreement, which entered in force last April, and is the first treaty to explicitly recognise the rights of environmental defenders, including women and girls defending biocultural diverse ecosystems and natures contributions to people.

The UN Secretary-Generals Call to Action on Human Rights has identified gender equality and equal rights for women in public participation and civic space among key areas that require extra efforts and attention.

The rationale for selecting these areas is because opportunity exists to make significant advances in the realization of human rights, or the needs are so acute and trends so problematic that a greater effort is required.

In selecting the indicators for Target 22, I consider it will be paramount to monitor and report on the proportion of women and girls who access and benefit from mainstreaming biodiversity, including through access to information, effective public participation, and access to justice.

While being a moderator in the recently-held Dialogue Series on the Escaz Agreement, human rights and healthy ecosystems[i], it became clear that women and girls equality go beyond non-discrimination. It must include an enabling environment to spur participation and action towards a healthy biosphere, the thin layer of Earth where land, water, and air interact supporting the diversity of life.

[This Dialogue Series was convened in October 2021 by the joint Swedish Environmental Protection Agency-UNDP Environmental Governance Programme in collaboration with Stockholm University, UNDP in Latin America and the Caribbean, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights), and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI).]

Target 22 can help establish a baseline and track progress from commitments that States have already set for themselves in CBD Decisions Nos. XIII/14 and XIV/3 and the Cancn Declaration on mainstreaming the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity for well-being.

This type of target and associated indicators can also help ensure that the proposed post-2020 GBF and the post-2020 gender action plan addresses broader decision-making concerning agriculture, forestry, mining, national development plans and disaster risk reduction.

CBD parties have already committed to advance core rights and peoples agency for environmental rule of law and environmental democracy in the Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration and the Sustainable Development Goals targets 16b, 16.3, 16.6, 16.7, 16.10.

Various countries already have national legislation in access to information, public participation and access to justice, including forty eight countries that are parties of the Aarhus Convention and the twelve countries that ratified the groundbreaking Escaz Agreement.

Furthermore, all CBD countries are also parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and one hundred eighty-nine are parties of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Most States have explicit obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the equal rights of women and girls, which apply in the context of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. The time is now to make commitments on women and girls equality a reality and catalyze global and local action for a thriving Earth, leaving no one behind. [IDN-InDepthNews 25 March 2022]

Photo: In Mongolia, women herders are stepping up participation in community-based monitoring of environmental and human rights challenges brought by mining, with support from the joint Swedish Environmental Protection Agency-UNDP Environmental Governance Programme (EGP-Mining). Photo: iStock.com/Hadynyah.

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Time Has Come for Women & Girls in The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework - IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

The latest study provides an insightful analysis of the broad competitive landscape of the global Human Centric Lighting market, emphasizing the key market rivals and their company profiles.

The globalHuman Centric Lighting Marketis forecasted to be worth USD 7,641.9 Million by 2027, according to a current analysis by Emergen Research.The growing smart LED lighting adoption in the retail, commercial, and residential sectors is forecasted to propel the human-centric lighting market during the forecast period. Several companies strategy to make more of their goods human-centered, adapting to the specific needs of human sociology and psychology, is another key driver for the progress of the human-centric lighting industry. As per Accenture plc, companies need to move from a product-focused strategy towards a human-centric approach to build smart home solutions; this technique can also be applied for all other industries. Moreover, this approach can connect wirelessly and relay data and information, which can assist with incorporating IoT to minimize traffic congestions, which is anticipated to further augment the market growth during the forecast timeframe.

The study finds that how on certain account threats and challenges can act as a roadblock for the business. A thorough evaluation of the Human Centric Lighting market in the light of macro-environment such as social, political, economical as well as technological environment add granularity to the overall research. In addition, the study produces real-time data on vital aspects including sales, profits, gross margin and growth prospects to show how going forward the business will witness a substantial upswing.

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Collaborations among Companies to Increase Business Prospects in Global Market

The research report provides the reader with an in-depth interpretation of the Human Centric Lighting market dynamics, including the crucial drivers, opportunities, threats, and challenges. The report also describes the key business strategies, demand and supply ratios, leading regions, and the renowned market players, in a nutshell, offering a futuristic outlook of the overall Human Centric Lighting industry. The market intelligence report is a prototype of the 360 overview of the global Human Centric Lighting industry, shedding light on the estimated market value, share, growth trends, gross revenue, competitive overview, prominent manufacturers and buyers, available product types, and end-use applications.

List of Key Players Covered in the Report: Osram Licht AG, ES-System SA, Arcluce S.p.A., Koninklijke Philips NV, Fagerhult AB, Zumtobel AG, Glamox AS, Hubbell Inc., The Zumtobel Group, and Legrand SA among others.

Global Human Centric Lighting Market Highlights:

A wide array of strategic initiatives, such as new business deals, mergers & acquisitions, collaborations, joint ventures, technological upgradation, and recent product launches, undertaken by these companies has been discussed in the report. The report analyzes various elements of the markets competitive scenario, such as the regulatory standards and policies implemented across the industry over recent years. Our team of experts has leveraged several powerful analytical tools, such as Porters Five Forces analysis and SWOT analysis, to deliver a comprehensive overview of the global Human Centric Lighting market and pinpoint the fundamental growth trends.

Emergen Research has segmented the global Human Centric Lighting Market on the basis of type, installation, end-use, and region:

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To offer more clarity on the current business environment researchers probe into the import and export status, supply chain management, demand and supply, consumption capability and manufacturing capacity. When assessing the size of the industry special consideration is given to the value and volume of the products and services offered on a year on year basis

Key Parameters Analyzed in This Section:

Key Points Covered in This Section:

Report Highlights:

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The post Human Centric Lighting Market Top Players, Size, Emerging Trends, Share, Growth, Insights, Industry Analysis, and Forecasts Report 2027 appeared first on Market O Graphics.

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Human Centric Lighting Market Top Players, Size, Emerging Trends, Share, Growth, Insights, Industry Analysis, and Forecasts Report 2027 - Digital...

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COVID-19 symptoms are reduced by targeted hydration of the nose, larynx and trachea | Scientific Reports - Nature.com

On crossing the finish line in fifth place at the E3 Saxo Bank Classic, an exhausted Biniam Girmay pedaled softly towards the Intermarch-Wanty-Gobert team bus. When he got there and climbed up the steps, performance director Aike Visbeek had a suggestion: how about doing all that again?

Girmays provisional schedule had him slated to compete in France at La Roue Tourangelle, but the preternatural assurance of his debut on the cobbles prompted Visbeek to enact Plan B, having already alerted the Eritreans coach. By the time the 21-year-old had showered and descended the steps once more to speak with a waiting group of reporters, he was able to tell them that, yes, he would be lining out at Gent-Wevelgem two days later.

The rest is a landmark in cycling history.

It was on my mind already, because I saw Biniam was still recovering really well from the races, Visbeek explained in Wevelgem on Sunday evening.

I didnt want to bother him before Harelbeke, because thats a very complicated race with a lot of hills. But I said internally, Listen, if Harelbeke goes really well, I want to change the plan towards Gent-Wevelgem. His trainer was on board, we had a good call about that. And after the race I talked directly to him, before he could talk to the media. We had to ask first.

Girmay, one imagines, didnt need much persuading. His trek over the Paterberg, Oude Kwaremont et al on Friday had been his first meeting of any description with the Flemish Ardennes. He hadnt so much as recced the route beforehand but he rode with the mien of a man developing an immediate fondness for racing amid the cobbles and hills. When the Jumbo-Visma duo of Wout van Aert and Christophe Laporte cruised away towards a remarkable two-up win on the Paterberg, Girmay came closer than anyone else to following.

At Gent-Wevelgem, he navigated the scramble for position on the Kemmelberg and Plugstreets partly through his racing nous and partly by leaning on the experience of teammates like Alexander Kristoff and Adrien Petit.

At E3 he didn't even know whether there were cobbles on the Oude Kwaremont or not, Petit revealed.

Throughout Gent-Wevelgem, Girmay raced not so much with the fearlessness of youth as with the confidence of a man bearing the most precious attribute of all: talent.

When you know all the parcours, maybe it gets a bit overwhelming, and thats also why we didnt want to add stress to his schedule with more recons, Visbeek said.

We have Adrien Petit, we have Aim De Gendt, we have Alexander Kristoff. He trusts those guys, and thats why hes in a perfect situation. He has the guys that guide him. He was in the shadow of Alexander Kristoff, which was perfect. They learn from each other and give motivation to each other.

In the finishing straight in Wevelgem, Girmays race-craft saw him sit at the back of the four-man break that had forged ahead with 24km remaining. Over his radio earpiece, he had been warned that Laporte, second in the Harelbeke, would be the dangerman again here. Girmay understood that it was the kind of sprint where he needed to get his retaliation in first, and so he kicked with 250m to go.

It was a headwind sprint, and I said if he was not on the wheel of Laporte, then he had to go himself because Laporte can go from distance, Visbeek said admiringly. He was in fourth wheel and thats why he went the way he did.

Girmays victory at Gent-Wevelgem had a special resonance for his team, given that Wanty rider Antoine Demoiti tragically lost his life in a crash at this race in 2016. The Eritrean, who arrived at Intermarch-Wanty-Gobert in the middle of last season after Delko ran into financial difficulties, is under contract with the Belgian team until the end of 2024.

A rider whose resum featured a rare victory against a rampant Remco Evenepoel in the junior ranks should not have been short of suitors, but Intermarch-Wanty-Gobert, one of the smallest squads in the WorldTour, was perhaps the ideal landing site.

Its not a luxury team. Its a group with a real family feel to it, said Visbeek, who played a key role in Tom Dumoulins development during his time at Sunweb, another squad that grew organically over the years from modest beginnings.

Signing Alexander Kristoff this year gave us a bit more respect in the bunch, and when we got a good start with Bini and some of the other guys, we claimed our spot and we dont want to give it away. We are a group of nice people who work really hard, and Biniam fits really well with that.

Adrien Petits back catalogue includes leading out Arnaud Dmare for victory in the under-23 World Championships in Copenhagen, but he gave the impression that his stint in Girmays service on Sunday might linger just as long in the memory.

It warms my heart just to think that I helped to bring him up to the front of the bunch before the last time up the Kemmelberg, he said.

People like him, and thats not strange because hes a really nice guy, Visbeek noted.

Hes a winner, but with a human touch and with a smile. When he wins a race, hes very thankful. He goes to every member of the staff to thank them, and you dont see that so often.

Girmay has now performed that round of handshakes and embraces three times at Intermarch-Wanty-Gobert, following his wins at the Classic Grand Besanon Doubs last year and the Trofeo Alcdia in January. There will surely be many more in the years ahead, but not at the Tour of Flanders on Sunday.

Since the depths of winter, it had been agreed that Girmay, whose European base is in San Marino, would return to Eritrea in April to spend time with his family in Asmara. That plan will be respected.

The sponsors will have enjoyed the assembly of television crews waiting for Girmay outside the Zuidwege hotel in Zedelgem on Monday morning, but the team will not insist that he prolongs his stay in Belgium until the Ronde.

He has to go to his family, whom he hasn't seen since January 3. He needs that, insisted directeur sportif Hilaire Van der Schueren, a thought echoed by Visbeek.

I mean, we also have to see the human aspect of it, and hes been away from his family a long time, Visbeek said.

The only person who can decide is Biniam himself, along with his family. For us, there is no pressure. We are very happy and proud of him. Our cycling team is a family. Were known for that. We dont have a big budget, but we invest in the right things and have good contact with our riders.

Working with Girmay, Visbeek added, has been straightforward. Young, talented athletes are not always the most coachable, but Girmay, who took his first steps in European racing as a junior at the UCI World Cycling Centre in Aigle, knows the value of dialogue.

Hes a guy thats down to earth, very friendly and open, Visbeek said.

When he trusts you, he really trusts you, and that also helps to make steps really fast, because we can discuss things with him. He also has a lot of common sense. Hes not bothered by the outside world too much. And improvement is still possible: he can sprint more aerodynamically, and on nutrition he can still improve too.

During his time in Eritrea, Girmay will train in preparation for his Grand Tour debut at the Giro dItalia, and just before the corsa rosa, he will line up with ambition at Eschborn-Frankfurt on May 1. Even if the Ronde is not on the agenda this season, there are plenty of opportunities to shine in the weeks and months ahead.

I think the break will do him good because his first Grand Tour is coming and thats a new situation in his career. Its going to be a learning experience, said Visbeek.

Thanks to Alexander Kristoff, he didnt have all the eyes on him from the beginning of the season, but now he will.

In Leuven last September and now in Wevelgem, Girmay has reached notable milestones for Eritrean and African cycling and the expectation is that more will follow.

Hes aware of the fact that hes doing historical things and he wants to do that for his continent and his nation, said Visbeek, though he added that the weight of history is lightly worn: He wants to win bike races.

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