THIS IS A TRANSLATION OF THE SPEECH GIVEN BY FIDEL CASTRO TO THE 1979 NATIONAL PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT ASSEMBLY. CASTRO REVIEWS CUBA'S 20-YEAR, POST-REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, DISCUSSING ECONOMIC CONDITIONS, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, THE ROLE OF THE USSR IN AIDING CUBA, AND FUTURE PROSPECTS FOR THE NATION'S POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
THIS ARTICLE IS A REPORT ON FIDEL CASTRO'S OCTOBER 1995 VIST TO HARLEM AND AN EXCERPT OF HIS SPEECH AT THE ABYSSINIAN BAPTIST CHURCH. THE DRAMATIC NATURE OF THE LINKS ALLUDED TO IN THE SPEECH--LINKS THAT HAVE BEEN WARMLY ACKNOWLEDGED BY NELSON MANDELA--IS ENHANCED BY A REMINDER OF THE CONTEXT IN WHICH FIDEL SPOKE, REMINISCENT OF HIS FIRST UN VISIT IN 1960. CASTRO ARGUES THAT THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR A BLOCKADE.
ON JANUARY 30 THIS YEAR FIDEL CASTRO, FIRST SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CUBA AND PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCILS OF STATE AND OF MINISTER, WAS INTERVIEWED BY THREE CORRESPONDENTS OF THE WASHINGTON POST - KAREN DE YOUNG, JIMMIE L. HOAGLAND AND LEONARD DOWNIE. THE INTERVIEW RANGED OVER THE WHOLE SPHERE OF WORLD POLITICS, BUT CONCENTRATED ON US RELATIONS WITH CUBA AND OTHER COUNTRIES OF LATIN AMERICA. IN THE COURSE OF THE DISCUSSIONS, FIDEL CASTRO WAS QUESTIONED ABOUT CUBA'S INVOLVEMENT IN ANGOLA AND ETHIOPIA. HIS ANSWERS ARE REPRODUCED VERBATIM.
Droughts are probably the natural hazard with the highest socioeconomic impact. Simultaneously, they are a very complex phenomenon; they are triggered by a diversity of physical factors and occur at a variety of time scales. Consequently, the instrumental record currently available is too short and the characterization of its multidecadal variability requires the use of natural proxies (tree rings, sedimentary records) or documentary sources. In this paper we analyse three documentary sources with potential to analyse the long-term variability of droughts: chapter acts, logbooks and chronicles. The chapter acts recorded discussions and decisions made during the assemblies of the local authorities and provide continuous and direct evidence on drought impacts. They are especially useful to study droughts between the 15th and the 19th centuries in Europe and the 17th to 18th in the former colonies. Logbooks recorded the meteorological conditions and the incidents occurred during navigation. They provide indirect information through the circulation indices that can be very helpful to understand the mechanisms and teleconnections associated to droughts. Finally, the chronicles are historiographical documents describing political and social events. They are secondary sources and the references to climatic events are discontinuous, thus their analysis must be extremely careful, but they are especially useful to study specific drought events especially prior to 15th century when no other sources are available.
Droughts are probably the natural hazard with the highest socioeconomic impact. Simultaneously, they are a very complex phenomenon; they are triggered by a diversity of physical factors and occur at a variety of time scales. Consequently, the instrumental record currently available is too short and the characterization of its multidecadal variability requires the use of natural proxies (tree rings, sedimentary records) or documentary sources. In this paper we analyse three documentary sources with potential to analyse the long-term variability of droughts: chapter acts, logbooks and chronicles. The chapter acts recorded discussions and decisions made during the assemblies of the local authorities and provide continuous and direct evidence on drought impacts. They are especially useful to study droughts between the 15 and the 19 centuries in Europe and the 17 to 18 in the former colonies. Logbooks recorded the meteorological conditions and the incidents occurred during navigation. They provide indirect information through the circulation indices that can be very helpful to understand the mechanisms and teleconnections associated to droughts. Finally, the chronicles are historiographical documents describing political and social events. They are secondary sources and the references to climatic events are discontinuous, thus their analysis must be extremely careful, but they are especially useful to study specific drought events especially prior to 15th century when no other sources are available. ; Peer Reviewed
The use of alternative feedstock as waste cooking oils (WCO) and bovine tallow for biodiesel production has some advantages. It is cheaper than edible vegetable oils and it is a way to valorize a sub-product. Nevertheless, these oils possess some contaminants, specially free fatty acid (FFA) content, which can reduce the quality and yield of biodiesel production. This problem was solved by testing different operating conditions and different transesterification procedure and equipments for each stage of processing. Technological assessment of process was carried out to evaluate their technical benefits, limitations and quality of final product. In this work biodiesel was produced by an alkali-catalyzed transesterification and by a two step esterification/alkali-catalysed transesterification in cases which FFA content has above 3%. Evaluation of quality from raw materials and final biodiesel was performed according to standard EN 14214. Results show that all parameters analyzed meet the standard and legislation requirements. This evidence proves that in those operational conditions the biodiesel produced from WCO and bovine tallow can substitute petroleum-based ...
As word society has grown exponentially it was created more and more wastes. Each year European Union throws away 3 billion tons of waste, and some 90 million tons of that are hazardous. It is clear that treating and disposing of all this material - without harming the environment becomes a major trouble. In the early years 90 the amount of waste generated in Europe increased by 10%. Most of that was thrown away in incinerators, or dumped into landfill creating environmental damage. Landfill disposal not only takes valuable land space but also causes air, water and soil pollution, discharging carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) into the atmosphere and chemicals and pesticides into the earth and groundwater. This situation is harmful to human health as well as to plants and animals. These events triggered urgency for a responsibility and appropriate legislation for correct waste management. EU and Portuguese policy main objective in the waste management are prevent and reduce waste production, and reduce their toxicity, through the reuse and modification of production processes, adopting cleaner technologies. Waste management must also avoid or at least reduce its risk to human health and to environment. In Portugal, wastes sector was suffered a revolution on the last years, due to the appearance of the Strategic Plan for Solid Waste I (PERSU I) in 1997 and by the constant pressure from the EU for their state members and waste producers. In December 2006 was created the PERSU II to correct all mistakes made in the previous plan. However soon realized that PERSU II had very ambitious goals and so unattainable that triggered the need to reformulate these objectives. The aim of this overview in waste management was to follow the goals outlined in PERSU II, identifying the progress of each operational system over the years. It was also the target compare those results to European statistics tracing possible ways to permit compliance with EU objectives in ...
Many translocation methods have been tested in southern Europe in recent decades to increase the translocation success of the European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus L.) for both conservation and game purposes. The main problem experienced during such translocations is the high short-term (7 days) mortality attributed to predation during the days immediately following rabbit release. In this study, we test the effect of the exclusion of terrestrial predators on the survival of translocated rabbits for recovery purposes. Four translocation plots (4 ha with 18 artificial warrens each) were constructed, two of them with a fence to exclude terrestrial predators. In all, 724 rabbits were released to the translocation plots in five batches and forced to remain inside warrens for 7 days. Following liberation, exclusion of predators did not increase rabbit survival in the short term. Contrary to expectations, three months after release, survival of rabbits in the unfenced plot was slightly, but not significantly, higher than in the fenced plot (0.57 and 0.40 respectively). Although predator control is a frequent management practice associated with rabbit translocations, our results suggest that it may not favour rabbit survival rate as much as the adaptation of rabbits to the release site.
Copper-zinc alloys (alfa-beta brasses) are currently used to produce house water piping and further parts, that might be in direct contact with drinking water. Lead is added to these alloys in order to improve their machinability. It is well known that lead is unhealthy for humans and, according to EU Council Directive 98/83/EC on the quality of water for human consumption, the admissible Pb content in drinking water has to decrease during the next years because of its high toxicity. The interest in improving public health evocated the need of developing new ecological materials for application on water piping and systems because extensive research indicates that the occurrence of increased Pb content in drinking water can be due to the release (leaching) of Pb from leaded copper alloys. As a consequence of such findings, the dissolution /erosion behaviour of a commercial sanitary brass tap, submitted to a dynamic test simulating the service conditions, has been studied. For that purpose an equipment that enables a long – term direct contact with water has been designed and developed. The chemical composition of the tap and of the final residue produced during the test have been determined by XRF spectrometry and the solutions analysed by atomic absorption spectrometry. Results concerning metal values dissolution have been compared with the limit values established by the legislation. For the experimental conditions, results show that Pb level in leaching solution is lower than the admissible value indicated for the quality of water for human consumption. ...
