ART-Vicente Romero Redondo, Madrid 1956.

Vicente Romero Redondo, 1956 ~ Figurative painter





Vicente Romero Redondo, spanish painter, was born in Madrid as the eldest of four sons. Due to the work of his father, he grew up in many different towns all over Spain. The family moved back to Madrid when he was 15 years old. During his childhood, his parents thought he would dedicate his life to painting, as his caricatures of schoolmates and teachers were famous in every school where he studied and one would rarely see him without a pencil and a notepad in his hands. Romero achieved his dream: he began studies at the High School for Art San Fernando, the most prestigious art school in Spain - Salvador Dali studied there from 1922-1926. During his first years he dedicated his time to sculpture, but soon realized that only by painting could he express all the sensibility he possessed and needed to transmit.


He graduated with special honors in 1982. Then he spent several years working on the street, not the most comfortable but surely the most efficient way to perfect his technique. He painted pastel portraits in coast villages of the mainland and the islands of Tenerife, Majorca and Ibiza. At the close of the eighties, Romero and his wife settled in the Costa Brava. It was in this region (the birthplace of Dali) that a new stage of his artistic life began. The light of the Mediterranean, his skills, his passion, the wonderful landscape, the house with patio where he lived and the beauty of his models--all these were perfect conditions to change his paintings, and finally he succeeded in converting intimate situations of life into the leitmotif of his art. Since the early 90s Romero's paintings have been shown in individual expositions in Spain, France and Portugal. In 2001 he moved to Madrid, but he spends time as well in the Costa Brava with its incredible light, one of the most identifiable aspects of his work.

Nigeria: A Crisis Spreads, A Region Needs Support

Δημοσιεύτηκε στις 2 Φεβ 2016

In 2015, increased waves of violence by the militant group Boko Haram pushed the number of displaced people in Nigeria and neighbouring countries to almost 2.5 million. Over 230,000 refugees have fled into Cameroon, Chad and Niger. As insurgents continue to launch attacks across borders, these countries of sanctuary have also become targets, now coping with both a refugee influx and hundreds of thousands of their own displaced citizens. UNHCR and its partners are calling for more support to meet the growing needs of those affected. 

Saudi regime carries out 56th beheading in 2016

Saudi regime carries out 56th beheading in 2016

Mon Feb 1, 2016 1:56PM

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A Saudi man sentenced to death is seen knelt before being beheaded in Saudi Arabia. (File photo)

Saudi Arabia beheaded one of its citizens Monday after sentencing him to death for murder, bringing to at least 56 the number of such executions in the kingdom since the start of this year.

The convicted Saudi man, identified as Ahmed al-Harbi, was beheaded in the northern city of Tabuk, the Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

The man was found guilty of fatally stabbing and shooting his Saudi fellow citizen Fahed al-Balawi in a dispute, the ministry added.

Saudi Arabia now holds a senior position on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). In summer 2015, Saudi Arabia, with an appalling human rights record, was appointed to head an important panel at the international human rights monitor. The panel is assigned with conducting interviews and short-list experts who would then be nominated to examine specific human rights challenges.

On January 27, Saudi authorities beheaded an Egyptian national after sentencing him to death on charges related to robbery and murder.

Beheading with a sword is the most common form of execution in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia carried out 153 executions, including 71 foreign nationals, in 2015. This number of executions in terms of annual basis in Saudi Arabia has been unseen since 1995.In this photo taken on April 15, 2015, family members of Indonesian maid Siti Zainab, who was beheaded in Saudi Arabia, display a poster (R) bearing her portrait at their family home in East Java Province. (AFP photo)

Saudi authorities have beheaded several opposition figures and dissidents in recent months. On January 2, Riyadh executed Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in defiance of international calls for the release of the prominent cleric and other jailed political dissidents in the kingdom.

Under the Saudi law, apostasy, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape and murder carry the death penalty. Most Saudi executions are carried out by beheading with a sword.

Riyadh has been under fire for having one of the world’s highest execution rates.

Human Rights Watch has called on the Saudi regime to abolish its “ghastly” beheadings.

Amnesty International said in a 2015 report that court proceedings in Saudi Arabia “fall far short” of global norms of fairness.

New study compares shallow earthquakes and deeper tremors along southern San Andreas fault

San Andreas Fault in the Carrizo Plain, aerial view from 8500 feet altitude
Credit: Ikluft

Seismologists working along California's San Andreas Fault near Cholame and Parkfield now have a better idea of how and where friction changes along the fault to produce both shallow earthquakes and the deeper earth tremors called low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs).

In their report published online 26 January in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA), the team led by Rebecca Harrington of McGill University shows that the depth of this boundary between earthquakes and LFEs varies along the San Andreas strike, but roughly follows along a zone deep in the crust where temperatures hover around 350 degrees Celsius.

There is also a somewhat puzzling, five-kilometer wide gap of seismic quiet between the deepest earthquakes and the shallowest LFEs analyzed in the study, the researchers noted. If this gap holds up under further scrutiny, seismologists will study its possible role in transferring seismic stress during a large earthquake, said Harrington.

Slip along the San Andreas occurs through either aseismic creep or earthquakes in the shallow parts of the fault (less than 15 kilometers deep) while slip takes the form of stable sliding in the deeper part of the fault lying 35 kilometers below the surface. The zone between these two regions--where LFEs occur--is called the brittle-ductile transition zone, where increasing heat and pressure cause rocks to become less prone to fracture and more prone to bending and flowing deformation.

"Our study illuminates a possible gap in activity at the top of the transition zone, between the deeper LFEs and shallower earthquakes, which may be important to the transfer of stress into the seismogenic part of the fault," Harrington noted. "We need to better understand how slip evolves across this boundary throughout the seismic cycle."

Cholame may be best known as the site where iconic actor James Dean died in a 1955 car crash, but the Cholame section of the San Andreas Fault is also where the last major Southern California earthquake on the fault may have originated. The 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake measured magnitude 7.8, causing the fault to rupture the earth continuously for over 350 kilometers (225 miles).

Harrington and her colleagues deployed a temporary network of 13 seismic stations near Cholame to look more closely at the relationship between LFEs and earthquakes, since the area has been the site of vigorous LFE and tremor activity. Analyzing data collected by the temporary network and other permanent seismic stations, the scientists were able to precisely locate 34 earthquakes and 34 LFEs that occurred in the area between May 2010 and July 2011.

The depth at which fault slip changes from earthquake to LFE varies along the strike of the fault, they concluded. These variations could be caused by differences in the type of rock, the presence of fluids or other factors that affect the frictional properties of the fault along its strike.

In their analysis, the seismologists also identified two clusters of small earthquakes, one near the 2004 magnitude 6.0 Parkfield earthquake and one near the northern boundary of the Fort Tejon rupture, just south of Cholame. These clusters may represent areas of mixed frictional properties along the fault, adding support to the idea that earthquakes may originate in these types of frictional environments.

As for the mysterious gap separating earthquakes and LFEs, Harrington said it's puzzling why there wouldn't be more of a gradual transition between the two types of events as the fault deepens. One possibility, she says, is that the slip is aseismic in this zone. It might also be that the gap is accumulating strain, and won't show signs of seismic slip until the strain rates are higher.

Harrington and her colleagues are working on further studies that could help detect more different types of LFEs, and to determine whether the gap is a real one, she said.

Note: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Seismological Society of America.

Το FBI έχει εκδοθεί βίντεο από τα γυρίσματα της μαχητικής Όρεγκον

Δημοσιεύτηκε: 29 Γενάρη, 2016 2:29 GMT | Τελευταία ενημέρωση: 29 Ιανουαρίου, 2016 2:45 GMT

Οι φωτογραφίες δημοσιεύθηκαν με την πρόθεση να εξουδετερώσουν μερικές από τις αντικρουόμενες αναφορές σχετικά με το τι συνέβη την περασμένη Τρίτη.

FBI

Το FBI έχει κυκλοφορήσει ένα βίντεο του περιστατικού μεταξύ των αρχών και των ένοπλων πολιτοφύλακες άφησε Όρεγκον, ως αποτέλεσμα ενός διαδηλωτή πυροβολήθηκε και σκοτώθηκε από τους ομοσπονδιακούς πράκτορες.

Η στιγμή που ο εθνοφρουρός που πυροβολήθηκε από το FBI μπορεί να παρατηρήσει λεπτό της εγγραφής 5,42 σήματος. 

Οι φωτογραφίες δημοσιεύθηκαν με την πρόθεση να εξουδετερώσουν μερικές από τις αντικρουόμενες αναφορές σχετικά με το τι συνέβη την Τρίτη και να δώσει μια άποψη «αφιλτράριστο» το περιστατικό.

Το περιστατικό συνέβη κατά τη διάρκεια κοινής επιχείρησης μεταξύ του Ομοσπονδιακού Γραφείου Ερευνών των ΗΠΑ (FBI) και η Αστυνομία μέλος του Όρεγκον για να κρατούν πολλές μαχητές  που εμπλέκονται στην παραγωγή ενός ομοσπονδιακού γραφείου Malheuren Forest Reserve, συμπεριλαμβανομένου του επικεφαλής της, ο Έντουαρντ Άμμωνα Bundy.

Κατά τη διάρκεια της λειτουργίας ένα πέναλτι εξερράγη σκοτώνοντας έναν μαχητικό και τραυμάτισε άλλο. Bundy και τέσσερις άλλοι έχουν συλληφθεί. Σε μια παράλληλη λειτουργία, το FBI συνέλαβε εθνοφρουρός Ιωσήφ Donald O'Shaughnessy.

Στις 2 Ιανουαρίου, η ομάδα με επικεφαλής τον Bundy ανέλαβε τα καθήκοντά της Federal Reserve και η κυβέρνηση απαίτησε την επιστροφή των εδαφών σε διάφορες τοπικές αρχές.Η δράση του είχε ζητηθεί από τη σύλληψη των δύο κτηνοτρόφοι οι οποίοι έβαλαν φωτιά σε ομοσπονδιακό γη.

Το FBI κατηγορεί Bundy και οι συνεργάτες του ότι συνωμοτούν για να αποτρέψει τις δυνάμεις των ΗΠΑ επιτελέσουν το έργο τους με τη χρήση βίας, εκφοβισμού ή απειλής.