Features

By Shama Kaur
Kundalini Yoga Teacher 
and Wellness Mentor

I often tell my students that once they experience Kundalini Yoga, they will not remain the same: the very nature of Kundalini Yoga is to awaken the energy of consciousness.

The practice brings to our awareness our self-limiting beliefs and habit patterns that we inherited from the past. It invites us to process and release painful memories that are stored in our subconscious. It awakens our ability to become intuitive and sensitive, to understand a person or a situation even if no words are spoken- to realise the consequences of actions before they happen.

Confidence and pride

I love sports and many types of rigorous yoga like Vinyassa and Ashtanga. I see these practices as adventurous and challenging. By practicing regularly I’ve noticed improvement in my speed and performance. They give me a sense of accomplishment, confidence, even a little pride, when I see myself performing handstands and headstands.

My Kundalini practice has transformed me. The kriyas and meditations are pretty structured practices, but rather than focusing on the physical alignment, the kriyas are a specific set of exercises that generate energy, organise that energy and lead you to a specific energetic state — particularly one of greater awareness.

Also, within the practice, are built-in moments of stillness where we sit quietly and awaken to our Self. The breathwork within the kriyas is so powerful that it starts to strip away the layers that veil our consciousness and in the sweet moments between poses, we can sense the fullness of who we are.

I noticed over the years many subtle benefits to practicing Kundalini yoga such as: 

•Strengthening the nervous system: when you’re in a downward dog or plank pose for three whole minutes and your entire body is shaking, have no fear! Your nervous system is toning. And the stronger your nerves become, the more you will be able to act in a cool, calm and collected matter in the face of any situation, be it a car accident, big presentation or family drama

•Awakening your inner will-power right at the core of your solar plexus (3rd Chakra) at the navel point. What this means is that strong heat will build up in this area of your body, which helps in digesting not only food, but also past memories and self-doubt. We become able to process and digest events that happen and take necessary action immediately to eradicate things, people or situations that are causing us more harm than good

•Clearing the fog from your mind. When the mind becomes clouded with several thoughts, it feels a little like a cobweb of thoughts difficult to untangle. A few minutes of rapid breathing (breath of fire), or one-minute breath, the mind becomes crystal clear, you will feel more alert, focused, concentrated, with a better memory and the ability to make sound decisions

•Releasing worries and awakening your creativity: Breathing through alternate nostrils brings into balance the left and right hemispheres of the brain. We usually act and analyse more frequently than we feel, visualise and imagine. And that’s because the right side of the brain is usually under-stimulated. Kundalini yoga awakens our inner creativity by releasing our worries about little things and opening us up to the infinite possibilities that life has to offer

•Gaining an attitude of acceptance: Kundalini yoga opens the heart center (4th Chakra) and poses such as the Tree Pose provide us with security in the root Chakra. So, we feel like strong steady trees planted firmly in the earth and when our needs are not met, we don’t feel like it’s the end of the world. We remain open and trusting that God will provide us with what we need when the time is right. So, the world doesn’t collapse when we don’t get that job, fail that exam, or suffer from a breakup or a family death. Whatever it is, we gain an attitude of acceptance. Understanding that it’s all OK. It’s all good. We are open to whatever life has to offer

•Becoming compassionate: poses such as the shoulder stand open the throat centre (5th Chakra). Add this to an open heart and we become forgiving, compassionate and non-judgemental; our lips can bless, give gratitude and kindness to all those around us. Thus, don’t be surprised when you start addressing your boss, cousins or neighbour by dear, dearest, sweetheart, my love and so on. More so, when there is something bothering you, you will find the best way to express yourself is by gently saying the absolute truth

•Awakening your intuition. We spend so much time stuck in our minds, analysing the pros and cons of each decision when in reality the answer is within us. We always have a gut feeling about something, but we tend to ignore it. Yoga gives you the ability to pause and listen to the message behind that gut feeling. It enables you to quieten down your mind to the point that your thoughts become still and you can feel what your heart yearns for

•Making Wise Choices: All forms of yoga make us more conscious beings. So, don’t be surprised when you start refraining from behaviours that cause harm to you and the environment such as smoking, drinking, drugs, meat and dairy, water and electricity overuse. Instead, you will choose to consume fresh vegetables, fruits and whole foods to protect animals and the environment. You will find yourself serving others through charitable giving and taking up activities like singing, dancing and art, that remove you from the company of people and surroundings that no longer bring out the best in you

Kundalini Yoga is not to be taken lightly. It is like an express train that shakes and wakes you up. Some kriyas will leave you feeling high and totally blissed out. Other kriyas will really provoke and confront you. What’s important is to stay present and accept pleasure and pain as part of the same journey to health and balance. Our ego naturally leans towards pleasure and comfort. It takes concerted effort and discipline to begin to release the ego’s grip on our consciousness. This effort is the work required to begin to access the truth of who we are, to create a strong connection to our soul and therefore our Soul’s work on this planet. It is where we start to make great strides towards living as an enlightened being.

This 2023, I encourage you to embark on a journey of transformation that will most certainly deepen your connection to your true self, with the practice of Kundalini Yoga. Consider joining the Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training Programme in Amman that begins this February 2023!

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

WASHINGTON — Light pollution is growing rapidly and in some places the number of stars visible to the naked eye in the night sky is being reduced by more than half in less than 20 years, according to a study released on Thursday.

The researchers, whose findings were published in the journal Science, said the increase in light pollution — skyglow — that they found was much larger than that measured by satellite observations of Earth at night.

For the study of the change in global sky brightness from artificial light, the researchers used stellar observations from 2011 to 2022 submitted by more than 51,000 “citizen scientists” around the world.

Participants in the “Globe at Night” project run by the US National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory were given star maps and asked to compare them to the night sky at their location.

The change in the number of visible stars reported was equivalent to a 9.6 per cent per year annual increase in sky brightness, averaged over the locations of the participants, the researchers said.

Over an 18-year period, given such star brightness change, a location with 250 visible stars would see that number reduced to 100.

Most of the naked-eye star observations came from Europe and the United States said Christopher Kyba, one of the authors of the study, but there was also good participation in Uruguay, South Africa and Japan.

“The global trend in skyglow that we measure likely underestimates the trend in countries with the most rapid increases in economic development, because the rate of change in light emission is highest there,” the researchers said.

The study coincided with the replacement of many outdoor lights with light-emitting diodes (LEDs), but the researchers said the impact on skyglow from the transition to LEDs is unclear.

“Some researchers have predicted that it will be beneficial; others, that it could be harmful because of spectral changes or a rebound effect, in which the high luminous efficacy of LEDs leads to more or brighter lights being installed or longer hours of operation,” they said.

According to the study, the global LED market share for new general lighting grew from under one per cent in 2011 to 47 per cent in 2019.

“The visibility of stars is deteriorating rapidly, despite [or perhaps because of] the introduction of LEDs in outdoor lighting applications,” the researchers said.

“Existing lighting policies are not preventing increases in skyglow, at least on continental and global scales.”

‘Confronted with 

the cosmos’

Kyba, a physicist at the German Research Centre for Geoscience, told AFP that while the team was able to evaluate erosion of star visibility due to skyglow, not a lot of research has been done on its ecological impact.

“There’s tons of research on light shining directly on animals and plants,” he said. “But it’s really hard to do experiments on the impact of skyglow.

“You’re not going to do something like just turn off New York City and see what happens in the East River.”

Science aside, light pollution has changed the character of the night sky.

“For all of human history, when people went outside at nighttime, they were sort of confronted with the cosmos, at least on clear nights with no moon,” Kyba said.

“You’d walk outside and there’s the stars, there’s the Milky Way. It’s there and it’s shining down on you,” he said.

“And now that’s like a really unusual experience,” he said. “It surely makes a difference to us as people that we don’t have this experience that used to be a very universal experience.”

The Globe at Night campaign hosts an interactive data map at globeatnight.org and is seeking volunteers to collect more observations in 2023.

LOS ANGELES — The huge success of “Avatar: The Way of Water”, James Cameron’s sequel which is approaching $2 billion at the global box office, proves that “movies are back with a resurgence” after the pandemic, the Canadian director said.

“We’ve had a year to see that this resurgence isn’t just a fluke, or just one film,” Cameron told AFP this week in Los Angeles, pointing to other recent mega-grossing blockbusters including “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”.

“You’ve seen a pattern”, added Cameron, after having his handprints immortalised in cement at Hollywood’s famous TCL Chinese Theatre.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” came 13 years after the original film, which remains the highest grossing movie of all time, amassing $2.9 billion at the global box office.

Even if the sequel — which transplants the 3D action to a new underwater setting — does not quite scale those heights, it is already the seventh biggest film of all time by ticket sales.

That remarkable success has helped to reinvigorate the movie theatre industry, which has been slammed by competition from streamers, and apathy about the movie-going experience since the pandemic.

In the United States alone some 500 theatres have disappeared since the arrival of COVID-19 forced costly closures, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners. 

Cineworld — the British group that owns America’s second-largest theatre chain Regal Cinemas — is in the midst of restructuring after filing for bankruptcy last year.

But Cameron, the director of “Titanic”, “The Terminator” and many more hits, remains firmly convinced about the viability and adaptability of cinema in the future.

“I don’t think movies are ever gonna die,” he said.

“We need this as culture, as a society. We need to go into these theatres into these big large spaces with hundreds of strangers.”

‘Pseudo-intellectual’ critics

At 68, the director nevertheless recognises that habits have changed.

While grand spectacle continues to draw younger crowds to giant multiplexes, auteur-driven and independent cinema is finding it increasingly hard to convince older audiences to leave their homes.

“I’m also seeing a pattern of the type of film that people will go to see in a movie theatre and the type that they won’t. And so streaming still has a very, very rich and important place,” said Cameron.

His “Avatar” sequel sees the blue Na’vi of Pandora fighting off yet another invasion of their homeland by resource-hungry humans.

The storyline allows Cameron, who is famously passionate about underwater exploration and is a vegetarian, to expand on the franchise’s themes: Protecting nature, and the threats posed to the environment by imperialism and capitalism.

But while it has torn audiences away from the comfort of their sofas, it has received a mixed reaction from critics.

It left this week’s Golden Globes empty-handed, unlike its 2009 predecessor which won best drama and best director for Cameron.

It was not even nominated by Cameron’s peers, the Directors Guild of America, for their own annual awards.

“That’s in the nature of art. You can’t please everybody,” shrugged Cameron.

Critics “think a certain kind of earnestness, where you wear your heart on your sleeve, is unsophisticated or naive”, he said.

“To me, that’s a little bit of a pseudo-intellectual perspective.”

‘Hope in Ukraine’

Cameron pointed to the film’s massive international appeal, citing data from its distributor that the sequel is “approaching being the number one film in the history of Ukraine”.

“That means that when the missiles stop and the power comes back on, people are going to the movie theatres,” he said.

“Giving hope in Ukraine right now, that made the whole thing worthwhile. Not the money. Not the awards.”

PARIS — It was used to build the Great Wall of China and Spain’s mediaeval Alhambra Palace — and now earth is back in vogue as a building material.

Climate change has spurred renewed interest in the ancient technique which sees polluting concrete swapped where possible for earth. 

For centuries, mud and clay were an abundantly available way to put a roof over one’s head, but earth’s environmental credentials are behind its modern-day resurgence.

“A kilo of cement emits a kilo of CO2. Whereas a kilo of earth emits none,” Xavier Chateau of the Navier Laboratory at the French National Centre for Scientific Research said.

“If we could reduce by 25 per cent the volume of cement consumed globally it would be equivalent to negating the impact on the climate of all air transport,” he estimated.

Known as rammed earth construction, the practice dates at least as far back as the Neolithic era.

It involves compacting certain soils into a mould, of sorts, to make building blocks or build up whole walls, layer by layer.

More than 2 billion people across some 150 countries live in buildings made of earth, according to a 2006 guide on earth building by French authors Hugo Houben and Hubert Guillaud.

Advocates say it can help reduce reliance on concrete, which accounts for about eight per cent of global CO2 emissions.

Earth also has a high thermal capacity by self-regulating its humidity, is fireproof, non-toxic and can be completely recycled.

But it has downsides too, not least the cost, given the need to find builders qualified in ancient techniques.

‘Earth concrete’ hybrid

Confronted with flooding, earth-constructed buildings need protection, as earth also has its weaknesses.

A four-storey rammed earth building crumpled in France’s southeastern Rhone region in November, while a house collapsed in the nearby department of Isere on December 22, according to local press reports.

Often substances such as lime or straw can be added to the earth to stabilise it and bolster its durability.

French building material firm Saint-Gobain is experimenting with a hybrid system of “earth concrete”, combining excavated earth from construction sites, steel industry waste and hemp.

But purists see it as verging on heresy, in a country due to complete a 9,000-seat concert coliseum north of Paris next year using recycled excavated earth.

“It’s not the same material at all,” complains architect Paul-Emmanuel Loiret, who manages La Fabrique outside Paris where blocks and bricks of compressed earth are made from construction rubble.

Urging a “complete and rapid decarbonisation” of construction, he complained that EU laws “impose on us materials 10 to 20 times more durable than those which we need”.

But, said Chateau: “In Africa, in Burkina Faso or Malawi, it’s become a kind of artisanal savoir-faire to stabilise raw earth with cement at the foot of the building to solve the problem of water” encroachment.

‘Huge demand’

Austria has Europe’s only factory to date making low-energy prefab homes using rammed earth methods.

The site, in the western village of Schlins on the Liechtenstein border, creates foundations, floors and walls using chalk, clay, chopped straw, lime or gravel.

A machine pounds the earth which is compacted into a vast casing to produce 40-metre long walls. 

Once dried and cut to size, the blocks are sent off to be assembled. 

“Given the ecological challenge and the problem of energy, huge demand is emerging for this material,” said environmentalist, entrepreneur and former potter Martin Rauch, who built the factory.

Architect Sami Akkach who works with Rauch said they use earth from the surrounding area, building and excavation sites.

“It must contain clay, gravel, angular rather than round so it really sticks,” Akkach said.

Rauch has several earth-constructed buildings to his name, including his home whose exterior walls include terracotta designed to act as a brake on rain and erosion, a throwback to ancient methods used in Saudi Arabia.

He says the factory boasts Europe’s longest earthen wall — at 67 metres — and he believes the demand is there for more projects using rammed earth.

“The problem is there are not enough artisans and people are still too afraid of this natural material,” he said.

He added that hopefully people will realise that “earth structures will last for centuries, if they are built correctly.”

MILAN — The return of Gucci to the menswear catwalk calendar, robust sales of Italian fashion and a farewell to the pandemic-imposed trend of virtual shows — it’s all systems go for men’s fashion week in Milan which opened Friday.

Promising spectacle and optimism after a year in which sales of Italian fashion showed the strongest growth of the last 20 years, presentations for Fall-Winter 2023/2024 men’s collections run until Tuesday.

Of the 79 shows, only four are digital, a holdover from the debilitating pandemic period that sent sales plunging and brought a halt to live runway shows. 

Nothing replaces “the live experience, the frenzy, the expectation, the applause, the top models parading on the catwalk and the powerful music”, fashion consultant Elisabetta Cavatorta told AFP.

Most anticipated was fashion powerhouse Gucci which put on a menswear-only show for the first time in three years and the luxury label’s first since artistic director Alessandro Michele’s surprise departure in November.

New direction at Gucci?

At its minimalist show Friday, Gucci said it was celebrating “the aesthetics of improvisation” with a collection inspired by the classic wardrobe of the gentleman, revisited in a subversive spirit. 

Combining faded jeans with sequined tops and green and red or pink boots with heels, the collection mixed genres and colours. 

Long oversized coats with ample shoulder pads and maxi skirts split to reveal bare legs peppered the collection, while wool hats and rectangular tote bags tossed carelessly over the shoulder added to Gucci’s accessory arsenal. 

With his colourful collections seeped in the 1970s, Michele provided a new lease on life after being tapped in 2015 to revive sales at the storied brand with the world-famous stripe logo in green and red.

While sales exploded by 44 per cent in 2018 for Kering’s flagship brand, growth has lagged competitors in the last two years.

“It remains to be seen whether Alessandro Michele’s departure initiates a change of direction for the fashion house,” Cavatorta said.

As to who will take over the reins at Gucci, the fashion world awaits news of Michele’s successor with bated breath.

Soaring revenues

Armani, Prada, Fendi, Dolce & Gabbana and Zegna are among the big labels set to unveil men’s collections in the Italian fashion capital.

But there have been defections including Versace, which plans to show its men’s and women’s collections together in Los Angeles on March 10.

Despite the war in Ukraine and the impact of the energy crisis on an energy-intensive fashion supply chain, sales of Italian fashion last year rose 16 per cent to 96.6 billion euros ($104.4 billion).

“This is the highest revenue in the last 20 years,” said Carlo Capasa, president of the Italian Fashion Chamber, at a presentation ahead of the shows last month. 

Inflation has had an impact, as Italian fashion prices rose by about nine per cent in 2022, but their increase is “a positive sign that closes a year marked by dramatic events and difficult times”, Capasa added. 

Exports of “Made in Italy” fashion climbed 18.7 per cent in the first nine months of last year, driven by demand in the United States and the Gulf countries where exports both soared by more than 50 per cent.

Sales to China grew more moderately, at 18.8 per cent, while exports to Russia fell by 26 per cent, in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. 

But one area in which the impact of the COVID-19 crisis will still be felt in Milan is the absence of Chinese buyers.

Despite the lifting of coronavirus-related health restrictions by authorities in Beijing, the number of buyers who will travel to the city for the shows will be “limited”, Capasa said.

First launched in 2019 and trickling into the Jordanian market through independent dealers in more recent weeks and months, the Chevrolet Menlo is one of the more interesting EVs. Like most popular EVs in Jordan, the Menlo is a Chinese market model developed by General Motors’ joint venture with SAIC Motor, rather than an American market product. Built on a dedicated EV platform, the Menlo makes for an arguably more attractive and reassuringly conventional alternative to the officially imported Chevrolet Bolt EUV crossover.

Sporting style

Described by its manufacturer as a “sporty-looking sedan”, the Menlo is meanwhile pitched by some as a CUV owing to its moderately raised ride height and chunky, rugged looking lower black cladding. Indeed sporty in style with its wavy lines and rakishly descending roofline, the Menlo’s body design is, however, closer to a larger hatchback than a three-box “sedan”. Most accurately, the Menlo is instead more similar to a hatchback-based compact estate in the vein of the Ford Focus Turnier or Volkswagen Golf Variant.

Too low to be a CUV, the Menlo cuts a comparatively sleek figure for its segment, with blacked out lower sills well disguising its high cabin floor and tall flanks, and features jutting creases, lower lip, liftgate spoiler and a truncated rear deck and light combo. Its scalloped clamshell bonnet, broad wheel-arches and seemingly low bonnet line are refreshingly slinky and sporty, especially in contrast to the Bolt EUV and Chevrolet’s Groove and Captiva CUVs and their ungainly tall bonnet lines.

Confident delivery

At the front, the Menlo’s sporty styling also incorporates a slim lower vent and flared side bumper ducts for an aggressive aesthetic. Positioned between, behind and below its scowling slim headlights, the Menlo EV is meanwhile powered by a front-mounted electric motor driving the front wheels through a single-speed automatic gearbox. Developing 148BHP and 258lb/ft, the Menlo EV is significantly torque biased and responsive from standstill. Returning timely, if not outright quick, 9.8-second 0-100km/h acceleration, the Menlo can meanwhile attain a top speed limited to 150km/h. 

With generous and near instant high torque output from the get go, the Menlo EV is muscular, but with slight torque-steer, when launched aggressively. Confident and versatile accumulating velocity at lower and cruising speeds, the Menlo EV’s rate of acceleration drops off somewhat at high higher speeds, as typical of most EVs. However, from 2022 onwards, the Menlo received a power hike to 174BHP, and is expected to deliver improved acceleration, on the move flexibility and an increased 170km/h top speed.

Smooth and silent

Powered by a 52.5kWh lithium-ion battery the Menlo EV is capable of a claimed 410km NEDC driving range. Performing better at low speed and in less aggressive stop/go conditions, with more regenerative braking input, the Menlo’s range would drop with more aggressive acceleration, sustained inclines and longer stretches at higher speeds. From 2022, an upgraded 61.1kWH battery pack promises an improved 518km claimed range. High capacity charging, where available, takes 40-minutes to 80 per cent, while a more conventional wall charger takes 8-hours to full.

Smooth and near silent in its uninterrupted power delivery, the Menlo EV carries its hefty 1,660kg weight with confidence, if not outright effortlessness. Weighty owing to its batteries — as all EVs — the Menlo’s mass is evident, but managed comparatively well through corners, and feels grounded. Tidy turning in when driven smoothly and with progressive inputs, the Menlo’s reasonably well contains body lean. Gradually applying power to exit a corner meanwhile yields composed manners and prevents a sudden electric torque surge and understeer.

Upbeat practicality

Comfortable and smooth if slightly firm in ride quality, the Menlo EV dispatches most road imperfections with good absorption, while 215/55R17 tyres are unexaggerated and provide a good mix of grip and compliance. Stable and reassuring on the road, the Menlo is meanwhile is fairly easy to manoeuvre in town, and one soon adapts to its flared surfaces and sightlines. The Menlo’s camera and rear sensors are meanwhile quite useful when parking and reversing and compensate for its big C-pillars, in terms of visibility.

Sporty and upbeat, if somewhat busy in design, the Menlo’s cabin features a chunky steering wheel, digital instrument screen and large, clear central infotainment screen. User-friendly in its controls, the Menlo meanwhile features reasonably good materials for its class, including a variety of textures and surfaces. Driving position is comfortable and rear space is decent if not overly generous. However, the Menlo’s long, yet somewhat shallow estate-style boot impressed, and well accommodates suitcases within its 433-litre volume, and expands to 1,077-litres when rear seats are folded.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Engine: Front-mounted permanent magnet synchronous electric motor
• Battery: Lithium-ion, 52.5kWh
• Gearbox: 1-speed automatic, front-wheel-drive
• Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 148 (150) [110]
• Power-to-weight: 89.1BHP/tonne
• Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 258 (350)
• Torque-to-weight: 210.8Nm/tonne
• 0-100km/h: 9.8-seconds
• Top speed: 150km/h
• Range, NEDC: 410km
• Energy consumption: 13.1kWh/100km
• Charging time, DC fast charger, 0-80 per cent/AC wall charger: 40-minutes/8 hours
• Length: 4,665mm
• Width: 1,813mm
• Height: 1,538mm
• Wheelbase: 2,660mm
• Track, F/R: 1,545/1,556mm
• Luggage volume, min/max: 433-/1,077-litres
• Kerb weight: 1,660kg 
• Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion
• Suspension: MacPherson struts/multi-link
• Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs/discs, regenerative
• Tyres: 215/55R17

By Nathalie Khalaf
Holistic Counsellor

“Don’t be selfish! Think of others before you think of yourself!” Most of us grew up hearing these words as part of our upbringing and education. Well, they are good but I’m here to tell you to “Please be selfish and think of yourself first!”

Now, before you go raising your eyebrows in surprise, please allow me to explain; as children, most of us are taught values and good manners. These include thinking of others before ourselves, to always help out, to be there for others, never to be selfish, jealous or negative. These selfless traits sound great in a perfect world, but not when it is real life and at the expense of our own feelings, happiness and well-being.

Self-consideration and abandonment

As children, our parents try their best to raise us with the best of manners. To “do unto others only what we would wish them to do unto us”, but throughout the generations, self-love wasn’t ever considered. It is still seen today as a selfish thing and even frowned upon. I’m here to tell you that everything needs to be felt in a balanced way: Too much love for the other can also feel stifling and controlling. Too little love can leave one feeling abandoned and neglected. Too much selfishness can lead to pain and suffering and yet too little self-consideration can lead to self-abandonment and resentment.

Self-love may not be something we learn growing up, but it is certainly something we need to learn as adults. It was one of the most challenging things I had to learn, then once I started shifting the love I was giving out — back into myself, things started changing in my life. I had literally “sold myself out, betrayed and back stabbed myself’ so many times in order to gain others” approval, acceptance and love. I then kept blaming life and others for my failed relationships and misery in life.

We all long for love throughout our lives; as children we do everything in order to receive the approval, acceptance and love of our parents, siblings and extended family. Then, as teenagers we start doing everything in order to receive the approval, acceptance and love of classmates and friends — the start of our connection to a larger society. As young adults, we do so much in order to receive the approval, acceptance and love of colleagues at work, friends and that other special one as we start carving out our love life-and so the cycle continues.

Now, if we can take a moment and look back at certain patterns in our lives, we notice there were times when we did things we didn’t really want to do, or said yes when we really wanted to say no, and vice versa, just to receive acceptance, approval and love. These patterns continue throughout our lives. Many times, those decisions and actions are not what we desire, but we choose to go against ourselves because thinking about ourselves is seen as a selfish thing and frowned upon. The older we get, the more duty-bound we feel and this causes unhappiness, stress, resentment and anger.

Acceptance

Many of our relationships are built on false grounds, such as desperately wishing to be accepted by family, friends and society, which makes us turn a blind eye to values which do not match our own. We may get involved with partners pressured by society, religion or family. We do things because we want something back, not from a place of inner truth. Truth to ourselves and truth to others. All along the way, we are never taught to look at the person in the mirror and connect with them, ask them what they really want, what makes them happy. Our most important and real relationship of our lives is the one we have with our selves.

Self-love is about taking the time to look within our Selves. To learn to connect to the child we all still have within us so desperate for love, attention, approval and acceptance. Once we can truly see our self as our best friend and learn to love our Self with full acceptance of who we are (forgiving our Selves for everything we judge as wrong), then love and joy is all that is left. When we become our own number one, then everybody else’s love, acceptance and approval is just great as an addition to our lives — not what we depend on to complete us. We approach life with our own cup full from within and everything else is just a good addition.

It is when we learn to accept ourselves, that we can truly accept others. When we learn to forgive ourselves, then we can truly forgive others. When we love ourselves fully, then we can truly love another for who they are and not the image we have of them in our heads.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

TOKYO — Mosquitoes that transmit dengue and other viruses have evolved growing resistance to insecticides in parts of Asia, and novel ways to control them are desperately needed, new research warns.

Health authorities commonly fog mosquito-infested areas with clouds of insecticide, and resistance has long been a concern, but the scale of the problem was not well understood.

Japanese scientist Shinji Kasai and his team examined mosquitos from several countries in Asia as well as Ghana and found a series of mutations had made some virtually impervious to popular pyrethroid-based chemicals like permethrin.

“In Cambodia, more than 90 per cent of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have the combination of mutations that results in an extremely high level of resistance,” Kasai told AFP.

He found some mosquito strains had 1,000-fold resistance, compared to the 100-fold seen previously.

That meant insecticide levels that would normally kill almost 100 per cent of mosquitoes in a sample killed only around seven per cent of the insects.

Even a dose 10 times stronger killed just 30 per cent of the super-resistant mosquitoes.

“The resistance level that we found in mosquitos in Cambodia and Vietnam is totally different,” said Kasai, director of the Department of Medical Entomology at Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases.

Dengue can cause haemorrhagic fever and infects an estimated 100 to 400 million people a year, although over 80 per cent of cases are mild or asymptomatic, according to the World Health Organisation.

Several dengue vaccines have been developed, and researchers have also used a bacteria that sterilises mosquitoes to tackle the virus.

But neither option is yet close to eradicating dengue, and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes carry other diseases, including zika and yellow fever.

New formulas needed

Resistance was also detected in another type of mosquito, Aedes albopictus, though at lower levels — possibly because it tends to feed outdoors, often on animals, and may be exposed to insecticides less than its human-loving Aedes aegypti counterparts.

The research found several genetic changes were linked with resistance, including two that occur close to the part of mosquitoes targeted by pyrethroid and several other insecticides.

Resistance levels differed, with mosquitos from Ghana as well as parts of Indonesia and Taiwan still relatively susceptible to existing chemicals, particularly at higher doses.

But the research shows “commonly employed strategies may no longer be effective”, said Cameron Webb, an associate professor and mosquito researcher at NSW Health Pathology and the University of Sydney.

“There is growing evidence that there may not be a place for current insecticide formulations in controlling populations of key mosquito pests,” Webb told AFP.

He said new chemicals are needed, but authorities and researchers also need to think of other ways to protect communities, including vaccines.

“We have to think about rotating insecticides... that have different target sites,” added Kasai, whose research was published last month in the journal Science Advances.

“The problem is that we don’t have so many different kinds that we can use.”

Other options include more efforts to remove breeding sites.

When and where the mutations for resistance emerged is still a mystery, but Kasai is now expanding the research elsewhere in Asia and examining more recent samples from Cambodia and Vietnam to see if anything has changed from the 2016-2019 study period.

“We are worried that the mosquitoes with the mutations that we found in this study will spread to the rest of the world in the near future,” he said.

“Before that, we have to think of a solution.”

WASHINGTON — Troops battle through burning streets. Missiles take down fighter jets. Drones pulverise tanks. The dramatic visuals have the trappings of real-life combat, but they are clips from video games fuelling misinformation.

Footage from the war-themed Arma 3 video game, often marked “live” or “breaking news” to make it appear genuine, has been used repeatedly in recent months in fake videos about the Russian offensive in Ukraine.

The frequency and ease with which gaming footage is mistaken as real, even by some media broadcasters, and shared as authentic news on social media highlight what researchers call its serious potential to spread misinformation.

“The fact that it keeps happening is a reminder of how easy it is to fool people,” Claire Wardle, co-director of the Information Futures Lab at Brown University, told AFP.

“As video game visuals get more sophisticated, CGI [computer-generated imagery] can, at a quick glance, look real. People need to know how to verify imagery, including looking at metadata so that these mistakes don’t get made, especially by newsrooms.”

Arma 3, whose Czech-based developers promise “true combat game play in a massive military sandbox”, allows players to create various battlefield scenarios using aircraft, tanks and a host of weapons.

Players often upload hours of gaming footage on platforms such as YouTube and researchers blame its easy availability for its misuse.

In the comments under one Arma 3 video titled “Ukraine’s counteroffensive!” — which simulated a missile strike on a column of tanks — a user, who apparently took it as real, wrote: “We must ask Ukraine after this war to train NATO forces how to fight.”

‘First TikTok war’

“While it’s flattering that Arma 3 simulates modern war conflicts in such a realistic way, we are certainly not pleased that it can be mistaken for real-life combat footage and used as war propaganda,” a representative of Bohemia Interactive, the game’s creator, said in a statement.

“We’ve been trying to fight against such content by flagging these videos to platform providers, but it’s very ineffective. With every video taken down, ten more are uploaded each day.”

In recent years, Arma 3 videos have been used in false depictions of other conflicts, including Syria, Afghanistan and Palestine, with the clips often debunked by global fact checkers.

That includes AFP, which has debunked several videos using Arma 3 content, including one in November that also claimed to show Russian tanks being struck by US-made Javelin missiles. The clip had been viewed tens of thousands of times on social media.

Bohemia Interactive said the misleading videos have recently “gained traction” in regard to the conflict in Ukraine.

Dubbed by observers as the “first TikTok war”, it is a conflict like no other as a steady stream of visuals from the frontlines — some of it misleading or false — pour onto social media platforms.

Given the unsophisticated nature of the Arma 3 misinformation, researchers say it is unlikely to be the work of state actors.

“I suspect that the people posting this content are just trolls doing it to see how many people they can fool,” Nick Waters, from the digital forensics firm Bellingcat, told AFP.

“Secondary disseminators will be gullible people who pick up this content and circulate it in an attempt to garner fake Internet points.”

Bohemia Interactive said the false videos were “massively shared” by social media users, many of whom seek what researchers call engagement bait — eye-catching posts that generate more interaction through likes, shares and comments.

‘Different from reality’

The Arma 3 videos, which its creator acknowledged are “quite capable of spreading fake news”, were also shared by various mainstream media and government institutions worldwide, Bohemia Interactive said.

In a live broadcast in November, Romania TV wrongly presented an old Arma 3 video as battle footage from Ukraine, and a former Romanian defence minister and former intelligence chief offered their analysis of the footage as if it were real.

This occurred after another Romanian news channel, Antena 3, made the same error in February — among the experts invited by the broadcaster to analyse its video taken from Arma 3 was the spokesman of the Romanian defense ministry.

Bohemia Interactive has urged users to use gaming footage responsibly, refrain from using clickbait video titles and clearly state that it was derived from a video game.

Researchers say their videos are relatively easier to debunk compared to “deepfakes” — fabricated images, audio and videos created using technology that experts warn is frighteningly sophisticated and gaining ground in the criminal underworld.

“If you know what you’re looking for, these [Arma 3] videos aren’t actually difficult to identify as fakes,” said Waters.

“As good as Arma 3 looks, it’s still significantly different from reality.” 

The fact that many are unable to do so points to another stark reality in the age of misinformation.

“It shows that some people don’t have the skills to navigate the current information environment,” Waters said.