Features

By Sara Mahdawi
Clinical Psychologist

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a broad term, yet an easy action to distinguish. Affecting both men and women, GBV is the more notable human rights violation within all societies.

The official definition of GBV is harmful acts directed at an individual based on gender. It is rooted in gender inequality, the abuse of power and harmful norms. Unfortunately, one in every three women worldwide is subjected to either physical and/or sexual abuse in their lifetime.

Triggers

Social norms: We may find ourselves wondering why a certain phenomenon occurs more often in a specific area compared to another. Several risk factors play a role in increasing the prevalence of GBV, starting with social norms. Social norms are behaviours considered acceptable in a community or for a group of people. Unfortunately, in communities that normalise gender inequality such as giving a higher status to men, witness a higher prevalence of GBV amongst women. 

Economic conditions and lockdowns: The economic situation, displacement, war, and sadly, the recent development of lockdowns and other movement restrictions due to the pandemic, have all left many victims with their abusers, isolated from their support networks. GBV does not only affect survivors, but it also affects society at large. Normalising violence against women will only normalise all other forms of violence in a community, as exposing children to such acts might increase the number of adults who will become abusers or victims themselves.

Seven different forms of GBV

If we want to take an active role in preventing GBV, we need to be able to identify all forms of GBV. The United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA) identifies seven forms of GBV: 

•Sexual violence: Rape and marital rape, taking advantage of a coercive environment, or against a person incapable of giving genuine consent

•Sexual harassment: Any unwelcome sexual innuendo or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, display or pornographic material

•Physical violence: Beating, punching, kicking, biting, burning, maiming, or killing, with or without weapons; often in combination with other forms of sexual and gender-based violence

•Emotional and psychological violence: Nonsexual verbal abuse that is insulting, degrading, and demeaning

•SocioEconomic Violence: Discrimination and/ or denial of opportunities and services exclusion, denial of access to education and health assistance or remunerated employment 

•Early marriage: An arranged marriage against the survivor’s wishes, which may expose a person to violent and or abusive consequences if he or she refuses to comply. This includes child marriages

•Female genital mutilation: The cutting of genital organs for nonmedical reasons, usually done at a young age and ranges from partial to total cutting

Take an active role

It can be very scary to think of ourselves or someone we love such as our mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, or neighbours as surviving or still suffering from GBV.

Things that can be done to prevent GBV:

•Taking part in reducing stigma by spreading awareness about GBV in the community 

•Listening to survivors without judgment 

•Offering support if the survivor wishes it 

•Staying up-to-date on laws and reporting procedures in your country

•Educating your children about GBV

•Avoiding common and harmful gender stereotypes such as “girls are sensitive and men are violent and strong”, or “girls belong in the kitchen and only men should be allowed to work”, and so on

•Becoming a vocal advocate for gender equality and taking part in campaigns that aim to prevent GBV

Keep in mind that abuse is about control and control starts once the abuser succeeds in isolating the victim from loved ones to convince the victim that their abuser is the most important person in their lives. In those cases, a text, a phone call and a shoulder to cry on can go a long way. If you or someone you know is experiencing any form of violence, make sure to contact specialised authorities. You can contact the Jordan River Foundation hotline number at 110.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

LOS ANGELES — Harrison Ford has rarely bothered with television since “Star Wars” propelled him to A-list movie fame nearly half a century ago — but that is about to change with small-screen Western “1923”.

Spun off from “Yellowstone”, a modern-day cowboy saga that has become a rare cable TV ratings juggernaut in the United States, Ford’s prequel series traces the ancestors of the wealthy, ruthless Dutton clan and their sprawling Montana ranch.

“It’s a very complicated and ambitious — epic, even — undertaking, this story,” Ford told AFP at the Los Angeles premiere for the show, which will stream on Paramount+ from Sunday.

With the show shot largely on location in Montana, Ford joked that he was lured to “1923” by the prospect of “outdoor work”.

But Ford, who spent years working repetitive television jobs in Los Angeles before he was cast as Han Solo and Indiana Jones, is not the only Hollywood film giant to sign up for the TV series.

He and Oscar winner Helen Mirren co-star as Jacob and Cara Dutton, a long-married couple working to protect their land and cattle from bears, wolves and jealous neighbouring ranchers. Former James Bond actor Timothy Dalton is cast as a villain.

Their presence in “1923” is part of a broader trend in the entertainment industry. Movie stars from Al Pacino to Meryl Streep have flocked to the small screen to be part of the so-called “golden age of television”. 

The entry of deep-pocketed streaming giants Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple TV+ has created a highly competitive and lucrative marketplace, forcing other networks to up their game.

“It’s just following the good writing,” said Ford.

“The writing can be found in movies and in television, and I just found some great writing in television. That’s what made me want to do it.”

Ford is still set to appear on the silver screen in next year’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” as well as several Marvel superhero films in a minor recurring role.

‘American history’

Of course, few recent series can boast the success of “Yellowstone”.

Its season five premiere last month broke ratings records, luring more than 12 million viewers to Paramount’s relatively small cable network — a number higher than “Game of Thrones” at the same stage.

The show, which appeals to America’s conservative heartland, has already launched a separate Dutton family prequel spin-off called “1883”, starring Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.

But “this particular Duttons saga has a different kind of character to the other two,” said Ford, about “1923”.

“Each of them has an individual character which I think is really interesting and powerful.”

For Mirren, “1923” is a “wonderful observation and essay on American history” that feels like “a sprawling Russian novel”.

Dalton said the truth about pioneers in the West has “not ever really been told honestly, has it?”

“It’s been dressed-up in idealism... people aren’t very nice when they’re in bad circumstances.”

‘Love of the land’

In the show, Ford is regularly seen riding a horse through the stunning mountains of Montana — just a few hours’ drive from the remote ranch in Wyoming that the actor has called home for decades.

During the first episode, his character is confronted by a sheep rancher who claims the size of Dutton’s enormous and closely guarded property is unfair, given that his neighbours are scrabbling to keep their flocks alive on the sparse surrounding lands.

The question of who owns America’s majestic West is a common theme across the “Yellowstone” shows, which portray Native Americans as well as ranchers.

It hits close to home for Ford, who moved from California to Wyoming seeking privacy in the 1980s, and is an active environmentalist who has donated hundreds of acres of his own land for conservation.

So, does “1923” have any lessons for solving America’s never-ending debate over its most precious resource?

“Well, there are perceptions, that are not mine, about the land,” said Ford.

“But it’s a complicated issue, love of the land — what it means, in a particular place, in a particular time, to a particular kind of person.”

BILLUND, Denmark — As a boy, Samuel Tacchi was crazy about Lego cranes. Now he designs them, under cloak-and-dagger secrecy, at the Danish group’s headquarters where Santa has filled his sacks for decades.

At its ultra-modern flagship building in Billund, a visit to the offices where the design work is done is out of the question — the company is fiercely protective of its trade secrets.

But Tacchi, a 34-year-old Frenchman, lifts the veil a smidgen on the creative process, standing at a display featuring some of the brand’s colourful toy kits.

“I always start with a little sketch on paper about what I have in mind”, says Tacchi, who designs for the Lego Technic series.

“Then I start to build the technical layout: the drive train, steering, and starting to build with the function. And then I dive into the styling.”

“Then afterwards we dive into the computer.”

His office is a child’s dream come true, chock-a-block with Lego Technic pieces.

“We have an elements shelf behind our backs. It’s easy to reach and fix some elements, build them together and see if [our idea] works,” he says.

In his seven years with the company, Tacchi has helped create around 25 kits.

From start-up to multinational

A family-owned company, Lego employs more than 20,000 people around the world — more than a quarter of them in Billund, which is also home to its oldest factory.

Here, in a huge hall where robots move about like in a choreographed dance, hundreds of thousands of pieces are manufactured each day. 

Colourful plastic is moulded into familiar shapes: bricks, figurines, hair, dragon wings and tyres (Lego is reported to be the biggest tyre manufacturer in the world!)

Sorted and stored by model in large crates in an adjoining warehouse, the pieces are then sent to other factories to be included in kits.

While everything is made of plastic today, the toy empire was founded by a carpenter very conscious of the quality of the wood he used. 

In 1932, in the middle of the Great Depression, Ole Kirk Kristiansen began making wooden toys, winning the favour of Danish children with his yo-yos.

“He sold the yo-yo to every child in Billund and... [when every child had one] he couldn’t sell anymore. But he still had them laying around,” explains Signe Wiese, Lego’s resident historian.

“So instead of throwing them out or just leaving them, he reused them. He split the yo-yos in half and he used them for wheels on wagons.”

Four years later, having given up on carpentry, he named his new company “Lego”, a contraction of the Danish “Leg godt”, which means “Play well”.

With a shortage of raw materials after World War II, Kirk Kristiansen gradually turned towards plastic and invested his life savings in an injection moulding machine.

“He was really fascinated with the technology and the machinery and the material itself,” says Wiese.

“So for him, it seems to have been a pretty easy decision, in spite of the fact that everyone was actually advising him against it.”

The idea for the bricks came later.

Initially they were made without Lego’s famed “clutch power” — the mechanism that makes it possible to click the bricks together.

The design was patented in 1958, paving the way for an endless catalogue of figures, shapes and kits.

Now, Lego is the biggest toymaker in the world, ahead of Japan’s Bandai Namca and US groups Hasbro and Mattel, according to market analysts Statista.

This year, Lego says its catalogue of toys is bigger than ever before, but refuses to disclose the exact number. 

AMSTERDAM — Tulips and bitcoin have both been associated with financial bubbles in their time, but in a giant greenhouse near Amsterdam the Dutch are trying to make them work together.

Engineer Bert de Groot inspects the six bitcoin miners as they perform complex sums to earn cryptocurrency, filling the air with a noisy whine along with a blast of warmth.

That warmth is now heating the hothouse where rows of tulips grow, cutting the farmers’ reliance on gas whose price has soared since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The servers in turn are powered by solar energy from the roof, reducing the normally huge electricity costs for mining, and cutting the impact on the environment.

Meanwhile, both the farmers and de Groot’s company, Bitcoin Brabant, are earning crypto, which is still attracting investors despite a recent crash in the market.

“We think with this way of heating our greenhouse but also earning some bitcoin we have a win-win situation,” flower farmer Danielle Koning, 37, told AFP.

The Netherlands’ love of tulips caused the first stock market crash in the 17th century when speculation bulb prices caused prices to soar, only to later collapse.

Now The Netherlands is the world’s biggest tulip producer and also the second biggest agricultural exporter overall after the United States, with much grown in greenhouses.

‘Improving the environment’

But the low-lying country is keenly aware of the effect of the agricultural industry on climate change, while farmers are struggling with high energy prices.

Mining for cryptocurrency, meanwhile, requires huge amounts of electricity to power computers, leading to an environmental impact amid global efforts to tackle climate change. 

De Groot, 35, who only started his business earlier this year and now has 17 clients including restaurants and warehouses, says this makes bitcoin and tulips a perfect fit.

“This operation is actually carbon negative, as are all the operations I basically build,” says the long-haired de Groot, sporting an orange polo shirt with his firm’s logo.

“We’re actually improving the environment.”

He is also selling tulips online for bitcoin via a business called Bitcoinbloem.

The collaboration started when Koning saw a Twitter video de Groot had made about bitcoin mining, and called him up.

Now there are six servers at their hothouse, whose exact location Koning asked to keep secret to avoid thieves targeting the 15,000-euro machines.

Koning’s company owns half of them and keeps the bitcoin they produce, while de Groot is allowed to keep his three servers there in exchange for monthly visits to clean dust and insects out of the servers’ fans.

With a 20ºC difference between the air entering the machine and leaving them, this provides the heat needed to grow the tulips, and to dry the bulbs that produce them.

‘No worries’

“The most important thing we get out of it is, we save on natural gas,” says Koning. “Secondly, well, we earn Bitcoin by running them in the greenhouse.”

Huge energy costs have driven some Dutch agricultural firms that often rely on greenhouses to stop growing this year, while others have even gone bankrupt, says Koning.

Meanwhile, the philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who developed the idea of the unpredictable but historic “black swan” event, has compared Bitcoin to the “Tulipmania” that engulfed The Netherlands nearly 400 years ago.

This saw prices for a single bulb rise to more than 100 times the average annual income at the time before the bubble burst in 1637, causing banks to fail and people to lose their life savings.

The cryptocurrency sector is currently reeling from the collapse of a major exchange — with Bitcoin currently worth around $16,300 per unit, down from a high of $68,000 in November 2021 — but De Groot isn’t worried.

“I have absolutely no worries about the long-term value proposition of an immutable monetary system,” he says.

“Bitcoin will last for ever.”

LONDON — The mostly defunct red phone boxes no longer attract much attention in London except from tourists. But Stuart Fowkes is thrilled to stumble upon one still in working order.

Its ring is one of the world’s disappearing noises that his pioneering “obsolete sounds” project is dedicated to preserving.

He whips out a hand-held recording device and swings into action, explaining, “I’ve always had sonic curiosity.

“New sounds are appearing faster than at any time in history but they are also changing and disappearing faster than ever before.”

Over the past five years Fowkes’ Cities and Memories website has collected and remixed more than 5,000 sounds from 100 countries which are being archived by the British Library.

Now, his latest project aims to preserve sounds that are “just on the edge of memory”.

These sounds that we are “just about forgetting” are the ones that have the “greatest emotional resonance”, he told AFP.

“What I have been struck by is how people have responded emotionally to some of the recordings.

“You’ve got people who heard the sound of a Super 8 film camera and this reminded them of being in their living room in 1978 with their dad showing them home movies for the first time.”

The “obsolete sounds” project features more than 150 recordings collected from around the world, and also includes remixes of those sounds by musicians and sound artists. 

Billed as the biggest collection of its kind, it includes everything from Walkman personal stereo cassette players and old video game consoles, to steam trains and vintage racing cars, as well as sounds that evoke the rapidly changing natural environment, such as crumbling glaciers. 

“Before the industrial revolution, our sound environment — bells and horses’ hooves and manual industry — would not have changed much for hundreds of years,” says Fowkes.

“Today, the pace of change is ridiculous. Things that are only a few years old, like ring tones on mobile phones, already sound dated.”

Sound of 

the Underground

Moving below street level down into London’s Underground train network, Fowkes gets to work again.

A bit like the “trainspotters” who were once a familiar sight on the platforms of UK railway stations, Fowkes is a dedicated “soundspotter”.

But to him, there is nothing dull or uninteresting about the screeching of the train’s wheels scraping against the curves in the metal tracks or the clunk of the doors opening and closing.

“I’ve always been someone who listens to the world. As soon as I have a recording device in my hand I start to listen to the world kind of differently and hear things that other people wouldn’t necessarily notice or listen to,” he says.

The digital consultant launched Cities and Memories in 2015 and has drawn in some 1,000 collaborators across the globe. 

“Every morning I wake up to emails with recordings from somewhere completely unexpected, like a beach in Bali or even the metro in Pyongyang,” he says.

Field recordings are “having a moment”, he adds, with artists such as ethereal Icelandic singer Bjork using them in their music. 

“It used to be seen as very niche, even trainspotter-like behaviour, but now anyone can make a decent recording on their phone and it’s becoming increasingly mainstream.”

Fowkes has been thrilled by the response to his project — but is keen to receive more, especially from African cities.

Anyone can contribute, he says, just by “sticking their mobile phone out of the window” and then visiting citiesandmemories.com.

In the meantime, he’ll keep on adding his own recordings, while admitting his dedication can sometimes be a source of mild irritation for his wife.

“Whenever we go to a new holiday destination... I am going ‘have you heard that pedestrian crossing? I have to go and record it’.”

First introduced in 2019 as the discrete high performance version of Audi’s full-size A8 luxury model, the S8 was something of a low key “sleeper” car next to wilder, more exaggeratedly style rivals. Packed with advanced features and built on a lightweight aluminium frame, the S8 is supercar swift luxury chariot for the tycoon with a desire for discretion. Boasting beguiling point-to-point performance, the S8’s high tech engineering all but bends the laws of physics in how it hustles its 2.2-tonne mass with impeccable composure, commitment, control, comfort and unexpected agility.

Subtle athleticism

Sculpted and statuesque with its fine detail and chiselled surfacing, the S8 walked a fine line between anonymity and outright aggression with it overall subtle athleticism and contrastingly overt and aggressive grille. So ahead of the game in its class when launched, the latest revised S8 remains almost unchanged since last driven, with updates focused on an aesthetic refresh, which introduces an edgier bumper and light treatment with sharper angles, creases, and lighting signatures. The S8’s grille more notably features a somewhat overstated large mesh, or chain-link style background, in place of its predecessor’s somewhat conservative slatted treatment. 

Nestled low between its enormous single frame grille and front axles, the S8’s aggressively tuned version of Audi’s twin-turbocharged, direct injection 4-litre V8 engine carries over unchanged. Producing a prolific 563BHP at 6,000rpm and an ample wave of torque throughout a wide and easily accessible 2,050-4,500rpm plateau, it powers all four wheels through Audi’s Quattro system. With short gasflow paths allowing for quick spooling turbos, and its tenacious traction, the 2,220kg S8 launches from standstill with immediacy, blasting through 0-100km/h in scant 3.8-seconds and onto an electronically-governed 250km/h maximum.

Swift and smooth

Pulling with confidence from low-end and through a muscular mid-range, the S8 is smooth and versatile throughout, and ever willing right to its rev limit. Stretching its legs in urgently linear fashion towards full power, the S8’s progression is backed up by a deep and wide torque reservoir. Silently swift in default and “comfort” driving modes, it returns comparatively restrained 11.4l/100km combined fuel efficiency. Brutally quick when driven with a firm right foot, the S8’s engine, however, adopts an edgier and more vocal soundtrack as sportier driving modes are engaged.

The S8’s rear-biased Quattro four-wheel-drive offsets its layout’s front-biased weighting and delivers remarkably reassuring road holding as associated with Audi since the 1980s. Sure-footed and agile, the S8’s self-locking centre differential distributes power between front and rear, while a “sport” differential diverts power where necessary along the rear axle to push it through corners. Its swift and smooth shifting 8-speed automatic gearbox meanwhile employs a broad range of ratios to optimise performance, flexibility, refinement and efficiency and features a choice of driving mode responsiveness, and more direct manual mode shifting.

Predictive poise

Superb in its stability at speed and settled yet supple ride characteristics in comfort mode driving, the S8’s air suspension provides taut lateral and vertical control. It nevertheless forgivingly soaks up rough textures. Poised and seemingly floating over imperfections, the S8’s air suspension firms up in sport mode for more composed cornering control. The S8 also features advanced Predictive Active Suspension, powered by its 48V system. With electric actuators individually adjusting each wheel for lumps, bumps and cracks, this can also automatically raise the car to mitigate side impacts.

The S8’s 48V-powered predictive suspension meanwhile virtually reads the road to anticipate and adjust for imminent textural changes, it also adapts to counteract body roll through fast corners. The 48V mild hybrid system also powers ancillary systems for improved efficiency and coasting. The S8’s dynamic envelope additionally includes four-wheel-steering, which turns rear wheels opposite to front at low speed to effectively shorten its wheelbase for enhanced manoeuvrability. It alternately steers rear wheels in the same direction at speed, to lengthen its wheelbase for improved steering response and lane-change stability.

Deluxe dynamics

As a result of its sublimely executed high-tech solutions and engineering, the S8 belies its size, weight and weight distribution in how tidy it turns in and through corners. With unanticipated responses, agility and control, the S8 seemingly shrinks around the driver and handles with the nimbleness of a smaller, sportier car, as its four-wheel-drive, differentials, active suspension and four-wheel-steering all act in concert to deliver flat, poised, smooth and composed dynamics and alternately cushioned refined and insulated comfort. Inside, passengers further benefit from noise cancellation tech, luxurious leather, metal and wood appointments.

Sportier than the garden variety A8, the S8’s deluxe lounge-like cabin is spacious in front and rear. Comfortable, well-adjustable and supportive seats, meanwhile, feature automatically adjustable pneumatic side bolsters for hard-driven corners, and optional massaging and ventilation functions. With extensive comfort, infotainment, safety and assistance equipment, the S8 features a configurable instrument panel and twin screen infotainment system with haptic buttons and voice recognition. The S8’s driver assistance and safety tech suite meanwhile includes lane tracking, traffic jam assistance, adaptive cruise control, and collision avoidance and mitigation systems.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 4-litre, twin-turbo, in-line V8-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 86 x 86mm

Compression ratio: 10.1:1

Valve-train: 32-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 8-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Ratios: 1st 4.714; 2nd 3.143; 3rd 2.106; 4th 1.667; 5th 1.285; 6th 1.0; 7th 0.839; 8th 0.667

Reverse/final drive ratios: 3.317/3.204

Drive-line: self-locking centre differential, optional limited-slip rear-differential

Power distribution, F/R: 40 per cent/60 per cent

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 563 (571) [420] @6,000rpm

Specific power: 141BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 253.6BHP/tonne (unladen)

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 590 (800) @2,050-4,500rpm

Specific torque: 200Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 360.3Nm/tonne (unladen)

0-100km/h: approximately 3.8-seconds

Top speed: 250km/h (electronically governed)

Fuel consumption, combined: 11.4 litres/100km 

Fuel capacity: 82-litres

Length: 5,190mm

Width: 1,945mm

Height: 1,475mm

Wheelbase: 2,998mm

Track, F/R: 1,629/1,614mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.28

Luggage volume: 505-litres

Unladen/kerb weight: 2,220/2,295kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion, all-wheel steering

Turning Circle: 11.4-metres

Suspension: Five-link, anti-roll bars, adaptive air dampers, active electro-mechanical suspension

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated & perforated discs, 400mm/350mm

Tyres: 265/40R20

By Nathalie Khalaf
Holistic counsellor

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become”. Many of us may have read or heard this quote by Carl Jung, or something similar, indicating that we are somewhat responsible for our life circumstances. I could not understand nor accept such a concept for the longest time as a young adult.

My biggest questions were: “How is this even possible?” and “How would I have desired to have a disturbed gut leading to Irritable Bowel Syndrome [IBS], or acne on my face for so long past my teenage years, colds and coughs which would turn asthmatic and last for a minimum of three months?” It took three rounds of severe depression to finally understand it!

The tipping point

It was only when I drove myself over a tipping point and “fell” into what I call “the abyss of my own darkness” that I came face to face with my life and how it was not going well for me.

I was not happy yet pretending everything was fine. I had developed all these diseases but could not see how unhappy I was and how that was contributing to my diseases! The truth is that if I hadn’t driven myself into a “brick wall” and hadn’t fallen deep into depression, I would really not have chosen to face the reality of my life nor fixed anything.

Up until the age of 36 I was just looking at my physical diseases as just ‘physical diseases’ with no idea nor concept that they may have been linked to the way I regarded myself; all the fears and doubts about life, all my negative thoughts about myself, the lack of self-support, and above all, the lack of self-love.

Little did I know that all of these negative thoughts (which are energies) were triggering emotions in me (also energies) which I did not want to “feel”. So, by suppressing what was happening in my body and pretending I was feeling good, I had stopped the natural flow of energy in my body, thus creating dis-ease in the energy flow: I had created my own disease in a physical sense.

Desperate to survive

I reached a stage where I was so desperate to “survive” and return to happiness, along with a realisation that the medication I was taking, in specific for my depression, was not really curing me, but just making me “believe” all of my anguish and problems were gone. 

I was not ready to face nor handle anything yet

It was only when I was weaned off the anti-depressants that I realised my life was still the same! Anti-depressants (from my own personal experience and having taken them three times over a long period of time) proved to simply ‘sweep things under the carpet’ if you wish, by numbing some emotions in my body. If I wasn’t feeling sad or afraid, it didn’t mean my issues were resolved, it just meant the flow of energy in my body had been further suppressed in order for me to be able to manage my life. And for that, I do thank those numb moments of absence of clarity-I was not ready to face nor handle anything yet.

Emotions are energy in motion

Our emotions can of course be challenging, especially the ones we do not wish to feel, such as sadness, anger, jealousy and fear. But they are a fact we need to deal with. The more we suppress what we do not wish to deal with, the more those energies “persist”. Emotions are “energy in motion”. The more we resist an energy, the more it will persist and over the years accumulate until we have to deal with it.

By feeling our way through life, and releasing emotions, we allow the natural flow of energy through our bodies and help our organs stay healthy.

Understanding our internal system

Why wait for a disaster to understand and use our internal system at all levels? Our emotions are the fuel our bodies need in order to stay healthy. By feeling our way through life, and releasing emotions, we allow the natural flow of energy through our bodies and help our organs stay healthy. My body became used to the medication I was taking so much so it had to be increased over the years. I “thought” I was “feeling” better. In fact, I was not really “feeling” anything.

Health and wellness

Holistic wellness means we are able to look into all levels of our health and well-being. These levels are: the spiritual, the mental, the emotional and the physical. They are all inter-connected. Once we understand how these levels affect our health and well-being, it becomes a matter of choice, and then a matter of will for us to create health and wellness in our lives.

Understanding the mind-body relationship requires commitment and determination to dig deep into our psyche and uncover long-established images and beliefs, as well as heavily suppressed emotions we were never taught how to deal with as youngsters and children. These heavy emotions are mostly sadness, abandonment, fear, guilt, shame, jealousy and anger.

Everything is energy and it needs to be in continuous vibration. If energy flow is suppressed then it creates stagnation and that’s where our physical diseases come from. Our thoughts, beliefs and emotions are all energy. Shedding light on our thoughts, self-talk and bringing all of this into our conscious mind, and looking at them through adult eyes, helps us understand where it may have originated from during our early years.

What we think and believe becomes our reality. We react to our belief system by allowing or suppressing feelings. The latter creates what is called an energy block or dis-ease in energy flow. Most energy blocks start when we are young children and remain with us in our physical body until we are adults. When we understand and commit to creating health and wellbeing in our lives by taking responsibility for our thoughts, beliefs and self-talk, then we can slowly work on releasing the energy blocks, and, with the help and support of a professional, we can bring health into our lives.

Self-acceptance

Once I understood that I had never loved nor accepted myself as a child, always comparing myself to others and never believing I was good enough, my self-confidence grew, my digestive system improved and my IBS disappeared and so did my acne.

When I started talking to my counsellor about my childhood, I started to release so much of the sadness, anger and grief that I had held on to as a child and teenager. I learnt I had the right to all those feelings. That nothing we feel is wrong or something to be ashamed of. By releasing all past hurt, all sadness from my chest and my heart, releasing all the choked-up words and pain from my throat, I stopped getting sick, I no longer got colds, and I no longer suffered from chronic coughing. We are all capable of holistic wellness. It is free and it is liberating. It needs commitment, determination (from ourselves to ourselves) acceptance, forgiveness and a lot of self-love.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

WASHINGTON — Chilly weather and common respiratory infections often go hand in hand.

Reasons for this include people gather inside more in winter, and viruses survive better in low-humidity indoor air. But there has been less certainty about whether lower temperatures actually impair human immunity and, if so, how.

Now, a recently published study in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology details a previously unknown way that the immune system attacks viral intruders inside the nose — and finds it works better when it’s warm.

These discoveries could pave the way for an eventual treatment against the common cold and other viruses, Mansoor Amiji, a pharmaceutical sciences professor at Northeastern University, who co-led the research, told AFP.

The starting point was previous research by Amiji and colleagues in 2018, which found that nasal cells released “extracellular vesicles” (EVs) — a spray of tiny sacs that swarmed and destroyed bacteria upon inhalation.

“The best analogy that we have is a hornet’s nest,” said Amiji. Like hornets defending a nest from attack, EVs swarm, bind to, and kill invaders.

For the new research, the team set out to answer two questions: are EVs also secreted in the nose in the presence of viral infections? And, if they are, is the strength of their response linked to temperature?

To answer the first question, they used a test substance which mimics a viral infection to stimulate nasal mucosa — a thin tissue that lines the nose — that was taken from volunteers who had surgery to remove polyps.

They found it did in fact produce EVs that target viruses.

In order to tackle the second question, they divided the nasal cell samples into two groups and cultured them in a lab, subjecting one set of samples to 37oC, and the other to 32oC.

These temperatures were chosen based on a separate test that found the temperature inside the nose falls by about 5oC when outside air drops from 23oC to 4oC.

Under regular body heat conditions, the EVs were successfully able to fight off viruses, by presenting them with “decoy” targets that they latch on to instead of the receptors they would otherwise target on cells. 

But under the reduced temperatures, fewer EVs were produced, and those that were made packed less punch against the invaders tested: two rhinoviruses and a non-Covid coronavirus, which are typically found in winter cold season.

“There’s never been a convincing reason why you have this very clear increase in viral infectivity in the cold months,” said co-author Benjamin Bleier, a surgeon at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Eye and Ear, in a statement.

“This is the first quantitative and biologically plausible explanation that has been developed.”

One of the most exciting aspects of the work is the potential to rev up the body’s natural production of virus-targeting EVs in order to fight or even fend off the cold — or even the flu and Covid, said Amiji.

“That’s an area of great interest for us and we certainly continue to pursue that,” he said.

PARIS — A year of extraordinary upheaval, from the war in Ukraine to catastrophic natural disasters, AFP looks at some of the words and phrases that have defined 2022.

Armageddon

With the war in Ukraine and increasingly strident threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the spectre of nuclear warfare is stalking the globe for the first time in decades. “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis” in 1962, US President Joe Biden warned in October. Experts warned of the most dangerous situation they can remember, with fears not limited to Russia: North Korean nuclear sabre-rattling has reached new heights, with the world bracing for a first nuclear test since 2017.

London Bridge

At 6:30pm on September 8, Buckingham Palace announced that Queen Elizabeth had died, bringing to an end the longest reign in British history and sending shock waves around the world. For 10 days, Britons paid respects to the only monarch most had known, following a carefully choreographed series of ceremonies. The programme of events, famously codenamed “London Bridge”, set out in minute detail every aspect of the protocol — down to BBC presenters wearing black ties. In the event, she died in Scotland, meaning special provisions came into force — Operation Unicorn.

Loss and Damage

World leaders and negotiators descended on the Egyptian Red Sea port of Sharm el-Sheikh for the latest United Nations summit (COP27) on tackling climate change. After a fractious summit, widely seen as poorly organised, a deal was clinched on a fund for “loss and damage” to help vulnerable countries cope with the devastating impacts of climate change. Behind the institutional-sounding name lies destruction for millions in the developing world. The COP summit was hailed as historic but many voiced anger over a lack of ambition on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Woman. Life. Freedom

The chant screamed by protesters in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman arrested by the Tehran morality police. Protesters have burned posters of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and women have appeared in public without headscarves, in scenes scarcely imaginable before the uprising. The demonstrations have lasted three months and appear to pose an existential challenge to the 43-year rule of the clerical regime.

Blue tick

The tiny blue tick (it’s actually white on a blue background), which certifies users on Twitter, became a symbol of the chaos engulfing the social media platform in the wake of its $44-billion takeover by Elon Musk. The mercurial Tesla boss announced that anyone wanting the coveted blue tick would have to stump up eight dollars, only to scrap the plan hours later. A month on from the takeover, Twitter’s future remains up in the air, with thousands of staff laid off, advertisers leaving, and its “free speech” platform hugely uncertain.

Roe versus Wade

In an historic ruling, the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 “Roe vs. Wade” decision that enshrined a woman’s right to an abortion. The Supreme Court ruled that individual states could restrict or ban the procedure — a decision seized upon by several right-leaning states. Protests erupted instantly in Washington and elsewhere, showing how divisive the topic remains in the United States. The overturning of “Roe v. Wade” became a critical battle in the US mid-terms, in which candidates in favour of abortion rights won several victories.

Quiet quitting

One of the “words of the year” in Britain and Australia, the phrase refers to doing the bare minimum at work, either as a protest against your employer or to improve your work-life balance. The trend, which has sparked debate about overwork, especially in the United States, appears to have surfaced first in a TikTok post in July. “You’re not outright quitting your job but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond,” said the post which went viral, drawing nearly a half-million likes.

Wet lettuce

As Liz Truss approached the end of her chaotic and short-lived tenure as British prime minister, the Economist weekly mused that her effective period in office had been “roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce”. The tabloid Daily Star leapt on the idea, launching a live web cam featuring said vegetable — complete with googly eyes — next to a picture of the hapless Truss. Her premiership lasted just 44 days and featured a mini-budget that collapsed the markets and generated extraordinary political upheaval. In the end, the lettuce won.

Tomatoe soup

Environmental protesters seeking to draw attention to the role of fossil fuel consumption in the climate crisis hurled tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting at London’s National Gallery in October, touching off a series of similar stunts. Since then, activists have smothered mashed potato on Claude Monet and glued themselves to works by Andy Warhol, Francisco Goya and Johannes Vermeer. For some, the campaigners are heroes bravely drawing attention to the climate emergency. For others, the attacks are counterproductive and lose force by becoming commonplace.

A4

Protests erupted in China, initially over Covid restrictions but later widening to broader political grievances, posing the greatest threat to the Beijing authorities since 1989. The demonstrations became known in some quarters as the “A4” protests as protesters held up blank A4-sized sheets of white paper in a sign of solidarity and a nod to the lack of free speech in China.