CHICAGO, Feb. 18, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TransUnion (TRU) announced today that Akshay Kumar joined the company as Executive Vice President, Global Technology Architecture & Strategy. In this role, Kumar is responsible for ongoing technology transformation efforts, including cloud enablement. He also oversees ongoing emerging technology evaluation globally. Kumar reports directly to Abhi Dhar, TransUnions Chief Information and Technology Officer.

Rapid developments in technology and consumer adoption are creating an industry inflection point. Organizations able to respond to that technology speed and complexity, and who are adept at executing in this environment, are the ones who will have competitive advantage, said Dhar. TransUnion, as a technology innovator, will benefit from having a skilled leader like Kumar join us. His track record of delivering tactical, strategic and security transformations creates benefit for consumers and customers alike.

Kumar joins TransUnion from Discover Financial Services, where he was Chief Data Officer and led the migration of Discovers data and analytics ecosystem to cloud. Prior to this role, he served as Chief Data Officer at Aetna, where he established a datascience practice alongwith the development of a 20+ Petabytesprivate cloud-based analytics platform. Kumar previously held roles with UBS Investment Bank, MBNA and American Express, and brings more than 20 years ofexperience as a business leader, innovator and technologist to the company.

Kumarholds an MBA and MS in Decision Information Systems from Arizona State University, a post-graduate diploma in Supply Chain Management from Stanford University and a BS in Chemistry from University of Delhi, India.

About TransUnion(TRU) TransUnion is a global information and insights company that makes trust possible in the modern economy. We do this by providing a comprehensive picture of each person so they can be reliably and safely represented in the marketplace. As a result, businesses and consumers can transact with confidence and achieve great things. We call this Information for Good.

A leading presence in more than 30 countries across five continents, TransUnion provides solutions that help create economic opportunity, great experiences and personal empowerment for hundreds of millions of people. http://www.transunion.com/business

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TransUnion Appoints Akshay Kumar to Oversee Global Technology Architecture and Strategy - Yahoo Finance

My lifes work has been serving those in need creating ways to better our communities by helping organizations and individuals to achieve wellness in their lives.

I think as a wellness professional, we sometimes put unrealistic expectations on ourselves. I think we need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, but I believe its important for people to know what we have gone through and what we continue to struggle with too.

I have taught yoga and personal trained clients for years I love the hands-on part of my job yet I have struggled with weight and stress management at various times in my life. I love yoga, but my personal practice has waxed and waned. Sometimes it has fallen flat completely.

I trained in guided imagery and it is one of my favorite aspects to teaching classes, yet I struggle with sleep and with shutting my brain off to focus on the positive.

I am as much a work-in-progress as the people that I am working to help. As wellness coaches and teachers, our job is to educate people and help them create a plan to reach their goals.

Yet, we all have dueling behaviors in our lives. Any good teacher, or writer for that matter, may probably tell you that we are constantly learning, addressing our own hypocrisies and finding out new things to teach sharing through our own experience.

Carl Jungs theory of the Wounded Healer refers to the story of Chiron, the Greek mythological figure (Centaur educator and healer), as the symbol of, [our] own hurt that gives a measure of [our] power to heal.

Harold Kushner, rabbi and author of Living a Life that Matters, states,

Good people will do good things, lots of them, because they are good people. They will do bad things because they are human. Harold Kushner

I lead womens self-esteem and empowerment workshops yet have at times felt less than or not worthy of certain things. Usually its when my life has been at its best, that I have a sudden fear of loss.

I used to teach a class to young men who were in jail and often said to them that those of us who have the best leadership skills have often had to overcome the most. We dont have to have had a perfect life, or even to be an all-perfect guru, in order to be a role model to others.

However, I also tell them, at some point we have to rise above it and learn from it, not keep repeating the same situation in our lives.

There are times in my life I felt that I was living a sham and that people would look at me as if all the training and knowledge I had didnt mean a thing anymore.

There are projects that pile up, the laundry that never seems to get put away, moments of unhealthy stressed-out behavior that pops up on occasion and days I (gasp!) skip the gym. I wont even go into the guitars and the stack of unopened Learn How to Play Guitar DVDs collecting dust in the corner.

Dont get me wrong, I get a lot done, yet Ive never felt caught up, in my life. There are times that I struggle to get through a library book to get it returned on time because I have so many projects going on.

Many days I feel torn between loving my beautiful life and the work that I get to do versus feeling as if I should be better, do better.

I look for wisdom from other sources.

Then I realize we dont necessarily need more information. Someone else doesnt always know better than we do. Its OK to be on a continuum. Its OK to be the bad yogi, with flaws and scars and funk.

Otherwise, what would we have to teach others from what we experience?

Namaste: I bow to the Divine in you, but I also bow to the messy, stress-y human in you too.

Jones is the owner of Liz Jones Wellness LLC, offering yoga, personal training and corporate wellness programs in Hunt and Rockwall counties. She can be reached at Liz@LizJones.co or through LizJones.co.

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TO YOUR HEALTH: 'Messy stress-y' just part of life's work - Herald-Banner

Updated February 24, 2020 16:54:20

Danielle is a modern woman with a penchant for "old world charms".

The self-described traditional wife, or tradwife for short, is part of an increasingly visible sect of women embracing and in some ways, reclaiming the title of homemaker.

Though some may see it as a homage to the 1950s "happy housewife", for many of the women involved in the tradwife movement, the premise is simple: choosing to be a wife, mother and homemaker should not be seen as a sacrifice, nor should taking pride in "keeping the house in order" be misconstrued as subservience.

"Traditional housewifery in the 21st century is not an example of oppression, but rather an example of liberation," says the mother of two from the midwest United States.

"The modern traditional housewife is the ultimate example of female autonomy. She's not being forced to stay home with the kids; but at the same time she's also not forced to work outside the home. She makes the choice."

Though it is hardly a new dynamic, its increasing visibility born largely out of its social media following in the United States and United Kingdom has catapulted it into the public consciousness.

And it is a concept fraught with contention.

From headlines like "Meet the women radicalised into complete subservience to men", to "Why I submit to my husband like it's 1959", it's easy to understand why the movement has proven so divisive and it is not a conflict created in a vacuum.

Certain elements of the movement openly espouse submissiveness which is seen to honour "the natural dynamics between man and wife" and regard the concept of feminism as an attempt to "repeal and restructure" the natural order.

Others have likened it to an extension of white nationalism, propagating the belief that women should focus on their "natural" duties of childbearing and housekeeping.

But many of those who champion traditional housewifery fear they have been mischaracterised both by those within the movement seeking to further their own personal brand, and the media itself.

While acknowledging that parts of the movement may be seen as a pushback to what they view as the "more damaging elements" of third wave feminism, they argue tradwives are not a homogenous hive mind, and baulk at those who "pervert traditional values by lowering themselves to servant status in their marriage".

"Instead of viewing their relationship with their spouse as a partnership, they view the husband as a king and live only to attend to his every beck and call," says Danielle.

"This is a caricature of traditionalism, and it does start to look like something resembling brainwashing."

For mother-of-three and self-described tradwife Nadine, who is currently pregnant with her fourth child, being a homemaker was a "clear condition" of what she wanted in a marriage a dynamic that she says has brought "a lot of calm" into her family's daily life.

But she concedes there may be others within the movement who do not view their own relationships as an equal playing field.

"I told my husband that if we ever got married and had children, I would want to be at home with them and that I would want him to be the money maker," she says.

"Black sheep happen in every aspect in our society. I'm sure there are traditional wives that didn't have a choice and that are 'prisoners' in their marriage or that even don't know there are other options."

Though they refer to themselves as traditional wives, some within the movement note there is no single archetype of a tradwife.

Bec, who lives in Adelaide with her husband and runs a Facebook group for women who share traditional values, says the unifying factor is their beliefs.

"There are divorced ones, single ones who aspire to being one, many have children, a number do not," she says.

"Some go for the self-sufficient family farm, others live in towns. The unifying factor is beliefs that society and the individual are best served from the preservation of the family unit, the careful raising of the next generation to hold these values and the reintroduction of home and faith as the centre focus of life."

Bec concedes she's somewhat of an anomaly.

While the UK and US traditional wife movements have amassed a significant online following, it's a concept that has largely flown under the radar in Australia.

"Three years ago, I was the only Australian that I knew of in social media, but one by one more have been popping out of the woodwork," she says.

"I don't know if it's a case of the Australian following growing, or just more women becoming equipped with the language to be able to identify with the movement.

"I personally know traditional wives who just call themselves stay-at-home mothers or Christian wives but have all the hallmarks of the traditional movement."

There is, of course, the invariable argument around the social, cultural, economic and political conditions through which such movements are created.

While many women and men would relish the opportunity to have more flexibility around their personal and professional lives, it isn't always feasible.

The rising cost of child care, among other expenses, also means staying at home isn't always a choice as much as it is a necessity.

"There's lots of different pathways that women can pursue now, and it's interesting how they want to narrativise that," says Mary Lou Rasmussen, a professor of sociology at the Australian National University.

"It seems to be a very privileged position to make Because really, in many situations, there is no option but for both people in the relationship to be working."

Danielle openly acknowledges the traditional lifestyle is "very much a luxury in the 21st century", and that not everyone can afford to stay at home.

But, in light of her family's financial position, she made the decision to do so not only in order to be more available to her children, but to ensure her husband could be too.

"He doesn't have to come home from work and make dinner for the kids, or give them a bath, because all four of us were gone all day," she says.

"Instead, he gets to come home and be a dad. He comes in the door, throws his jacket on the hook and wrestles with the kids, reads them stories, and makes blanket forts."

Steeped in the ideals of the traditional housewife, however, is a darker undertone.

The preservation of traditional family values has been used by some as a dog-whistle for whiteness, and as Annie Kelly noted in The Housewives of White Supremacy, "running alongside what could be mistaken for a peculiar style of mommy-vlogging is a virulent strain of white nationalism".

The phenomenon rose to notoriety in 2017, when Ayla Stewart a self-described tradwife and blogger issued a "white baby challenge" to her viewers, asking them to "have as many white babies as I have contributed".

"The highest goal for a white supremacist woman is to stay home, keep her husband happy, and produce as many white warrior babies as she can," says Jessica Reaves, an expert in Anti-Defamation League's Centre on Extremism and the author of its recent report on the links between misogyny and white supremacy.

"This all ties into white supremacists' obsession with replacement theory."

While some within the movement are conscious of its perceived association with the alt-right, they say it is remiss to suggest that it is in any way a shared value or commonality within the tradwife community.

Nikki, a self-described tradwife who runs a Facebook group geared towards traditional women, says the premise is "laughable".

"The traditional wife [and] homemaker community is made up of women from various religions, ethnicities, ages, and upbringings," she says.

"So assuming we are Nazis or white supremacists is laughable to me."

It is a sentiment echoed by Crystal, who runs a club for traditional housewives.

"Women of different races in my group, all coming together to share recipes, cleaning tips, jokes, talking about life," she remarks.

"I don't see how any of that makes us brainwashed or Nazis. Anyone who characterises it that just blows my mind, I don't understand it at all."

A number of women who identify as tradwives lament these connotations have become associated with the modern movement, and worry they will be typecast for their decision.

But through social media, they have found a network of like-minded women, where they can celebrate and commiserate the challenges of day-to-day life together.

"I would say it is empowering for many, especially since many of these homemakers or those who desire this lifestyle do not get the support from family or friends in their real life," says Nikki.

"To come online and find that support, to feel validated in their decision, is all these women want, that what they desire to do with their life and for their families is normal."

Danielle does not mince words she is not out to "try and win hearts and minds" about her lifestyle.

But she says meeting others who share her values helped her realise that she was not a "disgrace" for choosing a different path to other women.

"I think the tradwife community serves as a response by rational women who are digging their heals in and saying, 'No! I want to get married, I want to raise a family, I want to make a home for myself and my loved ones'," she says.

"I think the empowerment comes from the realisation that there are other women who want what you want, and you're not a disgrace to your gender if you don't want to live alone in an empty apartment for the rest of your life."

Topics: community-and-society, family-and-children, marriage, social-systems, gender-roles, australia, united-states, canada

First posted February 24, 2020 06:06:33

Originally posted here:
Tradwives have been labelled 'subservient', but these women reject suggestions they're oppressed - ABC News

We tend to associate entrepreneurship with opportunistic founders operating out of bustling Silicon Valley hubs or perhaps more specifically the five American tech giants whose combined market value, it was reported recently, has increased by $1.3 trillion in the past year.

In fact, entrepreneurship exists wherever you are. The sharing economy is producing millions of micro-entrepreneurs who are putting dormant assets to good use. Necessity entrepreneurs in the developing world are supplementing incomes, boosting economic growth, and extending products or services to those who need them.

And some like Cherie Blair will find other ways to be their own boss.

Mrs Blair is one of few First Ladies to convincingly step out of her husbands shadow. Perhaps thats because she was never in it: in the same year they met, she became a barrister, and was the only wife of a Prime Minister to work full-time while her husband was in office. She was a founding member of Matrix Chambers, and more recently set up Omnia Strategy.

Though the list of accolades is exhaustive, one senses that she is most proud of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, which was set up in 2008 to unleash the potential of female entrepreneurs in developing nations.

If the Blair family felt melancholic on 27 June 2007, as removal men emptied their belongings from Downing Street in front of a huddle of cameramen and reporters, it did not show. Tony Blair himself had that day received an unprecedented standing ovation in the Commons. Opportunity awaited.

For Mrs Blair, the decision to set up a foundation focused on womens economic empowerment had personal experience at its core.

I was brought up by a mother who was a single parent with help from my paternal grandmother, she recalls. I witnessed how difficult it was for her when my father abandoned us. From a very early age I understood that a woman needs to be in control of her own money. I did it through the law as a self-employed barrister Ive essentially always been an entrepreneur.

Mrs Blair was a beneficiary of her time: the first of her family to go to university, where she thrived, taking first-class honours. During Tonys tenure as PM, she toured the globe visiting womens projects, and quickly realised the challenges that many faced.

All those personal reasons made me aware of this gap in the womens entrepreneurial space. If you can give women the ability to earn and spend their own money, then we see a transformative effect, she says emphatically. Help a woman and you tend to help a family. More than that a community.

The foundation has supported over 160,000 businesswomen across more than 100 countries since 2008. It creates teaching videos, internet forums and apps to help women who would otherwise not have access to training.

As Mrs Blair is acutely aware, the quantity and quality of entrepreneurship still rests on the rules in place that support or hinder it. This is especially true for female entrepreneurs.

In the UK, women are behind roughly one in three businesses, and the rate of entrepreneurialism has grown faster in the past decade among women than men. While this is encouraging after all, entrepreneurship offers an accelerated route to economic empowerment and gender equality we know that women-led firms tend not to reach the same scale as those led by men.

The barriers to growth, according to Mrs Blair, are the same regardless of geography. Just as we hear horror stories of venture capitalists asking female founders what their husbands think of the business here in the UK, two thirds of the women in the countries where the foundation operates have experienced stereotyping and discriminatory remarks.

The foundations chief executive, Helen McEachern, formerly of Action Aid, points to the enormous structural issues in many of these nations. The odds are stacked against women, and when it comes to economic power, we are moving backwards.

In fact, based on the current rate of progress, it will take well over 200 years to close the economic gender gap completely. To Mrs Blair, this is simply not good enough.

Automation has affected men, but also jobs traditionally held by women. New roles are more STEM orientated (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), where women are underrepresented. There is the perennial issue of childcare, against a backdrop of systemic views on what women and men should do.

The foundation is less concerned by the problem than its potential solutions. We are seeing more women enter what has historically been a male preserve. But while many developing nations have equal or higher rates of entrepreneurial activity among women than men, these are often vulnerable, informal micro-businesses.

Which is where the foundation comes in, to provide training, organise mentoring, and share knowledge, inspired by women across the world and supported by partners, donors and collaborators.

The opportunity here is huge, according to Mrs Blair. Women entrepreneurs could open new frontiers in every field of business, bringing us closer to solutions for the worlds most pressing problems, and transforming the way we live our lives.

Mrs Blairs understated offices, nestled in a quiet street in W1, are worlds apart from the nations where the foundation works. Sitting in her yoga gear, the trailblazing barrister, campaigner and author reels off statistics and anecdotes passionately.

She is inspired near-daily by the women she has encountered, but one touched her more profoundly than most. Dhanashree, an Indian micro-entrepreneur, lost her hand operating a noodle-making machine in her grocery store several years ago. The foundations workshops equipped her with the skills and confidence she needed to take her aspirations forward. She now runs a number of small-scale enterprises including dress-making and milk-selling.

The success of the foundation hinges on a willingness from mentors to give up precious time to support these women. But they are passionate to the point of gushing, McEachern says. Mentoring has long been viewed as one of the best vehicles for encouraging and supporting entrepreneurship, and has acted as a boon to female founders across the globe.

Nor is it a one-way street. With technology rapidly advancing, for instance, its not uncommon for mentors to be mentored by their mentee in areas such as coding, the hottest new apps, and social media.

Mrs Blair adds: Bank of America Merrill Lynch gives us over 100 mentors every year. They see it as talent development. And if youre a company doing business across the world, it gives employees insight into what life is really like in a given country.

Earlier this year, it was announced that the foundation would launch a new phase: a 10m mentoring campaign to help 100,000 female entrepreneurs in just three years. The 100,000 Women campaign was unveiled at Davos and has the backing of Hillary Clinton. Mentors will be paired with an aspiring entrepreneur in another country, provided with training, and asked to give two hours a month.

Their goal is ambitious, but as Clinton has said of the foundations work, it is the right thing to do.

Main image credit: Getty

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Like a boss: Cherie Blair on helping women start their own business - City A.M.

BERLINA culture-clash movie with an erotic subplot, theres little doubt that Uisenma Borchus Black Milk (which premiered on Friday at the Berlin Film Festival), the Mongolian-German directors second feature, is an intensely personal project. Borchu emigrated from Mongolia to Germany with her family at the age of four and plays the central role of Wessi, a woman who returns as an adult to her homeland to explore her Mongolian identity and reestablish a relationship with her sister Ossi.

Upon her arrival at an austere, but certainly picturesque, home on the steppe, Wessi enjoys a warm reception from her family and neighbors. Theres a genuine conviviality shared by these hard-working nomads. Rather wistfully, Wessis father seems confident that her long exile in Germany hasnt alienated her from her peoples customs.

In some respects, Black Milk, despite some risqu elements meant to appeal to moviegoers who probably couldnt care less about Mongolia, sometimes resembles an ethnographic film. Great care is taken conveying the meticulous preparation of golden millet and the traditional process of slaughtering sheep. Non-professional actors are cast as nomads and the communal ambience within the yurt they share is precisely rendered. The local preoccupation with milk as the source of sustenance is treated as a near-mystical component of daily life. Yet, Borchus ostensible fealty to documentary realism notwithstanding, its also difficult not to feel that she, wittingly or unwittingly, is feeding into a Western audiences desire to view the rituals of daily life in Mongolia as charmingly exotic.

In truth, Black Milk belongs to a characteristically German, quasi-feminist cinematic subgenre: films like Margarethe von Trottas Marianne and Julianne or Angela Schanelecs My Sisters Good Fortune that highlight tensions and rivalries between sisters who nevertheless love each other. Rather predictably, its not long before the sisters tearful reunion is sullied by simmering resentments and a cultural gap thats not easy to bridge. Wessi, who is enamored of alluring clothes and makeup, has a beauty regimen that doesnt resonate particularly well with the more traditional Ossi, who Wessi chides for pining for an absent husband while pregnant. Ossi is also annoyed that her sister insists in participating in the slaughter of surplus sheep, a practice usually carried out exclusively by men. Even though the film belongs to the realm of art cinema, the sisters melodramatic spats are all part and parcel of the sort of personal entanglements that pepper more commercial culture-clash movies.

This superficially realistic film takes an almost magical-realist turn when a predatory male intruder visits Wessi and Ossis abode. Although Ossi fears that this aggressive man will rape them both, Wessi repels his advances with the eponymous black milk that spurts from her breasts. Its a somewhat odd and fanciful female empowerment motif to insert within the midst of a film that began with a documentary-like impulse to familiarize audiences with a cultural context that most Americans and Europeans know only from corny Hollywood epics such as 1965s Genghis Khan, in which Omar Sharif portrays the legendary 13th century Mongol emperor.

Although the festivals blurb hails their romance as transgressive, the couples meet-cute liaison is not much different than the flings women experience in movies where hooking up in bars instead of yurts drives the mating dance.

Of course, the main bone of contention between the sisters is Wessis unabashed attraction to Terbish, a handsome neighbor. Burchu seems unsure how to depict her heroines sexual agenda. The main sexual encounter between Terbish and Wessi is handled with restraint. But, although the festivals blurb hails their romance as transgressive, the couples meet-cute liaison is not much different than the flings women experience in movies where hooking up in bars instead of yurts drives the mating dance.

A film that wants to both educate and titillate, Black Milk doesnt quite succeed on either count. Borchus convincing performance as the lusty Wessi is this movies one unassailable asset.

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The Woman Who Repels Bad Men With Black Breast Milk - The Daily Beast

The U.S. federal governments disastrous response to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria illustrates a longstanding history of an exploitative domestic policy on the island. Recent earthquakes have not only rocked Puerto Ricos infrastructure but have emphasized the United Statess negligence of its own citizens. Journalist and Columbia University professor, Ed Morales, describes Puerto Rico as the symbol of marginalized communities all over the U.S. and the world. He joins activist and scholar Rosa Clemente to discuss the personal and political implications of the islands ongoing debt crisis, recovery efforts, and an intersectional movement that challenges the political establishment.

Laura Flanders: Rosa, I got to start with you because the last time I was looking at you, you were just back from the Island, you were saying, Were looking at a Puerto Rico for finance and not for people. What does it look like now?

Rosa Clemente: I still believe that the ultimate goal will be to have Puerto Rico, but no Puerto Ricans in it. And the more these two years have passed, with the work of Naomi Klein and Ed and Yarimar Bonilla really kind of laying out what we thought was potentially going to happen, but when you begin to read it and how theyve all contextualized it, its very real. And I think we have to understand, more, that there are a group of particularly young, white, rich men that want to try out all this cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and see Puerto Rico as the staging ground for that.

Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day.

Talk a bit about what this fantasy has been to you because this is personal, this is family fantasy.

Ed Morales: Theres a lot of people who knew that was a fantasy all along. But when you get to the average Puerto Rican, like my family and some people that I know, they really felt like the status was working for them on a certain level. They were able to have a middle-class home and a car and go shopping at malls like you have in the United States. But the economy of Puerto Rico was never self-sustaining, and the government has been in debt, going all the way back to the 70s, to ameliorate that.

Was it never self-sustaining? Never couldve been self-sustaining, or was it created [to be] not self-sustaining, which is to say dependent?

Morales: Yes, it was never self-sustaining because, well first of all, Puerto Rico was a colony of Spain for 400 years before the United States, and they were collaborators with the Spanish colonialism as well, and they were the ones who had most of the property in the sugar industry. But when the U.S. came in, they adjusted the tax laws to favor outside interest, and the U.S. sugar companies were able to take over most of the best land for sugar, and the U.S. economy started to dominate the Puerto Rican economy, and it was never really allowed to grow on its own. The Jones Act [made] it impossible for trade to happen. The U.S. set up Puerto Rico as a free-trade zone in the early 20th century, as a prelude to NAFTA in a way, by just there were no duties charged to the U.S. for imports from Puerto Rico, and then the U.S. dumped all of its consumer stuff, that it wasnt selling in the U.S., onto Puerto Rico.

Talk about the is it called the Downes Bidwell case, that determined the status, and contextualize that a little bit for us?

Morales: What happened in the 19th century, with a lot of territories that the U.S. acquired, which were put on the road to statehood, like a lot of the places in the middle of the country and in the West those were thought of as incorporated territories, which meant that they were on the paths [to] statehood. But at the end of the 19th century, when the U.S. decided to start this colonial empire and expand beyond its borders to maybe create a security zone in the Caribbean and to the South. Fighting the war with Spain, they acquired these territories filled with people who they mistrusted, or were just outright racist towards, because they were not white, they were mixed. Theres a lot of prejudice against mixed people as well. They would say things like, Mixed people have the worst aspects of both white and Black, so they did not consider Puerto Rico, or the Philippines, as candidates for statehood.

And they created this new category called unincorporated territory. And Downes v. Bidwell, which was decided on by two of the same Supreme Court judges that decided on Plessy v. Ferguson, which established separate but equal, they said that Puerto Rico was belonging to, but not a part of, the U.S. And so, what that allowed them to do was treat Puerto Rico in ways that was [an] advantage to the United States. For instance, they gave Puerto Rico the title of state so that it couldnt declare bankruptcy. They did it that way, but when it was to their advantage to consider Puerto Rico a foreign area, then they consider it as foreign and thats constantly still being done.

What has this scenario meant for you, your family, your life?

Clemente: So, I would say when the hurricane hit, my parents called and was like, Youre going, right? And I said, Yeah, I got to raise some money, but Im going. When I visited my titi in the hospital in Bayamn, at first, they werent letting anybody go in, they were very afraid of infections. And when they let me go in, I had to put on a hazmat kind of suit, so not to get other people sick. And she was in so much pain because she lost everything in the house and had broken her leg. She had an infection, and the nurse said, At this time, were only doing surgeries to save peoples lives right now. So, the part that my aunt was in was where, eventually, people would have to have amputation because they didnt even have medicine to stop the infection. So, its real, its visceral.

The older Ive gotten, I understand exactly what Puerto Rico is and the colonial status. So for me, when I got there in July and saw the unity of various, different Puerto Ricans you might believe in statehood, independence, colonial, you mightve been gone from the island, you might be coming back to the island from here, the United States it was like that moment I always prayed for. I was like, Oh, this is it. It reminded me of the struggle around Vieques. At one point, everybody mightve had a different political solution, but we knew, immediately, that Vieques has to we have to stop it from being a bombing range.

The U.S. base that the Navy was using for weapons testing.

Clemente: Right, and on May 1, 2003, that victory happened, and the U.S. Navy left. Now, to this day, theyve never cleaned it up. And at the moment, Vieques doesnt have a hospital, so anybody that gets sick in Vieques have to go to Fajardo.

But when I was at those protests to see the amount of young people, to see LGBTQ, trans Puerto Ricans, to see anarchist-leaning young people, to see feminists. I mean, even walking through old San Juan, they had changed all the names of the streets, put tags over them, like this is not Calle de la Fortaleza, now this is Calle Libertad.

Morales: It was like a new kind of nationalism for me. It was like an intersectional nationalism because a lot of the failings of nationalism, in the past, [have] been that its been too patriarchal, male-dominated. And so, this inclusivity of women who were at the forefront and LGBTQ people, I thought, was really encouraging and a model for what could happen in the U.S., or what is sort of happening in the U.S., a little bit.

Is there a chance that this whole Ricky Resign movement could stay focused on the systemic corruption that youre talking about and maybe the direction of development for the island?

Clemente: I think what a lot of people dont know is that before that, five days before, the FBI indicted Julia Keleher, the secretary of education, and her entire staff, for corruption, for stealing. Julia Kelehers the one that gave the go ahead to close over 200 schools in Puerto Rico. She also has ties to Betsy DeVos. So, its like, you peel one layer and youre like, Okay, right. And then this do we want a governor thats going to still represent the same type of corruption?

Ricky Resign, that movement, powerful enough to oust this governor, although maybe not get to the heart of everything. What happens to it now?

Clemente: Well, what has been happening, I think, also, that the intersection of particularly young, Black Puerto Ricans taking leadership, affirming who they are, I think thats always [an] important step toward liberation. And were seeing that really play out, culturally and politically, on the island, which is exciting. And now, they have been having peoples assemblies. Theres even people who are rewriting what a Puerto Rican constitution can look like. For me, those are signs of empowerment. Theyre signs that say we can no longer depend on some governmental structure or an elected official.

You write repeatedly, in the book, that there are ways in which Puerto Rico has been a canary in the coal mine for people in the U.S. Would you read a little part that speaks to that because over and over again, in your book, that comes across.

Morales: Even as the real crisis began to snowball in Puerto Rico, it would not become apparent to the United States, largely because there has been traditionally almost no media coverage, outside of The Laura Flanders Show, of the island, outside of the occasional crime wave or hurricane. In fact, awareness of the crisis would become widespread at first, only through the business press, which I had to spend hours going over. We saw a threat to not only American investors, but also the municipal debt market itself. But the mainstream awareness of Puerto Ricans as a people and a nation has created a formidable discourse, one that would emerge suddenly, to disrupt the stark silences and to directly or indirectly remind America that the loss Wall Street and Congress had worked so hard to externalize will not be so easily when the people who must pay for it are not as separate as had been thought. Through the debt crisis, as much as the United States tried to maintain its distance, Puerto Rico would finally become a permanent internal problem.

And that really symbolizes how Puerto Rico is a symbol of marginalized communities all over the U.S. and the world, that the debt crisis in Puerto Rico bears a lot of resemblance to the financial crisis of 2008 where they had all of these bad mortgages that they gave to people who couldnt afford to pay them back. Its a very similar mechanism.

Both of you, thank you for your book, Ed, its beautiful, and continue to do the reporting youre doing, Rosa, and well continue to play it.

Clemente: Thank you, Laura, for continuing to cover Puerto Rico.

Read the original here:
Puerto Rico's Uprisings Have Empowered a New Leadership Among the Oppressed - Truthout

As the new decade unreels, a new wave of disruption seems to be coming to the shores of the global financial system. That wave is called decentralized finance protocols.

Decentralized finance, or DeFi, simply refers to financial software that is built on the blockchain to make it easy for anyone to piece together digital assets and financial smart contracts. Think of DeFi as a Lego system for the finance industry.

According to Defi Pulse, an analytics site that tracks the sectors growth, the entirety of the DeFi ecosystem achieved its highest valuation in 2019 when its value peaked beyond $600 million in June. In 2020, the value locked in the entire ecosystem has more than doubled, peaking at a value of $1.2 billion.

Incidents such as the global financial crisis of 2008 highlight serious weaknesses in the traditional global financial system. DeFi is emerging as a palatable solution to provide an alternate future for the traditional financial sector.

In fact, beyond the finance sector, DeFi has the potential to increase innovation as well as improve operational efficiencies in various ways. As DeFi applications widen across different sectors and industries, more and more investments are steadily pouring into the DeFi ecosystem.

Related: DeFi Begins to Move From a Niche Market to Mainstream Finance

The DeFi ecosystem has largely been populated by Ethereum-based protocols as a result of its early beginnings at the tail end of 2018 with the launch of MakerDAO. However, more diversity is underway as the sector matures and increases in liquidity, a report says.

From decentralized credit and lending systems, predictions markets and asset management, DeFis applications have caused quite a stir in the mainstream space for their capacity for enabling multiple efficiencies. As DeFi solutions continue to grow while bringing about financial inclusion and empowerment, here is a look at the sectors where DeFi is flourishing in 2020.

Prediction markets are created for the benefit of researchers, speculators and traders looking to bet on future events. Generally, their main purpose is for market participants to take advantage of the outcomes of events. The predictions can range from exchange averages to quarterly sales reports of a specific company, to elections and even commodity prices.

One of the companies using Ethereums blockchain to bring about decentralization to this sector is Veil, which is built on top of Augur (Ethereums leading prediction market protocol) and enables anyone to create, report and trade in their predictions.

From politics, finance, sports and worldwide events, the Augur predictions market can correctly rule on the occurrence of real-time events while ensuring trustless communication and bet settlements on a decentralized network.

Another company at the forefront of enabling decentralized finance in the predictions market is Gnosis. With Gnosis, anyone can create customized forecasting applications with conditional tokens that make it possible to trade the outcome of an event.

If blockchain was the internet, then digital wallets would serve as the equivalent for browsers. Simply put, digital wallets act as the gateways to blockchain, and therefore all interactions with the blockchain are made on a digital wallet. However, finding a balance between simplicity and security while developing digital wallets is a challenge.

Also, managing digital wallets requires accurate knowledge of private and public keys, as mismanagement of these keys can lead to irreversible losses of the wallets contents. Furthermore, the steep learning curve not to mention technical talk about hot and cold wallets mostly goes over most peoples heads.

These challenges can become barriers to mass adoption. DeFi tools can, however, be used to improve simplicity in terms of asset management on a digital wallet.

MetaMask is a good example of how this can be done. The company has created a platform that enables interactions with distributed networks on a simple browser. This means an Ethereum decentralized application can be run on a browser without the need for using the full Ethereum node. Users can also open a wallet on their browser in just 30 seconds without giving up personal details.

Balance an Ethereum wallet developing company that is working to build a simple, user-friendly interface for an open-source financial system is also pioneering this sector. In terms of security and simplicity, Argent has boosted security and simplicity by giving users full control of the wallet. Users also get to choose easy-to-read wallet addresses unlike the complex cryptographic texts found in most digital wallets.

Another application that gets as close to a decentralized bank as it can is Zerion. The company has created a simple user interface with support for multiple wallets, not to mention a detailed transaction list of users DeFi investments.

Managing a digital wallet can be complicated for most people. Not only can a user lose their crypto funds through exchange hacks or misplacement of a private key, simply sending crypto to a wrong address leads to an irreversible loss of crypto funds.

For that reason, providing DeFi insurance is a sure way of giving users a decentralized experience similar to what traditional companies are offering in the sector. DeFi insurance protocols like Etherisc can be used to collectively build risk transfer solutions.

With Etherisc, whenever certain conditions are met as a result of unprecedented weather calamities, flight delays or attack from hackers, a smart contract self-executes to dish out immediate payouts. Nexus Mutual is also implementing DeFi insurance, but instead of only covering risky events, they cover users against the failure of smart contracts.

By pulling funds from multiple individuals into a smart contract, several people get to share risks, thereby eliminating the need for an intermediate insurance company. As a result, DeFi is also making insurance payouts more cost-effective.

It goes without saying that in a digital world, the most important data is personal data. However, there is less and less privacy at a time when such data is increasingly being referred to as the new money.

Multiple online businesses such as exchange platforms and even social media companies are beginning to ask users for their passport and national identification documents to prove nationality or address for verification. Unbeknownst to most people, personal data stored by most centralized institutions can easily be stolen and sold to third parties, especially if users have weak passwords.

Decentralized identifiers easily solve this problem by enabling users to create and manage their data, therefore, reducing the risks that come with centralized storage of personal data. Selfkey, for instance, offers decentralized identifiers that not only eliminate the need for centralized authorities but also give users self-sovereignty over their data. Instead of disclosing too much personal data while interacting with online platforms, Selfkey users can selectively choose what data to disclose during authentication processes.

Other companies building tools to enable online data privacy include Civic, a wallet provider for safe crypto and personal data management; Telegram Passport, offering unified authorization for online identity verification made by the creators of the Telegram messenger and Telegram Open Network; and uPort, a company focused on creating scalable and secure data exchanges.

Freelance work and the gig economy is seen by most to be the future of work. However, even as the number of freelancers in the modern workplace continues to grow, one of the biggest challenges that freelancers face is getting paid for their work.

From delayed payments to high fee charges from third-party service providers, freelance workers are mostly forced to move from one platform to the other as a result of a poor payment structure. With decentralized finance, smart contracts can be used to guarantee payment for work done.

Also, since crypto payments are instant and global, the gig economy can get rid of third-party service providers who charge exorbitant fees. Gitcoin is one of the companies pioneering DeFi in the freelance and payments sector, providing a marketplace for open-source development. Once an open-source project is complete, funds from the users of the product are directed to developers who contributed to the open-source project.

Ethlance is also making life easy for freelancers with its autonomous platform that connects freelancers to employers with zero service fees and free membership. Freelancers can also use services such as the Ink Protocol to access a decentralized payment system that can be integrated with any marketplace. The platform enables peer-to-peer transactions with a reputation system that can be imported or exported for use on multiple marketplaces.

Given that there are multiple inefficiencies in the current global financial system, DeFi tools offer an easy solution that can eradicate cybercrime, increase liquidity and reduce costs. Furthermore, DeFi protocols are capable of giving everyone access to quality financial services regardless of their status or location.

Related: Decentralized Finance, Explained

According to market analysts, the value of Ethereum locked in DeFi applications is growing even though the price of ETH has fallen since its last peak in June 2019. Crypto Wolf, a Twitter-based analyst, believes that Ethereums price will follow the growing trend of DeFi application in a parabolic curve.

However, despite the rapid growth of DeFi applications, a lot remains to be seen as to whether blockchain itself the building block of DeFi applications will be able to accommodate the transactional demands of the mainstream public.

Go here to read the rest:
Sectors Realizing the Full Potential of DeFi Protocols In 2020 - Cointelegraph

J.I.D, Vince Staples and EarthGang round out this week's rankings of #50-41 of the top 100 hip-hop/rap albums of the decade. (Graphic: HELEN HE/The Stanford Daily)

To read more about the background of the list and my thoughts on making it, check out the introduction to my rankings. Without further ado, here are #50-41 of my top 100 hip-hop/rap albums of the 2010s list:

50. J Cole: 2014 Forest Hills Drive (2014)

J Cole went double platinum with no features. By now, everybody has probably seen the memes, but they really do have some merit. 2014 Forest Hills Drive was truly J Coles breakthrough album. After a group of mixtapes and two studio albums, Cole was still looking for the album to really put him into the top echelon of the rap industry. This album delivered on this aim. From the intricate storytelling of Wet Dreamz to the albums biggest hit No Role Modelz to the emotional and uplifting Love Yourz, Cole provided something for a wide audience and delivered his most successful project yet.

Favorite Songs: 03 Adolescence, Wet Dreamz, No Role Modelz, Apparently

49. Elzhi: Lead Poison (2016)

Former Detroit-based Slum Village Member, Elzhi, brought incredible lyricism and writing to his sophomore studio album. Lead Poison is one of the greatest recent displays of lyricism and delivery from a severely underrated artist. One of Elzhis trademark abilities is his vivid storytelling, which is constantly present in Lead Poison, particularly in songs like Friendzone, Weedipedia, and February. All of these songs present soul, emotion and lyrical work that is to be admired. The personal and captivating Detroit emcee coasts smoothly and effortlessly over a variety of soulful, old-school hip-hop-influenced beats.

Favorite Songs: Friendzone, Alienated, Weedipedia, February

48. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib: Piata (2014)

As the first project from what would come to be one of the best current rapper and producer duos in hip-hop, Piata is one of the most innovative and refreshing gangster rap albums in the modern era. The Gary, Indiana-native rapper Freddie Gibbs and the famous producer Madlib show one of the most unique chemistries that led to a glorious collection. Two artists with very different styles and backgrounds, the typically hard and menacing Gangsta Gibbs meshes effortlessly with the soulful and jazzy background of producer Madlib. An unlikely duo comes through with some of their own best work that happens to work excellently as a collective masterpiece.

Favorite Songs: Shame, High, Harolds, Lakers, Robes

47. Big K.R.I.T: 4eva Is A Mighty Long Time (2017)

Justin Scott, better known as Big K.R.I.T, represents the South with a unique pride and passion. Spirituality and introspection are constants in 4eva Is A Mighty Long Time, withScott developing an album that really allows listeners to get a better understanding of his personal life and his struggles. In a time where the Atlanta trap scene seems to dominate much of the hip-hop scene of the South, 4eva Is A Mighty Long Time feels like Big K.R.I.Ts attempt to preserve lyrical, jazzy, soulful rap and give the South deeper representation outside of just Atlanta trap music.

Favorite Songs: Drinking Sessions, Price of Fame, The Light, Bury Me In Gold

46. Capital STEEZ: AmeriKKKan Korruption (2012)

Beast Coast and Pro Era founder, the late Capital STEEZ, certainly made his mark on modern East Coast hip-hop before his unfortunate passing in 2012. The spiritual, witty and philosophical lyricist left us with only one individual full length project. AmeriKKKan Korruption is a mixtape full of political commentary, lyricism, wordplay and a true old-school East Coast hip-hop feel. One of the marvels of this album was that Capital STEEZ was only 18 years old at the release of this project. Who knows what could have been given the potential displayed in one of the best mixtapes of the decade?

Favorite Songs: Dead Prez, 135, Dead on Arrival, Vibe Ratings

45. J Cole: Friday Night Lights (2010)

Before he was a superstar rapper, J Cole was a young kid from Fayetteville, North Carolina and the first signee to Jay Zs Roc Nation label. In retrospect, many would consider mixtape J Cole to be a completely different artist than album J Cole. The hunger and emotion shown by Cole throughout Friday Night Lights is extremely captivating and instantly makes him an intriguing rapper worthy of listening to. J Cole delivers some of his most emotionally-rich and promising work along with some of his finest rapping that results in a top-tier modern rap mixtape.

Favorite Songs: The Autograph, Premeditated Murder, Home For The Holidays, Villematic, Before Im Gone, See World

44. Rapsody: Eve (2019)

Looking at the tracklist of Eve gives the listener a good idea of what the album is about. Every track is named for a Black female icon, with tracks including Serena (Serena Williams), Maya (Maya Angelou) and Sojourner (Sojourner Truth) among many others. In the third studio album for Rapsody, she continues her messages of Black empowerment with a new twist and an innovative approach. Rapsody uses her ever-strong lyricism and artistry to explore a long line of important Black women in an album of triumph and empowerment.

Favorite Songs: Iman, Sojourner, Ibtihaj, Whoopi

43. J.I.D: The Never Story (2017)

J.I.D introduced himself to much of the rap world with his studio debut The Never Story. An Atlanta native who found his rap start through the Spillage Village collective, J.I.D quickly came onto the main scene of rap due to his incredible writing and rapping ability. Already showing the potential to be a rap legend, J.I.Ds flow and lyricism can compete with practically any current artist. The Never Story is a compilation of diverse production, soul, narrative and pure rap. Every song showcases great writing, but J.I.Ds verses on Lauder will go down as some of the best lyrical work of the entire decade. This will likely be a debut that is looked back at as an introduction to one of the greats in rap.

Favorite Songs: Lauder, D/vision, Hereditary, All Bad, NEVER

42. Vince Staples: Big Fish Theory (2017)

When looking at total body of work from the decade, very few rappers did quite as well as Vince Staples. Vince managed to put out a group of seven high-quality projects with no real weak spots in his discography. If I had really wanted to, I could have considered all 7 of these major projects in the top 100, but for the sake of the list, I thought it was unfitting to give one artist seven spots. Nevertheless, Big Fish Theory was some of Vinces boldest and most adventurous work. His second studio album plays host to a highly experimental combination of electronic, rap house and avant-garde dance music. Vince utilizes a variety of sounds in his production selection, but lyrically never strays too far from what he does best. Big Fish Theory is a very well-done chaotic and artistic journey through the paranoia of Vince Staples.

Favorite Songs: SAMO, 745, Party People, BagBak, Big Fish, Yeah Right

41. EarthGang: Mirrorland (2019)

Two of the original members of Spillage Village and now two members of J Coles Dreamville Records, EarthGang (Johnny Venus/Olu and Doctur Dot/WowGr8) released their Dreamville debut with the mystical Mirrorland. The duo paints a reflection of their city of Atlanta, and displays from start to finish their incredible flexibility and versatility. The transitions between trap, funk, jazz rap, neo-soul and R&B are so seamless and well-executed that it is hard to even notice how many different styles exist in tandem with each other. The vocal and rapping abilities of Johnny Venus and Doctur Dot are present throughout, and are always in sync with the array of production that is offered. The comparisons between EarthGang and legendary Atlanta duo Outkast have already begun, and for good reason, given the style and incredible potential made apparent with albums like this.

Favorite Songs: Top Down, Bank, Proud Of U, Fields, Wings

After every segment of my Top 100 rankings are published, I will be creating a Spotify playlist with my favorite songs from the albums that are in each section. Just go to my Spotify Profile (@nicholassligh) where I will be posting the playlists in descending order of rank. Go to this link to view this weeks playlist for albums 50-41! I hope that my list gives credit to deserving artists and helps people that enjoy Hip-Hop/Rap (and even those less familiar with the genre) to find new music that connects with them and that they simply enjoy.

Contact Nick Sligh at nick1019 at stanford.edu.

Read the original post:
Top 100 Hip-Hop/Rap Albums of the Decade: #50-41 - The Stanford Daily

A week later, in an episode described by the New York Post as something akin to a comedy routine, city workers were spotted hoisting a standard room air conditioner into the side window of one of Bloombergs SUVs. It was an experiment, City Hall said at the time: a more green alternative to keeping Bloombergs SUV cool instead of his security detail idling their engines as they awaited the mayors return.

The image of a pampered billionaire scolding school children to suck up the sweltering conditions is just one example of the challenge confronting Bloomberg as he attempts to play Democratic Party savior. His money has made him a force in the presidential primary, but a litany of past statements and policies suggest hes disconnected, at best, from working people.

The disparity was on display at Wednesday nights debate, when Bloomberg scoffed at the suggestion that he could quickly gather up and release his tax returns.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, I make a lot of money and we do business all around the world, and we are preparing it. The number of pages will probably be thousands of pages, he said. Then, winning some scoffs in the room, Bloomberg added, I cant go to TurboTax.

Bloomberg has a history of dust-ups with blue-collar unions and unapologetic defenses of Wall Street and his own extreme wealth his estimated personal fortune is pegged at more than $60 billion while shrugging off complaints from those less off.

On Wednesday, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden took turns blasting Bloombergs wealth, including over his failure to release his tax returns. (He promised, in response, to do so within weeks.)

Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women and of supporting racist policies like red lining and stop and frisk, Warren said. I'll support whoever the Democratic nominee is, but understand this: Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another.

A competing campaign provided other examples of statements that could come back to haunt Bloomberg as he tries to win over moderate voters.

In 2014, Bloomberg called President Barack Obamas effort to raise the minimum wage one of the most misguided things we can do.

In 2012, Bloomberg said legislation to mandate a "living wage" reminded him of communism, remarking, The last time we really had a big managed economy was the USSR.

In remarks before the Economic Club of Chicago in August 2012, Bloomberg seemed to praise Paul Ryan, who was then Mitt Romney's running mate, for pushing to cut entitlements.

Nobody's going to stand up and say to the AARP, We are going to really cut back your benefits. Except maybe Paul Ryan has said that. And, you know, I don't know how that plays, conventional wisdom is it's political suicide, but maybe that is the way to break out.

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And in 2013, Bloomberg brought one economic discussion back to air conditioning. In a New York Magazine story, when asked about income inequality, Bloomberg noted that today 80 percent of the poor in the United States have air conditioning and 70 percent have cars, making them better off than in most countries.

One of the things thats different today is the poor 80 percent [nationally] have air-conditioning. Seventy percent have cars. When we grew up we didnt have air-conditioning. Air-conditioning in the schools, the subways. Are you crazy? Now, by most of the worlds standards, you aint poor, the billionaire said.

The old measure just looked at your income. It didnt look at what services you need. Im not being cavalier about it, but [in] most places in the world, our poor are wealthy. Theres a lot of tragedy around the world.

The Bloomberg campaign pointed to a lengthy list of his accomplishments as mayor to help lower-income people, including keeping poverty rates down, providing housing assistance across the city, raising teachers wages, doubling school funding, boosting graduation rates to a record 66 percent and closing achievement gaps between non-white and white students.

From doubling spending on public schools to pioneering economic empowerment and public health policies that were duplicated world wide Mike has an extraordinary record, said Bloomberg senior adviser Stu Loeser. And as we've already seen, he is deploying the resources to tell people about it.

See the rest here:
That time Mike Bloomberg installed an AC unit in his SUV - POLITICO

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Swap hours in a jeep for more intimate encounters with Africas sensational wildlife using these adventurous modes of exploration

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Ernest Hemingway once said: I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up that I was not happy. An overwhelming feeling of happiness and gratitude is not uncommon when visiting the continentespecially so when you go on a safari. Safari used to be a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, but more and more people are bitten by the safari bug, says Nico Heath, co-founder of luxury travel agency Lightfoot Travel.

For many, seeing lions and leopards in their natural habitats represents the ultimate in transformative travel. Unfortunately, human incursion and climate change are placing environmental pressures on the wildlife and the landscape. Droughts and poaching are having a detrimental effect on animal numbers and habitats are shrinking, Heath says. As an added incentive to return to the savannah, many safari lodges are making environmental protection and community empowerment top priorities, which means that guests of luxury lodges can give back while enjoying first-class holidays.

(Related: 5 Underrated Non-Safari Destinations In Southern And East Africa)

Wilderness Safaris, a sustainable luxury safari operator with camps in Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, helps protect more than two million hectares of prime wilderness across seven biomes, harbouring 39 threatened mammal, bird and reptile species. The company donated US$14.7 million to conservation in 2018, more than three times the value distributed to shareholders. Another US$3.77 million was devoted to community development and welfare providing schools, bore holes and other services to communities in need.

Going on safari is a means of protecting these unique ecosystems, says Dr Neil Midlane, group sustainability manager of Wilderness Safaris. Our company ethos and commitment to restoring the wildlife and the large tracts of land we are privileged to manage means that everyone travelling with us is contributing, making them all conservationists by proxy. Each guest enables us to continue doing what we do.

(Related: Tatler Asia's Travel Editor-At-Large Jeremy Jauncey On Why Rwanda Is A Must-Visit Destination For Animal Lovers)

Apart from conservation, Lightfoot Travel is also a passionate advocate of undertourism, so it consciously picks and promotes destinations that need support, like Zimbabwe. Dr Midlane says that despite the political and economic uncertainty in the country, the safari lodges are safe, comfortable and great value for money. There are many gems in the national parks that provide outstanding, authentic safari experiences, and this year is an ideal time to visit Zimbabwe, before demand drives the prices up.

Its great timing, then, that Wilderness Safaris is planning to upgrade its Ruckomechi Camp in Zimbabwe as well as its Duma Tau Camp in Botswana soon; its also opening Little DumaTauan exclusive, intimate camp featuring four tented suitesin August 2020.

As more people crave safari experiences, there is also an increasing number of alternative ways to enjoy themsomething I discovered on a trip to Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

(Related: This Is The Safari Camp In Botswana Where Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Fell In Love)

Luxury safari lodges are providing spectacular excursions beyond the confines of the traditional game drive jeep. With the help of expert guides, I was able to encounter the vast plains from a whole new perspective: venturing on foot, flying high in the sky and cruising on serene waters. Exploring the terrain this way transformed my safari experiencegiving me a new lens on the flora and fauna of the veld, a change of perspective that is sure to enrich both first-time and veteran safari-goers alike.

What: A walking safari at Linkwasha Camp in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

I had been looking forward to taking a walking safari, but now, just before heading out, I am not so sure. While on our game drive the night before, we had seen a pride of lions on the move and a lone cheetah lounging a mere 100m from the main lodge. At breakfast on the veranda of Linkwasha Camp in Zimbabwes Hwange National Park, I gaze across the plain to the camps deserted watering hole which, hours earlier, had been bustling with elephants, zebra, and antelope.

To head out of camp at dawn and enter the untamed wilderness on foot without the protection of a jeep seems insane. I eat my toast with a trembling hand, and tell my travel companions that I might meet them afterwards, but they cajole me. If it comes to it, they say, our expert guide Peter is an excellent marksman. Its a fact that isnt entirely reassuring.

Nevertheless, we set off from camp in single file, Peter leading us with a loaded rifle in his hands. A professional guide for 36 years, he knows the plants, the birds, the animals and the land better than anyone, and it isnt longjust a dozen metres from camp, in factbefore he spots something of interest. A weathered and dismantled kudu skeleton lies scattered on the ground. Kudu resting in pieces, he jokes.

Around it are the enormous, wrinkled tracks of elephantsat least 30cm wide and twice as long, headed in a straight line for the watering hole. They had crossed right through our camp last night, and from our seats around the fire pit we had watched wide-eyed as their dark, towering forms lumbered in the shadows metres away, and stopped for a sip at the camps swimming pool. Peter points to the tracks of an eland and a zebra, and gives us a detailed geological history of the landscape before we silently move on.

On foot, one can delight in the details of the veld. I crouch down to place my hand inside the lilypad of an elephants footprint. I touch the raw bark of a teak tree that has been scarred by elephant tusks. I peer into an elegant pile of polka-dot feathers, which have fallen where a bird once flew. It feels liberating to walk and stretch and generate my own momentum after so many hours in the jostling jeep.

Its peaceful. Theres no sound of a generator or an engine. I feel my nerves relax into the rhythm, tension replaced by the pleasant tingle of bravery for being here on the ground. No one speaks as we scan the grass and trees to the horizon. Only the crunch of our boots and the sharp trill of birdsong accent the safaris silence.

(Related: Save Wild Tigers Founder Simon Clinton Says Its Global Conservation Campaigns Represent The Voice of The Iconic Species)

What: Boat cruise at Ruckomechi Camp in Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe, and a ride aboard a traditional makoro canoe at Jao Camp in Okavango Delta, Botswana

A raft of hippos stares at usears pivoting, nostrils flaring, their dark marble eyes locked on our fishing boat floating in the Zambezi river. Every once in a while one rises or descends with a loud, discontented snuff of air or swoop of water, and we coexist, if not happily then civilly, here in one of the most majestic of rivers. We hopped aboard our river cruiser at Ruckomechi Camp, a lodge and 10 luxury tents with spectacular views across the Zambezi Valley in Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe.

My travel companions and I are fishing in the loosest of senses. There is bait on our hooks, which are bobbing in the water, but we dont care to catch anything, really. Were too busy chatting, drinking sodas and beers, and marvelling at a landscape so beautiful were giddy with it.

Mana Pools National Park is at our starboard side, and through our binoculars we can see a small pack of wild dogs, an endangered species and safari rarity, lying on the dusty ground. Beyond them is the low-lying cliff where, the evening prior, we had our sundowners by a campfire and watched the swollen African sun sink beneath the river, blazing pink and orange.

Tall grass and marshland fill the valley, and after days spent in dry, beige safari camps, its a relief to be surrounded by so much moving water. The fecund valley formed by the Zambezi escarpment, a dramatic ridge of lilac-shaded mountains rising 500 to 600 metres above the riverbed, is lush, green and achingly romantic.

Its hard to remember that the opaque, muddy water is treacherous, full of crocodiles and hippos, and only big mammals dare to swim here. When we take the boat out again at sunset, we watch a pair of elephants taking a drink. Ive seen hundreds of elephants by now, from every angle except this onehead on and belowand Ive never seen what happens next, as they step into the water and slowly swim across the channel between river islands, their trunks raised like snorkels just a few metres away from us.

Our guide has one last gem to show us as he pulls up beneath a bare tree full of southern carmine bee-eaters. The exquisite, fluttering jewels of fuchsia, carmine and turquoise flash in the air above us, darting in and out of the nests they have carved into the steep face of the riverbed.

The sun setting scarlet behind us amplifies their gorgeous colourso vivid and iridescent it seems otherworldlyand Im grateful that we took the boat rather than a drive that night, or we would never have seen the incredible beauty of these birds, an entrancing sight that no photograph or video can ever really capture.

Depending on the time of year, one can also ride a canoe along the river banks. Elsewhere, such as in Jao Camp at the Okavango Delta, Botswana, guests can go on safari by mokoro, a traditional dugout canoe which is propelled by someone pushing with a pole from the stern of the boat. Without a motor and floating 20cm above the water, this type of safari provides a truly immersive experience as you quietly glide past purple lilies and beneath the tall papyrus to admire the buffalo, antelope and birds at eye level, drinking at the waters edge.

What: Helicopter safari at Jao Camp in Botswanas Okavango Delta

Its not often that Im excited by the sight of a pilot removing all of our aircrafts doors, but this time I am alight with anticipation. Our pilot Michael, from Botswana-based Helicopter Horizons, is preparing to give us unobstructed views of the Okavango Delta.

There has been an unparallelled drought in the delta this year, and much of the lush green river basin is bone dry. The boats which are typically used for water safaris have been beached, and their current position, perched bizarrely high in the bush, is the only indication that the road we are driving on is, in fact, a river bed that is usually submerged a few metres underwater.

The newly refurbished Jao Camp, with its luxurious suites rising on stilts above what is normally a mist-covered marshland of waterlilies, for the time being looks across a sandy basin that has become a highway for kudu, buffalo, zebra and even a heavily pregnant lion. But this parched panorama isnt typical of the delta, so the camp has kindly arranged a 45-minute helicopter flight and we can see what this semi-aquatic paradise usually looks like.

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Soaring 100 to 300m above the bush, I realise that this is what my safari experience had been missing. It is the vista I didnt realise I had been waiting forthe long backs of elephants, the shadowed ridges of their spines, ears waving over their shoulders as they walk in parade; a flock of white herons flying in formation over tall, emerald-green grass; shimmering clouds and blue sky reflected in a mirror-like lake. These are the safari scenes I remember from the nature documentaries I love. Now, here they are, right before my very eyes.

From this ethereal view I can see flocks of Egyptian geese, countless giraffes, resting hippos and antelopes of many varietiesrare red lechwe, tsessebe, sable and even a rare sitatunga wading to its knees in the shallow poolsin a patch of delta where the Okavango River is still flowing, far away from where Jaos jeeps would be able to reasonably reach.

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Whats most astounding from above are the lines that crisscross the delta between tree-lined islands and scattered towers of Egyptian palms. They are the elephants highways, says Michael, through our headsets. Herds of elephants have instinctively followed these submerged paths for generations, working the route deeper into the riverbed, even when it is flooded.

Looking out over the vast network of paths that lead elephants on their migration across Southern Africa is astounding. Wind in my face, soaring above the delta with a spectacular view of the mesmerising landscape, I cant help but feel a little thankful for the drought that initiated this incredible helicopter ride. A birds-eye view of the delta is second to none.

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All You Need To Know About Eco-Conscious Travel In AfricaAnd The Best Sustainable Safari Experiences To Have In 2020 - Singapore Tatler