It is no secret that I’ve played the Resident Evil games multiple times; all the ports, the remasters, and so on. I just can’t get enough of these games, I started off with Resident Evil 0 in November, beat the REMake and Resident Evil 2 1998 very recently.

I plan to continue my adventure with Claire, then hopping into Jill’s shoes to fend off Nemesis. It has been a least a decade since I plodded through Capcom’s seminal 1998 adventure, and I dusted off my PlayStation Vita so that I could play it more at ease and with less uglification on a big screen. I probably will still play it on the GameCube, and PS1 when I have the time, but the Vita was the most viable option for my schedule at the present time.

For the late comers to the series who only have played the remakes, coming back to the original tank controlled goodness might pose an issue. The Resident Evil 2 Remake was perfection, the controls, the atmosphere, the tweaked story; I loved ever minute with that game. After beating it several times I knew I had to go back, I wanted to see if my memory of the game, the game itself and skills held up against a decade of absence. Well, one of the three held up and it was the game itself.

The core story from the Remake is still there, obviously it isn’t as fleshed out seeing the technical difficulties back then, but it’s still enjoyable. Just a note, on the Vita version you start off with Leon’s A scenario, you can’t pick Claire’s for some reason. After beating Leon’s first scenario I discovered how to “switch” discs on the Vita, so you actually can start as Claire as you like. Hold the blue PS Vita button until settings comes up, then chose “reset game.” This will allow you to chose between disc 1 and disc 2. Disc 1 is Leon and Disc 2 is Claire, so you can start as Claire if you like from the get go.

You meet Claire at a gas station and attempt to get into Raccoon City; a flaming truck separates you both and you run to the safety of the police station. Leon has his challenges and Claire has hers, the stories differ much more in the 1998 version. Leon never meets Mr. X, he’s Claire’s problem the whole time. I think that’s neat, it saddens me a bit that Capcom made both campaigns in the remake so very similar.

Controls for the original Resident Evil games are ROUGH! Not going to lie, I died a few times just trying to get into Kendo’s gun shop because I didn’t want to waste my ammo on zombies I would never encounter again. I had to teach myself to use the D-pad on the Vita because using the control stick was certain death. If you’ve never played a tank controlled game let me try to explain it to you as simply as possible.

The direction you’re going on the D-pad doesn’t change even if the fixed camera angle changes so you’ll find yourself turning around on instinct. I hope that makes sense, that is the biggest challenge in the game if you want to dodge the zombies to save precious ammo. The rest of the controls are pretty standard, Right Trigger and X is fire, X alone is interact and Circle is menu where you can use herbs, reload you weapon and check out the map.

For the time the graphics were amazing, I would play in my room on my inflatable chair and my Dad would walk in and watch me play for hours at a time. He would say that these are better than movies nowadays, something that he would continue to say up until his death.

Had I not played on my Vita I would probably have been a bit more disappointed in them because they would have been stretched onto a 42 inch screen. The Vita’s screen is about as big as the new iPhone’s which makes it perfect for playing older 3D games. The cut-scenes are still a sight to behold though, and I can’t wait to see them playing on the GameCube on 480i.

When I first started my trek back into Raccoon City I was generally concerned that my love for this game came from all the nostalgia that my life connected to it. I can happily say that I was not blinded by nostalgia. This game is genuinely great, and even though it is a tad ugly from what we are use to today it still shines. The controls, once mastered, are easy to use. The story is just as epic as it was when I was nineteen, and even though the scenarios are short, you can play them over and over again to unlock cool treats. I was not mislead by nostalgia like some, including myself, have been recently.

If you’ve played the Remake of this title and not the original you owe it to yourself to track down a copy and enjoy it. Yes, you may think it is ugly and that the controls are a bit tough at the beginning, but seeing the police station in all it’s pre-HD glory is something to behold. I can’t impress upon you enough that you NEED to play this piece of history. It’s so wonderful and amazing to go back, and as you play to get excited for the next remake, Nemesis.

Ukraine remains one of Europe’s most notorious sources of human trafficking.

Since 1991, more than 160,000 men, women and children have been exploited for labor, sex, forced begging and organ removal, according to a mid-2015 report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy, with recommendations from domestic and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), is currently in the final stages of updating the country’s five-year action plan on combating human trafficking.

However, recent challenges—like Russia’s continued aggression in eastern Ukraine and the country’s 1.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs)—have diverted the government’s attention and resources from meaningful anti-trafficking collaboration.

The result has been an extreme overreliance on NGOs to raise awareness, assist victims of trafficking and promote legislative reform to comply with international standards.

“Since the security situation started in the east of Ukraine, other things were blocked. All money went to subsidies, to the military, to IDPs,” says Olga Streltsova, the IOM’s adviser to the Ministry of Social Policy, the main body in charge of Ukraine’s anti-trafficking program.

The predicted budget for this next action plan has been slashed by 30 percent relative to the previous plan, which covered 2013–15. Outside contributors, such as human rights organizations and foreign governments, will continue to supply the vast majority of funds to the program.

These donors will contribute the equivalent of $1.47 million through 2020, or more than 92 percent of the entire bill. The other 8 percent will be divided almost equally between local governments and the central government. Funding from the latter will not kick in until 2017.

The money issue “is a big problem for our government,” says Tetyana Taturevych, social programs manager for the NGO La Strada–Ukraine. “When we start talking about trafficking, they start to think, ‘Oh, that’s not a big problem for our society. We don’t have money, we have a war.'”

While the government of Ukraine has consistently pledged reform to meet international obligations—for example, as a signatory of the United Nations’s Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children—it has failed to adequately support anti-trafficking organizations that do the bulk of the work.

“Our government so far has not given civil society a defined role in the national referral mechanism,” says Hanna Antonova, a counter-trafficking coordinator at the IOM. The referral mechanism is the process by which law enforcement refers alleged victims of trafficking to anti-trafficking organizations to receive psychological, legal and social support.

For the past four years, the number of trafficking victims referred to the IOM for assistance by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies has decreased by roughly half annually.

In 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, there were 232, 105, 52 and 27 victims referred, respectively. These numbers are dramatically different from those of the IOM; the average number of victims identified annually by the IOM has remained close to 1,000.

Moreover, President Petro Poroshenko’s effort to push through legislation that would decentralize authority and empower Ukraine’s regions threatens to reverse progress in efforts to combat trafficking.

If passed, NGOs may have to collaborate with officials from more than 20 different oblasts. Each regional administration would decide how to prioritize anti-trafficking prevention efforts and assistance to victims, if at all, throwing nationwide coordination efforts into disarray.

“We don’t know what decentralization will look like,” says Antonova. “If the local administration does not believe that trafficking is a problem for this specific region, then they are not going to allocate any funding, or they will allocate so little funding that it is not going to make any difference.”

International bodies such as the U.S. Department of State and the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) have also criticized Ukraine’s government for not devoting enough attention to the issue.

For instance, for the third straight year, Ukraine has been placed on the State Department’s Tier 2 Watch List, avoiding an otherwise mandatory downgrade to Tier 3 (the worst ranking) simply because it has a written anti-trafficking action plan.

The State Department notes with concern the decreasing number of prosecutions of traffickers, as well as “poor coordination at the national level” between the 15 ministries responsible for anti-trafficking work.

GRETA’s first-ever report on Ukraine’s anti-trafficking program, published in September 2014, also acknowledged poor coordination among government ministries. The executive interdepartmental council on human trafficking—headed by ministers, deputy ministers and representatives from civil society—has not convened for five years.

Despite the government’s shortcomings, some positive steps have been taken. The Ministry of Social Policy plans to re-adjourn the interdepartmental council in early 2016, and has sent letters to NGOs in the anti-trafficking coalition requesting that they nominate representatives to the council. And throughout the past few years, the ministry has implemented campaigns to raise awareness about human trafficking through television and radio broadcasting, and the publishing and distribution of books and pamphlets.

Yet more needs to be done, especially since the war in the east has created a large population of individuals prone to exploitation.

“We have a proverb,” warns La Strada–Ukraine’s Taturevych. Translated from Russian, it states: “Sink or swim; if you are drowning, you are on your own.” Currently, only NGOs—and not the Ukrainian government—are struggling to keep those vulnerable to trafficking afloat.

Officials from Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy did not respond to interview requests.

‘The Arab World, Heritage and Civilization’ is a documentary produced in the framework of UNESCO’s Arabia Plan, that provides an overview of the history of the rich Arab civilization.

http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.9502/.f

In 1987, Universal Pictures presented the fourth and final installment in the Jaws series — Jaws the Revenge — this time with Michael Small along to provide the musical thrills. MCA Records announced a soundtrack LP at the time of the film’s opening, but after the box office proved disappointing the LP was canceled. Now Intrada has rectified the score’s absence on CD with this premiere release of the complete score. Small blended the original shark theme by John Williams with a considerable amount of newly composed music. Small begins his Jaws The Revenge score with his own adaptation of Williams’ classic Jaws theme, a particularly fierce rendition adding a musical sound effect like a monstrous roar. Ellen Brody is the principal character now, and Small gives her a strong, emotional main theme, played in more delicate versions early in the score but heard in a forceful rendition at the story’s turning point, when she heads out to take on the shark by herself. Small also supplies a taunting, repetitive motif to suggest Ellen’s growing obsession with the shark, suggesting an unseen, menacing force just out of view. He closes the score on an end title featuring a vigorous version of the Williams theme, which brings the Jaws scores full circle.

Much of the new music by Small ended up on the cutting room floor and several cues were dialed out before completion. Still others were simply re-tracked into scenes for which they weren’t originally intended. Intrada was given access to the complete ¼″ 15 ips two-track stereo session mixes vaulted by Universal Pictures in pristine condition. These master elements not only allowed Intrada to present every cue in the manner recorded by Small but also to include alternate print takes of several cues.

Jaws the Revenge begins with Ellen Brody still living on Amity Island following the death of her husband. She blames his fatal heart attack on the stress from his battles with the sharks that plagued their island a decade earlier. Her youngest son, Sean, has followed his father into Amity’s police department, but after he is brutally killed by another shark, Ellen flies to the Bahamas to recover from the trauma and visit her other son, Michael. Ellen begins to believe that the shark that killed her son has followed the family to the Bahamas and Ellen soon sets off to go mano a mano with the predator.

Michael Small’s oft-requested musical support for fourth Jaws installment finally makes premiere release! Entire score appears in dynamic stereo from original session mixes, courtesy Universal. Small makes use of famous John Williams shark motif but surrounds with considerable original material of his own. As Ellen Brody becomes convinced shark is on vendetta to wipe out her remaining family members, she fights back with vengeance of her own. Composer Small fights for survival right alongside her. Action abounds! Another asset: Bahamas setting provides rich new environment for composer – and shark – to play in. Significant post-production editing of film relegated sections of score to cutting room floor. Intrada now presents every sequence as Small intended, including the segments edited out of finished production. Alternates also appear as “extras”. When composer has his say, he wraps final credits with superb rendition of Williams complete “Jaws” theme then offers brief final coda of his own. Exciting music! Michael Small conducts. Intrada Special Collection CD available while quantities and interest remain!

While somewhat brief, What Remains of Edith Finch is a remarkable, imaginative, and thoughtful journey.