Ants Problem : Ants hate cucumbers. Keep the skin of cucumbers near the place or ant hole. To get pure and clean ice : Boil water first before freezing. To make the mirror shine : Clean with spirit To remove chewing gum from clothes : Keep the cloth in the freezer for an hour. To whiten white clothes : Soak white clothes in hot water with a slice of lemon for 10 minutes To give a shine to hair : Add one teaspoon of vinegar to hair, then wash hair. To get maximum juice out of lemons : Soak lemons in hot water for one hour, and then juice them. To avoid smell of cabbage while cooking : Keep a piece of bread on the cabbage in the vessel while cooking. To avoid tears while cutting onions : Chew gum. To boil potatoes quickly : Skin one potato from one side only before boiling. To remove ink from clothes : Put toothpaste on the ink spots generously and let it dry completely, then wash. To skin sweet potatoes quickly : Soak in cold water ...

Data visualisation tools Infogram :  Infogr.am is user-friendly interface to help develop creative, interactive infographics. Piktochart :  Piktochart is a simple WYSIWYG editor to help develop and design charts and infographics. Easel.ly :  A digital canvas to help develop unique data visualisations. Google Fusion Tables :  Bust your data out of its silo! Combine it with other data on the web. Collaborate, visualize and share. Visual.ly:   Create, share and explore great visual content. Tableau Software :  A free data visualization tool that can help you create an interactive viz and embed it in your website or share it. Anyone can do it, it’s that easy—and it’s free. VIDI:  A suite of powerful intuitive Drupal data-visualization modules for anyone to use on any standard set of data ranging from government databases to demographics and statistics. IBM Many Eyes:  Collection of data visualizations, and a tool for infographics. Gapmind...

YAOUNDE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Environmental activists have petitioned Washington to open up an investigation into the land acquisition and forest exploitation activities of a U.S.-owned palm oil firm, Herakles Farms, in Cameroon’s southwest. Two Cameroonian civil society groups - the Centre for Environment and Development (CED) and the Network for the Fight against Hunger (RELUFA) - said they handed over a letter to the U.S. government on June 13, following persistent complaints from local people over practices that have deprived them of thousands of hectares of their forest land. “Our petition to the U.S. government against the corrupt land grab and illegal forest exploitation activities by Herakles Farms is within the framework of the principle of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) relating to the functioning of international enterprises,” CED coordinator Samuel Nguiffo told Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The principle requires that internat...

A recent Forbes article by Jason Nazar called '21 Principles of Persuasion' caught my eye.   As an entrepreneur, I know firsthand how crucial, and how difficult, it can be to persuade people to take some sort of action. P olitics and grassroots advocacy is also the art of persuasion.  However, to get people engaged in a manner that will have a genuine impact takes a little finesse. For membership organizations the art of getting people to engage in public policy advocacy can sometimes seem more wheels spinning in the mud than the artistic mastery.  After all, politics is a dirty business and most people prefer to keep their hands out of it.  That is why it is essential that you make the process as quick, clean, and easy as possible. Here are some tips and guidelines from Jason's article that may help you to persuade your members to take action in your  grassroots advocacy campaigns: Remember the WIIFM rule.  What's in it for them? It's not about wh...

From  news.mongabay.com  -  Today, 1:50 PM http://www.scoop.it/t/mining-and-exploitation https://www.facebook.com/eastafrica.climatechange UP FOR GRAB:  HOW FOREIGN INVESTMENTS ARE REDISTRIBUTING LAND AND WATER ACROSS THE GLOBE "Land grabbing" involves capital-rich countries investing in land and subsequent agricultural operations in poorer foreign countries. .. ...there are an estimated 62 'grabbed countries' and 41 'grabbers,' with the Middle East, South America, Europe, and Southeast Asia acting as the biggest grabbers. Estimates of the total amount of grabbed land are variable, but it is clear that numbers are steadily on the rise... Land deals are negotiated in the upper tiers of society and government with little or no input from the communities who are impacted by the sale and conversion of land....http:// http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0418-santana-land-grabbing.html   http://www.scoop.it/t/mining-and-exploitation June 2...